Stone mountains rose in dense succession, not a blade of grass anywhere. The sheer cliff faces were cut as if by a blade — straight up and straight down, the crags soaring high — pressed so close together they looked like a staircase ascending to the heavens.

There was not a handful of earth in this entire area, not a single plant. The stone mountains stretched on without end, interspersed with many stone forests — boulders of every shape, some crouching like oxen, others shooting up like young bamboo shoots, each one a different posture, a remarkable spectacle.

After entering the mountains, Ye Fan looked around in every direction. This landscape of stone gave him a very particular feeling — as if a patch of realm from beyond the sky had lodged itself here.

Every mountain held its own order of existence, every boulder its own scene. It was as if some great hand had inscribed here the naturally arising tracks of the Grand Dao. Every mountain and stone drew his gaze.

After entering this stone terrain, Ye Fan found that many of the carvings had been worn beyond recognition by wind, frost, and rain — they could only be faintly discerned.

Unfortunately, most of them were not what one might call cultivation techniques. Many recorded ancient events. Others were scenes of landscapes, such as a hundred birds or exotic beasts, each rendered with lifelike vividness and exquisite accuracy.

“Why would Yaochi’s celestial maidens carve all of this?” Ye Fan felt puzzled, and studied the carvings attentively.

“All of this records the great events that once took place in Yaochi. Sadly, the meaning is now largely lost.”

A few tens of steps forward, Ye Fan came before a mountain wall and was brought up short. The stone carving here was unusual — it depicted two figures, and one of them was not of the human race.

The figure was a man, standing roughly two meters tall, bearing four pairs of divine wings. His bearing was majestic and imposing. Below his shoulders he had eight arms in total, each one like a dragon — thick and powerful. At the center of his brow grew a single vertical eye.

Facing him stood a dignified and stately woman of remarkable bearing, like a queen who commanded the reverence of all beneath heaven — her presence and manner extraordinary, inspiring in all who beheld her a feeling of awe and admiration.

“It truly does record some of the great events that took place in Yaochi — an unidentified being facing off against one of Yaochi’s unrivaled powerhouses.” Ye Fan said, surprised.

“To be more precise — facing off against a Queen Mother.” The Great Black Dog added.

Unfortunately, there was only this single panel, with no continuation. The outcome of the standoff was unknown.

They moved forward, examining everything carefully along the way. There were scenes of receiving demon kings, scenes of a new Queen Mother’s enthronement — all single-panel images, very simple, offering little to glean from.

When they came to a stone forest, Ye Fan finally found a combat technique. On a large cyan boulder shaped like a crouching tiger, half of a stone carving remained — a figure stood with a hand seal formed.

Though incomplete, with only half the body present and the other half missing, it was extraordinarily profound. That hand seal style was very familiar to Ye Fan. After careful study, he realized it was the Mountain-Embracing Seal.

The Sect of Leaving Fire’s cornerstone supreme technique was precisely this seal method — incredibly powerful. He had adapted it into one move of the Battle Saint Art. He had not expected to encounter it here again.

“Half of it was deliberately erased…” An ominous feeling rose in Ye Fan’s heart.

After so many years had passed, could the Scripture of the Western Emperor still endure? Could it too have been effaced? He didn’t fully trust the Great Black Dog’s words.

“Hurry up and take me to find the Scripture of the Western Emperor!” Ye Fan urged.

“Am I not in the process of looking? It may well be hidden among these cliff carvings.” The Dark Emperor answered.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know the exact location.”

“You’ve guessed correctly — that is exactly the case. This Emperor is also searching.” The Great Black Dog held its head high and answered with unhurried ease.

This dog was truly unreliable. Ye Fan very much wanted to kick it, but he had no other option right now — in the end, he still had to depend on it.

“Do you actually have any confidence we’ll find it?”

“Most likely we’ll find it.” The Great Black Dog answered in an uncertain tone.

Ye Fan took out the Bodhi Seed, held it in his palm, and reached out with his senses in every direction. He could no longer rely entirely on this big dog — he needed to search on his own.

The Great Black Dog put on an expression of innocence and harmlessness, edged close — then suddenly lunged at the seed in his hand with a dark bite.

“Damn it, you wretched dead dog — going for a sneak bite again!” Ye Fan had always been on his guard against it and shot up into the air immediately.

“So petty — it’s just a nut. I could smell it from here and wanted to taste what the kernel is like.” The failed sneak-attacker was brazen and unapologetic, though its eyes kept drifting toward the Bodhi Seed.

