The Stele of 'Seventeen'

This massive black stele was ninety-nine zhang in height, exuding an extremely faint pressure that could only be faintly sensed within a hundred zhang of it. Yet this pressure was utterly sublime. The side of the stele facing Ji Ning had only two huge, peculiar characters. The other side, however, was densely covered in countless strange characters that resembled tiny tadpoles.

“These characters?” Ji Ning observed carefully. “I have never seen script like this before. It seems that even within the Three Realms, this script does not exist.”

He had never seen it before, but Ji Ning dared to assume they were characters.

It was because these characters bore a strong resemblance to human script. In particular, the two huge characters on the front face allowed Ji Ning to even faintly guess their meaning.

“Let me probe it with my divine sense.” Ji Ning willed it.

His divine sense enveloped the area.

“What?!” Ji Ning stared at the stele in shock. “How is this possible? It’s impossible. My divine sense shows that before me is only an empty void; there is nothing there at all?”

“Could there be a special restrictive seal on this stele that blocks divine sense?” Ji Ning pondered. “Let me try using heartforce instead.”

Heartforce was ethereal and intangible, and far more formidable.

Immediately, his mighty ‘Honored Lord’ body descended, unleashing a powerful wave of heartforce that enveloped that stele. This caused Ji Ning’s expression to truly change, for he discovered… even heartforce probing showed nothing but an empty void before him, as if the stele did not exist at all.

“This, this…” Ji Ning reached out and touched the stele. The stele was icy cold, its surface rough. “This stele is clearly right in front of me. How can even heartforce fail to detect it?”

“This is definitely no ordinary object.”

“It might even be… an object not of the Three Realms.”

This thought immediately flashed through Ji Ning’s mind.

The two huge characters on the front of the stele, the countless dense characters on the other side, and the peculiar patterns on the stele’s surface. Clearly, this should have been forged by some existence! The stele’s pressure was this strong; the existence who forged it was likely at least at the level of the leaders of the Daoist and Buddhist sects, perhaps even stronger.

Yet even heartforce could not detect the stele. The naked eye could see it, and the hand could touch it. Ji Ning had never even heard of something like this. Normal objects of this kind should not exist in the Three Realms.

Then…

Only the Chaos outside the Three Realms! From ancient times until now, strange objects discovered within the Chaos are generally called ‘Chaos curios.’ They are treated as precious materials, as curios. However, if they can be used as magic treasures, and their power far exceeds that of Innate spirit-treasures, they are then considered ‘Chaos treasures.’

It’s hard to say exactly how Chaos treasures are born. The Chaos truly can give birth to ‘Chaos treasures.’ However, the most terrifying puppets refined by the ‘Lord of All Demons’ back then were absolutely not inferior to Chaos treasures. Thus, the Three Realms had long speculated that some powerful existences among the Chaos foreign races might be able to refine items comparable to Chaos treasures.

“Could this be a Chaos treasure?” This thought flashed through Ji Ning’s mind.

Whoosh.

A figure appeared. Ji Ning’s ‘Honored Lord’ clone descended directly, merging with the main ‘Honored Lord’ body. As for the outside world… Ji Ning still left behind a minor clone, condensed from a trace of divine power, to remain there.

“Both divine sense and heartforce failed to detect it. I’ll probably have to rely on divine power and ki.” Ji Ning grabbed the stele, gently setting it upright in the hall. When he first saw it, he had only assumed that ‘Shaoyan Chou’ had gotten lucky and found some curio, probably not that powerful. But looking at it now, the origin of this stele was likely enormous.

Neither heartforce nor divine sense could detect it. It was probable that even other major powers of the Three Realms didn’t know this thing existed.

“Shaoyan Chou, oh Shaoyan Chou. A Celestial Immortal like you actually possessed such a curiosity. If it weren’t for my quest for revenge for my mother and my junior apprentice-brother Mu Northson, I probably wouldn’t have obtained this curio. This should be a curio from the Chaos. I wonder if it’s a Chaos treasure.” Ji Ning’s heart itched with curiosity. If it were a Chaos treasure, he would have hit the jackpot.

Of course, not everything from the Chaos was good. For example, when Ji Ning and the others had tested the power of the Xingtang Deities, they had struck Chaos goldstone. Divine Farmer had found many medicinal herbs within the Chaos, but their value was utterly incomparable to a ‘Chaos treasure.’

“Try to refine it.”

Ji Ning sat cross-legged, placing his hand on the enormous stele before him. The stele was nearly a hundred zhang high and almost ten zhang thick. Divine Power from his body immediately surged into the stele.

“Hm? Not a Chaos treasure?” As soon as his Divine Power surged in, Ji Ning sensed something was wrong. He was very clear on the feeling of refining a magic treasure or an Innate spirit-treasure.

The Divine Power flowed into the stele, but it was as if it entered an empty void. There was basically nothing to refine.

However, when the Divine Power surged into the two enormous characters on the stele’s front, a ripple was transmitted into Ji Ning’s mind.

“Seventeen.” Ji Ning immediately understood the meaning of those two huge characters.

“Those two characters mean ‘Seventeen.’ What does that mean? Are there many steles of this kind, and this one is number seventeen?” Ji Ning guessed. “Right! There are even more characters on the other side.”

Swoosh!

Ji Ning’s form shifted, and he landed cross-legged on the other side of the stele. At the same time, he channeled a massive amount of Divine Power into it. The Divine Power surged within the stele, quickly making contact with the countless characters on the reverse side. The moment he tried to penetrate them, Ji Ning felt a formless resistance. It was clear that forcibly obtaining the information contained in these numerous characters exceeded his capacity.

