The hidden cave held no wealth beyond counting in gold and jewels, no peerless martial arts manuals coveted throughout the martial world, and no miraculous elixirs capable of advancing one's cultivation.
The entire cave measured only about ten zhang across. From the ceiling hung a small cluster of silver stalactites, shaped like a forest of swords.
Against one wall burned a large bronze lamp, its oil thick as mercury inside the bronze vessel, the flame burning gold and red in a steady blaze, with sparks occasionally leaping upward. It seemed as though the flame would never go out.
Beyond that, the entire cave contained only one thing, a stone stele.
The stele was jet black overall, standing roughly half a zhang tall, set in the center of the cave. Its surface was rough and carved with an inscription.
Li Musheng walked up and stopped before the stele. It appeared somewhat plain at first glance, but according to what the Falling God Peak grandmaster had told him, this stele had an exceptionally mysterious origin, having been passed down from Falling God Peak's founding ancestor.
The story went that the stele had descended from the sky wreathed in divine fire, and had been discovered by chance by that founding ancestor.
Not only did the stele bear an intricate connection to those with divine nature, it was also the true treasure that anchored the entire sect of Falling God Peak.
Li Musheng circled the jet-black stele once. Falling God Peak's successive grandmasters had called it the Divine Talent Stele.
It was through this stele that Falling God Peak located those with divine nature.
When a person of divine nature was born, celestial phenomena would often accompany the event. Falling God Peak would record the time of the stele's reaction, then search the various regions of Great Li for infants born at those times in locations where such phenomena had appeared.
As one example, the Tianjin Guards of Sheng Province had previously acted as accomplices for Falling God Peak, using exactly this method to slaughter villages and towns in their search for people of divine nature.
Li Musheng stared at the stele for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the big black cat crouching beside it.
The cat at that moment had its green eyes wide open, staring intently and without pause at the inscription on the stele.
Li Musheng reached out and gave its head a pat. The big black cat startled back to awareness, then immediately began rubbing its head affectionately against his palm while meowing in a coaxing, wheedling tone and pointing at the stele with one paw.
It was clearly asking Li Musheng to let it keep reading the inscription.
Li Musheng raised an eyebrow, gave the cat a scratch, and did not stop it from reading.
The inscription, in truth, was the Divine Consumption Art that the Falling God Peak grandmaster had described to him earlier, a technique by which those with divine nature could absorb the blood of divine nature of others to enhance their innate divine abilities.
However, people with divine nature were exceedingly rare, and the blood of divine nature within them could not regenerate. To be truthful, there were not many situations in which the technique could actually be put to use.
Li Musheng withdrew his hand, gave the big black cat one more look, thought for a moment, and warned it in a low, firm tone, "You may read it, but once we leave this cave, you are not to pass this technique on to anyone else."
At those words, the big black cat's green eyes lit up, and it let out a happy meow in agreement, then happily trotted back to keep reading the inscription on the stele.
Li Musheng turned his attention away from the cat, crossed his arms, and stood gazing at the jet-black stele before him, a pensive look on his face.
According to the Falling God Peak grandmaster, in addition to sensing the birth of those with divine nature, the Divine Talent Stele also concealed a tremendous secret known only to each successive grandmaster of Falling God Peak.
It was also the method the grandmaster had mentioned, the one he had said could allow Li Musheng to surpass the Martial God.
As for the secret held within the Divine Talent Stele, it too had been passed down directly by Falling God Peak's founding ancestor.
The story went that if someone could fully comprehend this Divine Talent Stele, they would gain mastery over the four great divine powers of earth, water, fire, and wind, and ultimately hold authority over all of heaven and earth, standing supreme over the world.
"Quite the bold claim. Is any of it actually true?"
Li Musheng rubbed his chin. The founding ancestor who had left this behind had never managed to accomplish it himself.
He was beginning to wonder whether the man had simply been playing games, deliberately fabricating some lofty secret to give Falling God Peak's descendants something to aspire toward.
That said, the Divine Talent Stele was genuinely extraordinary in its own right. The fact that it could sense the birth of those with divine nature from thousands of li away made it clear that this was no ordinary object.
Li Musheng thought for a moment, then swept his gaze across the entire cave to confirm there was nothing else of use. He stepped up close to the Divine Talent Stele, reached out, and gave it a firm knock.
The entire jet-black surface let out a solid resonant thud.
