A Thought Through Eternity

Chapter 37 - Lifting the Light as Though It Was Heavy

Ten steles, number one!

Shockwaves spread throughout the three mountains on the South Bank of the Spirit River Sect, causing a stir.

Outside of the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavillion, the ruckus reached its peak as the news spread further. Numerous people arrived at the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion in a haste, and the moment they saw the Little Turtle placed first on all of the ten steles, they all sucked in their breaths.

“First on all of the ten steles, this Little Turtle actually did it!”

“The last time our Spirit River Sect had someone first on all ten steles was a thousand years ago. Who would have thought that I could witness such a scene in my lifetime!”

Cries of shock continuously arose from the crowd. Though previously, everyone did have some sort of expectations in their hearts, when such expectations became reality, they still couldn’t help but feel astonished. Especially when one recalled the events of the last 3 months, it was almost within succession - every month, one stele would be conquered. And nobody could stay still once they realised the speed at which the feat was achieved.

“This Little Turtle, just who exactly is he…...it has only been half a year, and starting from the third stele, he simply swept his way through, dominating everyone as he shot to fame!”

“His talent in herbs and plants has completely surpassed Zhou Xinqi. Could it be other than Zhou Xinqi, our Scented Cloud Mountain will have another Herb Master!”

The moment when all ten steles were topped, each and every one of the ten steles trembled for a second and produced a roaring sound. When all these roars came together, a roar was released from the cauldron on the mountain peak of the Scented Cloud Mountain!

As if a giant block of wood was striking the medicine cauldron, chime after chime echoed throughout the entire Scented Cloud Mountain and the South Bank of the Spirit River Sect. Even whiffs of medicinal fragrance silently enveloped the surroundings, causing the mist surrounding the Scented Cloud Mountain to thicken at a rate visible to the naked eye.

In a cave at the Scented Cloud Mountain peak, Elder Zhou was in the midst of feeding his precious five-coloured Phoenixes when all of a sudden, the chimes of the cauldron ringed in his ears as his gaze filled with shock.

“Scented Cloud Cauldron’s Chime?” He immediately sent out his divine sense and instantly discovered the change in the ten steles at the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion. His expression changed as he stepped onto the air and flew towards the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion.

Not long after, the silhouette of Elder Sun also appeared, arriving together with the other Foundation Establishment cultivators. Attracted by the chime of the cauldron, they all came out, and when they looked around, surprise and shock filled each of their faces.

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And the last to appear was Li Qinghou. He had originally been meditating, but when he heard the cauldron’s chime, his expression similarly changed. Taking a glance outside, he immediately transformed into a prismatic beam and flew straight toward the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion.

Following the continuous echo of the cauldron’s chime, a commotion rapidly spread among more and more people. The entire Scented Cloud Mountain, be they outer sect or inner sect disciples, every single one of them were shocked as they came out and directed their gazes toward the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion.

“This is…….the sound of our Scented Cloud Mountain treasure, the Scented Cloud Cauldron!”

“Within the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion, someone who has actually placed first on all ten steles appeared, setting a record unprecedented in the past thousand years!”

Even the Green Peak Mountain and Purple Cauldron Mountain were alerted at this moment. At the same time, Zhang Fatso One hung his head down as a charming beauty beside him was reprimanding him. This lady was exactly the old demoness that Zhang Fatso One had mentioned to Bai Xiaochun when he was venting his grievances. When the lady heard the chime of the cauldron, her expression changed as she lifted her head to take a look. Zhang Fatso One was also stunned for a moment before he followed her gaze with a look of surpise.

“The chime of the Scented Cloud Cauldron, could it be that within the disciples of the Scented Cloud Mountain, one of them achieved a perfect score in some examination?”

The same scene transpired atop the Green Peak Mountain, as the elders and the mountain all turned to look in the direction of the Scented Cloud Mountain.

As time passed, more and more people gathered in the surroundings of the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion.

