The Grand Archive Tower spans hundreds of floors, each lined with countless jade slips, every slip inscribed with a vast array of runes. To memorize all these runes in full is an almost impossible task.
"If you want to do a good job, you need the right tools. If you tried to memorize them one by one, how many years would it take?"
Quinn Shepherd sat on the stairs, wide-eyed, watching as Lucas Lin, Sterling Xiao, and Scarlett Redshaw scrambled around, trying to memorize the runes on the jade slips. Scarlett had already recovered; after half a day regaining her composure, she was back to normal.
She understood the stakes, and had already decided to fake her death and escape as soon as she left this jade tower. For now, she joined the others in memorizing the runes on the jade slips.
Even memorizing the rune sequences from a single floor was a terrifying feat. These sequences could reconstruct the Dao structure of an ancient god—imagine how complex that must be. Pure memorization was no longer enough.
Even for prodigies like them, it would take ten days to half a month to finish a single floor.
The ancient god rune-Daos on the lower floors were considered relatively simple, but once you reached the Four Emperors’ level, the memorization load multiplied dozens or even hundreds of times.
At the floors devoted to Heaven Duke, Earth Mother, Tu Bo, and the Heavenly Emperor, the amount of information would multiply several times again.
Just recording everything perfectly, without a single mistake, would take centuries, maybe even a thousand years—and Quinn Shepherd couldn’t possibly stay here that long.
More importantly, the Grand Archive Tower is one of the most important buildings in the Heavenly Court—someone from the Heavenly Court could show up at any moment. Dao Ancestor would never let them stay here for so long.
The longer they delayed, the more dangerous it became.
In other words, they had just a few days to memorize the runes on the jade slips and then get out.
Quinn rested his chin in his hand, lost in thought.
Dao Lord Lucas Lin, Sterling Xiao, and Scarlett Redshaw were working furiously, flipping through jade slips and desperately trying to memorize them. From time to time, the three glanced over, only to see Quinn still sitting there, completely unconcerned.
The three of them couldn’t help but feel puzzled.
After a while, Sterling Xiao suddenly realized, "It’s impossible to memorize all the runes in the Grand Archive Tower in just a few days. I’m not that smart, and my memory isn’t that strong. So, I’ll pick the best—the Heavenly Emperor’s rune-Dao. Memorizing the Heavenly Emperor’s rune-Dao is the optimal solution!"
Having figured this out, he immediately left his floor and headed for the top.
At the same time, Dao Lord Lucas Lin came to a realization: "There’s no way I can memorize every floor. So, I’ll extract the base runes from the ancient gods’ rune-Daos, assign them numbers, and break the base rune sequences into categories—one, two, three, four, five... If I memorize a few hundred base runes and then just recite the numbered sequences, I can record an ancient god’s Dao rune system much faster!"
Excited, he immediately started assigning numbers.
Scarlett Redshaw, dizzy from all the runes, suddenly had an epiphany: "My master is Southern Emperor Vermilion, and I’m half Vermilion Bird demigod myself. What’s the point of memorizing other ancient gods’ Dao runes? Because my lineage is different, cultivating those runes would be twice the effort for half the result. My optimal solution is to go to Southern Emperor’s floor and memorize those Dao runes—they’ll benefit my cultivation most!"
She immediately headed for Southern Emperor’s floor.
The three each busied themselves, while Quinn Shepherd still sat on the first-floor steps, lost in thought.
The others had no time to bother with him, focusing on their own tasks. After a while, during a break, they glanced over and saw Quinn had gotten up at some point, pulled out a pile of calculation tools, pen, ink, and paper, and was busy writing, sketching, and operating a spirit-calc engine to solve complex problems.
After a short rest, each returned to memorizing Dao runes.
When their brains could take no more and they rested again, they saw Quinn setting up a forge on the first floor, taking out a pile of divine metal, lighting the furnace, and stuffing a Heavenly Fire crystal inside to smelt the metal.
The three were puzzled, but couldn’t spare the attention; after a short rest, they went back to work.
Clang, clang, clang.
Hammering echoed from downstairs, making the three even more confused. Peeking down, they saw Quinn forging an eight-armed demon-god statue. He summoned its spirit, and the statue came alive, grabbing eight huge hammers and pounding a massive chunk of divine metal.
Quinn stood beside it, channeling demonic flame arts, divine fire arts, and Kuishui water arts to continuously refine the divine metal.
The three said nothing and kept memorizing.
After a long time, Quinn was still forging, and the hammering noise made it impossible for the three to concentrate.
