Chapter 263: Chapter 215: 40 Years: The Jade-faced Judge!
Jade Pot Island.
Located one hundred and eight thousand miles away from Radiant Light Island, it requires nonstop flying for six days and six nights at the speed of a First-order Flying Boat. If using a regular sea vessel or an Innate Cultivator, it would take two months of sailing.
Chen Jichuan instructed six disciples and twenty-four attendants to take turns operating the flying boat.
On the eighth day, they finally reached Jade Pot Island.
"Shaped like a jade pot."
"No wonder it’s called ’Jade Pot Island’. "
Hovering in the air, Chen Jichuan looked down at the whole Jade Pot Island, and saw that the island resembled a jade pot lying on its side, lifelike in every detail.
The island was shrouded in mist, ethereal like a fairyland.
Spanning several hundred miles, it was crisscrossed with hidden rivers, in which lived a kind of Spiritual Object called ’Cloud Brocade Fish’, which exhaled ’Five-Colored Spiritual Energy’. This energy could be collected to refine magical treasures like brocade garments, nets, and sashes.
Of considerable value.
However, because the Nine Refinement Immortal Mansion had too many properties, and Jade Pot Island was too far from Radiant Light Island, it had long been only nominally occupied.
This time, the school added another Immortal Master.
Chen Jichuan was sent to sit guard over Jade Pot Island, cleanse the island of spirit creatures, and collect Five-Colored Spiritual Energy.
"Let’s go."
"Descend."
The Magic Boat landed directly on Jade Pot Island.
...
Legend has it.
In the Ancient Era, spirit creatures ran rampant, feeding on humans and slaughtering wantonly.
The Immortal Dao was in decline.
Until the Seven Emperors Sword Sect’s seven emperors emerged, wielding swords to sweep across the world, conquering Central Continent. They used Central Continent as a base, sweeping through the Slaughter Ring Sea, unleashing destruction that split the heavens and sundered the earth, nearly exterminating the spirit creatures.
The battle was fierce.
The seven Sword Emperors chose death over dishonor, causing the world to fracture, and their status to plummet. To this day, no one comparable to the seven Sword Emperors has appeared.
Yet thereafter, the Immortal Dao flourished, and the Human Clan overturned their fortunes. The remaining Great Demons and the emerging Demon Kings could only hide in desolate, harsh lands, barren regions where even other cultivators were unwilling to venture, barely clinging to life.
They no longer posed a threat.
But the world is full of life, and where there is life, there is always a chance for spirit monsters to emerge, making it impossible to completely eradicate them.
Like Jade Pot Island.
Long deserted, the island saw many demon beasts and spirit creatures born on the island or migrated from elsewhere. Chen Jichuan, stationed here, must eliminate these spirit creatures.
"What a pity."
"They are all insignificant."
Chen Jichuan employed the ’Blood Light Refraction Taiyin Divine Mirror Technique’ to examine Jade Pot Island and discovered there were no spirit monsters comparable to First-order Qi Refinement, feeling somewhat disappointed.
If there were First-order spirit monsters.
His skills could easily subdue them, enlisting them to guard Jade Pot Island. As things stood, he would have to search elsewhere.
For unthreatening spirit monsters, Chen Jichuan was too lazy to bother.
So he let Zhang Pei and other attendants, along with the six disciples, scatter and eliminate the spirit monsters on the island. Meanwhile, he took Song Dazhi to the island’s highest peak, ’Jade Cover Mountain’, to establish a cave dwelling.
From then on.
They settled on Jade Pot Island.
...
Jade Pot Island.
Jade Cover Mountain.
Chen Jichuan sat cross-legged in his cave dwelling, holding a volume of scrolls in his hands.
The pages exuded a fragrance, made from cultivator-crafted ’Lanxiang Paper’, preserving texts against decay for millennia, making it most suitable for recording written works.
"Not as convenient or enduring as a Jade Scroll."
"But reading requires a sense of ritual; turning pages gives a completely different feeling than consulting a Jade Scroll. Many cultivators throughout history preferred using books for study and learning, reserving Jade Scrolls for backups and archives."
Chen Jichuan flipped through the pages, savoring the tranquility and peace of reading.
On the book’s cover were the words ’Erosion Text Detailed Explanation Volume 1 Volume 1’.
Beside Chen Jichuan, there were seven or eight thick stacks, from the second volume to the ninth, with each volume consisting of several dozen scrolls; the sum was substantial.
"Erosion Text."
"Each word carries a thousand meanings, every word a gem."
Chen Jichuan immersed himself, gradually becoming absorbed.
The Erosion Text was complex.
Every single character held intricate meanings, and stringing words into a sentence rendered it as inscrutable as celestial script.
Yet this was the language of cultivators.
Gleaned directly from the truths of heaven and earth, innate and forged by nature.
Having traversed multiple worlds, Chen Jichuan understood the importance of ’Erosion Text’ more profoundly: "In the mundane realm, between nations and across dynasties, the characters differ greatly, often to the point of irreconcilable disparity. The Cultivation World is vast, with millions of unique scripts. For instance, if I were to write a Cultivation Technique in Chinese, even if it spread, no one in the Jade Spring World or Qinling World, or the Slaughter Ring Sea could comprehend it."
Therefore.
If in the same realm, like the Jade Spring World, there were no Erosion Texts, a cultivator obtaining a Cultivation Technique they can’t read would have to seek out a scholar knowledgeable in various languages for interpretation.
Or learn and translate it themselves.
A process that’s both time-consuming and labor-intensive.
If the script is lost, so is the Cultivation Technique.
But with Erosion Text, everything changes.
"Recording Cultivation Techniques in Erosion Text not only ensures accuracy but also resolves linguistic barriers."
Chen Jichuan nodded continually.
Coming from the modern world, he understood the importance of ’unified script’ implicitly. If the world had only one language, one set of characters, though it might miss out on cultural diversity and the joys of different languages, many would be spared the ordeal of learning foreign languages.
This is a monumental achievement.
Of course.
Compared to Erosion Text, many cultivators might be more inclined to delve into other languages.
No other reason except—
"It’s too difficult."
As Chen Jichuan read through the ’Erosion Text Detailed Explanation’, learning each Erosion Text character, densely annotated, even he couldn’t help but feel a numbness in his scalp.
Finally understanding.
It’s merely a ’dictionary’, a ’sea of terms’, yet it extends to nine volumes, with several hundred scrolls.
"The meanings of individual Erosion Text characters."
"The meanings of combined Erosion Text characters."
"The grammar of Erosion Text."
"The pronunciation of Erosion Text."