Chapter 1130: What is a Constitution

Xu Qing looked up, his gaze extending beyond the scroll towards the Dao Immortal Sect.

He had no physical awareness of the events unfolding there. Yet, his mind was different. A subtle, profound sensation, transcending the physical realm, emerged in Xu Qing's thoughts. "Borrowing a path?" Xu Qing wondered thoughtfully, before refocusing his mind.

Currently, his top priority was to consolidate his Eighth Pole. While its emergence aligned with his prior conjectures, the birth of the Constitution had, to a certain extent, reshattered his previous understanding and was poised to revolutionize traditional combat.

This Eighth Pole represented the pinnacle reached after the convergence of the first seven. The initial five poles formed the foundation, with time and space acting as fuel. Their combustion unleashed an explosion that forged the Eighth Pole he had envisioned, encompassing reincarnation, karma, and all elements, thus forming the Dao of Time and Space. The instant this Dao manifested, clarity filled his mind. "It's like a promotion," he mused, "unrelated to the physical body, but an elevation at the level of thought and soul."

Xu Qing closed his eyes, sensing the Eighth Pole within. "This is a spacetime state I can enter at will!" he realized. "Once inside, my physical body remains external, but my mind transcends its previous limits, achieving a state of omniscience. In that state, all beings and phenomena truly appear as a mutable picture book, ready to be edited. I can influence, manipulate, and control them."

As he mused, the Eighth Pole within Xu Qing suddenly expanded. The next instant, the sensation of spacetime re-emerged. Gazing outwards, his perception deepened even further.

"Combat in this state will far exceed conventional understanding," he realized. "All beings and phenomena hold no secrets in my eyes. Spells, bodies, even thoughts, fate, reincarnation, and even the past and future, are utterly transparent. I can influence an opponent's choices without their awareness—whether they err or succeed, live or die, all by a single thought. I can alter an opponent's spells mid-execution, from their very source or essence, all by a single thought. I can travel to any time, any place, even appear at an opponent's birth to extinguish them. Is this the power of the Constitution? In the Lower Realm, even if I weren't an Immortal, this ability would be barely distinguishable from one. However, this is the Thirty-Six Ascending Star Rings, where higher Constitutions exist, imposing constraints on me."

Xu Qing fell into thought. "Constitution..." The manifestation of his own Constitution, coupled with the voice from the void, granted him an innate understanding of it at that moment. This insight came partly from within himself and partly from the additional information embedded in every word of that mysterious utterance.

The Constitution transcends rules and laws; it is the unknown, supreme source of power belonging to the gods within these Thirty-Six Ascending Star Rings. Since these Star Rings are divine territory, gods can more readily access and wield this ultimate source. Their manifestation begins as divine authority, then evolves into true godhood, transforming into their own divine essence. Their inherent qualification from birth explains their immense power, as they are born within the Thirty-Six Ascending Star Rings.

Cultivators, however, as outsiders, inherently lack this qualification. Thus, this privilege is broken down into several stages: first, obtaining one's origin; then, acquiring Dao affinity; and subsequently, during the formation of the immortal embryo, instinctively absorbing the Star Ring's power as nourishment, which gives rise to a Dao mark authority akin to divine power. Only by completing these steps can one truly embark on this path.

Nevertheless, while Dao mark authority resembles divine authority, it is generally inferior. Only when the Dao mark authority finally sublimates into a Constitution does a cultivator genuinely achieve a status equivalent to that of a deity. The Constitution is on the same level as divine essence!

The arduous path cultivators must take to attain divine qualification highlights their struggle within the Thirty-Six Ascending Star Rings. Fundamentally, the Constitution represents the known ultimate manifestation of Immortals plundering the source power of these Star Rings. Due to its complex emergence, the Constitution typically appears only in cultivators at the Quasi-Immortal level, as their immortal embryos are forming. Even then, the possibility is remote and contingent on great fortune. Under normal circumstances, the Constitution only manifests when the immortal embryo fully matures and transforms into an Immortal.

Beyond this, two other methods can either accelerate the Constitution's formation or allow its use by those who don't possess it: inheritances and magic treasures. Inheritances, like the Inheritance Flower in this hunting stage, involve higher-level cultivators extracting one of their multiple Constitutions and bestowing it. The latter are Constitution-bearing treasures, but these often contain incomplete Constitutions with insufficient Law-force.

Law-force is the measure of a Constitution. Thus, forming a Constitution, extending it to completion, and ultimately becoming its source are among the three crucial elements for becoming an Immortal Lord.

This explains why a Constitution, which only cultivators below the Quasi-Immortal level with immense fortune can acquire, creates an extreme disparity when obtained by a cultivator with dominant combat power. Even if two cultivators have the same cultivation level, the one with a Constitution will possess a vastly superior combat prowess.

