I Shall Steal the Heavens 174 Chapter 173: The Dragon King's Palace

"What the hell, man?!" Long Shen demanded, visibly taken aback. "Why are you screaming like that all of a sudden?!"

"B…but…" I protested in panic. "If this is the Dragon King's Palace and if you're the Dragon King, then by the time I get out of this Spirit World, a few hundred years would have passed in reality and my friends and family would all be long dead!"

"They won't be if they are cultivators," Long Shen pointed out, crossed. "Cultivators live very long lives. Most live for hundreds of years, some even live for over a thousand or two thousand years. They'll be fine."

"Uh, I don't think that's how cultivation works," I muttered. "It helps you live a longer life by maintaining hygiene and staying healthy, but it doesn't make you an immortal."

"That's all academic, anyway." Long Shen coughed. "Don't worry. Time flows here the same way as in the outside world. So if you spend three days here, only three days will pass in the outside world. You don't have to worry about uncoordinated time and temporal paradoxes or temporal dilation and all that nonsense here."

"Really?" I felt relieved. "Thank you!"

"Don't thank me yet." Long Shen grinned mischievously. "It also means that if you're stuck here for years, that same number of years would have passed outside in the outside world. There is no convenient cultivating or training here for decades and then coming out to find out that only a few days or months have passed."

"Dude, we've already ripped off a bunch of xianxia stories. I don't think we need to rip off Xian Ni or Renegade Immortal as well."

Especially given how ruthless Wang Lin turned out to be (though he's much better than Lin Feng from Peerless Martial God), I certainly had no intention of emulating him. Granted, Wang Lin had very good reasons for becoming ruthless, and he wasn't evil, which made him way, way, way better than an asshole like Lin Feng, but he was a little too cold-blooded for my liking. That wasn't to say I was in the pacifist camp where people should spare those trying to kill you, but he was…well, never mind. This had nothing to do with the current situation.

Point is, I was glad there was no different temporality in alternative spaces bullshit here or I would be either crying when I got out, or those existences beyond the fourth wall would be demanding that I exploit this and become the typical overpowered protagonist. Like those dudes thinking it was somehow practical for me to make return trips to the abyss of Shen Lin Forest, fighting through hordes of demonic creatures and spending months climbing or descending levels just to exploit the miraculous Green Dragon Spring. No thanks. As miraculous as those effects were, it just wasn't worth the trouble or time. Not to mention, there was a limit to how much I could take. I certainly couldn't bring the whole goddamned spring with me, as much as Da0_King wanted me to. At that time I only had a bottle of water with me, what was I supposed to do? And I ended up spilling the damned water during the battle with the Hydra so it was a moot point anyway.

For some reason people wanted protagonists to exploit loopholes and become overpowered, then cry and rage when they don't. Like, seriously, if I gain a Deus ex Machina or a cheat item right from the start, then there was no tension in the story, I would be winning every battle and not needing to fear for my life. There was no need to read on because quite obviously I would never die and lose because I had miraculous healing water.

Even now that I had a void storage device that allowed me to theoretically store infinite amounts of water from the spring, it honestly wasn't worth the trouble falling through the abyss and spending months fighting demonic creatures to reach the spring and return home. Besides, I had no idea how to get there. I was unconscious when the river swept me away from the Hydra, and from what my classmates told me, the Glacial Gemstone trap no longer worked after that one time it was triggered, so there was no way to get to the abyss again, and no one had any idea how to get back down there or they would have dispatched a rescue party to look for me in the first place.

"Are you done?"

Evidently I had been rambling to myself, for Long Shen was patiently watching me and waiting for me to finish. I immediately shut up and nodded.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." Long Shen turned away. "Since you've come all the way here, you might as well come in."

I followed him into the palace, and into a magnificent hall filled with gleaming marble pillars and a lot of ostensible decorations. Chains of shiny pearls hung from the ceiling, with a single chandelier lighting up the whole place. On closer inspection, I saw that the chandelier itself was composed of countless pearls.

Yeah, well, pearls were produced by oysters, and oysters were marine creatures. Though I was wondering how I ended up in the sea instead of a river – there was a huge difference between the two, the sea was saltwater and river was freshwater – I was wise enough not to ask and make a fool of myself. No doubt Long Shen would laugh at me without answering.

"Please, take a seat."

Long Shen gestured affably toward a luxurious couch in the hall, which looked as if it was made out of silk. He then took his place in an immense throne, settling comfortably into his embroidered seat and leaning back against the red and gold cushion.