Li Musheng gave a small nod and murmured to himself, "Quite hard. Comparable to that divine artifact, the Imperial Dragon Divine Sword."
The big black cat, however, was startled by the sound the stele made and looked up at Li Musheng with a baffled expression, clearly having no idea what he was trying to do.
Li Musheng glanced at the cat and asked, "Done reading?"
At those words, the big black cat gave an instinctive nod.
Then it let out a soft meow, seeming to express its gratitude to Li Musheng.
Li Musheng, however, paid no attention to that, and instead suddenly raised one hand and lifted the half-zhang-tall jet-black stele clean off the ground.
Then, in rapid succession, he struck it six times, one palm on each of its six faces.
In an instant, the previously rough and entirely jet-black surface began to crack and split at a visible rate, and chunks of coarse black stone began falling away in pieces.
These pieces would normally have been as indestructible as the finest weapons, but now they crumbled and fell one after another, revealing a smooth, dark blue-black surface beneath.
In moments, a rough jet-black stele half a zhang tall had become a sleek, dark jade stele standing roughly a meter high.
The inscription that had been carved into the surface of the stele was gone now, having disappeared along with the fallen stone.
The big black cat stared at this with wide eyes, its expression one of astonishment, and then patted its own chest with a paw, clearly relieved that it had already memorized every word of the inscription.
But in the next moment it quickly crowded up beside Li Musheng and began examining the dark jade stele before them with great curiosity.
"Can you make anything of it?"
Li Musheng directed the question at the big black cat, then furrowed his brow, because he himself could make nothing of it at all.
If this was supposed to be comprehended, the stele could at least have left behind a few characters or some other kind of clue.
But the dark jade stele was smooth and blank, without so much as half a mark on it.
At that point, the big black cat, seemingly flattered to no small degree that Li Musheng had actually asked for its opinion, immediately adopted an expression of grave seriousness and began circling the dark jade stele, examining it from every angle with great care.
It appeared to treat the fact of Li Musheng asking it a question as something sacred and weighty in the extreme, and was determined to give the matter its full and wholehearted attention, even if it was only a cat.
After circling it a few times, however, the big black cat drooped its head, apparently having found nothing either.
Seeing this, Li Musheng narrowed his eyes and murmured, "Looks like there is more to be done."
With that, he struck the jade stele again several more times in quick succession.
This time, however, the stele did not crack and shed pieces the way it had before. Instead, several palm prints roughly half a cun deep were left in its surface.
Li Musheng rubbed his chin and looked over the palm prints he had left behind. They were already slowly healing before his eyes, and would likely return to their original state before long.
"Interesting. So perhaps the secret of the Divine Talent Stele is hidden inside it, and it may only be possible to obtain what lies within by splitting it open entirely."
Li Musheng's expression grew thoughtful.
Though then again, the Falling God Peak grandmaster had said one needed to comprehend the Divine Talent Stele in order to obtain the four divine powers. He was not sure whether his current approach to comprehension was the right one.
Mulling it over, Li Musheng shook his head, then formed his hand into a blade and brought it straight down on the dark jade stele.
What looked like a perfectly ordinary motion from Li Musheng caused the big black cat beside him to suddenly bristle with alarm.
Within those green eyes, it was as though the cat had witnessed a heavenly blade descending from above, wrapped in a terrible and unimaginable power, as if to cleave the entire heavens and earth in two.
And in the next moment, the dark jade stele, which had withstood several of Li Musheng's full palm strikes, was split cleanly in half from the center as though sliced through bean curd, the two halves toppling to either side.
The big black cat stood stunned, while Li Musheng immediately moved to examine the newly exposed cross-section.
At last, he found something different there.
The interior of the stele was now emanating a faint, hazy glow, and within that light, dim patterns of indistinct lines had begun to materialize, wavering between presence and absence.
The patterns did not resemble any writing Li Musheng had ever seen. They looked more or less like something scrawled by a ghost.
"How is one supposed to comprehend this?"
Li Musheng stared at them for a while. His comprehension was indeed unparalleled, but these markings had no beginning and no end, and he genuinely had no idea where to even start.
Just at that moment, the two halves of the dark jade stele that had been split apart suddenly began to shudder violently, as though drawn together by a powerful magnetic force, then simultaneously righted themselves and began pulling toward each other with tremendous force, rapidly drawing together to rejoin.
Li Musheng was quick, however, and let his aura flow into his hands, seizing the two halves of the jade stele and forcing them apart again by brute strength.
