Day turned to night, and night gave way to day. Shi Yan sat motionless in the small wooden boat, spending the daylight hours in silent contemplation and the nights utterly lost in the majesty of the starry heavens.
Within the ruined temple of the Three Deities Sect, he had awakened the Star Martial Soul in the Star Pool. Through this Martial Soul, he gained mastery over three profound esoteric arts for wielding its power: Star Radiance, Star Aegis, and Star Command.
Star Radiance was a movement technique that shifted his shadow in accordance with the orbits of the stars. Star Aegis utilized stellar power to manifest the forces of Star Wings and Star Evasion. Star Command, however, was the method for grasping the true essence of the stars and applying their power directly to offense.
He felt reasonably proficient with Star Radiance and Star Aegis, having integrated these two arts with his own being, allowing him to deploy them mid-combat to augment his fighting strength.
Only the Star Command divine ability remained truly boundless and profound. To master it fluently required grasping the very laws governing the movements of the celestial bodies and comprehending the deep truth of the stars in the cosmos.
The more he delved into Star Command, the more mysterious and inscrutable it appeared, seemingly holding infinite potential.
The true secret of the Star Martial Soul seemed anchored in this very Star Command. Only by fully awakening this esoteric ability could he truly command the Star Martial Soul, applying its strength everywhere and elevating his own power to an entirely new echelon of being.
Deep in the night, the stars glittered like gems against the canvas of the dark sky.
Since the dawn of time, since the very first appearance of the continent of Shen'en, these boundless stars had existed, never fading or vanishing. Their history stretched far older than the continent itself.
Within that vast sea of stars lay endless mysteries and all the supreme principles governing heaven and earth.
The higher he gazed upon the stars, the more minuscule he felt himself to be.
He harbored a premonition: when he finally deciphered the profound secrets of the firmament, he might be able to break free from the constraints of the Shen'en Continent, his true form descending into the sprawling stellar river to explore its infinite mysteries and immensity.
His mind settled into a state of ethereal clarity. Watching those gem-like constellations, he felt a subtle connection forming with the myriad stars through his Star Martial Soul.
Following that faint tether, he tentatively released his divine sense, sending wisps of consciousness soaring heavenward, slowly probing deeper into the boundless sea of stars.
However, every time his divine sense pierced through veils of celestial mist and seemed poised to escape the boundaries of the Shen'en Continent, a wave of mental fatigue would wash over him, making concentration impossible. The tranquility of his mind would shatter, and the sent forth consciousness would instantly recoil back into his physical body.
There seemed to be an unseen barrier existing in the profound depths of the Shen'en sky—a barrier that exerted a suppressive restraint on martial souls like his. Whenever his consciousness attempted to pass through it, he would be affected by this power, his state instantly compromised, rendering all his efforts futile.
Unwilling to yield, he tried again and again, releasing his divine sense every night, attempting to soar above and escape the influence of that barrier.
Yet, every attempt ended in failure. Just when he felt he could faintly brush against the barrier, his concentration would invariably fail, and his consciousness would plummet instantaneously from the highest heavens.
After countless attempts and countless failures, he finally reached a conclusion.
One: His cultivation realm was insufficient.
If he hadn't reached that necessary state, his consciousness would inevitably be affected. Once near the barrier, he would instantly be tugged back toward his physical form, unable to perceive the barrier's existence any longer.
Gradually, he accepted this reality. He realized that only by raising his cultivation realm could he truly touch that barrier, and subsequently find a way to pierce it, allowing his consciousness to enter the vast cosmos and more deeply experience the true laws governing the stars' movements.
The repeated failures were not entirely without gain. The numerous flights of his divine sense toward the heavens greatly benefited its cultivation. Each time his consciousness fell back from the void, it seemed to be refined and strengthened anew.
Along with this, the size of his Sea of Consciousness expanded slightly, and his understanding of manipulating divine sense and maintaining mental focus deepened significantly.
Previously, when he spread his divine sense, he could only detect life fluctuations within a radius of a few hundred li. But after these days of intense refinement, his consciousness had grown robust. Releasing it again, he discovered his perceptive range had increased to a thousand li.
Unless a cultivator possessed a higher realm and could perfectly conceal their soul fluctuations, no change in life energy, no movement of monster beasts or humans within a thousand li, could escape his awareness.
Temporarily abandoning the endeavor of plunging his consciousness into the vast stellar sea, he did not cease his contemplation of Star Command. During the day, he focused his mind to feel the stirrings of the Star Martial Soul within his heart; at night, he continued to gaze upon the night sky.
Watching the individual stars, he immersed his spirit within them, attempting to correlate the transformations of the Star Martial Soul in his heart with the stars above, sensing the subtle connection between his Martial Soul and the boundless firmament. He sought to grasp the connections and mysteries, endeavoring to delve into the deeper strata of the Star Command technique.
