Chapter 392: Ancient Saint
In fact, to Li Qiye, creating nine stars at this realm was a matter of course. His dao foundation was firm; especially after the Worldly Prime Liquid tempered Li Qiye, his foundation became unshakable right after he opened the sixth palace.
For a Royal Noble, having six palaces carried great significance. It meant that their future path was paved for success.
This was Li Qiye’s attempt at challenging the limits — to reach the peak by using his solid foundation. During the battle at the Tiger’s Howl School, Li Qiye devoured all the worldly essence of the White Tiger Great Vein in order to accumulate enough energy to create the nine stars in an even more favorable condition.
Thus, after he reached Enlightened Being, creating nine stars was only a matter of time and determination. Li Qiye’s stalwart dao heart allowed him to tread forward no matter how arduous the path was. Even if other people thought that it was impossible to create nine stars, he remained with the most relaxed frame of mind as he challenged the limits, allowing him to complete this task with ease!
At the same time, there was only one chance to pluck the stars, so creating nine stars was especially important to Li Qiye. There were three chances to open Fate Palaces, but only one chance for plucking stars, thus this single opportunity became even more valuable.
In fact, for tens of millions of years, creating the eighth star was more difficult than opening the sixth Fate Palace.
The phrase “Nine Stars allowing for Eternal Prestige” was not just empty words. Since time immemorial, those with the title of Eternal Prestige were fewer than few. Nine stars did not just mean that the person had obtained a key to the Path of the Grand Era or the Path of the Heavens, it also meant they had created their own sky!
Having one’s own sky was a marvelous and unfathomable feat because the Ancient Saint realm was the last chance for any cultivator to open another palace.
If a Royal Noble stopped at the third palace, then once they reached Ancient Saint, they had the chance to open the fourth, the fifth, and so on and so forth…
Four palaces to form a domain, eight palaces to form a kingdom, twelve palaces to form the heavens! Since the start of time, every cultivator believed that having twelve palaces was the limit of cultivation.
In fact, this was not an unreasonable statement because those who had twelve palaces could be counted on one’s fingers. Even the majority of those who eventually became Immortal Emperors did not open twelve palaces.
The reality was that opening eight palaces was already quite amazing. Once one obtained eight palaces, it meant that the person would have the power of a kingdom. This meant that there was a large possibility for them to found a country and eventually be bestowed the title of a god! 1
As for nine palaces… This was a great restriction. Countless geniuses in the previous millions of years stopped at eight palaces, unable to open the ninth.
Because of this, there was a remark passed down from generation to generation: Nine deserves utmost veneration, ten strives for extreme perfection, eleven creates an immemorial miracle, and twelve decides the Immortal Emperor’s throne!
Achieving twelve Fate Palaces was essentially an impossible matter. There might be a sliver of hope for historical devilish geniuses to open eleven palaces, but any genius would have to give up on opening the twelfth.
However, being able to create nine stars at the Enlightened Being realm would indeed qualify one as a historical devilish genius, so there was still some hope of opening the twelfth.
Nine stars Eternal Prestige meant that one would have their own sky, and twelve palaces forming the heavens meant that having nine stars was a requirement to reach twelve Fate Palaces in the future! 2
Without a doubt, Li Qiye held the ambition of reaching twelve Fate Palaces; thus, after creating nine stars and reaching the Ancient Saint realm, he kept on solidifying his foundation one step at a time.
With his past achievements of six palaces and nine stars in their respective realms, he would be able to fiercely soar forward and create a miracle by becoming a Heavenly Sovereign — a true expert in a short amount of time. However, upon becoming an Ancient Saint, he slowed down again since his ambition was not limited to just becoming a sovereign.
His real goal was having twelve Fate Palaces, or even the mythical thirteen palaces! If he could succeed, then in the future, he could actually reach the real apex of the grand dao.
As he sat in the room, his blood energy circulated after being channeled by his Life Wheel. The newly refined Longevity Blood then flowed back into the Life Wheel with a surging radiance.
At this time, the six palaces above Li Qiye’s head floated up and down and turned into a domain. The worldly essence caused the domain to be filled with primordial chaos and vitality as if it was gestating millions of existences!
The nine stars surrounding Li Qiye created a sky that loomed above Li Qiye as if he had been removed from the outside world and isolated in a different one.
