Chapter 23: The Ocean of Stars
Chen Changsheng smoothly embarked on the path of cultivation, without any of the difficulties commonly found in stories. If others were to learn of this, they would surely be utterly perplexed. He himself, however, didn't find it particularly remarkable, especially after confirming what the three thousand Daoist scriptures his master had made him memorize truly signified.
Of course, this was ultimately a matter worth celebrating... Being able to concentrate the spirit meant being able to fix a star; being able to fix a star meant being able to draw starlight to refine the marrow; being able to refine the marrow meant being able to sit in contemplation and observe oneself; being able to sit in contemplation and observe oneself meant being able to achieve unity of mind and spirit, comprehending the workings of heaven and earth; being able to achieve unity meant being able to gather stars within the body, warding off all ailments; being able to gather stars meant being able to follow the sages and journey, riding the wind for ten thousand miles; and finally, one could become hidden between heaven and earth, beyond the cycle of fate. Perhaps at that point, there would be no need to defy heaven and alter destiny?
Yes, for Chen Changsheng, the purpose of cultivation was always that clear, never wavering. Perhaps along the path of cultivation, one could incidentally pursue other things—like seeing sights ordinary people could not see, experiencing sensations ordinary people could not feel, or returning the humiliations he had suffered to those who inflicted them—but none of that mattered. What mattered was the final goal.
Yet, having only just concentrated his spirit, not even taking the first step in cultivation, he was already contemplating the legendary realm of divine concealment. Even Chen Changsheng himself knew he was thinking too far ahead, and if he spoke of it, he would easily be laughed at. Fortunately, he would never tell anyone.
Compared to his peers, Chen Changsheng was relatively taciturn and more composed in his dealings. Thus, in Xining Town, the locals often thought he was three or four years older than his actual age. He was well aware that his success in concentrating his spirit in a single day and night was largely due to the foundation his master had laid for him since childhood, preparing him well. But to claim this far surpassed a true genius like Xu Yourong was not necessarily the case.
The next morning, he still rose at five, washed up, tidied himself, and ate breakfast. The events of the previous night had no impact on his routine. Only his slightly weary eyes betrayed that he was not as calm as he appeared; it was likely not due to the lingering musty smell in the small building, but rather genuine joy.
The National Academy was still bustling. Craftsmen and laborers were busy with repairs and cleaning in the main building, while the library remained quiet. At his request, no one came to disturb him, allowing him to continue his cultivation.
Refining the marrow was the first stage of cultivation, which could be briefly divided into three steps. Condensing the spiritual sense was the first step and the prerequisite for everything. The second step was to seek out one's destiny star. For this step, which sounded somewhat mysterious, Chen Changsheng was not particularly worried. What truly concerned him was the third step: drawing starlight into the body to refine the marrow... Only at that point could he finally determine what impact his physical condition would have.
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So-called cultivation meant borrowing the power of heaven and earth as one's own. Since the descent of the Heavenly Book, humans had begun to cultivate, developing countless methods and trying innumerable approaches. Some cultivation techniques absorbed heavenly fire, others drew close to nature, absorbing the power of the fields. Ultimately, with the formal establishment of the national religion and through millennia of human practice, it was proven that human cultivation gradually came to be based on the stars.
The scorching lava within volcanic craters could indeed be transformed into true essence within the human body, helping cultivators become immensely powerful. The fresh energies of the fields could also be utilized by cultivators. But none of these sources of energy compared to the stars.
The stars in the night sky held their positions eternally, illuminating the continent with solemn radiance. People living on the ground, by merely looking up, could see infinite starlight. From their childhood to their twilight years, those stars silently accompanied them. To the continent and the people living here, the stars were light, coordinates, energy, and time—because they were eternal.
Humans ultimately chose to convert starlight into true essence. This had little to do with these poetic descriptions; the most important reason was that starlight was the purest source of energy in the world, free of any impurities, and far gentler than sunlight, earthly fire, and the like.
The demon race could also absorb starlight, and due to their unique physiques, they required no cultivation techniques to directly incorporate starlight into their bodies, turning it into their power. Thus, any demon capable of transformation was always immensely strong.
Compared to the demon race, humans could not directly absorb starlight, or rather, the efficiency of direct absorption was too low. To address this, humans creatively invented a cultivation technique, and it was from that day onward that humans began their path to dominating the continent.
—That was the lighting of the destiny star.
