Xuan-Emperor walked with him into the Black Tortoise Heaven Palace, summoned a turtle-backed divine attendant, and produced a divine whip. He ordered, "Yooming was too talkative and made me spend ninety-nine Five-Thunder War Gourds. Take my divine whip and go reward him with ninety-nine lashes."
The turtle-backed attendant received the whip with both hands and turned to leave.
Quinn hesitated for a moment but did not plead on Yooming's behalf.
Dragon-Qilin and Annie exchanged glances. Annie whispered, "Why didn't the young master plead for Yooming? After all, Yooming gave us directions and has a good temperament. Now he's getting ninety-nine lashes instead."
Dragon-Qilin quietly said, "The Cult Master's words carry little weight..."
Quinn shot him a glare, and Dragon-Qilin immediately shut his mouth.
Ahead stood a stone statue, its features somewhat resembling Pioneer Emperor Qin Ye.
Quinn stepped forward and examined it. Sure enough, it was the Pioneer Emperor's statue, only much younger—the sculpture was full of youthful vigor, not the mature steadiness of today.
"Our relationship with the Pioneer Emperor wasn't bad. In the early days of the Pioneer Era, before he founded the Kaihuang Heaven Court, he came here once."
Xuan-Emperor said, "This statue once stood in the middle of the sword academy he founded, called the True-Martial Sword Academy. He taught here, and many of Northern Extremity Heaven's young disciples apprenticed under him to learn swordsmanship. I exchanged insights with him here, learned his sword Dao, and he sought my advice on formations. Nearly forty thousand years have passed, but in Northern Extremity Heaven there are still many sword experts who inherit his lineage—they are known as the True-Martial Sword Order."
Xuan-Emperor led Quinn around, and sure enough, Quinn saw the many foundation stones of the True-Martial Sword Academy. The academy was huge—back in the day, thousands of Black Tortoise disciples must have studied here.
But after the Pioneer Era ended, Heavenly Court ordered the True-Martial Sword Academy to be dismantled. Only this stone statue was preserved.
Xuan-Emperor said, "If the disciples of the True-Martial Sword Academy hear you've come, they'll be overjoyed. Qin Ye also brought two girls and a woodcutter—one named Aurora Yates, one named Yanyunxi, and the woodcutter was Wentian Pavilion, very polite. Aurora Yates studied the Black Tortoise Dao with me, Yanyunxi learned formations, and the woodcutter studied numerology. They were all exceptionally clever, and their later achievements surpassed mine. I learned a lot from them too."
"Did Zixi Celestial Master and the Woodcutter Teacher also come here?"
Quinn's heart stirred. He asked, "Did the Pioneer Emperor visit Eastern Extremity Heaven?"
"Of course he did."
Xuan-Emperor said, "Back then, Qin Ye also founded an academy in Eastern Extremity Heaven called the True-Dragon Academy, which was quite famous. The one who cultivated with him was a true dragon named Azure Emperor, the incarnation of the Pioneer Realm's dragon vein."
Quinn pondered for a moment. He hadn't seen any traces left by the Pioneer Emperor in Eastern Extremity Heaven; it seemed Eastern Emperor had erased everything.
This alone showed the difference in style between Eastern Emperor and Xuan-Emperor. Eastern Emperor is stubborn and controlling—if he can't control something, he erases all traces of it.
But Xuan-Emperor is more sentimental about old ties. Even after the Pioneer Emperor's fall and the end of his era, he kept the statue, and many disciples in Northern Extremity Heaven still practice sword Dao.
In that era, the Pioneer Emperor pushed sword Dao—an acquired Dao—to its absolute limit, driving a grand reform. Besides sword Dao, the Dao of formations, forging, saber, and many other acquired Daos flourished and reached their peak during the Pioneer Era.
You could say the Pioneer Era was the explosive age of acquired Daos, gradually shining alongside innate Daos.
As for Xuan-Emperor, he’s a master of formations and numerology. It shows he doesn’t reject acquired Daos, but because of his innate nature, he can’t push them to their ultimate extremes.
They walked on, and Quinn saw even more traces left by the Pioneer Emperor: the sword debate platform, the sword-washing pool, Yanyunxi’s Heaven-Earth chess game, and Aurora Yates’s Black Tortoise Six-Directions scripture wall.
Quinn asked, "If the Pioneer Emperor and Xuan-Emperor were so close, why did you lend out the Northern Emperor’s divine weapon that ended the Pioneer Era?"
Xuan-Emperor replied, "It was the general trend—there was no choice. My hope was that if the Pioneer Era could last three hundred thousand years like the Supreme Sovereign Era, the acquired Daos would imprint the void, and the gods of that era would transform into new ancient gods. Then we could stand against Heavenly Court."
Quinn was shaken—so the ancient gods cultivated the Pioneer Era to create a new batch of ancient gods!
"At that point, the interests of the Pioneer Era would be united with ours. They’d become new ancient gods, and together we could wipe out Heavenly Court. The Pioneer Emperor would become the new Ancient-God Heavenly Emperor."
Xuan-Emperor said, "Even if we didn’t get three hundred thousand years, ten thousand years would have been enough for the Pioneer Era to stand on its own and split the world with Heavenly Court, making them hesitate to move against us. But we never imagined Heavenly Court would only allow twenty thousand years. Faced with such overwhelming trend, we had to compromise—otherwise, it would have meant extinction."
He walked toward the Jade Platform, shaking his head and sighing, muttering, "Only twenty thousand years... As for Yankang, heh, just eight hundred years..."
Quinn caught up, hesitated, and asked, "Xuan-Emperor, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but your relationship with Wu-Empress seems strained. Why is that?"
"You noticed too?"
Xuan-Emperor sighed, "Wu-Empress and I were both born as Celestial River deities, each governing a stretch of the river, with no connection. Later, as more ancient gods appeared, our combined power was a bit weaker than Azure Dragon or Empress, but together we were the strongest of the Four Emperors."
He led Quinn past the Jade Pool; even the Jade Pool in Black Tortoise Heaven Palace was split in two.
The Black Tortoise Heaven Palace was much smaller than Heavenly Court. Ahead lay the God-Slaying Platform.
Quinn’s expression turned odd—the God-Slaying Platform had been neatly split, and even the two intertwined God-Slaying blades atop it were separated, leaving only a single thread of blood-colored baleful qi.
Xuan-Emperor said, "We merged for self-preservation and status, so others called us the Northern Emperor Black Tortoise. But our tempers clashed—small fights every three days, big ones every five, life became unbearable. Others stirred up trouble too. So when the Dragon-Han Era split, we just split everything."
He chuckled darkly, "That witch even wanted to split our child in half! Luckily, Yooming was under punishment then, or he really would have been divided."
Quinn’s expression grew stranger—these two are so stubborn, they’d even split their own child.
After that, sons went with me, daughters with her. Over time, Northern Extremity Heaven became what it is today.