Bow to the Senior

"Wow…" slamming his head out of the water, Wei Gaoyuan greedily breathed and gasped for the fresh air — it was so wonderful to be able to breathe air!

The burning feeling in the body had been subsiding gradually, but he still felt what he breathed out was like a firework and could not help but jump out of the water onto the bank, running all his Internal Qi to work a set of tricks in Martial Arts.

His movements with the output of the Internal Qi made the sough of wind around him, a common set of tricks acted by the eighth level of the Mystery seemed very uncommon. Half an hour later, the Internal Qi in his body was almost exhausted, and the heat in the body had accordingly dropped to a level that could be tolerated. Wei Gaoyuan stopped to sit cross-legged for meditation.

After doing meditation for a long time, the unusual heat in his body was gradually suppressed into Dantian and transformed into the Internal Qi. Until all the discomfort disappeared, he opened his eyes and stretched his body before he started looking at the surroundings.

It was pretty bright here. The light didn't come from the sun but from more than twenty Night Gems embedded in the wall. It seemed a cave here and in front there was a manual tunnel, leading to the darkness.

(Night Gems: a precious gem that glows at night.)

Wei Gaoyuan was kind of nervous since the darkness meant the uncertainty a risk or a blessing. If retreated, he had to swim back from the secret passage at the bottom of the water, and God knew if the big spirit fish was still waiting at the entrance. After hesitating for a moment, he grabbed two Night Gems and walked into the tunnel.

After about a quarter of an hour, he came to the end of the tunnel, and the front turned quite wide open but still dark.

Here seemed to be the underground world. With the light from the Night Gems, Wei Gaoyuan saw a building in front, similar to a temple, not too big.

Carefully walking close to the front door of the building, Wei Gaoyuan started looking into surroundings cautiously and found nothing dangerous or suspicious. This building was probably a deserted ancient monument. He stepped into the front door and entered the hall.

There were a few of Night Gems on the walls of the hall, and on the side wall was hanging a painting. It was a portrait of a middle-aged man wearing a light blue robe and holding a bronzed long sword, whose eyes were bright impressively.

When gazing into the eyes on the portrait, Wei Gaoyuan suddenly opened his mouth with wonder as the middle-aged man on the portrait seemed to give him a blink.

In the next moment, he got a quick blank in his mind and was pulled abruptly into a weird space, nothing surrounded, only full of a blur white. Standing in front of him was the middle-aged man in the light blue robe, with the bronzed long sword in his right hand.

"You are…!!" Wei Gaoyuan was shocked thoroughly.

He quickly saluted with a bow, "Junior Wei Gaoyuan, bow to the senior!"

The middle-aged man nodded and smiled slightly, and without any words, all of a sudden he stabbed Wei Gaoyuan with the long sword. The speed of this sword strike was not fast virtually, Wei Gaoyuan could see it clearly. Yet when he was about to evade it, he perceived an extremely strong Qi exuding from that man in light blue, covering over himself like a net. He realized in an instant that he couldn't escape this invisible network anyway.

"No, that seems kind of different from Qi…Is…Is that fabulous Sword Consciousness?!!" Wei Gaoyuan thought in astonishment, feeling sweating from the palm of his hand but a chill on the back.

(Sword Consciousness: "Jian Yi" in Chinese, refers to the unique invisible Qi emanating from the swordsman. The power and usage of it is determined by the subjective consciousness of the swordsman, such as his will, intention, and determination while holds his sword.)

At the crucial moment, Wei Gaoyuan pulled out his long sword behind him and wanted to hold the slow sword strike. Just as he raised the sword, he found that the bronzed long sword which had been moving steadily turned fluttering. Before he raised his sword it seemed to stab the middle of his eyebrows, it looked like pointing at his throat now, though; in consternation Wei Gaoyuan changed his sword pattern fast to defend his throat. However, the point of bronzed long sword which had pointed at his throat was found to stab his chest simultaneously with the change of his sword pattern…

Just in a quite short hesitation, Wei Gaoyuan only felt a sharp Sword Qi penetrated into the middle of his eyebrows where he got a chill, a chill from a sword!

"Goodbye, Xiaoxue…" Wei Gaoyuan knew that his head was struck with the bronzed long sword. He secretly called his sister in the heart, then closed his eyes...

No one knows how long it took before Wei Gaoyuan opened his eyes again. He blinked his eyes, finding himself still standing in front of the portrait, safe and sound.

"I'm still alive? Then that sword strike didn't…" he touched his forehead with amazement, no injury, no trace of sword strike.

"An illusion?" Wei Gaoyuan thought, gazing at the portrait — if a painting could create such an illusion, how magical the painting could have been…

Repeatedly confirming that he was as complete as before, Wei Gaoyuan decided to leave this weird place, but at that time a sound of gear rotation came, a stone table slowly rising from the ground. On the table was a small dark box.