Scarlett Redshaw couldn’t take it anymore. Furious, she poked her head out and shouted upstairs, "Brother Xiao, that Quinn guy’s gone mad! He’s not studying and won’t let us study either. Let’s team up and take him out!"
Sterling Xiao, also driven to impatience by the noise, hesitated and shook his head, "No. You can’t beat Lucas Lin. I’m not weaker than him, but if he and Lucas Lin team up, I’m doomed."
After another long while, even Dao Lord Lucas Lin was dizzy from the noise. He poked his head downstairs and shouted, "Cult Master Quinn, could you keep it down? It’s too loud!"
Sterling Xiao leaned down from above and called, "Daoist Lin, since we’re both from Dao Gate, we’re brothers—why not join forces and take out Madman Quinn? Sharpening the axe won’t delay chopping firewood; if we get rid of him, we’ll memorize faster!"
Scarlett Redshaw also poked her head out, nodding repeatedly, "He’s not studying, and he won’t let us memorize either—he’s terrible! If we get rid of him, we can finally study in peace!"
Dao Lord Lucas Lin shook his head, "Don’t talk nonsense. Cult Master Quinn always acts with deep purpose—there must be a reason for what he’s doing. I’m just asking him to keep it down."
Quinn kept hammering away. The eight-armed demon-god statue was eventually smashed to scrap and tossed into a Glutton Dragon Pouch; this time he forged personally, and his speed was still impressive.
Lucas Lin looked down and saw that Quinn was forging a mirror, hammering Creation-Dao runes into it to expand the space inside.
"What’s he doing?" Dao Lord Lucas Lin wondered, unable to figure it out, and went back to memorizing runes.
After another day or two, they got used to the forging sounds from downstairs. No matter how noisy it was, it no longer bothered them.
[Irrelevant reader note. Skip.]
Suddenly, the hammering stopped. The three of them nearly lost their minds, all poking their heads out. Scarlett Redshaw’s eyes widened, about to speak, when Dao Lord Lucas Lin roared, "Quinn, you bastard, why’d you stop? If you’re not hammering away, we can’t concentrate!"
Scarlett couldn’t help laughing out loud, "Dao Lord Lin is always so steady—who knew his temper was worse than mine!"
Quinn was downstairs, sweeping the floor until it was spotless, leaving no trace behind. He looked up and said, "It’s finished. Wait a moment, I’ll come up once I’m done cleaning."
After a while, he floated up to the second floor, carrying a mirror with his vital qi. The three peeked over to see Quinn wrap up rolls of jade slips with his vital qi, unfurl them, and reflect them in the mirror.
Then Quinn put the jade slips back and went up to the third floor.
He repeated the process, and soon reached Lucas Lin’s floor.
Dao Lord Lucas Lin looked into the mirror and was stunned—inside, there were rows of opened jade slips, with Dao runes clearly visible on each one.
The jade slips were neatly arranged in rows, making it easy to check the rune inscriptions at any time.
"Stop memorizing."
Quinn arranged the jade slips from the shelf in midair and reflected them in the mirror, smiling, "Even if you had a hundred years, you wouldn’t memorize every floor. And if you made a mistake, you’d never know where it was."
Lucas Lin compared the mirror’s images to the jade slips on this floor and found them identical—no errors at all.
The only difference was that the jade slips in the mirror were reversed.
"When I go to Dao Gate to study, I’ll give you a copy."
Quinn headed upstairs, leaving Lucas Lin dumbfounded. "After you’ve reprocessed everything with the Grand Micro Numerology Canon, give me a copy."
Lucas Lin snapped out of it and hurried after him, numb as he watched Quinn rapidly imprint rows of jade slip runes into the mirror.
"Is this mirror made with the Painting Sage’s picture-world technique?" he couldn’t help but ask.
"That’s right."
Without turning his head, Quinn said, "It also uses my Grandpa Mute Smith’s forging method, plus Crimson Emperor and Bright Emperor’s Creation-arts, and Granny Sue’s Primordial Magnetism Divine Arts to fold extra space inside the mirror."
Dao Lord Lucas Lin’s eyes were vacant as he muttered, "So good, so good..."
"Yes," Quinn turned and gave a kind smile.
Lucas Lin found Quinn’s kindly smile inexplicably annoying, wishing he could punch him in the face.
Soon, Quinn reached Scarlett Redshaw’s floor. Under the gaze of the girl in red, he imprinted Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird’s runes and headed upstairs.
Scarlett stared blankly, dazed as she followed Lucas Lin upstairs.
"Is Quinn the Tyrant Body from Yankang always this clever and eccentric?" she couldn’t help asking Lucas.
