“Argent Snow can be used like that?” The crowd found Mo Wusheng’s mysterious death quite incredible. They had all felt the despair and bitterness from the picture of snowfall in June, but what they saw wasn’t Lu Yun’s attack killing Mo Wusheng, but the latter dying of a broken heart and dissolving in the scroll.
Such was the power of emotions. When they were magnified to the utmost, whether great joy or sorrow, they could harm and kill.
Mo Wusheng had died to his own emotions. If this hadn’t been the Soul Dominion in which all life and death was fake, he would be well and truly dead.
Lu Yun slowly rolled up his scroll and frowned slightly, deep in thought. He wasn’t contemplating the strange silver light from his opponent—that was Mo Wusheng’s dao. As mighty as it was, it had nothing to do with Lu Yun. He was poring over his own dao—his Diagram of June Snowfall.
“This June Snowfall is less than my Diagram of Autumn Snowfall. If I’d used that picture, I would’ve crushed Mo Wusheng without needing to do anything myself.” He finally had a clear picture of his strength.
Deploying June Snowfall could also propel him to the ultimate peak of the second domain, but it wouldn’t do so in as simple a manner as its predecessor.
“The power of emotions? Well, that was indeed the strength of emotions, but not quite. Mo Wusheng was courting death, so it wasn’t me who killed him. His will is weak, so weak that he was affected by the emotions in my scroll and defeated himself.
“If I run into someone with a strong will, the vengeful sorrows of June Snowfall won’t have an effect on them. The entire scroll would be useless.
“So no, I can’t be driving my opponents to death, I need to be killing them. What good would my Diagram of June Snowfall be for then? A suicide trap?”
The platform beneath his feet disassembled with a boom as he thought over the uses of his weapon. Mo Wusheng had failed his challenge, so he was still the three thousandth name on the Argent Snow Hero Ranking.
“Eh?” Lu Yun suddenly realized that his soul force had formed a connection with the Argent Snow tablet in front of him. It wasn’t very strong, but it would allow his primary body to build a bridge with Soul Dominion—a bridge that would permit passage for soul force.
Not only that, he further discovered that he seemed to have… the ability to refine Argent Snow?
I can refine Argent Snow?!
Lu Yun didn’t know how the eight soul weapons had come to be. No one had ever spoken of this mystery. A piece of information had appeared in his mind after he refined it—that there were nine million sticks of Argent Snow in all of the known and unknown expanses.
But now he discovered that he could collect the rules emanating from the Argent Snow tablet and refine his own??
“Yes, as strong as the soul weapon is, it’s not indestructible. There are nine million sticks of it, but some have been destroyed after all these years. Thus, there needs to be someone who can make more!”
He took a brief stock of his strength. If Mo Wusheng represented the three thousandth person on the ranking, then Lu Yun was able to kill one hundred of him at once if he used his full strength!
When he’d said before that he wasn’t strong enough to be listed on the Hero Ranking, that’d been a reflection of what he’d exhibited before he passed through the first domain.
After he received Jian Zhuxian’s heritage and further speculated upon it, the ultimate domain that he’d cultivated encompassed more than the Diagrams of Autumn Snowfall and June Snowfall. His true killing move could absolutely help him to great perfection of the Domain of Eventide Snow.
But he’d still need to fight his way through, not walk through it. Anything that wasn’t a casual stroll through the trials was a failure in his eyes, which was why he didn’t try it.
“Being able to refine Argent Snow means that the rules in Soul Dominion approve of me. Tsk tsk tsk, Jian Zhuxian and Sword First can’t refine Argent Snow, but I can. So in the spirit’s eyes, I’m stronger than either of them,” Lu Yun basked in pride for a bit.
“You’re amazing, junior brother Feifan!” Xing Wuliang, Xing Lingkong, and Xing Lan chorused in unison.
“What did you call me?” Lu Yun looked sideways at Xing Wuliang. “I’ll give you another chance.”
“…senior… brother… Feifan…” Xing Wuliang said haltingly.
“That’s more like it. I’m stronger than both you and Xing Lingkong, so you two need to call me senior brother. That’s the rules of the sect, after all.” Lu Yun waggled his finger at them.
Xing Wuliang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, whereas Xing Lingkong was ready to burst into tears.
He’d been the vaunted head disciple of the sect, then suffered a defeat at Xing Lan’s hands, then watched inner disciple Feng Feifan vault onto the Hero Ranking. With the latter crushing previously-three-thousandth Mo Wusheng, it would seem that Xing Lingkong’s status had decreased once more.
I’m third in the sect now, aren’t I?
In addition, Xing Wuliang had gotten ahold of some ridiculous luck and made it to the twenty-eighth level of Lunar Pivot. In other words, he was now studying the ultimate peak of the first domain.
It wouldn’t be long before Xing Lingkong became the fourth greatest in the sect.
“Thank goodness that junior brother Feifan… ahem, senior brother… got the complete heritage of Argent Snow from Ingress Sword Island. It’s not impossible for me to reach the ultimate peak as well,” Xing Lingkong kept comforting himself.
Feng Feifan was renowned throughout Soul Dominion after this fight—not only for making it onto the Hero Ranking, but for how he used his soul weapon. Many were awestruck after watching a recorded image of that fight.
So soul weapons could also be used in this manner!
Not only could the weapons absorb one’s great dao, but they could also make use of other ways to attack and combine those as part of the weapon’s ultimate peak.
Instead of departing the training grounds after defending his ranking, Lu Yun spent a long time training in Soul Dominion. He repeatedly fought the spirit of Argent Snow and honed his ultimate domain again and again. Three years later, he finally completed the first three domains of Argent Snow. He’d reached great perfection in Domain of Glorious Snowdrift and Eventide Snow!
However the fourth domain remained out of reach.
It didn’t exist like the other three; it required personal contemplation from the weapon’s wielder and the pioneering of a new path.
Lu Yun was now one hundred and one on the Hero Ranking. Put in another fashion, everyone in the top one hundred had found entry to the fourth domain.
“The fourth domain of the soul weapons isn’t just a reflection of your great dao and all of existence—you need to combine it with reality to complete it,” the spirit chuckled when he saw Lu Yun’s pinched face. “You won’t find any new conclusions if you continue to train here. It’s time to go out and hone yourself in the endless world outside.”
Lu Yun glanced at the spirit. “I’d thought you were treating me with special attention. To think that you do this for everyone…”
When Xing Lingkong set foot into the ultimate domain and retained his position as the third greatest disciple in the sect, Lu Yun discovered that the spirit treated all candidates like his students. He taught them personally, whether they were Lu Yun or Jian Xue.
“You are an Argent Snow cultivator and so are the others. Of course you must be treated equally. The other seven think the same way, so we can’t favor someone more than we do the others,” the spirit smiled. “Perhaps living beings have their own selfish desires, but rules are fair because we are a fixed existence.”
