Star Gate

Chapter 785: A Book (II)

“This is Evenround Martial,” laughed the Black Armor. “There’s not much of a problem with mentioning titles of the powerful. However, you should not do so in the outside world or other places. Evenround Martial is a bit unique. While there aren’t many treasures left here or the lingering traces of any supreme existence, there is a special dao circulating that cannot be sensed in the outside world.”

These words encompassed so much meaning! Li Hao and Hong Yitang looked at the book. It seemed very ordinary with nothing unusual about it. Yet the Black Armor said that it would help them, and that it borrowed from the methods left behind by a supreme powerhouse.

Li Hao gathered that he’d once seen the exalted emperor of Battle Heaven in the scenes created by the two characters of the city’s name. Was the one who wore a longbow on his back and wielding a bloody blade the Exalted Blood Emperor?

But the Black Armor said that the Battle Heaven characters represented the one who’d perished, so Li Hao was confused. Of course, that was neither here nor there. The key was that this book might truly be very impressive.

“The two of you should decide for yourselves if you choose this book or another. I’ve made a unique opportunity available to you, it won’t be this way next time.”

“This one then!” Li Hao decided after some thought.

“Me too!” Hong Yitang nodded as well. There didn’t seem to be a reason for the Black Armor to lie to them. They could all freely choose from the incomparably precious secret arts out there. Was there a need to go to this trouble to deceive them?

Not to mention, this book was here by itself on this floor. It was clear to see from that alone that it was extraordinary.

“Then, enjoy your reading!” The Black Armor seemed to be smiling again.

“What did he mean by that?” Li Hao suddenly asked when the other disappeared. “There seemed to be another meaning behind his words.”

“I don’t know.” Hong Yitang shook his head ruefully. “We’re ants in here, so let’s not think too much and just go with the flow. We wouldn’t be able to offer much resistance if he really wanted to kill us.”

“Let’s leave the rest for the future!” Li Hao smiled, not the least bit dejected. “We have time to later. It’s only been how long since we started cultivating?”

Hong Yitang chuckled and didn’t say anything. The two of them sat down in front of the desk. Li Hao looked at the book resting on it; it seemed that others had once sat here to read it before.

The Accounts of Evenround

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Li Hao blinked when he opened the cover.

“We were very poor when I was growing up and I really wanted to eat something delicious. But we didn’t have any money then, not until big brother practiced martial dao and earned money. That was when I received an allowance and could buy what I wanted. Life was so good then...”

Li Hao looked around blankly after he flipped through the entire book. This was a storybook! No, it was a memoir. It recorded the day-to-day mundanity of a woman growing up. It mentioned that she had an older brother that doted on her and often bought her food. She had an adorable cat that loved to sleep and ate a lot. It always ate so much that she didn’t have enough food for herself.

She had many elders who spoiled her, but she knew that it was because her brother was a genius. They liked her because of him, but she didn’t mind.

She spent a period of time away from her brother with a teacher surnamed Li. She cried a lot then and really missed home. She later killed a lot of people in that place, but she didn’t tell her brother about her actions.

And then... that was it. There was nothing else. These mundanities were all that the book covered. Li Hao looked at it carefully up and down, left to right, front to back... and was completely perplexed! Utterly baffled!

He looked at Hong Yitang; the man was stroking his chin.

“Have we... been toyed with... once again?” the man asked.

“......” Li Hao was so baffled that his reactions were slow. “Is there a point in doing so?”

Did the Black Armor have too much time on his hands?? I wanna beat the shit out of him right now! You made everything so mysterious that we thought you knew the error of your ways and wanted to give us something good. But it turns out... that you just wanted to give us a memoir??

The heck is this?!

There’s no discussion of great dao or any information about martial dao. The only killing it mentions is described by a single line. There’s not even a mention of methods! The book is pretty much a stream of consciousness and it’s really boring to read.

It can talk about a meal for half a page and mention a great battle by simply the fact that they won!

“......”

The hell was this?! The author could at the very least describe the battle in more detail or the martial methods used. That might be useful for the reader. But this is all there was to the book?

Li Hao almost wanted to vomit blood in his anger!

“That one... has no need to provoke us over and over again, does he? What would be the point in that?” Hong Yitang asked thoughtfully. He picked up a book to consider it. “Perhaps there’s a hidden page or compartment in it!”

Li Hao nodded and quickly inspected the book, but still found nothing.

“Will a secret manual appear if we burn it?” Li Hao looked at Hong Yitang.

“Can we burn it?” The man frowned.

