Chapter 398: Recorders of Past and Present (Part 9)

Liu Hu snapped out of his daze.
He found a middle-aged man in plain white robes standing before him.
“I want you to record someone for me.”
Liu Hu asked, “Who?”
The middle-aged man in white robes pointed to himself.
“Me.”
Liu Hu was slightly taken aback… A living person coming to record him? This was the first time. Was he going to his death?
However, when Liu Hu learned the middle-aged man's identity, he was even more shocked and at a loss for words.
“Sect…Sect Master?”
The middle-aged man in white robes smiled: “Just a dying man, no need to be so formal.”
The middle-aged man in white robes was named Ruan Jingtian, the eighth sect master of the Tianyuan Sect, a legendary figure in the sect.
Liu Hu carefully recorded Ruan Jingtian's words.
Ruan Jingtian, the eighth sect leader of the Tianyuan Sect, studied under the seventh sect leader in his youth, displaying remarkable talent. At the age of fifteen, he created his own cultivation method, gaining fame in the Mu Jing Dynasty's prodigy war and becoming one of the ten greatest prodigies. After his mentor fell ill and passed away, he succeeded Ruan Jingtian as the eighth sect leader. In less than a century, the Tianyuan Sect flourished, becoming a major sect with countless talented individuals. Fifty years later, the Tianyuan Sect ranked among the top ten powers in the Mu Jing Dynasty.
When demons invaded the Mu Jing Dynasty, in the midst of the crisis, he broke through to the Profound Realm and, together with many powerful figures of the Mu Jing Dynasty, ambushed the Demon King, dying in the demon tide.
Liu Hu looked at the middle-aged man before him.
He wasn't dead, yet he had arranged his own death.
Liu Hu carefully sealed the middle-aged man's scrolls. Among them were seven purple jade boxes, with the middle-aged man's scrolls placed in the eighth purple jade box.
Seven months later
News arrived, invigorating the people of the Mu Jing Dynasty.
The demons had retreated, and the crisis of the Mu Jing Dynasty's demise was averted.
However, Ruan Jingtian, the eighth sect leader of the Tian Yuan Sect, never returned.
Not only did the sect leader of the Tian Yuan Sect not return... the patriarchs of the Mu Jing Dynasty, the pillars of many sects, they all remained absent.
Ruan Hongyao succeeded as the ninth sect leader of the Tian Yuan Sect.
This was a new beginning.
Liu Hu continued to serve as the recorder within the sect.
Winter passed, autumn came, cold came, heat went.
Years passed one by one.
Liu Hu was immersed in his work; with each chapter of life he recorded, he gained new insights.
Gradually.
Liu Hu noticed that his fingers had become wrinkled, like the bark of an old tree.
He had grown old.
His aptitude was too poor; his path of cultivation would not go far.
Within the Tian Yuan Sect, the role of recorder had become a tradition.
When Liu Hu requested to train a successor, the sect quickly approved it.
Not long after, Liu Hu selected a successor who satisfied him and began teaching him everything about the Recorder.
Just as Su Chen had taught him years ago.
...
Sixty years had passed since Ruan Jingtian's death.
Sixty years of trials and tribulations. Many once-prominent families and powerful sects of the Mu Jing Dynasty perished after the demon crisis.
The Tianyuan Sect not only survived that crisis but also rose to become the third-ranked sect in the Mu Jing Dynasty.
All of this was because the Tianyuan Sect had a sect leader... and that Grand Elder.
A thunderstorm swept through the sect, and before anyone could react, the direction of the storm was clearly towards the location of the Grand Elder.
A disciple of the sect, seemingly realizing something, shouted, "The Grand Elder is about to break through to the Profound Realm! It was recorded sixty years ago; our Tianyuan Sect's eighth sect leader did just that!"
The sect's disciples and elders were all incredibly excited.
A Profound Realm cultivator! This meant that Tianyuan Sect could now stand on equal footing with the royal family of the Mu Jing Dynasty!
Sun Ao was the first to break through to the Profound Realm.
A hundred-year-old Profound Realm cultivator, his talent was even more astonishing than the eighth sect leader, Ruan Jingtian.
The entire sect was overjoyed.
Liu Hu, however, was still diligently entrusting the duties of the recorder.
His days were numbered.
On a snowy night.
Liu Hu collapsed; his body was too weak...
With Liu Hu's death.
No one noticed that a glimmer of light flashed across Liu Hu's mask... Along with the appearance of this glimmer, the originally mid-grade magic artifact subtly changed.
A top-grade magic artifact!
If anyone were here, they would surely think they'd seen a ghost.
The mask on Liu Hu's face was clearly a mid-grade magic artifact, but suddenly it had become a top-grade one. Although it was only a one-word difference, its value was vastly different...ten times more valuable! This was inexplicable!
Yet, the unbelievable scene actually happened.
As the radiant light disappeared, the mask remained motionless, as if nothing had ever happened.
Until... the young man Dong Qiang, Liu Hu's disciple, discovered Liu Hu's disappearance, and only then did he learn of Liu Hu's death.
Looking at Liu Hu's body, Dong Qiang's eyes held a hint of sorrow. After all, Liu Hu had treated him well, and the sect's high regard for recorders meant that the recorder position offered a generous salary.
Dong Qiang sorted through Liu Hu's clothes, and some of his belongings came to light. These things, which one cannot take with them in life or death, were naturally his inheritance as Liu Hu's disciple.
Dong Qiang wanted to take Liu Hu's body back to the sect for burial.
When he looked at Liu Hu's face, he saw a mask. Since Dong Qiang first met Liu Hu, he had never seen his true face; every time he saw Liu Hu, he was always wearing this mask.
"Could this mask be a treasure?"
Dong Qiang, almost unconsciously, touched the mask on Liu Hu's face. His astonishment gradually turned into greed.
"A high-grade magic weapon...this is actually a high-grade magic weapon!"
Dong Qiang's heart pounded. High-grade magic weapons were rare even among the outer sect members; they were incredibly expensive. He could never afford one with the sect's salary in his lifetime.
Without hesitation, Dong Qiang directly ripped the mask off Liu Hu's face. He played with the mask, pondering whether to sell it for spirit stones or use it himself.
Thinking this, Dong Qiang looked at the mask in his hand, as if drawn by some kind of magic. He immediately put the mask on.
His gaze gradually calmed as he looked at Liu Hu's corpse. Dong Qiang buried this body next to where Su Chen had been buried.
The recorder changed from Liu Hu to Dong Qiang.
The only thing that remained unchanged was the bronze mask still worn on Dong Qiang's face.
The Recording Pavilion continued to record the life stories of the elders and disciples of the Tianyuan Sect.
...
Tianyuan Sect
Fifty years have passed since Liu Hu's death, and the current sect leader, Ruan Hongyao, has broken through to the Profound Realm.
A sect with two Profound Realm experts is undoubtedly the most powerful force in the Mu Jing Dynasty. Even members of the royal family treat the disciples of the Tian Yuan Sect with utmost respect, fearing any offense.
After all, in the current Mu Jing Dynasty, even a single Profound Realm expert is the strongest, let alone two. All the other sects and families combined are no match for the Tian Yuan Sect.
Under the rule of the Tian Yuan Sect, the Mu Jing Dynasty is developing in a positive direction, entering a golden age of martial arts.
However, all of this is far from being as peaceful as imagined.