"Hmm?"
Li Musheng narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the stele before him.
Just now, the instant he had touched the jade stele, he had caught the faintest trace of a change, in the blink of an eye, in the blood of divine nature he had gathered from the Falling God Peak grandmaster and the honored elders.
Previously, Li Musheng had been absorbing the blood of divine nature through the Divine Consumption Art combined with the Azure Dragon Profound Darkness Scripture. While this had allowed him to break through the limitation that prevented ordinary people from absorbing blood of divine nature, the process had been slow.
But in that one brief instant just now, he could clearly sense that the speed at which he was absorbing the blood of divine nature stored within his arms had accelerated dramatically.
"Could this be how it is meant to be used?"
A thought struck Li Musheng, and he pressed his palm directly against the interior of the dark jade stele, onto those ghost-like patterns of shifting, indistinct lines.
In the very next moment, the light of those patterns seemed to sense the blood of divine nature in Li Musheng's arm, and immediately began to flow and surge, enveloping his entire arm completely.
At the same time, Li Musheng could clearly perceive that as he drew on both cultivation techniques simultaneously to absorb the blood of divine nature, the speed of absorption, catalyzed by the patterns in the jade stele, had suddenly become dozens of times faster than before.
In an instant, threads of divine power began flowing rapidly into Li Musheng's body. Unlike martial True Qi, which circulated through the meridians and the elixir field, this power was closer in nature to the Qilin Blood and the Azure Dragon True Qi, and seeped entirely into his flesh, blood, tendon, and bone.
Just as it had been when he absorbed the Qilin Blood and the Azure Dragon True Qi, Li Musheng felt the divine power continuously enhancing his physical constitution.
In roughly the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the blood of divine nature accumulated from the Falling God Peak grandmaster and the others had been absorbed entirely.
Li Musheng took careful stock of the result. The blood of divine nature from the Falling God Peak grandmaster, the four honored elders, and the senior disciple from before had collectively improved his physical constitution by roughly fifteen percent, which was an even more pronounced effect than he had achieved from absorbing the Azure Dragon True Qi.
Furthermore, Li Musheng could clearly sense that faint traces of divine power now resided within him. Although he possessed no divine nature and could not draw on this divine power to command elemental forces such as wind and thunder, he could now perceive the connection between divine power and the forces of heaven and earth far more directly than he had when merely observing the Scarlet Fire Honored Elder and the others in combat.
Of course, he still had no way to control that connection. Divine nature and martial cultivation were two entirely different and incompatible systems, and his achievements in the martial path could not, for the time being, extend any influence into the other.
With that in mind, Li Musheng looked at the dark jade stele in his hands, the two halves still straining constantly toward each other, trying with all their force to rejoin.
Perhaps what the Falling God Peak grandmaster had said was actually true. If someone could truly comprehend the mystery within this stele, and through that comprehension seize control of the connection that existed somewhere in that unseen space, then even an ordinary person might be able to command the innate divine powers that only those with divine nature could wield.
"It is quite the treasure."
Li Musheng released his grip and let go of the restraint he had placed on the dark jade stele. In an instant, the two halves were drawn together and fused back into one, and before long it had returned to its original complete form as the dark jade stele, with even the palm prints Li Musheng had struck into it earlier fully healed over in the interim.
Seeing this, Li Musheng considered for a brief moment, then reached out and lifted the entire Divine Talent Stele.
The stele was certainly worth studying further, but he had no time to do so right now. He would simply have to take the whole thing with him.
He then glanced down at the big black cat sprawled at his feet.
After being startled by Li Musheng's palm-blade strike, the cat had quickly been drawn back by what was happening inside the dark jade stele. It seemed utterly captivated by the glow emanating from the stele's interior, and had stayed close to Li Musheng's side, lying on the ground and drinking in the light from the jade stele with great eagerness and delight.
Only when the stele closed and the light vanished entirely did the big black cat stretch with a long, satisfied yawn, clearly reluctant to be done, and begin rubbing itself persistently against the hem of Li Musheng's robe.
Those green eyes rolled about busily, as though it had decided to attach itself to Li Musheng from this point forward.
Li Musheng took it all in without particular concern. He crouched down and gave the cat a scratch.
He did notice, however, that after absorbing the light from the jade stele, the cat seemed somewhat larger than it had been before.
"Interesting."
Li Musheng looked the big black cat over for a moment, then patted its head, stood up, and left the cave.