“If you dare take another sneak bite, forget about that jade sea turtle for the rest of your life. Now hurry up and find the Scripture of the Western Emperor. If we can’t get it, don’t even bother naming your conditions.” Ye Fan said with a dark expression.

The Great Black Dog tilted its head and looked at Ye Fan. “Young one, what is that nut you’re holding? Can it be eaten?”

“Stop playing dumb!”

“Does that little nut of yours have some history? I just glimpsed a bald man on it — I thought it looked rather impressive. Did you carve that yourself?”

Ye Fan knew that this treacherous, rotten dead dog was plotting something again and had set its eyes on the Bodhi Seed. He would absolutely not let it see that seed.

“That bald head — who is that person? I can’t help feeling he seems rather extraordinary.” The Great Black Dog, seeing Ye Fan ignoring it, began to lose its composure.

“His name is Shakyamuni. Have you heard of him?” A thought stirred in Ye Fan’s mind.

“What kind of name is that — four characters no less. Is this bald-headed fellow famous?” The Great Black Dog asked.

Ye Fan was momentarily speechless. The great Tathagata being spoken of by a large dog in this manner… He glared: “No more nonsense. Hurry up and find the Scripture of the Western Emperor!”

“What kind of attitude is that, young one?” The Great Black Dog bared its teeth. “If you continue to show this Emperor such disrespect, forget about the supreme ancient scripture of the human race. And another thing — if we do manage to find the Scripture of the Western Emperor, you must give me that nut carved with the chubby bald head as well.”

Ye Fan ignored it and walked away into the distance. He examined carving after carving, and occasionally came across some incomplete techniques. Whenever he did, he would study them with great care.

Half an hour later, Ye Fan came before a sheer cliff face bearing a vast spread of carvings — stretching over a hundred panels, far longer than anything he had seen before.

At first, he paid it no particular attention, because though the carvings were extensive, they did not appear especially profound — all were the most common, ordinary types of techniques. But after viewing the thirty-something panel, his expression changed. These very ordinary techniques were slowly transcending, one after another, giving one the feeling of transforming the commonplace into something miraculous.

He calmed his mind and gazed downward. For a full hour, Ye Fan said nothing, looking all the way to the last panel before sighing: “Yaochi truly lives up to its name as a sacred ground. These were clearly meant for young disciples to observe and study — all of them carry deep meaning.”

They were nothing extraordinary in terms of secret arts — all commonly circulated, thoroughly ordinary techniques. Yet from plainness they ascended, combined into something that transformed the mundane into the miraculous and could unleash an inconceivable power.

“More than a hundred ordinary techniques merged into one, and the result is a completely different and formidable power. This is truly wondrous.”

Ye Fan spent a long while contemplating before moving on. He found another hundred-some panels of carvings and examined them carefully.

By the very end, he was truly astonished. This was an entire series — totaling over five hundred stone carvings in succession.

“This is…”

Ye Fan was deeply shocked. This was a deduction of some supreme secret art — starting from the ordinary, ascending toward the profound. In an instant he saw through the mystery within.

This was a deduction of the Battle Saint Art from among the Nine Secrets!

Some peerless master of Yaochi had done something astonishing: beginning from the commonplace and gradually evolving toward the Battle Saint Art, she had been attempting to reconstruct the supreme technique of the Nine Secrets.

Transforming the mundane into the miraculous, deducing the Nine Secrets’ great art of combat and slaughter — this must have been a figure of breathtaking genius.

Regrettably, in the end she had failed. She had not been able to deduce the complete Battle Saint Art.

Figures like this appeared perhaps once in ages. All those techniques bore a relationship to the world’s legends concerning the Battle Saint Art. For someone to deduce it this far based solely on those fragments was truly astonishing. She must have been a peerless individual of her era.

“To string together scattered traces passed down through the ages and manage to deduce it this far — it is truly astounding!” Ye Fan sighed.

She had begun from simplicity and moved toward complexity — but the Battle Saint Art contained ten thousand transformations without limit and could never truly be exhausted. It was nearly impossible to reach the end of “complexity.”

The true supreme art of the Nine Secrets’ Battle Saint technique was this: first attaining the One, then transforming into ten thousand — and at the very end of all complexity, returning once more to the One. No outside person could ever deduce this.

This art, in its ultimate form, was the Dao returning to simplicity.

Ye Fan stood still for a long time, quietly contemplating. This line of deduction had gone astray, yet it gave him an enormous revelation and deepened his understanding of the Battle Saint Art considerably.

No matter what transcendent genius one possessed — without first obtaining the Nine Secrets’ imprint, one could never deduce this supreme art.

