Chapter 809: So, You Studied It For Nothing?

Chapter 809: So, You Studied It For Nothing?

Xu Qing’s mind spun, and his senses collapsed. Everything went blank. His divine will faded from the location of the immortal essence.

The dandelion seed vibrated, then backed up slightly. Then it continued moving back in the direction of the dandelion. However, this time... it had three figures inside instead of two! The third figure was blurry, and occasionally disappeared entirely, as if it was having trouble forming fully.

Xu Qing’s true body stood in the ancient temple, amidst the sea of flames, right in front of the ‘window’ leading to the immortal essence. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving.

Off to the side, the palace lord sighed softly.

The little butterfly heard it and knew what it meant. “That Xu Qing is so greedy! He picked a returning seed that the immortal essence hadn’t purified yet, which will make it a lot harder to gain enlightenment of. It would be much simpler to let the immortal essence purify it.”

The butterfly actually seemed pleased and even happy. Inside, she was thinking that if Xu Qing hadn’t killed her over and over again before, she might have told him this secret earlier.

“Master, you already gave him ten breaths of time that he normally wouldn’t have. Yet he just didn’t know how to take advantage of that. This is his destined opportunity, so there’s no need for you to sigh. Don’t worry, my powers of understanding are definitely better than his, so I won’t have trouble surpassing him.

“The figure Xu Qing left in the seed will probably just dissipate on its own, which will prove that he failed at enlightenment. Even if his powers of understanding were on the same level as my own, he just doesn’t have enough time.

“Besides, once that seed returns to the dandelion, any figures inside that aren’t there permanently will be purified away. Therefore, Master, you really don’t need to sigh with regret!”

The palace lord shook her head. “I wasn’t sighing about Xu Qing. What I regret is picking an apprentice too soon and choosing you.”

The palace lord’s gaze came to rest on the dandelion seed that Xu Qing had chosen for his enlightenment.

The butterfly was stunned, and initially didn’t understand. Then her gaze followed her Master’s to the immortal essence seed. She was about to ask for some clarification when the eyes on her wings suddenly widened.

The seed Xu Qing had picked was on its way back to the immortal essence dandelion. It wasn’t very far. In fact, it looked like it would only take a few dozen breaths of time to reach its destination.

But then, on the way back, the third figure inside suddenly began to become very clear! It became increasingly stable, until, in the end, it clearly resembled Xu Qing.

The butterfly simply couldn’t comprehend such enlightenment speed. All of the seeds she had sought enlightenment from had been purified and were on their way back out. As a result, she always had plenty of time to work with. Normally speaking, it would take a day or two to figure out how to take control of it. That was the reason why she’d said all the things she just had. Based on her own frame of reference, she didn’t see how Xu Qing could succeed. Therefore, what she was seeing now blew her mind.

“This....”

Meanwhile, an astonishing tempest was erupting in Xu Qing’s sea of consciousness.

He was looking at a starry sky full of ripples. It looked like the surface of some body of water. Compared to the universe as a whole, that starry sky was like a well.

Immortal essence legacies can’t be this simple. Everything from just now was probably just a generalization. My thinking is a bit too one-sided. The Heir Apparent and Princess Brightblossom once told me that the only thing limiting a person’s advancement is imagination.

In other words, Fishing the Moon in the Well might not be exactly as I just experienced.... It’s probably a lot more profound. A lot more useful! It’s only my lack of perception and ability that prevents me from seeing it more clearly.

As these thoughts went through Xu Qing’s mind, the image in the dandelion seed collapsed and started fading away. When the little butterfly noticed that, she was stunned. She had assumed that Xu Qing already succeeded, which was quite a blow to her. But now it looked like his image was collapsing....

“Master, w-what’s... what’s going on?”

The palace lord sighed again, this time more deeply. “What a pity the rules of the Summer Immortal Palace clearly state that the palace can only have one successor at a time.”

The butterfly was completely astonished.

“He wasn’t happy with the divine ability,” the palace lord explained, “so he decided to delve into its substructure.”