“This is wrong.” Ji Ning immediately stopped. “The front has only two characters. The reverse side has what looks like millions. Comprehending just two characters didn’t put much pressure on me, but comprehending over a million all at once is far beyond my endurance.”

The densely packed tadpole-like characters on the stele, nearly a hundred zhang high, numbered over one million two hundred thousand according to Ji Ning’s estimate.

“Start from the very top, slowly.”

Ji Ning immediately began to channel his Divine Power to penetrate the characters.

“So slow.”

As soon as he began to penetrate, Ji Ning felt the strain. Nevertheless, a vast amount of information was transmitted into his memory.

“The ‘Eighteen Fiendgods of Taowu’…” An ancient technique began to flow in endlessly. As Ji Ning’s Divine Power penetrated character after character, more and more of the technique entered his mind. Soon, the entire technique was completely memorized.

“It’s actually… actually a cultivation technique!” Ji Ning stared at the stele in shock. “And this is merely a small part of the top portion.”

The characters on the stele were divided into seven major sections.

The first section was the ‘Eighteen Fiendgods of Taowu.’

“What a formidable technique! It can actually turn one body into eighteen.” Ji Ning marveled. “Ordinary Fiendgods can indeed split off a large number of clones, but if a clone dies, the soul within is also wiped out, causing damage to the completeness of the original soul. If the soul is too damaged, it might even lead to instant death.”

“But this technique, when trained to the first layer, can perfectly divide the soul into eighteen sub-souls. Each sub-body’s power is only one-tenth of the main body’s, but they can each live independently. Even if the other seventeen are destroyed, the last sub-body can gradually gestate and recover the other sub-bodies.”

“Upon reaching the second layer, all eighteen sub-bodies possess power equal to the main body.”

“If one reaches the third layer of mastery, the eighteen sub-bodies can merge into the main body at any time, and the main body can also split into eighteen clones. This can cause the main body’s power to skyrocket.” Ji Ning was stunned by this.

If this technique was mastered, it would be as if Ji Ning could instantly turn into eighteen Ji Nings. Even if the main body fought alone, using this technique would allow its power to explode.

Such a heaven-defying technique!

“So that’s it. That Shaoyan Chou was practicing this very technique, but only to the first layer.” Ji Ning immediately understood. “I thought he was using some secret art like the Bloodshadow Doppelganger. So it was actually such a profound technique.”

There were powerful techniques in the Three Realms as well.

Take the Bloodshadow Doppelganger, for example. As long as one was not destroyed, all the others could revive. But truly powerful experts rarely did this, because each split clone was much weaker, far inferior to having a single, powerful main body! By acting this way, Shaoyan Chou caused everyone in the Three Realms to think he was overly afraid of death. But who knew that Shaoyan Chou possessed such an incredible technique as the ‘Eighteen Fiendgods of Taowu’? He had merely cultivated it to the first layer.

“Where did this technique come from…” Ji Ning was amazed by it. “But mastering this technique is also very difficult.”

The technique had a detailed record.

Entering the gate was easy; one could easily master the first layer.

The second layer was thousands of times harder.

The third layer was even more difficult than ascending to the heavens, requiring insight, luck, and so on.

Even Daoist Three Purities only had the ‘One Qi Transforms into Three Purities’ technique. The Tathagata Buddha could only split into five avatars! The second layer of this technique alone could allow one to split into eighteen avatars, each equal in power to the original main body. This was incredibly heaven-defying.

…

“Let’s look at the second technique.”

Ji Ning continued to channel his Divine Power to penetrate the characters. Immediately, the information of the second technique began to flow in.

The second technique was called the ‘Nine Interpretations of Insect Beasts.’

This was a very miraculous method for cultivating insect beasts, and Ji Ning now understood why Shaoyan Chou had been able to cultivate such formidable insect beasts. Everyone in the Three Realms thought that Shaoyan Chou had received some inheritance, given that there were indeed methods for cultivating powerful insect beasts in the Three Realms. Also, the insect beasts Shaoyan Chou had cultivated weren’t that strong, so it hadn’t attracted much attention.

But the outside world didn’t know that Shaoyan Chou’s own power was too weak. The treasures and materials he could obtain were too few, so he simply couldn’t cultivate anything truly powerful.

“This requires a massive amount of time and energy. It’s not suitable for me.” Ji Ning immediately abandoned it.

…

“Let’s look at the third technique.” Ji Ning discovered that as he gradually penetrated deeper, trying to read new content, the resistance grew stronger and stronger. Ji Ning didn’t know that Shaoyan Chou had only obtained the first technique and a small part of the second. The following techniques, Shaoyan Chou had never even been able to reach.

After all, he was only a Celestial Immortal.

Shaoyan Chou treated this stele as a supreme treasure, valuing it far more than his World-Sealing Tower, hiding it carefully. Because he kept a low profile here in the ‘Dongxuan Major World,’ he had hidden the stele here. His World-Sealing Tower, on the other hand, had originally been placed in the Grand Xia World. Who would have thought that this stele would still end up in Ji Ning’s hands?

…

“Every single technique is miraculous.” Ji Ning felt that his Divine Power was increasingly unable to ‘read’ the text. Upon reaching the fifth technique, he couldn’t penetrate it at all.

“Let me try using Pure Yang ki.” Unwilling to give up, Ji Ning attempted to channel his Pure Yang ki into the stele. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh~~~ Ji Ning stared in astonishment as the Pure Yang ki penetrated the characters on the stele far more easily than his Divine Power.

“Maybe I can get all seven techniques this way.” Ji Ning’s heart filled with anticipation. He even had a feeling that when he obtained all seven, he might be able to learn the origin of this stele.