Mastering the Starseizing Hand: The Sixth Cycle

A quiet, small mountain village. Peaceful and serene. Within the village, there was an ordinary bamboo cottage, and in that cottage lived a white-robed youth, year after year.

The villagers were actually quite curious.

This village had been built by mortals who fled into the deep mountains to escape the chaos of war, and so few of them knew each other initially. The white-robed youth had arrived in the mountains with them and had settled down together. They assumed he, too, was a refugee... but as the years passed, five of them went by, and the villagers noticed that the white-robed youth seemed to spend his days merely fishing.

He didn’t chase after girls. He didn’t worry about carrying on the family line.

He didn’t farm either.

He simply lived by fishing.

“That brat doesn’t know what’s good for him! I offered him a perfectly fine match, and he turned it down. Old Li’s daughter is so pretty, her family is well-off—they’re one of the best families in the village! It was a rare thing for a girl like that to set her sights on him, and he just smiled and refused…” The matchmaker fumed as she stormed out of the bamboo courtyard, even giving a bamboo stalk a vicious kick.

If that matchmaker knew she had just kicked the courtyard gate of a Fiendgod who stood at the very pinnacle of the entire Three Realms… who knew what expression would be on her face.

From the doorway of the bamboo cottage, Ji Ning merely smiled. He picked up his fishing pole and prepared to head out fishing again.

He had previously roamed the Three Realms, but recently he had begun immersing himself in the life of mortals, interacting with these villagers. Through this, Ji Ning had gradually come to realize a deeper meaning of 'Water'. As the mortal saying goes, 'The people are the water, which can bear the boat or capsize it.' Ji Ning vaguely sensed a vast, profound significance contained within the Heavenly Dao of Water…

“Eh?” Just as he picked up his fishing pole, Ji Ning stopped.

“The divine ability… I’ve finally finished modifying it.” A hint of joy appeared on Ji Ning’s face.

“Time to go.”

Swoosh.

Ji Ning instantly shot into the sky, vanishing without a trace. But the villagers in the mountain village didn’t see this at all. They only saw the white-robed youth pick up his fishing pole and head out to fish. They had no idea that what was here now was merely an ‘avatar’.

——

On a broken, desolate star floating in the void of the Three Realms, Ji Ning appeared out of thin air. He descended, kicking up a bit of dust that drifted out into the endless void.

“I’ll train the Starseizing Hand here.”

Ji Ning nodded. With a wave of his hand, all the dust on the ground within a nearby area was swept into a ball, solidifying into a rock that rolled to the side.

Then he sat down cross-legged, produced a gourd with a flip of his hand, and opened it. What was stored inside this gourd was the Quintessence of the Five Elements, which had been extracted by the Five Elements God-Tripod from various Pure Yang and Xiantian magic treasures within the World Prison. Ji Ning planned to use this Quintessence of the Five Elements to train the Sixth Cycle of the Starseizing Hand!

The Sixth Cycle of the Starseizing Hand was exceedingly difficult to train.

In the past, Daoist Threelives had been fortunate enough to obtain a single ‘Stellar Starstone’, a natural substance that contained innate divine runes. He had spent a long time pondering it and, using that Stellar Starstone as the primary ingredient supplemented by other precious materials, he had successfully trained the Sixth Cycle of the Starseizing Hand. Looking across the entire Three Realms, aside from Daoist Threelives, only Daoist Three Purities had ever obtained a Stellar Starstone!

But Daoist Three Purities had used his Stellar Starstone to refine the Extermination Sword Diagram!

The Extermination Sword Diagram… was an insight derived from the Ninefold Chaos Seal and forged from countless precious materials. It allowed the four Chaos Swords to act as one, unleashing terrifying power.

“Stellar Starstone… it should be what World God Northrest recorded as the ‘Stellar Heart’. To find even two such wonders here in the Three Realms is already a stroke of luck.” Ji Ning shook his head. Without a Stellar Starstone, there was simply no way to train the Sixth Cycle of the Starseizing Hand.

And so… Ji Ning began to study and analyze this divine ability himself. To Ji Ning, whether or not his hands could be tempered into something comparable to a Chaos treasure didn’t matter—he already had Chaos treasures, and even his ‘Ziguangqiong Divine Sword’ was more powerful than one! What Ji Ning valued was the Divine Power burst technique of the Starseizing Hand. This divine ability allowed for a massive amount of Divine Power to be released instantaneously, unleashing strength far beyond the norm!

Daoist Threelives had not been a particularly high-level cultivator—he hadn’t even mastered a single Heavenly Dao. Yet, relying solely on the Starseizing Hand, he had fought ferociously in the Primordial Dawn War, killing several of the alien True Gods and Daofathers!

The Starseizing Hand was ranked among the top ten divine abilities of the Three Realms, on par with Houyi’s archery.