In the cosmos, there were countless stellar domains. Star Command was composed of innumerable stars. A single stellar domain, upon careful observation, seemed to be a naturally formed, mysterious stellar array, possessing unique orbital paths and particular stellar significances.
When he realized that the entire expanse of stars was divided into these stellar domains, each unique and wondrous in its own right, he stopped focusing all his attention on the mysteries of every scattered star in the sky.
All his mental will, all his future spiritual insights, became concentrated solely on one domain: the Big Dipper, which was relatively close and easiest for him to perceive.
Setting aside the grand mysteries of the entire firmament, all his comprehension focused upon the Big Dipper domain. He fixed his eyes, his heart, and his soul upon that single cluster, staring nightly at those seven brilliant stars.
Many nights passed.
Then one evening, as darkness descended and the Big Dipper stars revealed themselves one by one, he looked upon the domain and suddenly realized that the stars, usually no larger than grains of millet in his sight, seemed to gradually magnify within his pupils.
He felt the distance between himself and the Big Dipper shrinking, the stellar points of light beginning to manifest deep within his eyes. The seven star points within the Star Martial Soul in his heart faintly corresponded with the Big Dipper, forming a mysterious link with the star points deep in his vision.
The millet-sized Big Dipper grew larger and larger in his eyes!
After an indeterminate time, under his focused gaze, the light of the Big Dipper in his vision overwhelmed all other stars in the firmament!
The Big Dipper, which should have been the same size as the others, suddenly transformed into seven brilliant, massive star-mountains!
In his sight, the Big Dipper in the cosmos became seven mountains far larger than any other star, their distance instantly collapsing by countless multiples!
Suddenly, the seven stellar points within his Star Martial Soul and deep within his pupils flashed with dazzling starlight.
In the subtle weave of existence, seven almost imperceptible lines of starlight seemed to transmit from the colossal Big Dipper in the sky, linking him to the constellation.
His mind reverberated with a sudden shock. Starlight began to shimmer in his Sea of Consciousness, though he wasn't sure when it started.
At that moment, his divine sense suddenly detached, clinging to the seven stellar points within the Star Martial Soul. As his consciousness settled upon those seven points, he experienced a wondrous illusion: his spirit was wandering through the Big Dipper, departing the Shen'en Continent and entering the vast stellar domain above the constellation.
His spirit was serene; he quietly apprehended everything, losing track of time and space, rapt in ecstatic fascination, as if possessed.
Night faded, and daylight returned, yet in his eyes, the Big Dipper seemed perpetually fixed above him, day or night, unmoving and eternal, as if it had remained unchanged for eons.
The Main Spirit, suspended silently above the expanse of his Sea of Consciousness, also looked upward, seemingly able to see the Big Dipper mere inches away, as if it were tangible to the touch!
Maintaining this mental state, his body unmoving, his eyes unblinking, he simply stared at the heavens for a full half a month.
During this period, it was as if he had entered a secret realm, comprehending some supreme universal principle. Yet, the vital essence within his body continued to flow down into the wooden boat, which drifted silently eastward across the desolate sea.
Time marched on swiftly.
Late one night, Shi Yan, seated in the small boat, watched the stellar expanse. The seven stellar points in his pupils shone ever brighter, and his heart throbbed intensely.
Seven beams of visually perceptible starlight—like the surging waters of a river of stars—streamed down from the highest heavens, traversing the spatial barrier. They manifested abruptly above his head as seven streams of silver-white light, mixed with debris and meteoric fragments too coarse to absorb directly, yet imbued with profoundly mysterious stellar energy.
These seven stream-like shafts of light slowly condensed above his head into seven dazzling, millstone-sized meteorites from the void, arranged according to the configuration of the Big Dipper, moving in mysterious patterns above him.
His eyes and the Star Martial Soul suddenly blazed with starlight. Shi Yan, sitting in the wooden boat, seemed suddenly capable of commanding these seven dazzling extraterrestrial meteorites. Wherever his gaze fell, the seven meteorites followed.
A reef nearly a thousand meters high, like a stone mountain, stood erect on the sea before him. As his eyes focused, the seven millstone-sized meteorites began to spin rapidly, shedding starlight, and suddenly shot toward the thousand-meter-tall reef.
"RUMBLE!"
With a heaven-shaking explosion, the seven meteorites, though only the size of millstones, slammed into the unimaginably massive reef amidst a spray of starlight. As the starlight scattered, the thousand-meter reef appeared to be sliced by light, disintegrating into dust. In the violent rupture of those seven stones, the colossal reef ceased to exist.
Amidst the deafening roar, Shi Yan’s eyes gradually regained focus. The seven stellar points dimmed, but his eyes themselves continued to shine brilliantly against the night sky, soul-capturing and mesmerizing.
"Since I borrowed the power of the Big Dipper, the esoteric art evolved from this Star Command shall be named Big Dipper Stellar Array," Shi Yan murmured, then burst into a low, joyful laugh, his expression elated.