Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

As of this moment, Yang Qi was one of the disciples in charge of caring for the House of God Ordainment’s Scripture Pavilion.

One of the main benefits was that when others came to peruse the personal records of previous members of the sect, they had to spend merit points to do so. As for the second floor that Yang Qi was assigned to, it contained information regarding senior members of the sect who attempted breakthroughs as gods. Some were records of Paramount will convergence breakthroughs, and whether such attempts were successes or failures, the details were kept here in order to help future generations.

There were even instances in which a top expert would have a thousand disciples all attempt a breakthrough at the same time and compare the results.

Of course, the Scripture Pavilion had more than just two floors. There were actually nine in total, and they contained all sorts of amazing secrets. For now, Yang Qi had no way to access any of the higher floors. Such secrets would require huge amounts of merit points to gain access to.

According to rumor, the ninth floor had the ancient records of the primeval halls of heaven. In other words, it was the Sovereign Lord’s personal collection of books, containing direct information about his actions and failures. There were even books personally penned by him.

There were also records regarding gods in the Paramount level who had attempted breakthroughs.

That included some in the Paramount level who had successfully reached the Unbounded level, and even some in the Unbounded level who had attempted to reach the Annulled level.

Such records were incomparably priceless, and weren’t things that ordinary disciples could study. Even the grand elders and elder kings of the sect would have to pay merit points for the opportunity. And not just a handful of merit points, but tens, or even hundreds of thousands.

Of course, Yang Qi couldn’t even go to the third floor, let alone the ninth. Right now he was limited to the second floor. That said, the bookshelves stretched high overhead, to the point where even he was shocked. The books seemed to go on and on without end.

Most of them were made of paper that was inscribed with an expression of will instead of ink. Because of that, there were all sorts of images on the pages, although flowery text was also common. Apparently, the people who inscribed the text were hoping to impress the reader with their exquisite command of the calligraphy of the god world script.

But not all of the records were paper books. There were also scrolls of beast hide, jade slips, and bamboo slips. Some were even made of rock or metal. It was possible to inscribe just about anything with godpower. In fact, there were some records that weren’t physical objects at all, but rather pure conglomerations of godpower. They resembled books, but were pure gold, and weren’t even corporeal objects.

After looking around for a bit, Yang Qi couldn’t find any other administrators on the second floor. Apparently, he was the only one.

There were so many books that he had no idea where to start in terms of reading them. In fact, there seemed too many to count. And this was just the second floor. It was hard to imagine how many books would be contained in all nine floors.

That said, he wasn’t anxious to start reading. He initially just walked amongst the bookshelves, which were almost like a maze. As he walked around, he noticed that the bookshelves were all protected with powerful warding magics. Even if a fight were to break out here, the books wouldn’t be damaged.

After some time, he randomly reached out and pulled a book off the shelf. Looking at the cover, it read Treatise on the Differences Between Buddhist School Śarīras and Godhood.

Sending some divine will inside, Yang Qi found that the author was a buddhist cultivator who was a Common God. He had done some very thought-provoking research comparing buddhist school śarīras to godhood. As he read the book, Yang Qi realized that he was gaining some new insight into his Secret-Ensconcing All-World Anything-Everything Fundamental-Law Magic.

He was also coming to understand a bit more about the dao of sages from his Sage Monarch Grand Magic.

After all, buddhas were fundamentally sages. Because of that, many of the concepts taught in the buddhist sects were the same as the dao of sages. And the buddhist sects offered many revelations regarding humanity, so how could Yang Qi possibly pass up information like that?

After finishing the book, he nodded thoughtfully as he mused about how some of his previous ways of thinking had been incorrect.

He put the book back and randomly grabbed another one. This one was entitled Pilgrim Mystico’s Discourse on the Deployment of Spell Formations.

As he paged through the book, he saw that the divine will inscriptions depicted an old man setting up various spell formations. The depictions revealed many tips and tricks that could save godpower and make formations more effective.

Upon finishing the book, Yang Qi felt his ability with spell formations had improved a bit.

People from the god world had a different way of looking at things, and the dao of spell formations was boundless and full of unending mysteries. With that, he went on to read a few more books, all of which were about spell formations, and all of which contained very thought-provoking information.

All of a sudden, a voice reached Yang Qi’s ears from overhead.

“Are you new here, Brother? And you're already reading?”

He looked up and saw a white-robed disciple with a bottle gourd of alcohol in one hand and a book in the other, sitting on top of one of the bookshelves. It looked like he had just woken from a nap. The title of the book in his hand was Seventy-Two Methods of Crystallizing Godpower.