This is also why Li Mengtu fought Xu Qing to the death for the inheritance. Possessing a Constitution means standing at the absolute apex of the dominant power level. Only cultivators who also possess a Constitution can contend with one who has it. If an opponent does not, they are not on the same plane and will inevitably be suppressed by the Constitution.

Consequently, three major laws regarding the Constitution were established. First, the Constitution belongs exclusively to cultivators and is a hallmark of Immortals. Second, a confrontation between Constitutions is a process of mutual annihilation; the first to be extinguished determines life or death. Third, the Constitution is the highest known; only a Constitution or a divine essence of equivalent level can mutually annihilate it.

Moreover, the Constitution isn't limited by quantity; one can possess many or few, and this doesn't relate to personal status. Even mastering numerous Constitutions doesn't change this fundamental truth: it only impacts combat power. Therefore, while acquiring more Constitutions can indeed boost one's combat prowess, the true essence of realm ascension lies in the Constitution's completeness.

These thoughts emerged in Xu Qing's mind. After some time, he refocused.

"It's time to leave," Xu Qing murmured. He simply looked up, his gaze fixed on the void before him. The void immediately rippled, then erupted into a silent storm that swiftly spread in all directions, engulfing the entire world of the scroll. In an instant, everything blurred and vanished.

Before Xu Qing, the scroll was replaced by a cauldron surrounded by raging flames. Instantly, the fire froze, losing its destructive power. More precisely, if the fire possessed consciousness, Xu Qing, standing directly before it, had become an incomprehensible presence. The flames could only burn futilely. The cauldron, too, blurred and dissolved before Xu Qing's eyes, as if it had never existed.

Xu Qing now stood in the Li family's small world, before the wooden ancestral hall. To his perception, this world, the wooden house, and even the calligraphy within it, simultaneously encompassed countless pasts and futures.

However, in the past of this wooden house, he saw a figure. This person was unlike the world around him: he existed only in the past, with no present or future. Even his past was vague, collapsing. Dressed in a green robe, he stood before a table in the wooden house, holding a brush, deep in contemplation as if uncertain how to begin writing.

"I don't know how to write my final words," the green-robed middle-aged man from the past remarked softly, without looking up as Xu Qing watched. "Since you've arrived from time and space, perhaps you can guide me?"

Xu Qing remained silent, observing the man's crumbling past. He saw Houtu, saw Wanggu, and recognized the man's identity. He sighed inwardly.

The green-robed man said nothing further. After a long silence, Xu Qing slowly spoke, "He is like a devout pilgrim, forever searching for a temple that may not even exist." With that, Xu Qing clasped his hands in a bow, withdrew his gaze, and everything vanished.

The world returned to normal. Xu Qing looked up, his gaze drawn to the sky, where time and space were uniquely in flux, isolated from their surroundings.

Soon, in that distinct area, the figure of Li Mengtu appeared as he had arrived in the past, placing the scroll into the cauldron. Xu Qing reached out; the figure transformed into a beam of light that settled in his hand. Immediately, all of Li Mengtu's past movements and trajectories became perfectly clear in Xu Qing's mind.

Following this trajectory, Xu Qing stepped forward. The world seemed to melt, the void transforming into a path, and he vanished without a trace. The entire small world fell silent.

Only a soft sigh lingered in the ancient spacetime of that place after Xu Qing departed. "Each generation, indeed each person, seeks a different temple," the sigh resonated. "When we departed, going our separate ways, I journeyed far and once believed I'd found it here, but I truly hadn't. That path, I could see, but was powerless to traverse. Yet his emergence... makes me feel he might just be the temple."

The voice gradually faded. The calligraphy on the painting inside the wooden house blurred, subtly shifting to another sentence: "I think I found it."

The instant this new sentence appeared, a ripple of destiny spread across the Fifth Star Ring, subtly affecting only the living members of the Li family. Their memories of the calligraphy in the ancestral hall, including Li Mengtu's, shifted accordingly.

The aurora in the sky rippled in response. Within it, the Twelve Sky Patrollers, eyes gleaming with strange light, emitted invisible threads, as if divining. Beyond them, eleven immortal palaces materialized at a higher altitude; nine remained normal, but two glowed brilliantly, their surfaces poised to form resplendent runes.

Then, a calm yet vast voice resonated from the highest point: "This spacetime is now fixed, unchangeable. However, this Constitution possesses immense potential; even Immortals cannot divine it."

The instant the words were spoken, the Twelve Sky Patrollers in the aurora bowed their heads, their divining threads snapping instantly. The two glowing immortal palaces, after deliberation, chose to dissipate. The calligraphy in the wooden house blurred once more, reverting to its original form, and the memories of the Li family members, without their knowledge, returned to their previous state.