“Substructure?” The butterfly’s eyes went wide.

The palace lord was right. Xu Qing was now probing the ability on a substructural level. He had started thinking about how his initial contact with the seed had provoked a reaction from his violet moon. Given that, and considering the name of the divine ability, a very outrageous possibility had occurred to him.

What’s being fished out of the well isn’t just a person’s soul. Perhaps it’s a whole bunch of souls. And floating within the well aren’t just things like divine abilities, magical techniques, and magical devices. Those things are too simplistic. If the well has a moon in it, what if that moon isn’t the actual moon in the sky? Who said that this ability has to be used on an enemy. It seems perfectly possible... to use it to fish the moon out of my own heart!

Xu Qing’s mind spun as he came to the conclusion that this new way of thinking was absolutely correct.

I get it now! That’s why the cultivator in the gray armor said the moon was beautiful, and that he wanted some. He was warning me! What’s more, he asked me if I’d mastered it. That was also a warning! In fact, when he said ‘he is you,’ he was spelling things out for me as clearly as could be. He was basically asking me if I had mastered the substructure of the ability!

As this understanding filled Xu Qing, and the concept became clearer, the figure within the palm of the middle-aged man suddenly erupted with blinding, violet light. As the light spread out, the figure vanished, turning into... a boundless violet moon! It rested in the palm emanating astonishing mightiness. Then the palm started vibrating until it collapsed. The man in the gray armor was also shredded into ash by the violet light. The entire well came to be filled with a violet moon, slowly rising up. This moon wasn’t illusory. It was true and real! [2]

It wasn’t the moon that Li Zihua had taken out into the starry sky. Xu Qing had created it. It was the second violet moon to form in the Revered Ancient mainland! The source was the same as Li Zihua’s violet moon, but it belonged to Xu Qing!

Xu Qing appeared on the violet moon and looked in the direction where the cultivator in the gray armor had disappeared. Outside, the seed was nearly at the dandelion. Just before it merged into it, the two figures inside collapsed and disappeared, to be replaced by another one-of-a-kind figure.

It was none other than Xu Qing!

1. Fishing the Moon in the Well is an ability from Renegade Immortal. In fact, that’s the title of chapter 1429 of that novel. In the Chinese comments on Qidian, someone actually shared a screenshot of that chapter. Many parts from this chapter of BTT are exactly the same as that chapter. For example, the line from above “Everything is inside the well...” and the things after that down to this line (and some of the subsequent lines) are largely the same. It seems to me the author probably copy and pasted a lot of it, then made tweaks and changes so everything made sense for Xu Qing’s unique experience. That said, there are many things that are exactly the same without any changes at all. Generally speaking, I avoid critiquing the work of other translators. For one thing, I wouldn’t like it if people went through my translation line-by-line and nitpicked it. However, there are some problems with the RI translation in this chapter. For one thing, the name of the ability is translated... not that well. The verb is to “fish out” or “pull out.” Really, it should be something more like Fishing the Moon from a Well or out of a Well. In English, if you’re specifically going fishing for something, you don’t say “fishing XYZ.” E.g. If I’m going fishing for tuna, I don’t say “I’m fishing tuna.” That’s not to mention that the point of this technique is not about “going fishing” but rather about “fishing something out” of the water. In any case, I’m keeping the same ability name from RI to maintain continuity. Beyond that, there are other poor translation choices. For example, the voice very clearly says that he likes the “moonlight” in the well. But the RI translation says that he likes the “moon” in the well. In other words, it would actually make more sense for the ability to be named Fishing Moonlight From a Well. All of that is not to mention issues of tense, grammar, etc. In any case, in Chinese, there are more similarities between the two chapters than you’ll see in English, mostly because I can’t stand to have clunky English and inaccurate translations if I can avoid it. ☜

2. I saw some speculation from Chinese readers about who this figure in gray armor is. Considering the scant amount of evidence, I won’t go into detail. Suffice it to say, if you’ve read Renegade Immortal, you can probably come to the same conclusions as them. ☜