Six months into his service as an inner disciple, Luo Chen discovered something remarkable in the restricted library.
While researching a technique described in an ancient text on spatial manipulation, he used his Celestial Eye to examine the deeper layers of the library's formation arrays. Most libraries contained simple protection formations, designed to prevent theft and preserve valuable texts. But the Azure Cloud Sect's library had something far more sophisticated—layered barriers that seemed to conceal something.
Using his newfound understanding of spatial manipulation, Luo Chen discovered that there was an entire section of the library that had been sealed away, hidden behind barrier arrays so complex that even the sect master might not have easy access to it.
Unable to resist the mystery, Luo Chen decided to investigate the sealed section.
It took him three weeks of careful analysis and testing to devise a method to bypass the barriers. The seals had been designed to prevent forceful entry, but they had not been designed to stop someone who understood the spatial structure of the barriers themselves.
By tracing the paths of qi flow through the formation array, Luo Chen identified the exact point where the array's power was concentrated. Using a technique of his own design, he created a small spatial fold at that point, temporarily disconnecting the array from its power source. The disconnection lasted only as long as he maintained concentration, but it was enough.
For exactly sixty seconds before the array reactivated, Luo Chen slipped past the barriers into the sealed section.
The sealed section was vast—easily the size of the public library above. And it contained texts that made his eyes widen.
These were not training manuals or cultivation techniques. These were historical records—personal journals and accounts from cultivators of an earlier age. As he read through them, Luo Chen realized he was discovering the true history of the Celestial Chronicles.
The oldest texts described an age when cultivation had first been discovered. Humans had been contacted by celestial beings who taught them techniques for harnessing the qi that surrounded them. These early cultivators had been far fewer in number but vastly more powerful than modern cultivators. They had founded the first cultivation sects and established the systems still used today.
But the texts also described a catastrophic event known as "The Celestial Tribulation."
According to these accounts, approximately five thousand years ago, an immortal cultivator had risen to power whose strength surpassed all others. This cultivator, who came to be known as the First Immortal, had achieved a cultivation base so advanced that they threatened the existing order of the celestial realm.
The texts described what happened next with stark clarity:
"The celestial powers declared that the First Immortal had become a threat to the stability of the cosmos. They gathered together and launched what was called the Celestial Tribulation—an attack so powerful that it sundered mountains, boiled seas, and killed millions of ordinary humans. The First Immortal's body was destroyed, but their soul could not be killed. Legend says the First Immortal's consciousness was scattered across time itself, fragments of their being dispersed across countless reincarnations, waiting to be reborn in an age when the celestial powers would be too divided to stop them."
Luo Chen read this passage multiple times, feeling a chill run through him.
The First Immortal had been scattered across reincarnations. And Luo Chen's own glimpses of past-life memories through the jade disk, his natural affinity for the Space Law and Time Law, his mysterious awakening of the Celestial Eye—could it be that he was not simply a disciple with a unique gift, but rather a reincarnation of the First Immortal himself?
The implications were staggering and terrifying.
If he was indeed a reincarnation of the First Immortal, then the celestial powers might eventually detect his cultivation and move against him, just as they had moved against the First Immortal five thousand years ago. His power would be seen not as a gift to be celebrated but as a threat to be eliminated.
And if the celestial powers learned of his existence, they would move against him with the full force of their authority.
He carefully replaced the texts and made his way back out of the sealed section, reactivating the barriers behind himself. For the remainder of the week, he was lost in thought, wrestling with the revelation.