"Er…"

"I know you have many questions." Long Shen raised a hand to forestall me. "But none of them matter. What you need to focus on is achieving enlightenment and comprehending the Spirit Diagram engraved in the pillar."

"Aren't we already inside the Spirit Diagram?" I muttered. Long Shen merely grinned in reply.

"What do you think?" he asked mysteriously. I knew it. The old bastard wasn't going to give me a straight answer. I had to figure everything out on my own.

Taking a deep breath, I glanced around. I had no idea where to start, and while I could feel immense amounts of qi emanating from Long Shen, I doubted I was supposed to start probing him. My host might be putting on a friendly façade, but the power he exuded was intimidating to the extreme. His gaze was intense.

"You're looking at the wrong place," he told me unnecessarily, his grin spreading a little wider. "I'm not the one you should be focusing on."

"Then what?" I demanded, but Long Shen shook his head and wagged his finger at me, as if he was lecturing a petulant child.

"You don't seriously expect me to be handing you the answer on a silver platter, do you? That will defeat the whole point of you comprehending the Spirit Diagram. No, you'll have to achieve enlightenment on your own."

I frowned. Something wasn't right about this whole situation, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then the coin dropped.

"If that's the case, then why invite me to your palace at all? Why allow me to set foot inside your main hall?"

"What are you talking about?" Long Shen was still sporting that cryptic smile, which was beginning to get on my nerves. "You're the one who found your way here. I might not be able to give you any hints, but I'm not going to deliberately obstruct you either."

"I found my way here?" I repeated incredulously. Long Shen merely continued to smile, but said nothing.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and thought back. How did I get here? Right, the goldfish led me here. But that was because…

…because I noticed something different about the goldfish. And I made the conscious decision to follow it. And my gamble paid off. The goldfish led me here, after I acknowledged it as my guide.

Was that what Long Shen meant when he said I found my way here?

Assuming that I was right, what was the next step? What was I supposed to do, now that I was in the Dragon King's palace? Wreck the place?

No. The Dragon King was too powerful. I knew instinctively that Long Shen was practically on the level of a god. With that much qi flowing around him, he could easily crush me with a single finger, as if I was nothing more than a mere ant.

Violence was not the solution.

Think…what did I do? The goldfish…there has to be a clue…

Then I remembered. The reason why I discovered the goldfish to be different was because I reached out with my Heaven and Earth senses and detected its presence. I ignored the tremendous amounts of qi crushing all around me and focused on the little guys swimming around me.

Could I not do the same here?

Calming myself down, I kept my eyes closed and reached out with my Heaven and Earth senses. Ignoring the godlike amount of qi that swirled around Long Shen, I felt for other sources of qi. It took me several seconds, but I was rewarded for my efforts when I detected faint amounts of qi all around me – qi that did not come from Long Shen.

They were coming from the palace. The very architecture of the Dragon King's Palace itself.

Opening my eyes, I glanced up and studied the structure of the palace. To my astonishment, there were countless images inscribed and sculpted into the very fabric of the walls and ceiling. These were no mere images. I could sense a vibrant flow of qi running along those vivid lines, seething with arcane power.

Isn't this the Spirit Diagram all over again?

Reminded of when I was communing with the Spirit Engraved Pillars in the outside world. This was another level of Inception. Spirit Diagrams within a Spirit Diagram. Someone had been watching too many Christopher Nolan films…his Dark Knight Trilogy was still the best, though.

In any case, I realized something different about these Spirit Diagrams. They weren't simply the same water motifs as the one I saw in the outside world. They depicted humans. Lots of humans moving and fighting and attacking.

No. I was mistaken. The Spirit Diagrams weren't featuring lots of humans. They were depicting a single human. The same guy was being replicated and reproduced over and over again throughout the walls and ceiling.

But his movements were different.

To my astonishment, I realized that the guy was executing various martial arts stances, postures and attacks. These were all martial arts techniques!

Right…when trying to inscribe the Spirit Diagrams into the tablet during my stay in Fire Prison Cliff, I found out that there was a Spirit Diagram for a martial arts manual. This must be the true essence of the martial arts manual!

Just like with the Spirit Diagram for Spirit Artifacts, I was unable to successfully reproduce the martial arts manual. It was only natural – the martial arts manual was a Spirit Artifact in its own right. If I wasn't able to comprehend its essence, or its true meaning, I would merely be superficially replicating the diagram, but it wouldn't be a real Spirit Diagram that possessed power. It would be an inert object that didn't really do much other than show fancy pictures.

