In their minds, destroying the Central Plains with a single punch was not something even the supreme gods among immortals, beings capable of creating heaven and earth, could achieve.
They never imagined that within the Azure Scale Immortal Sect, there were numerous Venerate realm experts, and Divine Fire realm cultivators were not uncommon. Only those in the True One realm, the True Gods, could hold high positions.
Even more terrifying was.
The supreme being among immortals and gods, the Sect Master of Azure Scale, personally told them that no one in the Azure Scale Sect was an immortal.
True immortals were still far from the Venerate realm.
To ascend from the Venerate realm to the Divine Fire realm, True God realm, Heavenly God realm, Void Dao realm, Severance realm, Escape One realm, Supreme realm, and only then could one become a true immortal, the True Immortal realm.
This statement collectively stunned all martial artists in the martial world.
They could not fathom the existence of beings more powerful than a Venerate realm expert who could destroy the entire Central Plains with a single punch.
It was even more inconceivable that there were so many realms to cultivate through after the Venerate realm to become a true immortal.
In their original understanding, a mere ten thousand jin of strength from the Blood Moving extreme realm was already that of a true immortal!
"Father, the immortals of Azure Scale Sect say they are not immortals..."
Song Qinzong, Zhao Huan, said to his father, Emperor Huizong of Song, the renowned Daoist Emperor, during the Immortal Destiny Grand Assembly.
"No, they are immortals."
Song Huizong declared definitively.
Song Huizong had sought immortality for years and met countless Daoist masters who boasted about the might of the Three Pure Ones and the power of Daoist deities.
Their titles grew ever more impressive.
There were also divine soldiers of the Six Jia, and Daoist divine abilities, each more formidable than the last.
Yet, when Jin soldiers marched south, none of these Daoist masters displayed any significant strength against them, nor did the Three Pure Ones they worshipped descend to save the world.
At this moment, in Song Huizong's heart, the Three Pure Ones, Four Emperors, and Five Elders, these Daoist deities, were all illusions. No matter how grand their reputations, they proved useless in critical times, mere clay statues.
In the perfect system, the weakest realm, the Blood Moving realm, possessed ten thousand jin of immense strength. This was the true divine immortal.
...
Autumn, 1131 AD. The Azure Scale Sect completed its disciple recruitment, and the Immortal Destiny Grand Assembly concluded.
Many renowned martial artists from the Heavenly Dragon world, whether affiliated with sects or not, were all accepted into the Azure Scale Sect.
These innate martial artists, in the face of immortal discipleship, no longer cared about their original affiliations. They directly bowed to the immortal masters, turning their former sects into outer branches of the Azure Scale Sect.
History turned a new page.
The world's conflicts ceased. Nothing was more important than becoming an immortal. Whether it was the officials in the imperial court, the royal families of Jin, Western Xia, and Dali, or those in the martial arts world, all yearned to achieve immortality.
Although the immortals claimed they were not immortals, merely cultivators.
In the eyes of the world, they were immortals and gods.
From the Sweeping Monk to Xu Zhu and Duan Yu, all were taken in by the Azure Scale Sect.
However, the Azure Scale Sect placed greater importance on the elder martial artists. Duan Yu, who relied on absorbing others' inner energy and possessed the peerless martial art of the Six Meridian Divine Sword to become a top-tier expert in the martial world, was not highly regarded and was treated as an ordinary disciple.
After all, the Azure Scale Sect primarily valued the martial artist's state of mind, spiritual enlightenment, sword intent, and blade intent. Duan Yu, who relied on cheating and lacked sufficient spiritual depth, was not particularly favored.
...
1181 AD.
In just fifty years, the world's structure had drastically changed.
The ruling bodies of the Central Plains and its surrounding regions were no longer Jin or Southern Song, but the Azure Scale Sect.
The Immortal Sect ruled the world.
Under the Immortal Sect, the various martial arts sects and branches governed the world.
After fifty years, with sufficient cultivation resources, those former innate martial artists and elder martial artists had stepped into the Spirit Transformation realm, and even the Rune Engraving realm.
Former Grandmaster-level martial artists, like the Sweeping Monk, had even reached the Array Formation realm, only one step away from the Venerate realm. Even the Sect Master of Azure Scale was greatly shocked by this.
Within the former martial arts sects, there were now cultivators in the Cavern Heaven realm and Spirit Transformation realm. How could the former Jin or Southern Song, with their armies of hundreds of thousands armed with cold weapons, possibly rule the world?
A single cultivator in the Blood Moving extreme realm could sweep through all opposition, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of troops and destroying a cold weapon dynasty.
The authority of former dynasties had vanished completely.
Now was a new era.
...
1193 AD.
In the original storyline, at this time, the Five Greats were having a martial arts tournament on Mount Hua to determine the ownership of the Nine Yin Manual, with the Central Divine obtaining first place.
But after the arrival of the Azure Scale Sect, the Five Greats, in their youth, were recognized for their comprehension and talent by the Azure Scale Sect and were accepted into the immortal sect to cultivate the perfect system.
At this moment, Ouyang Feng and Huang Yaoshi, two of the Five Greats, were drinking on the highest peak on Earth, Mount Everest.
Both possessed Spirit Transformation realm cultivation and could ignore the cold wind, treating the harsh natural environment of Earth's highest peak as insignificant.
Due to various altered destinies, their relationship was quite amicable.
As good friends, they talked more freely and reminisced about the Azure Scale Sect.
"If the Azure Scale Sect had not arrived, we would likely not have been able to leave the Central Plains and drink on the highest peak of this planet."
"Our current cultivation is entirely thanks to immortal cultivation. Even if one reached the Grandmaster realm in old martial arts, they could not fly through the air, nor could they treat a million-strong army as nothing."
"That cannot be said entirely. Martial arts still have great value in terms of the state of mind."
State of mind, this was a term the Azure Scale Sect developed through studying the perfect system and the martial artist system.
According to the Azure Scale Sect's research, the martial dao cultivation system purifies and delves into the functions of the state of mind.
This cultivation system must be established under conditions of weakness to effectively strengthen the mind. Conversely, the former elders and sect masters of the Azure Scale Sect, due to the immense power within their bodies, found it difficult to progress in their state of mind.
Even if they wished to improve their state of mind, it was often arduous, requiring ten or even a hundred times the effort.
When the internal energy was powerful, improving the state of mind required elevating it on the basis of controlling this energy. The strength of the energy itself became a burden.
Weak internal energy was more conducive to improving the state of mind.
However, all of this had to be based on cultivating the martial artist system. If a cultivator remained in the Blood Moving realm for a hundred years, naively believing that weak internal energy would improve their state of mind, it would be the same as for ordinary cultivators of the perfect system.
Why this was so, the many cultivators of the Azure Scale Sect could not fully comprehend.
They could only make preliminary hypotheses.
...
One hundred and fifty years later, the storylines of Legend of the Condor Heroes, The Return of the Condor Heroes, and even The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber had passed.
The Azure Scale Sect had accepted Guo Jing, Huang Rong, Yang Guo, Zhang Sanfeng, and others as disciples.
Two hundred years later, outside the solar system, other top powers descended. Several Heavenly God realm experts engaged in a fierce battle with the Sect Master of Azure Scale.
Due to many martial artists having already cultivated to the Divine Fire realm, the Azure Scale Sect held the advantage during the conflict.