Lucas Lin replied helplessly, "He’s always been like this. His brain works differently from ours, I..."
He shook his head with a bitter smile, "I don’t know how his mind works—maybe the Tyrant Body’s brain has a unique structure."
Finally, Quinn reached Sterling Xiao’s floor. Sterling stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide, dumbfounded as Quinn imprinted all the jade slip runes into the mirror in mere moments.
Thud.
Sterling collapsed onto the floor, limbs limp and utterly dejected.
Lucas Lin reached out to him, smiling gently, "It’s okay, you’ll get used to it. There’s a long road ahead."
Quinn stretched lazily and grinned, "Finally done. As for the Creation-Dao runes at the top floor, there’s no need for those. Once we imprint these runes, the Dao Ancestor should send us back to Azure Cloud Heaven..."
Just as he said this, voices came from outside the building, gradually approaching. A loud voice declared, "Things have been peaceful in the Archive Pavilion lately, haven’t they?"
"Archive Pavilion is the forbidden of forbidden places—who would dare come here?" an older voice replied with a chuckle.
"Hmm, that’s true."
The loud voice continued, "His Majesty means that the Creation-Dao artifact is finished—extract the runes first, then make that body."
The older voice sounded doubtful, "Isn’t it a bit early to make it now? Many runes aren’t perfected yet, and the thirty-six different Celestial Palaces haven’t been found..."
From the bottom floor came the sound of a door opening, and two long shadows appeared in Quinn and the others’ view.
Quinn gestured for silence, signaling everyone to retreat. The four quickly withdrew to a corner of the Jade Tower to avoid being discovered.
Quinn quietly observed the two shadows—one was especially resplendent, with flame-like patterns radiating behind his head.
"His Majesty means, make it first—the other runes can be perfected later."
The flame-patterned shadow entered the building, the loud voice continuing, "It’s just that Celestial Venerable Heaven and Earth Venerable are hard to deal with—they’re stubborn and arrogant..."
Quinn’s heart skipped a beat, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead: "Celestial Venerable Fire! That’s Celestial Venerable Fire!"
Sterling Xiao, Lucas Lin, and Scarlett Redshaw’s faces turned to despair—the newcomers were heading upstairs and would soon reach the top!
When that happened, the four of them would have nowhere to run or hide!
"Why hasn’t the Dao Ancestor sent us away yet?" Sterling clenched his fists, trembling.
Quinn frowned—now that Celestial Venerable Fire and the other were climbing the tower, the Dao Ancestor was probably too busy to send them away!
If the Dao Ancestor used his divine arts, Celestial Venerable Fire would surely notice!
Celestial Venerable Fire was one of the Nine Celestial Venerables of old, the creator of the Heaven and Man Divine Treasury—older than the Dao Ancestor himself!
His power probably surpassed even the Dao Ancestor!
Quinn gritted his teeth and suddenly turned—a pitch-black Gate of Bearing Heaven appeared silently on the top floor, without a trace of vital qi fluctuation.
Quinn’s eyes flashed, signaling Lucas Lin.
Lucas stepped forward. Quinn’s hands danced through countless mudras, then abruptly stopped, pressing his index and middle fingers to Lucas’s forehead, sealing his body and soul together, and pushing him back.
Lucas was sent tumbling into the Gate of Bearing Heaven—into Youdu.
Quinn looked at Sterling, who hurried over and was sent to Youdu in the same way.
Scarlett rushed forward, and Quinn cast his spell again. Just then, a voice drifted up from below: "These two ancient gods are old, but stubborn and inflexible, blind to the greater trend."
The two voices drew closer to the top floor: "Each has their own agenda. Heaven Venerable is easier to deal with, but Earth Venerable is cunning. Fortunately, Earth Venerable’s daughter is still in Heaven Court, and the Son of Youdu has been born—they’re the key to dealing with Earth Venerable..."
Quinn’s heart skipped again, his vital qi scattering in panic. At that moment, a terrifying wave surged up from below, flooding the hundreds of floors of the Archive Pavilion!
"Someone’s sneaked in!" Celestial Venerable Fire’s voice rang out!
Quinn’s face changed drastically. He jabbed Scarlett’s brow and pushed her into Youdu!
At that moment, Celestial Venerable Fire’s figure appeared on the top floor, sneering, "How dare you sneak into the Archive Pavilion! Such nerve! You’re right in front of me—you can’t escape!"
Quinn sighed softly, turned around, and smiled, "Celestial Venerable Fire, long time no see."
[Irrelevant author note. Skip.]