This was precisely because its burst power was truly astonishing! If Daoist Threelives himself had been stronger, if he had possessed a body comparable to Ji Ning’s own half-step Elder God body, then with this divine ability alone, he would have reached the Leader level of power!

Ji Ning was currently lacking exactly such a Divine Power burst technique. Although he had the Nine Yuan Annihilation technique, it would require a vast amount of time to comprehend and develop into a truly powerful ability.

In terms of Divine Power burst techniques…

World God Northrest naturally had powerful ones, but those were techniques learned from the Heavenly Palace of Azure. In his long years of wandering, he had also obtained some other Divine Power burst techniques, but they were all relatively ordinary. Although he had left them to Ji Ning, their power was inferior to the Sixth Cycle of the Starseizing Hand.

“The Sixth Cycle of the Starseizing Hand was comprehended by Daoist Threelives from that single Stellar Starstone.”

“But his Divine Power burst is too violent. The hands must be tempered to be comparable to Chaos treasures; otherwise, they simply cannot withstand such an explosive release of power.” Ji Ning thought to himself.

The Starseizing Hand was an extremely violent burst technique.

The hands had to be tempered to a very high level to endure this kind of burst!

“It has been one hundred and seventy-two years since I became a True God. My Primaltwin, training within the Scrying Taihao Tower, has been cultivating for over seventeen thousand years.” Ji Ning mused, “Although most of that time has been spent on Dao comprehension, I have occasionally paused to study sword techniques and divine abilities. Finally, this divine ability is complete.”

Using the Nine Yuan Annihilation technique as a foundation, he had carefully dissected and analyzed the Starseizing Hand.

The reason the Starseizing Hand was so profound was that it had absorbed some of the mysteries of the Stellar Starstone. Its own basic structure was not overly complex. Using the Nine Yuan Annihilation as a reference, Ji Ning had been able to strip it apart piece by piece.

Then, he gradually deduced and recreated the Sixth Cycle…

With occasional work over the course of more than seventeen thousand years, his Primaltwin had finally finished the deduction!

He would use the Quintessence of the Five Elements to replace the Stellar Starstone and other exotic materials, using it to temper his hands. After all, the fundamental nature of the Starseizing Hand technique was to use the power of the Five Elements for this tempering.

Ji Ning sat cross-legged, the gourd beside him. Inside the gourd was the stored Quintessence of the Five Elements.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…

Under Ji Ning’s guidance, the Quintessence of the Five Elements flew out, swirling around his hands. The ‘Divine Runes of the Starseizing Hand’ began to manifest, slowly becoming more and more complex, until they finally reached an absolute state of perfection, radiating a feeling of profound completion. Ji Ning’s hands emanated an overwhelming pressure. However, concentric rings of Heartforce radiated out from around Ji Ning, shielding against all forms of detection.

The Seamless Gate knew that Ji Ning was on this star, but they were utterly incapable of probing what he was doing.

“It is done.” Ji Ning willed it, and the domineering, terrifying aura radiating from his hands instantly faded away.

“My hands are now comparable to Chaos treasures. They can withstand that level of Divine Power burst.” Ji Ning thought to himself. He willed it, and struck out with a palm towards the void above.

Boom!!!

A massive, semi-transparent palm print crushed through the void. The space around them trembled violently, and a region of space a hundred million kilometers wide churned like a great tidal wave, spreading out to an incalculable distance.

“What terrifying Divine Power burst.” Ji Ning nodded, a look of joy on his face. With this level of Divine Power burst, his power when wielding the divine sword could increase even further.

“My divine ability is complete!”

“Now all I’m missing is… Dao comprehension. I hope I can master a Heavenly Dao before the final battle begins.” A sliver of anxiety gnawed at Ji Ning’s heart. He still had an avatar stationed in the Allclans Hall, so he was well aware of the current state of the Three Realms. It was now on the brink of eruption. The final battle could begin at any moment.

Even if the final battle was to be delayed for the final clash of Fortunes, it would be at most a matter of decades.

Haste makes waste.

Ji Ning understood this principle very well. Although he earnestly longed to master a Heavenly Dao, and over the past seventeen thousand years his high level of insight had allowed him to comprehend the Dao very quickly, being overly anxious would only hinder his progress. And so, Ji Ning remained calm, just as before. While comprehending the Dao, he would also take breaks to study his sword techniques.

Over the past seventeen thousand years, he had not succeeded in mastering a Heavenly Dao, but he had perfected this divine ability, and his sword techniques had also made great strides.

“Of the ninety-eight sword-stèle tablets, I have completely learned ninety-six. I am still slightly short on these last two. Once I have fully comprehended them, I can begin to study that nameless sword technique.” Within the Scrying Taihao Tower, the black-robed Ji Ning looked at the two sword-stèle tablets before him.