"I see. So this is how it is…"

Standing up, I traced the movements of the man, trying to record everything with my glasses. To my lack of surprise, my glasses weren't working in this Spirit World. All of its hi-tech functions had been rendered offline and I couldn't activate them.

That made sense. I was not allowed to cheat. I had to understand the martial arts on my own, without any technological assistance.

"So how do I understand it?"

Just staring and studying the images was insufficient. I needed to do something. I needed to try out the movements and practice the techniques I was seeing right in front of me.

"Your majesty." Lowering my eyes, I turned to face Long Shen with a request. "I would like to borrow an empty room…"

My words trailed off when I realized that Long Shen was no longer present. He and his fancy throne had vanished, replaced by a wall inscribed with images of the guy executing more of those fluid martial arts.

Glancing around, I saw that the silk couch I was seated on a few seconds ago had vanished as well. I was no longer in the extravagant hall with the pearls and chandelier, but an enclosed room. I say enclosed, but it felt as if the room was stretching out forever, a vast, infinite space. At the same time, I could see the walls and ceiling all around me, keeping me contained.

It was a surreal sensation, to say the least.

"Well, it doesn't seem like I have a choice. The only way to get out of this place is to comprehend these techniques."

I moved my foot, and felt the water lap around it. Even though I had maintained the qi bubble around me, I could still feel the tremendous amounts of water crushing down on me. It wasn't the physical water pressure where tons of water weighted down on me at obscene depths, but just an ocean of qi enveloping me.

Makes sense. This is a water-based martial arts, after all.

So if I wanted to comprehend it, I would need to get used to the water. Well, easier said than done.

Sighing heavily, I proceeded to begin copying and mimicking the moves I saw all around me.

At first I was just going through the motions and not achieving anything other than to embarrass myself and feel foolish. I was glad I was doing this by myself without an audience, or everyone except me would be rolling on the floor, banging the concrete and howling with boisterous laughter while I wished I could dig a hole and bury myself in it.

"This isn't right…"

The same problem of merely copying, merely mimicking the motions but not actually understanding the truth behind them, or grasping the fundamental essence that they were constructed upon.

Hmm, an analogy would be me just copying and pasting text from a source and just quoting the original author without properly understanding the fundamental concept and framework underlying his argument. A criticism my professor had made of me more than once. It was one thing to read a book, but quite another to understand it.

Now, you must be wondering that if I knew my flaws, then why wasn't I doing anything to correct them?

Because it was easier said than done.

What did it mean to understand something? How do you grasp the conceptual framework and underlying essence of an argument or Spirit Diagram or martial arts, concretely? I couldn't just write this off as "I understood the essence." It wasn't a simple process like that. If anything, few people ever understood the deeper meanings or concepts. That was why not everyone could be a PhD student, and also why not everyone could be a master Spirit Engraver or master blacksmith or whatever. Only those who truly understood could become a master martial artist. There was a reason why so few of them existed. The vast majority just didn't have the ability to grasp the true essence of techniques.

And it wasn't as simple as "stages" or "levels." Unlike what Li Fu Chen would tell you, it wasn't about reaching the peak stage or the trance stage, nor was it always an uncomplicated, linear process of understanding. Hell, how did you even categorize your understanding of a concept? If you understand 100%, it's peak stage, if you understand 200% it's trance stage? In the first place, what did 100% even mean? Could you quantify a concept, or your understanding of a concept?

Even then, most people interpret a certain concept differently. While I wasn't as extreme to the point of claiming there was "no correct interpretations" or that "every interpretation is correct" – I acknowledged that some interpretations are more valid and persuasive than others, and that you can mistakenly interpret something or come up with a wrong interpretation – I was aware that there was no "single correct" interpretation. Different masters would have different interpretations of the same concept or technique, their own styles, experiences, personal biasness, affinity and other factors subtly changing the way they understood, interpreted and executed the technique. This was not to say there was an infinite number of ways to interpret a single technique or concept. The form and basic concept would always be the same. There would be a consistent underlying characteristic that identified that technique as that specific technique. However, that same technique would never be identical among the different masters executing them. Some masters would emphasize the speed. Some would put a bit more power into executing the technique. Some would focus on the flow of qi. The form and effect would be similar, but never identical.

