Chapter 3: Godly Supreme Hall

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Circulating the Qi inside his body, Shen Qin entered a meditative state as he recalled Song Huang Xue’s memories.

It was now the Era of Qigong, approximately 50,000 Mortal Years have passed since Shen Qin had returned to this Earthly Land. After two grand eras, this was the second era to have come to birth.

This world, one of many created aeons ago by Pangu, was currently giving birth to innumerable amounts of martial art experts known as ‘cultivators.’ They are "defyers" of Heaven who practice Qigong, which is the arts of manipulating a type of energy in the human body called ‘Qi’, or ‘life energy’.

With Qi energy, a cultivator was able to strength beyond that of a common mortal and their body was much resilient as well. To train in the way of martial arts were essentially the same as purging the body of impurities and strengthening one’s core.

In the Earthly Land, which was only three billion years old, practitioners were broken down into categories based on the cultivation realms they have reached. These Qigong realms were as follows, from the lowest to highest:

Temporal Di (Earth), Jie Hai (Unlocking Ocean), Tian (Sky), Profound He (Fusion), Dao Ascent, Heavenly Wang (King), Empyrean Hun (Soul), Divine Zhu (Monarch), Saint Overlord, Immortal Sovereign, and the Godly Martial Realm

They were then further separated into 9 stages, with each higher level becoming harder to break through.

Peak experts even possessed the power to fly across skies and split apart large mountains! They were the true sons of Heaven, wielding strength that was impossible for normal people to fathom.

And this man, Song Huang Xue was one of such apex cultivators.

A mortal who had painstaking trained for nine thousand years to reach the pinnacle of the Immortal Sovereign realm, and another nine hundred years to dissolve the bottleneck in his cultivation,

Song Huang Xue was bona fide peerless expert of the Earthly Land. His name was very well-known across martial arts world, and his influence was equally extraordinary.

In fact, part of Song Huang Xue’s great influence was due to a Sect that he had personally constructed a few thousands years back.

To say the least, Song Huang Xue could be considered an Ancestral figure in the Godly Supreme Hall, which was a part of the Three Absolute Grand Sects within the Earthly Land! His grand sect has reigned strong over the entire world for at least ninety-eight million years!

Along with the Sacred Demon Sect, and the Eternal Sword Spirit Palace, these three were considered the ruling powers not only within their respective country, but across the entire cultivation world as well!

Situated among the sole Continent of Feng Shui on a massive piece of land known as the Jin Han Empire, the ancient sect was considered an overlord entity in the vast country. Even though the Godly Supreme Hall was located in a rather desolate area filled with forests, being not a part of a given province, all nineteen provinces within the Jin Han Empire all willingly bow down to this absolute hegemony. The royal clan of the Empire itself was no exception.

Moreover, as one of the three grand sects, there were relatively few struggles between the Godly Supreme Hall and other powers across the continent. If anything, it was only the three ancient sects that were competing with one another. They were considered the sole top-level existences among this mortal domain after all.

However, there was a pact between the Three Absolute Grand Sects that forbid any fighting among themselves. It was said to be a way for the three powers to enjoy their influence without needlessly harming each other. A kind of cease-fire proposal, if you will.

As such, the Godly Supreme Hall have not encounter any truly big problems for the last several hundred years from its initial creation! It was simply living the life of a king, and this was even more so for the Song Huang Xue.

Over the years, with the deaths of the other ancestors, Song Huang Xue soon became the only living ancestor alive. There are very few who had the qualification to speak with him. This could be discerned through the peaceful palace, called the Song Palace, in which he stayed in being void of any other person. It was also because of this, that last night’s turmoil within the Song Palace had gone unnoticed. The palace itself was in a discreet location, several miles away from his Sect after all.