As Bai Xiaochun stood within the crowd listening to the cries of shock around him, he looked towards the ten steles and surprisingly did not join in the cheers like what he would normally do. Instead, an indescribable feeling rose within him as he silently stood there. A smile lit up on his face, a smile that neither have any arrogance nor any pride, but simply just pure happiness.

It took a year's worth of time, starting from the first stele, to create the miracle of achieving the first place on all ten stone steles. But all of this was nothing but empty fame, his greatest reward was still the knowledge he had gained regarding medicinal plants and spirit beasts; all of this knowledge that was necessary to a herbal student had already been deeply engrained in Bai Xiaochun’s heart.

One could say that Bai Xiaochun had laid himself a foundation so solid that it was almost unheard of. When Bai Xiaochun looked back and reminisced about the past year - the countless days and nights of studying medicinal plants and analysing spirit beasts like

crazy - he could only sigh with melancholy.

If one were to look at the entire Spirit River Sect, even within the inner sect disciples, no one could compare to Bai Xiaochun when it comes to the foundation laid for medicinal herbs. At this point, Bai Xiaochun felt greatly satisfied.

In no time, streak after streak of prismatic beams arrived with the whistling of the wind. Following each prismatic beam, a silhouette that exuded a shocking cultivation was revealed; Elder Zhou, Elder Sun…...Li Qinghou too was among those people.

All of them gazed at the ten steles. Looking at the Little Turtle at the first place, a radiance shone in each of their gazes. Especially Li Qinghou, he was momentarily dazed when he first saw the picture of the Little Turtle, but gradually, a weird expression surfaced on his face. After which, he chuckled and swept his gaze across the crowd. When he saw Bai Xiaochun, his eyes revealed an admiration inconsipicuous to the others.

Not long after, with a flourish of his sleeve, Li Qinghou left with a hearty laughter; he knew, from the very first glance, that this Little Turtle was Bai Xiaochun.

After all the elders had left, the number of inner sect disciples started to increase. As they looked up at the Little Turtle, they couldn’t help but feel shock in their hearts. They too were once outer sect disciples, hence they clearly knew that these steles of the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion could only be challenged when one was in the Outer Sect, moreover, the difficulty of the test made the challenge incomparable to anything else.

“As an outer sect disciple, to be able to achieve such a level, he must be Heaven’s pride……”

“Hmph, as Medicine Apprentices, our focus should be refining sprit medicines, no matter how high your talent is in the herbs and plants, it is useless if you can’t refine a spirit medicine!” Among these inner sect disciples, some had praise while some had disdain. However, no matter what their stance was, they all had deeply ingrained this Little Turtle in their minds, and even deep in their hearts, most of them felt fear spread within them.

After all, no matter if this person has talent in refining medicine or not, with a foundation as solid as that, when that person becomes a Medicine Apprentice in the future, his path would be smoother and successful without a doubt.

The commotion among the crowd had not died down even one bit, up till the arrival of Zhou Xinqi. As she stood and gazed at the Little Turtle on top of all ten steles, only then did the crowd gradually fall into silence as they turned to look towards Zhou Xinqi.

That feeling of being thoroughly supressed at each of the ten steles made Zhou Xinqi’s eyes shine with dissatisfaction. In the past, she had always been the one giving others this sort of complicated feeling, but right now, when it was her turn to have a taste of this feeling, she could only remain silent.

“Just who exactly are you……” Zhou Xinqi grinded her teeth. She was dissatisfied, but after numerous tries, she had understood that this mysterious Little Turtle possessed a talent in herbs and plants that reached unimaginable heights. At the moment, she had no confidence in surpassing that level. Within that moment of silence, Zhou Xinqi burned the memory of this Little Turtle deep into the bottom of her heart.

“You might be stronger than me when it comes to herbs and plants, but after you become a Medicine Apprentice and tread the path of refining medicine, I don’t believe that you can stay ahead of me forever!” Zhou Xinqi sucked in a deep breath as her expression slowly calmed down. She had already taken the examination and had been promoted to a Medicine Apprentice. Giving one last look towards the steles, she turned around and left.