A heavenly beam shot up into the sky as if it wanted to communicate with the heavens and inquire about the heavenly dao. From another perspective, this beam seemed to be talking to the gods of this world. Nevertheless, this beam caused Li Qiye to appear sacred; it was as if he was the high heaven’s favored child or the son of the earth.
This heavenly beam of light was formed from Li Qiye’s cultivation of the Daylight Sky Immortal Secret. The moment it connected to the heaven and earth, it allowed for Li Qiye to become one with the grand dao as his body was immersed inside the path.
These secret laws were powerful and mysterious, but their power was not just limited to the battlefield. Compared to other powerful techniques, Heaven’s Will Secret Laws didn’t seem to be worthy of their fame while the Heaven’s Will was still in its infancy stages.
However, once the Heaven’s Will of a generation slowly manifested to its grand stage, the advantages of these secret laws would finally show themselves.
In this instant, Li Qiye’s Neigong meridian continuously rumbled as if something wanted to climb out from the earth.
This was Li Qiye trying to open his seventh palace. Of course, opening a palace was a long and arduous process.
There were three stages in the Ancient Saint realm. From beginning to end, the stages are Palace Opening, Domain Formation, and City Creation!
To an ordinary cultivator with only three palaces, they just needed to open the fourth to reach the Ancient Saint realm.
Four palaces form a domain, so in the Ancient Saint realm, one would need to turn these four palaces into a domain, then turn this domain into a city.
For Li Qiye who had six palaces that had turned into cities capable of supporting existences, he could directly surpass grand accomplishment Ancient Saint and reach Heavenly Sovereign right away!
However, Li Qiye did not do so. He stopped at the Ancient Saint realm in order to fortify his foundation and absorb worldly essence to continuously strengthen his True Fate to open the seventh palace…
Ancient Saints also had three levels: Little Saint, Young Saint, and Grand Saint. However, Li Qiye was not part of this classification because opening the fourth palace was the beginning of this realm.
A five palace saint is a Heaven Restoration Saint because a Royal Noble with four palaces is called a Heavenly Noble, so an Ancient Saint with five palaces was only making up for what they were lacking back in the Royal Noble realm.
A six palace saint is called a Dao Restoration Saint due to the same principle of catching-up as the previous title.
The moment one opened the seventh palace, they would be called a Heavenly Saint. This was the real starting point of Ancient Saints, just like the fourth palace of the Royal Noble realm.
Those who opened the eighth palace were called Grand Dao Saints, and those with nine were called Pinnacle Saints.
Having nine palaces was the limit of Ancient Saints, just like how having six palaces was the limit of Royal Nobles.
Within this realm, a person with nine palaces could directly suppress others of the same level. It did not matter how strong the opponent’s cultivation was, as long as they didn’t have nine Fate Palaces, they would suffer a direct suppression.
This was the reason why Bing Yuxia could be so proud with her nine palaces. Even Deity Jikong Wudi and Goddess Mei Suyao had to be wary of her.
As a Pinnacle Saint, she was a tyrant amongst all saints. It didn’t matter which merit laws other saints cultivated since they were directly pressured by her palaces!
At this time, Li Qiye’s blood energy soared like a magnificent rainbow as his Neigong meridian resounded with thunderous explosions, signaling the opening of the seventh palace. Li Qiye had absolute confidence that obtaining nine palaces was not a challenge to him, and even opening twelve palaces was not a test. His real ordeal was the mythical thirteenth palace!
With a thunderous rumble, Li Qiye’s Hell Suppressing Inner Physique suddenly disappeared while the second Inner Physique was also quivering.
The trembling second Inner Physique was shaking as if an immortal existence was gently shaking its wings, stagnating the flow of time so that one flap of these wings would allow for Li Qiye to escape the temporal restriction!
The Soaring Immortal Physique was the second Inner Physique that Li Qiye wished to cultivate.
For others, cultivating two Immortal Physiques was impossible, but not for Li Qiye. At this moment, his Hell Suppressing Godly Physique was at minor completion and was still a long ways off from grand completion.
So at this time, he slowed down the cultivation of the Hell Suppressing Godly Physique and spent more energy and time on the second physique instead.
1. This last sentence meant that the person could become a Virtuous Paragon, or even reach a higher level.
2. Gotta have a sky to have the heavens. I initially wanted to use the term empyrean/firmament instead of sky, but empyrean sounded even higher than heaven so I changed it to sky.