Ye Fan reflected for a very long while, and felt that he could elevate the power of this combat art somewhat further. This was an unexpected gain. The extraordinary genius of Yaochi had given him great inspiration.

By the time the sky had long since darkened, Ye Fan continued to study the carvings beneath the night sky. Deep into the night, he had looked through the majority of the carvings across the mountains — yet the Scripture of the Western Emperor remained nowhere to be seen.

“There is no profound cultivation method here at all. Even what exists is nothing more than ordinary techniques. You wouldn’t be bluffing me, would you?” Ye Fan’s expression was unfriendly as he fixed his gaze on the Great Black Dog.

“Did I not tell you already? Even if one comes upon the Scripture of the Western Emperor, one may not necessarily be able to identify it. It takes time and careful contemplation.” The Great Black Dog said.

The moon was bright and the stars sparse. Ye Fan paced forward, having traveled through almost all the cliff faces, yet still the Scripture of the Western Emperor eluded him.

“Found it — it’s here!” The Great Black Dog cried out. In the deep of night, the sound carried especially far, echoing and reverberating.

In a few bounding leaps, Ye Fan was beside it. This stone mountain had a formidable bearing, yet it bore nothing that could be called scripture text — its surface was bare and featureless.

“Where?”

“This mountain is part of the scripture. Whether or not you can obtain it depends entirely on your own fortune.” The Great Black Dog raised its head and answered.

“You’re just putting me off, pointing randomly at a stone mountain and calling it the Scripture of the Western Emperor. How do you expect me to believe you? Can you actually find the scripture text?” Ye Fan demanded.

“That depends on your capacity for enlightenment.” The Great Black Dog hemmed and hawed.

“Stop trying to trick me!” Ye Fan glared.

The Great Black Dog also grew agitated: “There is absolutely scripture here. I heard it spoken directly with my own ears.”

“What exactly did you hear back then?” Ye Fan pressed.

“The stone mountain carved with a heavenly sun holds part of the scripture. The stone mountain carved with an ancient tree holds part of the scripture…”

According to what the Great Black Dog said, the Scripture of the Western Emperor had been composed as the Western Queen Mother attained enlightenment — she had carved it down piece by piece as insight came to her, scattering it across this stone mountain range.

On this sheer cliff, there was indeed a faint, blurred sun — no larger than a palm. Even with careful examination, it was difficult to believe it was carved by human hands. It looked very much like a natural formation.

“This ring is what you call the Scripture of the Western Emperor? You wouldn’t be joking with me, would you?”

The Great Black Dog tilted its head, craning its neck to one side: “From this point on, this has nothing to do with me. You’ll need to comprehend it yourself.”

This wretched dog! Ye Fan very much wanted to deal with it, but knew he couldn’t beat it. In the end, he flew up the cliff face and examined that heavenly sun.

Ye Fan traced his hand across the sun imprint, holding the Bodhi Seed in his other hand. He quieted his mind for a long while, but sensed nothing unusual.

“Dark Emperor, you are lying — there is no scripture here whatsoever!”

“There absolutely is. But it requires extraordinary insight to perceive. Whether or not you can obtain the Scripture of the Western Emperor depends on your own ability.” The Great Black Dog spoke these words with more than a trace of unease.

Ye Fan stood on the cliff face, Bodhi Seed in hand, mind emptied to perfect stillness, quietly feeling the space around him. But all was utterly quiet — he found nothing.

“Great Emperors have appeared so rarely throughout the ages. The scriptures left by these few individuals are not so easily obtained…” The Great Black Dog called from below: “I have found the Western Emperor’s scripture for you. Whether you can comprehend it is your own affair. You absolutely must give me that jade sea turtle.”

The Primordial Heavenly Book contained part of the Scripture of the Western Emperor — specifically the Dao Palace scroll. At this moment, Ye Fan silently circulated it, pressing the Bodhi Seed against the sun imprint.

BOOM!

All at once, radiance of ten thousand colors erupted skyward. From the cliff face, a heavenly sun rose — blazing with scorching heat. Ye Fan was completely engulfed within it.

The entire stone mountain turned a brilliant crimson. Blazing flames leaped and roared, setting half the sky ablaze with red. A great sun hung in the heavens — vast, vigorous, and overwhelming. Ye Fan stood within the heavenly sun, his bearing solemn and majestic.

“Damn it — how can he actually cultivate it? Didn’t this require not only extraordinary insight, but also Yaochi’s ‘scripture guide’? What a tremendous loss — he’s truly obtained the Scripture of the Western Emperor…” The Great Black Dog wore an expression of pure misfortune, as if it had swallowed something deeply unpleasant.