The Programmer Cultivator

The two took a step back and stood shoulder to shoulder, each bowing to the ancestral tablets on their side. They began to chant, "Five directions, Five Elements. Five Races, five sacrifices. Awaken the Celestial Heart, gather the will of the people..."

As they spoke, the red incense stick in the burner quivered slightly, the ember at its tip glowing a little brighter.

When Lu Ya and Duan Fangchun finished their chant and bowed three times to the tablets, the ember at the tip flared a Fiery Red. It raced down the stick, consuming the entire blood-red incense in the blink of an eye.

Only when the incense had completely burned away did the column of ash lose its form, collapsing into a heap in the peculiar Incense Burner.

The smoke from the red incense, however, did not disperse. Instead, it bizarrely coiled around the two of them. Drifting with a will of its own, it rapidly formed a series of strange Runes.

Immediately after, Runes emerged on the ancestral hall floor, resonating with the smoke. The two figures vanished, and the entire hall returned to its prior tranquility, as if nothing had happened at all.

···

When Duan Fangchun and Lu Ya reappeared, they found themselves in a peculiar room, deep underground beneath Baijie City.

The room’s layout was somewhat similar to the one Guan Shouxin had entered beneath Wanghui Peak.

It was a vast, empty hall, devoid of any clutter. The entire space could be taken in at a single glance, for it contained only two objects.

One object, situated in the very center of the hall, was a peculiar altar. It was covered in Runes, and surrounded by countless runic lines that converged upon it from unknown origins.

The altar resembled a miniature Celestial Heart Altar, but like the one on Wanghui Peak, it also contained just a single, enormous pool. The pool was filled with a Fiery Red solution that looked like magma.

Yet, approaching it revealed none of the heat one would expect from magma; in fact, it felt somewhat chilly. Floating above the pool was an Ordinary Fire-Folding.

Besides these two objects, the room was empty. Spiritual Light flickered as countless chaotic auras converged here.

This was especially true for a few of the lines connected to special locations like the Lu Family and Duan Family "dungeons" and "Cultivation Rooms." The auras within these lines were a particularly chaotic mix—malevolent, resentful, uncanny, and more—all jumbled together and exceptionally potent.

The combined strength of all the other auras in the hall was, at most, only half that of these few lines.

All these auras converged in the magma pool, undergoing a profound transformation and adding to the volume of the magma solution.

Unlike the other four families, who needed to perform their sacrifices periodically, the Lu Family’s Fire Separation Sacrifice hadn’t been formally held in millennia. In another sense, however, it was being performed every day.

Within the altar, all the auras merged into the magma, causing its volume to slowly increase.

But whenever the magma was on the verge of overflowing, the Fire-Folding above the pool would abruptly flare to life.

The volume of the magma solution in the pool would instantly decrease slightly, returning to a near-overflow state, and the Fire-Folding would slowly extinguish.

As it went out, a peculiar sacrificial ripple spread through the air, as if a rite had just been completed. An aura, both pure and "impure," then vanished from the room.

The impurities refined by this combustion—the filth and dregs—were not wasted, either.

Through the resonance between the hall’s Array and the Fire-Folding, they transformed into Ordinary Fire-Foldings, vanished from the hall, and reappeared above in the Lu Family’s daily supply depot for special items.

The entire hall operated automatically, repeating this cycle without end.

···

Duan Fangchun and Lu Ya were not unfamiliar with their surroundings upon arriving; clearly, this was not their first visit.

They glanced around and saw that while the magma pool was not overflowing, the Fire-Folding above it was alight.

Within the dancing flames, an image was visible: a miniature altar where the representatives of Turtle Water, Geng Metal, and Cyan Wood had already taken their places. They flickered faintly, moving with the flame.

Seeing this, the expressions of both men changed.

"Is this... Has the sacrifice begun?" Lu Ya asked, astonished.

Duan Fangchun frowned as well. "What’s going on? Weren’t we told two or three years at the earliest, but more likely ten or so?"

They had only received a unilateral notice, which was why they had started meeting so frequently to discuss preparations for the sacrifice.

"Exactly, they said... wait. Is this a call for help in the middle of the sacrifice?!" Lu Ya stopped mid-sentence, his entire body going rigid.

Duan Fangchun’s brow was deeply furrowed. He mused, "Never mind that for now. Is there any way to help? If the sacrifice fails, all our families’ preparations over the years will have been for nothing."

Lu Ya shook his head. "This Firewood and Fire was forged by our ancestor back when he decided the family should change its path. He fused his own body and his Dao into it."

"It’s not an inanimate object, but its Spiritual Wisdom is limited, and the techniques passed down in our Inheritance can only be used to initiate the sacrifice. We have no control over it in any other way."

"Even our Lu Family’s daily Fire Separation Sacrifice is accomplished by this Firewood and Fire automatically burning and refining defiled energies."

In truth, to say it "burned and refined" was giving the Firewood and Fire too much credit. It was incapable of actually processing Karma.

It merely borrowed the power of the Celestial Heart Sacrificial Array and the altar to roughly sort through the chaotic Karma. The better parts were sent on, while the mixed auras that resisted any successful transformation were left behind as raw material.

Lu Ya paused. "Besides, even if we could intervene, it looks like we’re too late. This must be a Liuying, right? It seems the event was already over before we even came down here."