“Song Huang Xue…”Shen Qin murmured as an aged, deep voice echoed from his flesh body. “Although I did not intend to take over your dying body, I will bear this responsibility. However, I still need to deal with this curse and return to where I came from...so, I will have to apologize in advance for the burden that may come onto this body in the future, For now, I shall be using your identity...I pray for your safe reincarnation.”

Shen Qin then lifted up and placed both his palms together in a praying gesture. Even though he was god, Shen Qin had not trained to such a degree as to lose his emotions or even forget his own origin as a mortal himself.

“I guess I shall see the current situation outside and then decide on the steps to take…I do not believe that in a worldly population of over fifteen billion mortals and myriads of possibilities, that I cannot find a way to dispel this curse and return back!” Song Huang Xue (Shen Qin) muttered as he got up from his bed. A resolute glow flickered within his aged, black eyes.

Walking up to an open window, Song Huang Xue’s body blurred for a moment before his body disappeared from view.

Only the declining strong wind in the room that was being sucked towards the window showed that the elder had indeed been present a second before…

***

Several miles east from Song Palace, there was a vast patch of land with forests and mountains decorating around its border. Mountain ranges stood tall, while there were large mists rolling out from nearby waterfalls, creating a surreal scene

On that same impressive ground, there were numerous grand brick buildings were situated next to one another.

These were known as cultivation halls, areas where disciples of a sect would go to when they are in need of training resources. Each hall had their own specialized field of expertise, such as pills, weapons, martial arts techniques among many others.

This spacious and splendid land was home to one of this world’s most powerful sect: The Godly Supreme Hall!

At the center of the Sect ground, was a particularly eye-catching tower in the vague shape of a dragon ascending towards the sky. This massive construction was named the “Head Martial Tower”, a place where only elders and high-ranking members of the Godly Supreme Hall could enter. It was one of the ninety-nine halls within the Sect ground, and the sole one that disciples were forbidden to enter. It was also the tallest and largest, in terms of physical appearance, out of all the other towers.

There were a total of six floors, with the bottom three floors reserved as dorms for the elders, fourth for honored visitors, and the fifth for grand guests, such as emperors of other countries or particularly great cultivators. The sixth floor is only reserved for the Sect Master, Grand Elders, and Ancestors of the Godly Supreme Hall.

Aside from the several imposing buildings, there were also several specks of moving dots roaming the land. Upon a closer look, one could see that these ‘dots’ were in fact people. Every person seemed to be wearing a different kind of outfit. Some wore pink dresses, some went with dark blue robes, while others donned on expensive silk paos. But, no matter how one dressed, on each person’s chest there was an identical Bagua crest, with a faint outline of a dragon head, attached to their clothes. This symbolised one’s identity as a disciple of the Godly Supreme Hall!

(‘Pao’ (Hanfu) = traditional chinese robe. Ex: http://www.finechineseclothing.com/BACKEND/Resource/ProductPic/420_680/mhf-6022-new.jpg )

Most of them looked youthful, seeming to be no older than twenty of years old, while there were some who looked to be around twenty-two to twenty-four years old. Excluding the scarce number of elders patrolling the ground, there were no disciples older than twenty-six within the Godly Supreme Hall. The entire school population itself was no greater than nine million elders and disciples.

The reason is simply because the ones who were able to enter this legendary sect were all geniuses in their own rights. Their natural talent and aptitude towards a specific area were several times higher than normal cultivators, and even a few times greater than those geniuses from other sects!

It was said that even the weakest disciple of the Godly Supreme Hall, if placed in another sect, would easily be able to become one of that faction’s strongest core disciples.

Moreover, while every level in one’s martial cultivation is like an unreachable gap, each Godly Supreme Hall disciple, at minimum, possessed the ability to battle against those of a single level higher. As for the core disciples? Even fighting cultivators two or three levels above themselves was not an impossible feat!

This was the superiority and quality of disciples from the Godly Supreme Hall! It was practically a den of monsters, in one sense or another, out a world population of nearly fifteen billion mortals...