He carefully invesgated the box up and down, almost big as a food box. What was inside?

Driven by curiosity, he held the sword to open the lid. Only a fist-sized gray bag inside, tied with a string, like a purse made of some animal skin.

Curiosity had brought him a bag instead of killing him, and, curiosity owned its own inertia.

Wei Gaoyuan tried hard to open it but couldn't untie the string anyway.

A weird portrait, and a weird bag!

He just put it on the side and went to search if there were other items in the box. A scroll was lying under the light blue brocade at the bottom of the box.

Holding the scroll in his hand, he opened it, easily this time— it was neither a weird scroll nor an extraordinary secret scroll of martial arts, but a handwritten diary left by an ancient senior of the Taoism Follower, which told his unbelievable past, the past Wei Gaoyuan was soon immersed himself in:

As recorded in the scroll, hundreds years ago the Trial Island was called the Magin Island, ruled by the Magin Religion.

There were large numbers of Taoism Followers in this huge religion, some of whom cultivated Taoism Arts through the way of immortal while some cultivated it through the opposite devil way. Therefore, the Magin Religion was regarded at that time as neither the Righteous faction nor the Evil faction. Under the rule of Lie Tianyang, the religion lord, all the members had never acted anything evil, otherwise they would be punished according to the canons of the Magin Religion.

Lie Qianshan, the eldest son of Lie Tianyang, also the owner of the diary, had noted down most of his experience and growth.

Lie Qianshan cultivated the Taoism Arts by Tao of swords, he was namely a Sword Taoist, generating his Gold Essence at the age of 30, bearing his Original Infant in his 70s, and reached the stage of the Spirit Copy at the age of 152 — None of the Taoism Followers at that time would deny that Lie Qianshan was an absolute genius in realm of Tao of swords.

(Original Infant: a superior being to Gold Essence. It resembles an infant or miniature person and resides in the Dantian, typically sitting in a meditative position. If strong enough, Original Infant can travel outside the body like a real life.)

When he was more than two hundred years old, the eight dominant sects in the world of Taoism Followers got allied to attack the Margin Religion. Despite many strong forces in the Magin Religon, it hadn't resisted so long under the round by round attacks by the eight sects ally. Eventually the Magin Religion was forced to divided into a few small sects. During that fierce campaign the lord Lie Tianyang and almost all the elders fought to death for defending their religion and dignity.

In the following hundred years, the surviving members of the Magin Religion were constantly being chased and killed so that the rest of them had to change their identities and hide themselves. Over time, the once strong and great Magin Religion was overwhelmed and erased from the history.

Lie Qianshan, as the eldest son of Lie Tianyang, disappeared after the campaign. No one knew whether he was alive or where he was. Four hundred years later after that campaign, when everyone had forgotten his name, Lie Qianshan returned at the stage of the Heavenly Judgement. Since then He began to challenge the strongest forces of the eight sects, one by one, all the powerful of the eight sects who had participated that campaign, as long as still alive, were received his challenge without any exception.

Among variety of Taos in Taoism Arts cultivation, Tao of swords was quite rare and extreme. The Taoism Followers who chose this way would get a more extreme attack power but had a much lower defense ability than the average Taoism Followers because of far less means to use various talismans, in other words, a sword in the hand of the Sword Taoist would be more powerful and make it possible to even skip level and stage to challenge much stronger power; moreover, it was said that Lie Qianshan's Tao of swords was the extreme of the extreme — he had reared no other talismans or weapons but swords!

Just the swords, the swords that had killed the twelve strongest in the eight sects, who'd been at the peak stage of the Full Completeness!

Apart from his swords, another shock for the eight sects was that they found the odd but marvelous trick of movement Lie Qianshan frequently used during the fights could enabled him to dodge attacks so as to largely make up for his fatal defects in defense. Consequently, few of those strong forces from the eight sects who'd got involved in the bloody battle four hundred years ago survived his challenges for revenge, and the once dominant eight sects, no better than the Magin Religion, had decayed gradually since then.

Having washed the sins of his enemies with their own blood, Lie Qianshan returned to the Magin Island. Watching the ruined palace of the Magin Religion, he chose to leave the items he'd used since childhood in the temple and then quietly left this place, his home…

Closing the diary, Wei Gaoyuan's heart was still immersed in it and couldn't keep calm for a long time. Even if it didn't mention why the eight sects got allied to launch the campaign, some unique feeling, not sad, not sympathy, had just stirred up in him by the legend of Lie Qianshan.

How strong was the will to sustain such a revenger to conceal and seal himself for four hundred years long?!