E. H. Carr's analogy about the mountain was particularly relevant here. As a history (and literature) student, I appreciated his quote. "It does not follow that, because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively either no shape at all or an infinity of shapes. It does not follow that, because interpretation plays a necessary part in establishing the facts of history, and because no existing interpretation is wholly objective, one interpretation is as good as another, and the facts of history are in principle not amenable to objective interpretation." Obviously not all interpretations are equal, and some are more correct than others, but at the same time, we cannot discount the different shapes from different angles of vision either, and no one interpretation is the objective truth of understanding the concept. True comprehension of a concept or martial art technique wasn't simply copying and comprehending it in an identical manner as your master. Yes, of course your master would have a much more accurate interpretation of it than a novice or an amateur like you, but even his interpretation was not wholly objective, and would be subtly altered by his own personal bias and appearance. The most important thing was not to search for that objective truth or interpretation, but come up with your own that was as close to that objective truth as possible. Striving to be as perfect as possible, yet acknowledging that you would never be able to achieve perfection.

It sounded paradoxical, but paradoxically, only by recognizing that you would never be able to truly understand something would you be closer to completely comprehending it. In other words, if you claimed to have completely comprehended a concept, the sad truth was that you most likely had not. Unlike what the martial arts or xianxia stories would have you believe, in reality there was no such thing as achieving a Trance Stage or fully comprehending a martial arts technique in its entirety. There would always be new stuff to discover, new things to explore. Martial arts was not a dead, inert concept that you could master by adhering rigidly to what the manual told you, or what your master taught you. It was a living thing, an evolving concept that transformed fluidly with the times, and responding accordingly to different requirements and environments.

Hence there was no one single objective truth or single correct interpretation of the concept or technique. As long as I recognized that, I had taken the first step toward comprehending part of something with limitless potential.

Whatever the case, the first step to understanding was reading. After eading, applying. Even if it wasn't enough, those were the first, indispensable steps that you could not skip. Everything began from reading and mimicking. If you didn't at least read, then forget about understanding. How could you comprehend something if you didn't try to look and read it?

So regardless of whether I understood the true essence, I couldn't skip this step. I still had to read and "learn" through copying. Otherwise I would be stuck here, worse off than before. One thing at a time, one step at a time. Once I finished reading the movements, I could begin trying to understand them. But to even start on that, I had to read and try them out.

"Like this?"

I repeated a maneuver that I saw on the ceiling, throwing my fist out while spreading my legs to balance myself. The punch looked off somehow, and I frowned, studying the lack of qi billowing from it. It wasn't a matter of simply infusing my fist with qi and punching – I wasn't trying to launch qi blasts or something.

There was something different about this technique from normal punches (otherwise why would I bother learning it, or why bother devising the n-th iteration of a punch or qi blast?). I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Undaunted, I carried out punching a few more times, trying to get a feel. Perhaps it would come to me during practice or something.

I spent the next half-hour repeating the movements, hoping for an epiphany or something. Of course, nothing so convenient came and I slowed down, feeling a little discouraged. Like someone once said, doing the same thing over and over again while expecting differnet results was the very definition of insanity.

My professor would be yelling at me if he could see me. Clearly I still hadn't learned my lesson. Ugh.

"Damn it!"

I punched the air (or water, to be exact), more out of frustration than because I was trying to learn the movements. As I did so, the water in front of me compressed and rippled, and for the first time, I saw the raging whirlpool of bubbles that I had overlooked when I was overly engrossed with repeating the maneuver countless times.

"Eh…?"

Something about the water struck me as obvious, yet I still couldn't put my finger on it. For a few seconds, I continued to watch the raging bubbling of water, displaced from my punch, before it slowly calmed down and retuned to normal.

And then it hit me.

"Ah…"

I see. So that was why I was underwater. That was why the Spirit Diagram pulled me underwater. I had known that this particular spirit Engraved Pillar was water-based, hence all of the river motifs, but it never occurred to me to look at the water as an essential step to comprehending the true essence of the Spirit Digram.

This wasn't an illusion. That was why my Snow Aegis didn't protect me. It was never meant to be an attack. The Spirit Engraved Pillar had no intention of drowning me – such an outcome was a result of my own defiency, not because of any malice on the part of the Spirit Engraved Pillar. It merely invited me into its own Spirit world to engage me in dialogue.

No, to teach me. To communicate with me.

"Water…water, huh?"

I repeated the maneuver, this time paying close attention to the way the water flowed around me. Then I understood.

The key to comprehending the true meaning, the true essence of this martial arts lay in the flow of water around me, and how the water was affected by my movements and vice versa. If I could grasp that, then…

Taking a deep breath, and filled with more optimism from before, I began practicing and experimenting with renewed vigor.

Chapter end