“This is only my first stop on my road of becoming a great Medicine Master!” In the midst of the crowd, Bai Xiaochun similarly gave one last look at the ten steles before he turned his body around and left with renewed determination.

The uproar of the ten steles’s number one lasted for months following this event. People still discussed it. When people visited the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion and saw the Little Turtle on the steles, these discussions grew even more heated.

At the same time, those admirers of Zhou Xinqi spared no effort in combing through the mountains to look for that Little Turtle. Especially the youth surnamed Qian, he was extremely frustrated and actively participated in the search.

After stirring up the entire South Bank of the Spirit River sect, despite the countless discussions about the Little Turtle each day, Bai Xiaochun was just in his courtyard, eyes bloodshot, as he controlled a small leaf in front of him.

He was currently studying the realm of Lifting the Light as Though It Was Heavy. In fact, more than half a year ago, he had already started studying the techniques of this realm. However, he had only grasped a small bit of it and was unable to truly comprehend it.

Now that the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion events were over, Bai Xiaochun could feel a sense of danger rise within while looking at those Zhou Xinqi admirers who were desperately searching for him. Henceforth, he used the chance to avoid all attention and put all of his focus into the realm of Lifting the Light as Though It Was Heavy.

“Lifting the Heavy as Though It Was Light is all about speed, and Lifting the Light as Though It Was Heavy…...is all about the technique’s control!” Bai Xiaochun eyes shone while he was deep in thought, this was the result of his enlightenment over this period of time.

“In other words, this sort of control is in fact just a type of dominating strength of the body’s spritual Qi!” Bai Xiaochun’s eyes glinted with a flash of light. With his current cultivation of the sixth level of Qi Condensation, the spiritual Qi in his body was akin to a big river, and the realm of Lifting the Heavy as Though It Was Light could already be maintained endlessly, exerting out a shocking speed.

With this enlightenment, he came to the understanding that this so called realm was simply just a technique to utilise one’s spiritual Qi - like how a small leaf, when stretched, could only be used to lift a small piece of wood, but when folded, it could lift a small rock. And if one shredded it into strings and bundled them together, one could lift even heavier objects.

The same materials, when utilised with different methods, would result in different amounts of durability.

And the Lifting the Light as Though it was Heavy realm had the exact same type of logic. Once one could comprehend and utilise it, it would be equivalent to achieving this realm.

Bai Xiaochun thought about it for a long time, and afterwards, with a wave of his hand, a small leaf flew toward him and hovered in front of his body. Under his incessant tries, this leaf sometimes moved with extreme speeds, and at other times, it moved as slow as if it was carrying the weight of a mountain.

If one try wouldn’t work, then he would try ten times, if ten times didn’t cut it, then a hundred times, and if a hundred times still weren’t enough…..then a thousand times.

Bai Xiaochun had long since lost count of how many times he tried, and all the leaves in his courtyard had already been torn apart. Therefore, he went out to look for more leaves. Until the end, every single non-spiritual plant, tree, flower or grass in the entire Scented Cloud Mountain was stripped and used by Bai Xiaochun. Finally, on a certain day, when the sun was about to set, a light flashed through Bai Xiaochun’s eyes. With a gesture of his fingers, the small leaf in front of him hovered in the air lightly like a feather, but the moment it descended, it was as if a mountain had just smashed upon the ground.

With a loud ‘hong’, the ground of the courtyard trembled, as if this willow tree’s leaf possesed an incomparably crushing weight.

“Success!” Although Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were bloodshot, he wore an excited expression as he stood up and waved his right hand. Immediately, a small wooden sword flew out and transformed into a black streak that zoomed into the open space. Its speed was not only fast, but its power had also at least doubled from before. One could even vaguely hear the sound of the air cracking.

With a loud roar, a large boulder in the distance instantly shattered into smithereens.

Such power was already past the standards of a Qi Condensation in the sixth level, perhaps even a seventh or eighth level Qi Condensation would be shocked and stunned if they were to witness this.

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Regular chapter 2/3 for the week

Translated by: Xin

Edited by: Crimsonguard, Arch, Pawandeep