“I... think so? He didn’t say that we can’t.” Flame appeared in Li Hao’s hands, but it was a futile effort. It went out as soon as it touched the book.

“I understand!” Li Hao’s eyes darted around. “The book itself is a treasure!”

He finally understood—the book was a precious object! The Black Armor wanted to give them a treasure!

“Damn it, we still fell for it!” Li Hao was still regretful. “One book is only one treasure, he had us choose between it. Perhaps he wanted to see us fight for it. The book may be a very high level treasure, high enough to the point that we’ll fight for it!”

A sigh traveled through the air; resignation colored it. “The book... is indeed a treasure, but it cannot be removed from the premises. Look at it carefully! Concentrate. I’m sure that it will be helpful for you!”

It was the Black Armor. Li Hao looked anew at the book—so the issue wasn’t with how high level the book was? Then what was it?

He looked at it carefully, going from back to front, picking the first character of each line, skipping lines, reading backwards, trying to locate anagrams, reading the last character of each line, skipping every other character...

No matter what he read, he still didn’t come away with anything. Li Hao’s head was aching. Is he really not messing with us?

Hong Yitang had also been considering the item closely when he said, “Calm yourself and have a look. Don’t think of anything else.”

Calm myself? His heart was indeed not calm. But there might be something to what Hong Yitang was saying, so Li Hao calmed himself down and stopped complaining. This was all extraneous gains in any case, so it didn’t matter if he walked away with anything or not.

As he perused the book, Li Hao seemed to return to the days of the Veteris Institute, of when he studied ancient tomes with his teacher. Regardless of how valuable this storybook was or how unique the font may be, it was ancient writing at the very least. Written in a plain and straightforward manner, it was ideal to use as instructional material. There was nothing arcane or abstract about the words, which made it suitable for beginners to study when they learned the ancient language.

Li Hao became much quieter after he stilled his heart. He wasn’t as impatient as before, and actually thought he was seeing things as he continued to read the words. The young man rubbed his eyes, was he seeing afterimages from staring so hard? Surely not.

But as he looked carefully at each individual character, they seemed to come alive and move with a will of their own.

Whaaaat?

Li Hao concentrated on a particular word—it didn’t move. Surprised, the young man continued to fixate on one word and assessed it for a very long moment until the scene suddenly shifted in his eyes. The character had become a person!

The person was practicing martial arts and had a bit of their blood qi seep out. The components gradually drifted apart and were stripped out. Li Hao seemed to see blood qi separated into countless portions and become a dragon in the next moment!

The dragon howled, startling Li Hao so much that he took a quick step backward and immediately fell out of this mental state.

He was shocked! What... was that? He looked at the book’s pages again and lost himself in the characters. This time, he discovered some profundities—each character represented a type of martial knowledge. No, it might all be the same. He could tell that this was a... combination?

Indeed, the characters that’d taken human shape seemed to be endlessly rearranging themselves. Blood qi was being broken up to countless portions and rearranged in a different manner, ultimately giving rise to a distinct final form.

Li Hao blinked with astonishment and was beside himself! Was this... the true nature of martial dao? The core essence of ancient battle methods? They took the same portion of blood qi, or internal force and mysterious power, to fragment, rearrange, and then bring back together in a different battle method.

What was this? A reconstruction of the microscopic world?

Li Hao lost himself in the sight, suddenly understanding why the Black Armor had let him read this. Was it because of his supernatural abilities involving the characters? Could his characters be reassembled? Could they be fragmented again? Could his ‘water’ character be divided into endless water characters, then reformed as ‘ice’, ‘snow’, or ‘frost’? Could he give rise to anything having to do with water?

It was like an entirely new world had been opened up to him. His mind was in a foggy haze as he marveled at the wonders of this book. It’d opened a new door to him, one that led to the microscopic world and spoke of the base nature of battle methods!

It wasn’t martial dao, but directly expounding on ancient battle methods. It helped everyone understand how battle methods came to be and why they differed...

Heavens above!

Li Hao could barely believe the single glance he took. One character could undergo endless permutations to form different characters. Therefore, one method could become endless methods...

A myriad of changes! Didn’t this reflect Martial Uncle Hong’s thoughts? Their characters were formed from various individual strokes—didn’t that hold true for all words? Therefore, wouldn’t that mean that their characters could undergo a myriad of changes in the microscopic world?

Li Hao immersed himself in these new findings and could scarcely extract himself from them. He’d really run into a fortuitous occurrence this time! A massive stroke of fortune! There were no mysterious power stones, weapons, treasure, or whatever that measured up to this book...