Totem
Totem
Ling Han accepted it with an open mind, and said, "Please point it out."
Yi Shuang Shuang started to create difficulties, and said, "Where's the tea? The present for acknowledging a master? Brat, you're not really thinking about getting things for free, right?"[1]
"Hehe, are you for free?"[2] Ling Han said with a smile.
Yi Shuang Shuang glared at him, and said, "Brat, you're seeking death again?"
Ling Han nodded to have the palace maids bring deliver fragrant tea and fruits, and said, "Teacher Yi, please sit and allow your student to ask for guidance."
"Yes!" Yi Shuang Shuang sat upright, and said, "Seeing that you're fairly sincere, this lady will kindly instruct you!" She coughed lightly, and went on, "In the divine realm, countries are divided into a total of four levels: heaven's court, sovereign's court, emperor's court, and king's court, with heaven's court being the highest, and king's court the lowest. Each level has strict limits decided by the size of the country's territory and the quality of elites—definitely not whatever you want to call it.
"Theoretically, it's impossible for a mayfly world to produce a sovereign court. It's not qualified enough."
Ling Han immediately said, "Before, Fatty Ma established Purple Moon King's Court, but now it's Purple Moon Emperor's Court[3] I didn't think that fatty was that unreliable."
Yi Shuang Shuang nodded, and said, "That fatty had been buried for so many years, and was cocky to dare claim it was an emperor's court. Fortunately, he's not in the divine realm, or it'd be bulldozed."
"Then how can it be called an emperor's court?" Ling Han asked.
"You don't have to think about this now. If you can really successfully split open the skies, you'll know eventually. Now, you'd just be wasting time thinking about it." Yi Shuang Shuang waved her hands, and continued, "In reality, your king's court doesn't live up to its name and needs a Shattering Void Tier elite to keep watch over it."
Ling Han shrugged, and said, "It's useless to talk about this now, we'd better talk about something more practical."
Yi Shuang Shuang rolled her eyes at him, and said, "How can I explain it clearly without speaking more in detail?"
"But you say don't even think about it now and then not qualified enough, I really don't get the point." Ling Han sighed.
"The point is coming right up, have some patience, alright?" Yi Shuang Shuang said. "Establishing a nation is easy. But if you want to extract the power of nation, it definitely doesn't suffice to just establish a nation.
"Power of nation, a nation's influence, its fortune. Where does it come from? It's your subjects' faith in this country and their dependence on the country, which then allows for the power of nation to be extracted."
Ling Han knew this: the conversion of popular sentiments allowed the power of the nation to be extracted, or else the power of the nation would be empty talk.
"However, normal people can't possibly have seen you, and a nation is an abstract existence, so how will your subjects have faith?" Yi Shuang Shuang asked.
What?
Ling Han fell into deep thought, and said, "Then what should I do?"
"You need a totem to be the the nation's symbol, and through this totem, popular sentiments can aggregate while you extract the power of the totem. This is the correct way of the power of the nation," Yi Shuang Shuang said.
Ling Han gave an oh, and asked curiously, "You're quite clear about divine realm's situation, could you be from the divine realm?"
"Hehe, you guess!" Yi Shuang Shuang wasn't willing to give a definite answer.
Ling Han didn't dwell on this point, and said, "Then how's the totem made?"
"That's easy. You can find some arbitrary thing and place it in the ancestral shrine, then spread the portrait thereof all over the nation for people to worship. Naturally, the power of faith will be produced, and as time passes, after the totem aggregates enough faith, it can also produce a spiritual will to protect this nation.
"In the divine realm, if a great war occurs between nations, whichever nation suffers the loss will have its totem weakened, and the winner will have theirs strengthened. This is the foundation of a nation!"
As a nation's symbol, the totem… how could it be arbitrary?
Ling Han began to think seriously as to what he would choose to be the totem. The first subconscious reaction would obviously be the true dragon.
Dragon, the son of heaven, blessed by the heavens.
