Legend of the Great Sage

Li Qingshan’s mind was still fixed on the grand scene of the Battle of Mending Heaven, fixed on the half-human, half-dragon man the entire time. He had already realised who he was.

“Sage-king Fuxi.”

As the ancient saying went, “Fuxi possessed a body of scales, while Nüwa possessed a body of a snake. One was half-human, half-dragon, while the other was half-human, half snake. They were both primordial gods, as well as brother and sister, husband and wife.

Fuxi was also the father god, as well as the dragon god.

Chaos was the primordial universe. From the primordial universe birthed the supreme ultimate. From the supreme ultimate birthed the two poles. From the two poles birthed the four symbols. Fuxi drew the eight trigrams, which then produced the sixty-four hexagrams. The book was known as the Classic of Changes.

Among the sixty-four hexagrams, the first hexagram was the Qian hexagram. Qian was heaven.

The hexagram was labelled with the words, “Yuan, Xiang, Li, Zhen”. That was the basis of all hexagrams.

“I name it Qian, the founding basis of all things, encompassing the heavens and all existences.”

The birth of Qian’s Yuan and the beginning of all all encompassed the heavenly Dao.

The Divine Dragon’s Path of Qian Yuan encompassed its true meaning. That was the heavenly path that belonged to Sage-king Fuxi. It was the heavens of all heavens, the gods of all gods. Its very nature far surpassed the demonic heavens.

Although Li Qingshan was able to kill Heretic God Baitun so easily, it was not because he was powerful enough to crush Heretic Gods. Instead, it was because of the sword in his hand, enforcing punishments on behalf of the heavens—heaven trumped man. So what if you were an existence of creation? So what if you were a sentient being? Before the heavenly Dao, you were all worthless.

After all, manpower ran out at times, but the laws of nature were constant. They would not change under the rule of a wise king or the tyranny of a despot. As a result, man trumping heaven was very rare. Heaven trumping man was the norm.

He was aware that it was completely impossible for him to come into contact with the heavenly Dao with his current cultivation, so he obviously could not comprehend the Divine Dragon Transformation.

Under normal circumstances, he had to undergo the seventh heavenly tribulation and completely grasp a certain law before he could comprehend the Divine Dragon’s Path of Qian Yuan.

But under these coincidences and circumstances, he sacrificed a hundred million demonfolk, offered up a Heretic God, destroyed a demon city, and destroyed a faith, completing a grand ritual of “offering to heaven”, which allowed him to successfully activate the Divine Dragon Transformation.

And unlike the initial difficulties of the Qilin Transformation, the Divine Dragon Transformation immediately rose up upon awakening in an unstoppable manner, stabilising at the first layer very soon.

According to his past experiences, the first layers of the transformations were all very weak. However, the Divine Dragon Transformation was an exception. With just this single layer, it actually carried his entire cultivation forwards.

The dragon’s cry boomed through the small world. A black dragon soared through the air, giving off mist, turning into the heavens. Everything else lay under the heavens.

The entire small world seemed to find its backbone, such that it became vastly different. In the past, the demonic and divine transformations constantly balanced against one another. Even after reaching a stable state now, he still needed to control them during intense battle.

If he wanted to unleash his greatest battle prowess, there would often just be two choices, either using a single transformation or concentrating on not breaking the balance.

However, it was completely different now. Regardless of the situation, he could use the limits of his power, without any need to maintain the balance any further. Even if he only used a single transformation, the other transformations would provide him with powerful support.

For example, when he used the Tiger Demon Transformation in the past, the small world only maintained a base for him. He still primarily relied on the Tiger Demon Transformation’s powers to fight.

Yet now, it was like a ruler had appeared, able to unleash the might of his entire country to assist his armies in distant lands. Even if this ruler was still very weak, unable to control everything properly, the country was still far more powerful than any of its autonomous states. It had gone from feudal fiefdoms to a central empire all of a sudden. His battle prowess skyrocketed.

If I had reached this state before I entered the Taotie parlour, I would have been able to cut off Heretic God Baitun’s pig head in a single slash. It would have spared me all this trouble.

And, even if he just looked at its own power, the Divine Dragon Transformation was probably the strongest and most extreme transformation of them all.

