Chapter 412: Dao Discussion

After downing the drink I couldn't help but let go of a long sigh.

"What is wrong, junior brother?" asked Zhang Tian as he poured me another glass.

I thought for a moment before I spoke, "One can endure the hardships of Time, and the pain of the body for a long time. But still cannot let go of the pleasure of a good drink or the pleasure of the flesh. We live only to please ourselves even if we suffer hardships in the process…"

My words would seem like the ramblings of an old man but the people here, all understood it or I hoped they did.

"It has been a while since we last discussed Dao, junior brother, have you come to some enlightenment of your own in the time we had parted?" Zhang Tian asked.

"Not to intrude," the oldest person in the room spoke as he approached us. "I've heard your conversation and it seemed interesting, for the Immortal Scholar to ask about Dao from a person who just becomes an Ascendant," the old man spoke.

He was bald and had a long but thin beard that seemed to reach all the way to his knees, however even though he looked like an old man he would keel over at the smallest breeze. He gave off a sharp aura, like a sheathed sword.

"Lord Zi Qin, you're more than welcome to join in on the conversation," Zhang Tian said.

With this invitation everyone in the room had their eyes focused on us.

"So, young one, you said that you could speak words of the Dao, but before you speak, can I know how long have you been cultivating?" he asked.

"Is that necessary? Is age something that can define one's understanding of Dao?" I asked.

"It is not, but it is a good indicator of one's wisdom," he said.

"Subtracting the five years I've been imprisoned and unable to cultivate myself, this should be my twelfth," I said.

"Hmm, twelve hundred years, it qualifies a person to speak about Dao," he said.

"I think you're mistaking something," I said.

Zi Qin tilted his head, "If I am, please enlighten me."

"It's only my twelfth-year cultivating," I said.

My words were enough to cause everyone to laugh as if it was a joke. But the old man didn't laugh.

"Your words… seem to hold no lies in them, yet I find it hard to believe, how come a man is able to cultivate to the Ascendant Realm in only twelve years? Not to mention your body's age is older than a century," he said.

"Oh, you can see my age?"

"Bone age, it is obvious for eyes such as mine, so, how come? Did you start cultivating in your eighties? You would have been an old man, with a body riddled with sickness and old of age, a mortal cannot cultivate at such an old age," he said.

"You are right, a normal mortal wouldn't be able to cultivate at such an old age, since their meridians and body would have deteriorated, not to mention that a man that old would have already far bypassed the age of cultivation which is basically in one's teenage years. But as you can see for yourself, I'm not lying," I replied to the old man.

"I can vouch for Shen Bao's words," said Zhang Tian.

"It wasn't longer than ten years ago since I last met him, and he was only a Core cultivator at the beginning of his journey. If Shen Bao wishes I can share his appearance," said Zhang Tian.

I shrugged.

Zhang Tian then pulled a small jade marble and pressed it against his temple. Then soon placed it on the table in front of us.

The marble shone bright and began displaying a sight of an old man wearing dilapidated clothes. He was riddled with tumors and pustules all over his body, but he was focused on something.

The old man was gazing at a blade of grass so intently that everything around him from the formations of the city that seemed to be forgotten in time seemed irrelevant.

In the eyes of that old man, that blade of grass contained knowledge that he had never seen before and was intently gazing upon it to know of its secrets.

Between that old man, and the young man in front of them the only thing that was similar between them were the eyes, well, one eye at this point in time.

That old man studied the grass, then studied the trees, then the doors all the way to understanding the contents of such ambiguous formations. Then that old man began deciphering the formation and gained knowledge, enough to fully break through them and further move forward.

The marble stopped shining and the sight of the old man disappeared.

"That is Shen Bao when I first met him," Zhang Tian spoke.

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"I see," Zi Qin said as he looked at me once again. "However, this is more problematic."

"Why do you think so?" I asked.

"Because if you only cultivated for twelve years, your knowledge of the world would be too shallow to speak of Dao," he said.

"Let me ask you something. You must be older than brother Zhang Tian, but do you have the confidence to say that you know more about Dao than he does?" I asked.

The old man shook his head, "I understand my own Dao, the Dao of Swords, but I wouldn't dare say I know more about general Dao than the Immortal Scholar, unlike me, I devoted my life to the sword, while he devoted his life to knowledge," he said.

"That still means that age is irrelevant in the understanding of Dao," I said

"Age is wisdom," he said.

"Age is also routine, one can become stale at an older age, especially if they reach a power level that they cannot grow past. As for the young, the inexperienced see things differently and tread paths differently. We may be young, and we may make mistakes but the paths that we tread are our own and are different, the way we view the world is different from the way you see the world," I said.

"I would not disagree with that, but it still doesn't prove that you have enough understanding of the world to speak about Dao," he said.

"Then let's go back to the basics, what is Dao?" I asked.

Everyone in the room seemed to pay even more attention to us.

"That question isn't something that anyone here can answer, all we can do is get as close to the source of the answer as we can," he said.

I shook my head, "That is because you all think of Dao as something that cannot be attained, you all think that Dao is the end of all things," I said.

"But it is. If one claims to know what is Dao then they have reached the end of their cultivation."

I shook my head, "That's where you are wrong because I know what is Dao." I said.

The old man frowned, "Those are big words, brat, you're disrespecting the great Dao by speaking such words. You a child who is still wet behind the ears think that you know more than what an eternal world of cultivation is still trying to figure out," he said.

'did I strike a chord, he is pissed.'

I sighed, "I said I know what is Dao, not that I understand it," I said.

"Then what is the difference?" said the old man.

"There is a saying," I said. "Do you know that intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit," I said.

"Huh? What do you mean by that? How can a tomato be fruit?" he asked.

"Because a tomato is a berry, and all berries are fruit, but do you know what wisdom is? Wisdom is not putting a tomato in a fruit basket."

Though I'm sure I botched that idiom back from the earth, but I'm sure that it made the message clear to these old people.

"You all try and find Dao in things that are mystical and far-fetched but you never thought to look at the world next to you," I said.

"There is Dao in everything, in the motion of the wind, in the fall of the rain, in the heavenly order of the world."

"That is a good analogy, but it doesn't explain much," said Zi Qin.

"It is because you see the tree for the tree itself," I said. "How did the tree come to be?" I asked.

"From a seed," the old man said.

"Then, how did the seed become a tree?" I asked.

"It's… because a seed becomes a tree?" the old man spoke in a question.

"What I'm about to tell you might be a bit hard to digest. So open your ears and forget about age for a moment. I'll be telling you of Dao."

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