I Cheated While Cultivating

The remaining six Saints intervened to stop them, and a great battle erupted.

The battle was brief but ultimately led to the destruction of hundreds of families, the closure of academies, and numerous Sects sealing themselves off from the world.

After the dark age, the civilization that had finally been rebuilt came to an abrupt end.

After this battle, the Nine Saints of the Middle Ancient era either fell or went missing.

Only the Dream Saint regained some sanity at the last moment, remaining the only Saint in the world, but His Tao was gravely damaged, and He was at the end of His life.

In the last ten years of His life, He traveled the world, lecturing everywhere, passing on all His knowledge, in hopes of restoring the glory of the hundred schools of philosophy.

Many of the Great Sects and noble families of the present day were actually those who had listened to the Dream Saint’s teachings and were taken as close disciples, receiving great fortunes and legacies.

In fact, the Dream Saint originally intended for these close disciples to learn His most exquisite Divine Skills and Teachings, as well as those of the other eight Saints and some from the Ancient Mythological Era, and then transmit them to all living beings in the world.

—— The Dream Saint possessed Divine Skills that could materialize different great Taoist Formulas in dreams. Although He was only the master of dreams, He had studied the Divine Skills and Teachings of the other eight Saints and even some from the ancient times of gods and immortals.

Regrettably, most of His disciples did not do as He had intended, but instead treated those Divine Skills and Teachings as their family’s heritage, or even as a Sect’s treasured skill, and did not pass them on to outsiders.

In His final days, the Dream Saint no longer had the time to concern Himself with these matters.

In the end, He passed away at Law Saint Mountain.

It is said that this was where the Law Saint had achieved His enlightenment.

Regrettably, until His passing, He never spoke of why He had fallen into madness, and He even strictly ordered His disciples not to interfere with the awakening of memories of His incarnated self.

This made the madness of the three Middle Ancient Saints a mystery that lasted through the ages.

…

As for why the Middle Ancient Era came to an abrupt end, these are the insights that can be gleaned from within the mask.

Zhou Heng’s first reaction was disbelief.

What a joke?

The Middle Ancient Saints went mad??

Those are Divine First Rank beings!!

Before this, he had thought that the abrupt end of the Middle Ancient Era might have been due to an invasion by outsiders, a drastic change in heavens and earth, or some other reasons.

But he had never imagined that “madness” could be associated with the powerful beings of Middle Ancient Nine Saints level.

The Middle Ancient three Saints had actually gone mad?

And they had triggered a war that resulted in the destruction of the entire Middle Ancient Era.

No wonder such information could not be known to too many people; the mental shock it could cause was simply too great.

It could even cause one’s view of the world to crumble completely.

The Middle Ancient Nine Saints were authentic Divine First Rank Tao Lords, Saints, who, after the dark age, re-established civilization on the ruins.

In the eyes of many, the Middle Ancient Nine Saints were considered deities that had led humanity towards civilization thousands of years ago.

Even today, throughout Da Qi, there are temples with statues where the Nine Saints are worshipped.

And the incense burns brightly.

If anyone were to tell the world that the incredibly flourishing Middle Ancient Era, with its eight hundred nations, countless schools of thought competing for dominance, and where the Saints’ academies thrived, was actually destroyed by the hands of the Middle Ancient Nine Saints themselves, they would probably be spit to death on the spot.

Confronted with this truth, Zhou Heng fell silent for a long time before his emotions gradually settled down, but this was followed by even greater confusion.

“Divine First Rank could go mad? Those who wield the authority of the Taoist Formulas, known as Saintly and Lordly supreme beings, they could go mad? Who could make such beings go mad, who could make them lose their reason?

“Higher beings? Ancient gods and immortals, or some other strange entities… or is it related to the forbidden land of the West Wasteland or the true facts behind the battle of Tianyang?”

Zhou Heng’s thoughts smoothly extended to the forbidden land of the West Wasteland and the battle of Tianyang.

Yet, details on these two matters were beyond his current level of access for investigation.

From this point, he speculated.

The secrets these two matters touch upon, as well as the conceptual shocks they could bring to people, are perhaps even more astonishing and shocking than the madness of the three Saints of the Middle Ancient era.

“It seems that when one hasn’t reached a certain cultivation realm, there is indeed some rationale to not rashly seeking to understand these things,” Zhou Heng thought to himself, as he began to read the subsequent information.

Among them, much was already known to Zhou Heng through his time at the Pure Yang Palace. There was also information about evil creatures and the Evil Spirit Mark, but ultimately, Zhou Heng’s gaze settled on a piece of information about ghosts.

For Zhou Heng, ghosts were quite familiar. His first contact with the Zhou Tian Boundary Officer was because of a ghost that Cheng Jianjian was hunting.

Later, through a fallen memory card, he obtained the Memory Crystal concerning the sealing of ghosts, learning some information about them and understanding why their existence must not be known to humans.

But there was always one doubt.

If the more people who knew about ghosts, the easier it is for new ghosts to emerge in this world, then why wouldn’t the ghosts themselves actively propagate their existence, is it simply out of fear of being hunted and killed by humans?

It seemed to make no sense.

This time, Zhou Heng finally learned the answer, yet it left him feeling even more horrified.

Ghosts.

They truly never die or perish.

Even if, in this world, using Taoist Formulas and the power of the Zhou Tian Star Chart to annihilate ghosts, they cannot be truly killed!

After being destroyed, ghosts will be reborn in another world.

As evil creatures.

And these evil creatures might descend upon this world.

If an evil creature is killed in this world, it will then transform into a “Yin Spirit” born from the qi of the innate Yin, thus becoming a ghost again.

Subsequently, if this ghost is killed again, it will be reborn in the other world as an evil creature…

And so on and so forth, in an endless cycle.

Restlessly. Relentlessly.

This information made Zhou Heng’s scalp tingle.

It meant that the primary enemies of the Zhou Tian Boundary Officer, the ghosts and evil creatures, may never truly be eradicated.

Even if upon death, ghosts and evil creatures have a certain delay before they can reincarnate and cross realms, they could be regarded as being killed only in a short term.

Yet this truth still felt somewhat despairing.

But back to the main point.

The reason ghosts don’t actively promote their existence is related to this cycle of rebirth.

Indeed, the more people know about the existence of ghosts, the easier it is for new ghosts to be born in the world.

But for the ghosts that already exist, this has no benefits at all.

Because the more people that know about the existence of ghosts, the lower the likelihood that those ghosts will retain their memories after being reborn in the other world.

If they lose their memories, for ghosts themselves, it’s as good as being truly dead.

Thus, naturally, these ghosts would not actively spread the word of their existence.

“Damn it, what kind of enemies are we facing, what kind of crisis are we fighting against?” Zhou Heng couldn’t help but curse under his breath.

Although he had already guessed that this world might not be as tranquil as it seemed on the surface, after all, this is a world where Tao Lords and Saints exist, where there are taller beings to hold up the sky should it fall.

But now he discovered—

Saints can go mad too.

Ghosts and evil creatures, on the other hand, are fundamentally unkillable, endless!

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