The path of heaven was also the path of the dragon.

The Qian hexagram had a total of six monograms.

First of the full monogram, the dragon lurks, hiding its talents.

Second of the full monogram, the dragon delves in the fields.

Third of the full monogram, toiling away laboriously.

Fourth of the full monogram, lays in the abyss.

Fifth of the full monogram, the dragon soars through the sky.

Highest of the full monogram, soaring too high results in disaster.

Coupled with the last monogram of the Qian hexagram, the dragon’s head hidden, cycling back around.

The labels to the monograms were all represented by the dragon, manifesting the cycle of the heavenly Dao.

The path of heaven was also the path of the dragon, both hard and soft, in utmost strength and utmost prosperity, symbolising the supreme Dao, the supreme laws, the supreme power.

Li Qingshan had seen dragons in his life. He had slain dragons as well. Only at this moment did he learn that those so-called “dragons” were all fakes. They only possessed the appearance of dragons, yet they lacked the spirit of the dragon.

“Hmph, a genetically modified bunch!”

Unlike other natural divine creatures, the bloodline of the dragon was widespread, just like how there was the story about the nine sons of the dragon. Nine was the largest of numbers, representing a tremendous amount, well beyond measure.

As a result, these descendants, regardless of what they were originally—humans, snakes, horses, carps, or mantix shrimps—as long as they activated the dragon’s blood, they could all grow a pair of dragon horns and become covered in dragon scales, leaping over the dragon’s gate and becoming known as a “true dragon”.

Buddhism even had a Dragon Transformation pond. Regardless of its origins, just taking a bath there was enough to produce so-called “dragons” en-masse.

He did not even have to go that far. Just the Heavenly Tome of True Dragon that the Myriad sect possessed was specially for creating the likes of these.

As the first senior brother of the Myriad sect, Li Qingshan had once gone out of his way to study it, wanting to deduce the Divine Dragon Transformation from it, but he obviously came up with nothing in the end.

In hindsight, it sure was hilarious. It was like trying to learn how to be an emperor from notes taken by a village chief. Extrapolating from the village chief’s life, the emperor probably used a golden carrying pole instead of a wooden one.

Originally, he thought the natural divine creatures like the spirit turtle, qilin, and phoenix had all declined, with only the Dragon clan extremely prosperous. As it seemed now, that was not the case at all.

“The dragon has probably declined as well! Just how many of those dragons eaten by kunpeng are true dragons?”

Dragons should have been sovereigns that ruled over the world, yet when the world split apart, anyone dared to claim the title of emperor, posing as a true dragon.

Dragons could shrink and expand, could rise and hide. They could be large enough to usher the clouds and exhale mist, small enough to hide within a mustard seed. They could rise up through the cosmos and hide within the raging waves. The entity known as a dragon could be regarded as a hero of the world.

Among the heroes of the world, there were only two. Out of the figures in the Three Kingdoms, those worthy of the title “dragons” were without a doubt Cao Mengde and Liu Xuande, yet neither of them managed to conquer the world. They had just laid in the abyss, failing to soaring through the sky.

Li Qingshan’s Divine Dragon Transformation had only just reached the first layer, and it already began showing signs of breaking through. It was clearly so powerful, yet practising it was so easy as well.

With a thought, he came to a realisation, So I began practising this Divine Dragon Transformation many years ago.

Along the way, his aspirations lay beyond the Nine Heavens. He faced wind and snow, countless difficulties and endless perils, defeating all the powerful enemies.

The heavens operated firmly and resolutely, so the ruler had to be the same, constantly striving for improvement with endless determination. His journey to the Nine Heavens was the journey of a divine dragon.

He had conformed to the spirit of the dragon a long time ago. In terms of compatibility to his personality, it far surpassed all other divine transformations, completely on par with the demonic transformations. The reason why he had never comprehended it was because time was not ripe. The dragon had just been lurking, hiding its talents.

“It’s very deep into spring and dragons change with time. Springtime is like when talents achieve their ambitions, wandering the world unopposed.”

“Second of the full monogram, the dragon delves in the fields. I wonder when the dragon will soar through the sky!”