However, he'd just killed two people of the sea race with true dragon's blood, so taking the true dragon as a totem seemed somewhat unjustifiable? Besides, Ling Han didn't think that true dragons were really extremely powerful.
Nine Dragons Tyrant Body Art could grant the power of nine true dragons, and Annihilating Dragon Star Arrow was said to even be able to kill dragons, so true dragons apparently weren't superior and inviolable in the divine realm.
Then why not use… Black Tower?
Black Tower's secrets couldn't be leaked, but fixing a tower-shaped totem, who would associate it with the Black Tower? After all, there were quite a few tower-shaped Spirit Tools, but none of them could compare to the Black Tower.
Yes, it's decided!
Ling Han smiled mischievously, and said, "In the future, how about you stay to be worshiped and give some advice in ordinary times? You can help dismiss experts if they come too."
"Then what benefits does this lady have?"
"Eat the food here as you please!"
"… You think this lady is a chowhound?" Yi Shuang Shuang said sourly.
"Chowhounds are quite good, the more you eat, the more you grow!" Hu Niu said in all seriousness, looking somewhat enviously at Yi Shuang Shuang's breasts, which heaved and could compare with the greatly alluring Zhu Xuan Er's.
Yi Shuang Shuang laughed heartily, walked over to hug Hu Niu forcibly, and said, "Such a cute and playful little girl, this lady really wants to hug her all day!"
"Damn it, Niu doesn't want your hugs!" Hu Niu struggled repeatedly.
Ling Han ignored them. Yi Shuang Shuang was of unknown origin, but didn't seem to have ill intentions, so he let Hu Niu play with her. He set about designing Black Tower's totem and changed it slightly. Although it still looked like a Black Tower, it was still considerably different from the one in his dantian.
He immediately issued an imperial edict to use it as the nation's totem and symbol and transmit it to every corner of the north region. Of course, to turn it into a true totem and make it become a sort of faith obviously wasn't something to be done in a short period of time.
According to Yi Shuang Shuang's statement, after the totem formed, a corporeal form of the totem would be formed on top of the imperial palace to guard the imperial city. The larger the nation's territory, the stronger the strength of the subjects, and the more united the people's hearts were, the stronger the totem.
He carefully recalled that neither the nine nations of the desolate north nor Purple Moon Emperor's Court[1.ED/N: This may from now on appear as synonym to Purple Moon Empire.] had the existence of a totem. It seemed that similar to him, they didn't know anything, and just knew to establish a nation.
Fatty Ma had to be reminded—perhaps the reason he'd failed to split open the skies the last time was connected to totems.
With Yi Shuang Shuang's help, Ling Han was obviously a bit surer, and he also finally thoroughly grasped the Ice Dragon Ground Blast Formation and created 108 formation's eyes in the Black Tower.
108 short swords were distributed around him as he threw them out. Because he'd personally created these formations' eyes, he didn't need to control them with much effort. Each short sword automatically landed in the corresponding position, floating in the air. The formation patterns emitted a faint light, and the world's Spirit Qi instantly gathered, condensing into a white pillar.
The temperature dropped drastically; even more Spirit Qi swirled by as the white pillar changed rapidly, turning into an ice dragon!
[1] TL/N: 空手套白狼, lit. "obtain a white wolf empty-handed", means to swindle, deceive, con, or obtain something without investment—it was meant as a praise in the ancient China, but has a negative connotation nowadays.
[2] TL/N: Literally, are you a white wolf? Ling Han means that she is an auspicious sign, the way it was in ancient times.
[3] ED/N: There might've been a mistake somewhere. That is, we might've translated the ancient one, PM Kingdom, as Empire at some point... I think I got all of those places covered, but the author's being so confusing now that we're not sure... there are many terms in this novel that you have to read far, far ahead to translate well because context matters. Anyway, to make sure everything is clear: the ancient one in ruins is PM Kingdom, at king's court level, and the current one is PM Empire, at emperor's court level, which means it is a level higher.