Chapter Ninety-Five: Putting on an Act

Strength does not depend on the primordial spirit alone. Why do you insist on getting tangled up in that?

Lady Golden Spirit saw through him at once and pointed straight to Yuan the Unfettered’s mistake. In battle, the primordial spirit might indeed be important and could produce extraordinary effects, but in the face of absolute strength, it was little more than an awkward irrelevance.

What mattered was not the divine art, but the one who wielded it.

Take a machete, for instance. If one man is a sturdy, upright adult in his prime and the other is an ignorant child, who is weak and who is strong is obvious at a glance.

Even if the child were given a stray dog as a helper, he still would not necessarily defeat the man with the machete.

“As you command, Master.”

Since Lady Golden Spirit had spoken, Yuan the Unfettered naturally had nothing more to say. Still, there was a trace of unease in his heart. After all, he was unwilling to be inferior to anyone in any respect, least of all in the matter of the primordial spirit.

“You may withdraw for now.”

Lady Golden Spirit could naturally see the little schemes hidden in his heart, but in her view, pushing him to grow too quickly would only tempt Yuan the Unfettered to lose himself in power.

Back when she had intended to teach him an art for cultivating the primordial spirit, he had just returned from the lower realms for the first time, and the slaughter and karmic burden upon him had been far too heavy. She had no choice but to abandon that plan.

Even later, when Yuan the Unfettered entered the Geng Metal Mystic Realm and was washed over by the qi and essence of Geng Metal, it still had not been enough to completely dispel the karma on him.

Lady Golden Spirit had also discovered that his hunger for power was extraordinarily intense. That might have been a good thing, and yet it was also a bad thing. She feared he would ruin himself in his relentless pursuit of strength, and so she greatly restricted her support. Magical treasures and divine arts were almost never bestowed upon him again.

What startled her, however, was that Yuan the Unfettered still continued to grow stronger step by step. Now that he had come seeking her today, after weighing the conflicting choices before her, she had chosen restraint.

Whether that was a blessing or a curse, even she could not say.

Compared with her previous two disciples, Yuan the Unfettered was undoubtedly the one who worried her most, and also the one she restrained the most. With the other two disciples, she would almost always grant their requests; nowhere did they resemble Yuan the Unfettered, for apart from the teachings in the beginning, the road ahead had left him with almost no chance to see Lady Golden Spirit again.

Yuan the Unfettered left the Palace of the Star Mother full of questions. He could not understand why Lady Golden Spirit had refused to teach him. Could it be that the third refinement of the Nine Revolutions Mystic Art held some special significance?

But what connection could a body-tempering art like the Nine Revolutions Mystic Art possibly have with the primordial spirit?

Forget it. The Master would never harm him.

After a long struggle with himself, Yuan the Unfettered chose to trust Lady Golden Spirit. Ever since he had arrived in this Primordial world, he had understood the care she had always shown him.

Outside the Palace of the Star Mother, he encountered the Nine Luminary Star Lords, whom he had not seen in a long time. Yet only the Five Element Star Lords were there; the Sun Star Lord and the others were absent.

“Unfettered, are you here to see the Lady about something important too?” asked Lord Metal first.

“Yes.”

“Why do you look so downcast? Did you anger the Lady somehow?”

To the Nine Luminary Star Lords, Yuan the Unfettered was still just a child, so sulking with Lady Golden Spirit seemed perfectly normal.

“No, it is hard to explain,” Yuan said, shaking his head. It was no longer something that could be made clear with a few words.

“No matter. We’ll help you plead your case later,” Lord Fire said, giving his shoulder a hearty slap with a look of complete conviction, as though Yuan really had quarreled with Lady Golden Spirit.

“Unfettered, we’re going in first.”

With that, the Five Element Star Lords entered the Palace of the Star Mother ahead of him.

Yuan the Unfettered did not bother to explain. Perhaps it was simply impossible to explain, and he might as well not try.

Should he head back to the Divine Ape General’s Manor now?

At the thought of the manor, he thought of Jade. But after the recent trouble he had caused with that little fairy, he now felt somewhat afraid to return home. Even thinking of Jade stirred a sense of guilt in him.

“Better go back after all.”

He was in the Celestial Court now; there was no reason not to return, or else nothing would become something.

Yet the speed at which Yuan the Unfettered flew back to the manor was far slower than before, even a little slower than some immortals of the heavenly immortal realm.

It was as though he were not returning to his own home, but to some fiercely perilous place.

But no matter how slowly one flew, there would still come a moment of arrival. Yuan the Unfettered now paced before the manor gates, unable to settle his heart for a long while.

“General, you’re back.”

It was the same two guards as before, yet today Yuan the Unfettered was especially free and easy, actually stopping to chat with them.

He chatted for the better part of an hour, leaving the guards with the impression that he was unusually approachable today.

“General, madam has been waiting for you inside all along.”

After talking for so long, even the guards felt it was a bit much, and one of them could not help reminding him.

“Mm. Keep watch well.”

Leaving those words behind, Yuan the Unfettered walked into the manor. A moment ago he had still seemed warm and easygoing, but once he stepped inside, his expression changed at once into one of dejection. Whether that was an act or genuine, no one could say.

Heaving a sigh, he sat down gloomily in the chair of the main hall. The despondency on his face looked nothing like pretense.

“You’re back. Why do you look like that?”

Jade came in through the front door and, seeing his manner, could not help asking.

“Today I went to see my Master.”

“You went to the Lady, and this is how you came back?”

In the past, whenever Yuan the Unfettered visited Lady Golden Spirit, he almost always returned in high spirits. This was the first time Jade had ever seen him come back so dispirited.

“Jade, let me ask you this: does your cultivation art include training for the primordial spirit?”

“Of course it does. The art I cultivate is primarily for the primordial spirit, with bodily cultivation only as a supplement. Why are you asking me this?”

Jade did not know what he was after, but she answered him anyway.

“The art I cultivate is centered on the body. There isn’t any part for training the primordial spirit at all. Today I went to see my Master, and she told me to raise my cultivation first before coming back to find her. I simply do not understand.”

With the expression he wore at that moment, he seemed truly troubled by the matter of the primordial spirit. Yet he really did not understand Lady Golden Spirit’s decision, so there was truth mixed with falsehood and falsehood mixed with truth. Jade still believed him completely.

“You, stop worrying for nothing. When has the Lady ever harmed you? Just listen to her.”

Jade sat down on Yuan the Unfettered’s lap and spoke softly.

“That is what I was thinking too.”

He wrapped his arms around Jade, sweeping away the gloom that had clouded him moments before.

Jade allowed him to hold her, and said quietly, “You’re still the same as ever. Not changed at all.”

It was an ordinary enough remark, but to Yuan the Unfettered, whose conscience was not entirely clear, it carried a very different meaning.

At once he broke off that topic and shifted the conversation elsewhere.

“Jade, can you use any divine arts related to the primordial spirit?”

“I know a little.”

The Heavenly Fox Grand Art had been created primarily for the fox clan. Other races would find it twice as hard and gain half the result if they cultivated it, but it still contained certain divine arts, and those could be practiced by anyone.