Sage Monarch

The dilapidated interior chamber was choked with dust, and marks from sabers and swords could be seen everywhere. Obviously, an intense battle had been fought here in times past.

BUZZ!

Yang Qi felt a psychic resonance of some sort and noticed a host of palm prints embedded in the floor, right there in front of him.

From the spider web of cracks that snaked out from each palm print, it was obvious they were the result of palm attacks backed by immense godpower. In fact, they had damaged the depths of the chamber so badly that it seemed like it was hovering on the brink of collapse.

"Hai!" Yang Qi launched his own experimental palm strike right next to one of the palm prints.

However, nothing happened except that his arm tingled painfully.

Shocked, he said, "I can't believe the stone of this chamber is so tough. It's exponentially stronger than the stone on the outside. Definitely nothing to be taken lightly."

"You wanted to leave a mark on the chamber floor? Don't even think about it. Even someone with Terrifying will wouldn't be able to do anything to the Vajra Māyādevī's secret chamber. It would take an actual god to cause any damage. In fact, the only reason we got in here is because this temple has been in the mortal world for so long that ninety-nine percent of its godpower has dissipated. Alright, enough wasting time. Let's find that godpower seed. It should be in here somewhere."

Yang Qi nodded and drew on the seed of the Secret-Ensconcing All-World Anything-Everything Fundamental-Law Magic he already possessed to aid in the search. The chamber was enormous, and was completely battered and crumbling. Broken stalagmites and stalactites were interspersed with shattered stone tables, bookshelves, columns and the like. It almost looked like a war had been fought in here.

The walls were all marred by palm prints, sword slashes, saber marks, and even damage from finger strikes. It was very shocking, and made it clear how bitter the fighting had been.

Yang Qi closed his eyes and focused on all of the battle damage, and slowly but surely, he felt something like a soft breeze of will coming from them, giving him clues as to what happened in that ancient battle. Each stance and move that had been unleashed here contained its own philosophies and theories, and when he touched them with his own will, it caused his true energy to stir, and suddenly, energy arts within him activated that he hadn't even known existed.

His Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth was filled with all sorts of incredible things that even he wasn't sure how to unleash. It was a weakness, of sorts, but for all intents and purposes it only counted as a weakness when it came to gods.

In terms of common immortals, Yang Qi's abilities had reached a point of perfection, and were so perfect that no one could possibly match up to him. That said, reaching higher levels of enlightenment was no easy task. After all, he only had a third of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth, which meant that there were other consummate techniques out there that he had no way to access.

Thankfully, though, that also meant that the power flowing through him had reached an extreme level and could be unleashed with explosive destruction. As a result, contemplating the vestiges of battle left here by heaven-gods was extremely beneficial.

"Bow of Chastisement! God-Wrath Arrow!"

All of a sudden, a bow and an arrow made of true energy appeared in his hands. The bow was curved like the moon, and the arrow was like a meteor as it shot forth, a streak of light shooting through the chamber toward the wall.

As soon as the arrow hit the wall, it vanished, but then an explosion rocked the chamber. Afterward, a small white scratch could be seen on the wall. Although the effects were as dramatic as throwing a cup of water on a burning cart of firewood, it was still clear that Yang Qi had somehow damaged the wall.

"What?" An Yiru exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock. "How did you do that? That technique you just used, it's... it's not something humans should be able to do!"

"I got a bit of enlightenment from looking at the vestiges of battle here, so I decided to do a little test. It seems I really did master a bit of the way that heaven-gods can alter the rotation of true energy, which can push certain energy arts to extreme limits." Of course, Yang Qi was completely fabricating all of that.

"Marvelous. I can tell already that you're going to be an important person in the Will Manifestation Heaven Sect. You're going to shake heaven and earth, that's for sure. By the way, are you one of the Inheritors?"

"Of course not," Yang Qi replied. He knew how closely the Inheritors were watched by everyone who knew them, and had no desire to draw such scrutiny. "I'm not sure how many Inheritors there are, but I've fought a few of them and they were incredibly strong. They can easily draw on the godpower of the Great Necropolis to do all sorts of things that I can't quite deal with. Besides, it's impossible to take their godpower seeds and do anything with them. I personally saw a battle in which one of the Inheritors was killed, and his opponent extracted his godpower seed. Upon trying to assimilate it, the man was turned to stone."