‘Someone was sleeping up there and I didn’t notice?’ Yang Qi thought. ‘He must have a very high cultivation base. Although, I wasn’t exactly on guard. I was too focused on all these books.’ Because of assuming that no one would attack or try to kill him in the House of God Ordainment’s Scripture Pavilion, Yang Qi had indeed let his guard down a bit.

Clasping hands in greeting, Yang Qi said, “Who might you be, Sire? Are you also a disciple of the second floor?”

“Yeah, I am. And you’re new, right? I’ve been assigned here for ten years, so you should call me Elder Brother. You read really fast, don’t you? Most of the books here are designed for experts who've already reached godly ascension.” Lifting up his bottle gourd, he took a long swig of alcohol. “I have no desire to leave this place. I’d rather stay here, drinking and reading. It’s a really leisurely life. That’s how gods should live. Would you like a drink?”

He held out the bottle gourd.

“No thanks, but I appreciate the gesture. So how many people are assigned here?”

“How many people?” The young man laughed. “Here on the second floor it's just you and me. Before you came, I was alone.”

“You've been here for ten years, but haven’t been able to reach godly ascension?” Yang Qi frowned. “It seems to me you’re strong enough to beat a Lesser God in combat.”

“Godly ascension? I could do that any time I wanted. Right now I'm focusing on studying the basic structure of godpower. You see, I want to be a really impressive person as a god. So before I reach godly ascension, I want to break through to Paramount will convergence. Then, when I form my godhood, it’ll be what they call monarch godhood. Check out this book. It was written by a very interesting individual.”

Swish!

He threw a book down, which Yang Qi caught. As he did, Yang Qi felt himself shiver from the force of godpower, and nodded in admiration.

The man’s eyes went wide. ‘How could this guy be so strong? I've been studying the books in here for ten years, and have gained a lot of enlightenment. In fact, my cultivation is unmatched, although nobody knows that. So who is this guy? And how come he hasn’t caught the eye of the top figures in the sect?’

Meanwhile, he was keeping an eye on Yang Qi as he read.

Yang Qi read through the Seventy-Two Methods of Crystallizing Godpower and found some interesting information about how to use one’s psyche and will to make godpower more stable, then turn it into godhood.

Furthermore, from this information, it was possible to infer that godly ascension was a pivotal moment in which one’s life force would completely transform. Past that point, one stopped being human. That was why immense psychic power was required. And it was best to achieve that level before forming one's godhood. If one could reach Paramount will convergence and only form godhood afterward, it was called monarch godhood.

There were other interesting and useful concepts in the book, including tricks on how to crystallize godpower. For example, the Water-Fire Crystallization Technique, which used the opposing forces of yin and yang, and water and fire, to create a tempering effect that strengthened the structure of the godpower.

It also described ways to temper the crystallized godhood, so that it eventually formed a spiral structure. In some ways, it made the process of creating godhood seem very much like the process of forging a sword.

“Whoever wrote this book was extraordinary,” Yang Qi said. Looking back at the cover, he saw that the author was the Sword-Grinding Kid.

“The Sword-Grinding Kid was a legend here in the god world. Sadly, he passed away long ago. He was the son of a subordinate of the Lord of the Sword Dao. Although his cultivation base wasn’t particularly impressive, his theories were amazing.” The young man leaped off the top of the bookshelf and floated down to the ground like a snowflake.

Watching him land, Yang Qi asked, “Brother, what's your name?”

“I'm Bai Yin. At first I assumed you were just an ordinary person, but as it turns out, you’re nothing short of incredible.” [1]

Considering that Bai Yin had directly offered his name, it would have been impolite for Yang Qi not to do the same. So he said, “I'm Yang Qi. You just mentioned some ideas about reaching the Paramount level, but it seems to me this Sword-Grinding Kid didn’t think the whole thing through. Before forming godhood, your fleshly body and life force substructure are weak. If you tried to form Paramount will convergence in that state, your fleshly body wouldn’t be able to take it, and your sea of consciousness would collapse. It’s like that bottle gourd of yours. If you tried to force more liquid into it after it’s full, it would burst.”

“Yes, that is an issue,” Bai Yin replied. “Otherwise, there would be lots of people who reached the Paramount level before attempting godly ascension. There are a lot of books here on the second floor, and some of them contain speculations on that very subject. For instance, there are ways to strengthen your fleshly body. However, I don’t think that’s the answer. My current guess is that the information we need is on the third or fourth floor. Or maybe even higher. We need to see the personal records of the real top experts.”

1. Bai Yin: Bai is a common surname which also means “white”. Yin means “mark, seal, stamp, image”.