In the night sky, there were countless stars, vast as an ocean, too numerous to count, far outnumbering the human population. For human cultivators seeking to refine the marrow, they needed to find their own star among those billions—that was the destiny star.
No one could explain the principle behind the destiny star, why that particular star would form an unbreakable bond with you, or how, across tens of thousands of miles, the star could resonate with a human. Even the greatest scholars in the history of the national religion could not provide an explanation.
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Everyone had a star that belonged to them.
But only those who had successfully condensed their spiritual sense could find their own star, thereby forming an indescribable connection, and ultimately use their spiritual sense to light that star—this was the lighting of the destiny star.
With countless stars in the night sky, as long as you could extend your spiritual sense, you could always find your own star. And this relationship, like many relationships, was absolutely exclusive. Once you established a connection with your destiny star, no one else could ever take it away.
This raised a question: What kind of star was most suitable as a cultivator's destiny star?
Now, there was a general consensus on the continent: the farther the destiny star, the better. This was because countless generations of scholars from the national religion had conducted follow-up surveys on numerous cultivators. After thorough analysis and calculations, they confirmed that this inference was without flaw.
But why was this so?
If cultivators directly absorbed the energy of their destiny star, shouldn't the star be closer to the ground be better?
To explain this phenomenon, the national religion's scholars worked backward from objective facts and established a model. In this model, cultivators did not directly draw energy from their destiny star. Instead, they treated the night sky as a wall, their destiny star as a nail they drove into that wall, thus tying a thread between themselves and the night sky. Ultimately, they used this thread to swing back and forth, absorbing the drifting starlight energy in the night sky.
In this model, the invisible thread was like a wet cotton string, and the starlight in the night sky was like the willow catkins flying everywhere in late spring. The thread, drifting slowly in the spring breeze, would pick up more and more catkins, eventually falling into the hands of the person holding it. If the thread were long enough—stretching from the tallest building in the imperial palace to the top of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum—it could even sweep up all the catkins in the entire capital.
The great demon scholar Tongus harshly criticized this theory of the national religion, calling it uneconomical and a pure fantasy born of imagination. The then Pope responded mercilessly to this criticism, stating that only a viable inference was the one closest to the truth.
In the end, the great demon scholar Tongus sent a letter across the entire continent, asking: Where exactly is that thread?
If there truly was a thread between a cultivator and their destiny star, then the national religion's theory could stand. Through observation of nature, it was easy to see that the longer the thread, the greater the amplitude, and naturally, the more energy could be generated, as in the earlier willow catkin analogy.
The problem was that no one had ever seen that thread.
The Pope in the capital gave a brief answer to this question: "Since there is a connection between the destiny star and the cultivator, there must be a thread between them. The fact that the living beings on the continent cannot see or touch it does not mean it does not exist."
The great demon scholar Tongus sent another letter across the continent, saying: "If it cannot be touched and has no impact on the objective world, then whether such a thread exists or not is meaningless. Therefore, it should not exist."
In response to this fundamental challenge, the Pope, after months of contemplation, gave his most famous answer.
"That thread is fate."
Yes.
An inexplicable connection is fate.
The stars in the night sky reflect the fates of all beings in the mortal world.
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No one had taught Chen Changsheng how to choose a destiny star. His master surely knew but had never spoken of it.
Of course, he knew the words the Pope had spoken. The three thousand volumes of Daoist scriptures would not omit this story that had gone down in history.
Since the connection with the destiny star was fate, he acted with great caution—after turning ten, these two words were what he cared about most.
From dawn to dusk, he familiarized himself with the process of extending his spiritual sense. He did not know how much of his soul remained after the anomaly when he was ten, but what comforted him somewhat was that the process of extending his spiritual sense did not differ much from what was described in the books.
He closed his eyes, allowing his spiritual sense to leave the sea of consciousness and drift through the quiet library. Though he wasn't looking, faint images of his surroundings appeared in his mind—somewhat blurry, with a dreamlike quality to the light. It was a brand-new perception.
When night fell, unlike other beginners who might still be engrossed in sensing the external world with their spiritual sense, he showed no reluctance. Without hesitation, he directed his spiritual sense out through the window, flying into the night sky, higher and higher. It passed through the finest down of birds returning home, through the tiniest water vapor particles of dissipating clouds, through the icy currents of the frigid wind, until it finally arrived among those countless bright points of light.
That was the ocean of stars.