"What? That actually happened? Where? What expert actually had the audacity to try to assimilate a godpower seed from one of the Inheritors? And he actually turned into a statue? You have to take me there! For all we know, we could learn a lot from that statue. I could hand it over to the sect, and possibly even extract the godpower seed from inside it."

"It was a top expert from the Immortal House of Supreme Preeminence," he replied blithely, not even bothering to think about the tale he was spinning. "And people from his sect took him away already. I was just watching from the sidelines with some people from the Martial Tyrant Cadre and the, what was it? Right, the Amoghasiddhi Buddhist Sect."

"Martial Tyrant Cadre? That's a pretty powerful organization. Their leader is an extremely domineering figure with a divine grasp on the martial path. Definitely not someone to underestimate. Well, I suppose we should just focus on exploring this chamber."

The two of them continued onward, but even after some time passed, they still hadn't discovered any treasures. Eventually, An Yiru cracked her whip, parting the dust ahead and revealing an unbroken stone table. A stone box lay on the table, atop which was a huge incense burner, making it impossible to take the box. As for the box, it was sealed with a paper talisman that was so old it was already disintegrating, allowing a golden buddhist glow to seep out of the lid of the box.

"Is that the godpower seed?" An Yiru said, sounding excited. She lashed out with her whip, which wrapped around the incense burner as she attempted to pull it off the table and gain access to the box.

Unfortunately, no matter how she tugged on the whip, the incense burner wouldn't budge. At the moment, it seemed impossible to get the box.

"Let me try," Yang Qi said. Although his power index wasn't very high, he had just gained a bit of enlightenment, not to mention the marvelous abilities he already had access to.

Stepping forward, he reached out, wrapped his arms around the incense burner, and tried to lift it off the box. Rumbling sounds echoed out from the incense burner, and although it didn't actually move, he got the sense that he had at least made a bit of progress.

Roaring with effort, he threw more magical power into his next attempt, causing the incense burner to rumble with even more intensity. However, it didn't move. Looking inside the incense burner, he saw some ash that had congealed into clumps almost like charcoal. Unfortunately, he wasn't even able to clear out any of the trash. Frowning, he tried to lift the burner again, only to fail once more.

'This guy is definitely strong,' An Yiru thought, 'but not strong enough to move that incense burner. It's just too heavy. After all, it is from the god world.' She shook her head.

"I guess we're going to leave emptyhanded."

"Miss An Yiru," Yang Qi said, "do you happen to have any godhood on you? I have a secret magic that might be able to help. It can burn godhood and convert it into incredible power."

"What? Burn godhood?" An Yiru only continued to grow more and more shocked by Yang Qi and his abilities. Usually, people would assimilate any godhood they acquired. However, the process of converting it into power could take years upon years. To simply burn it up was something completely unheard of, at least to her.

"I actually do have some godhood," she said. "If you can really do what you just claimed, I'll give you some. But, godhood is extremely precious...."

He shrugged. "If you don't want to give it up, I guess we have no way of moving the incense burner. Perhaps you should go call some stronger experts from your sect to help."

"Call people from the sect?" She chuckled. "And share the spoils with them? I don't think so. Competition within the sect is fierce, and if anyone else found out about this place we'd definitely be cut out. Fine. If you're really confident that you can pull this off, I'll give you some godhood. My Master gave it to me as a gift, and although I've already assimilated some of it, I still have about half left."

She produced a thumb-sized piece of godhood from her sleeve. It was a tiny sphere that looked like it was made from cold jade, and seemingly contained countless immortal worlds within it. From what Yang Qi could tell, it must have come from a god devoted to frigid coldness.

"This is some frigid godhood from the Ice-Snow God," she said. "Just be careful not to end up freezing yourself to death."

"I won't," he said. "All godhood is the same to me." He took the godhood and devoured it, then used the Engine of the One God and the imperial-heaven pre-beginning systems to break it down and turn it into raw power.

As the liquid coursed through him, Yang Qi took the offensive powers of the Great Necropolis' will and poured them into the incense burner.

RUMBLE!

The incense burner suddenly rose up into the air. Without hesitation, An Yiru lashed out with her whip, grabbing the stone box and pulling it over to her hand. Unlike the incense burner, the box wasn't actually very heavy at all!

1. The Bow of Chastisement and the God-Wrath Arrow were weapons of General Samman, introduced in . Yang Qi acquired them in .