Published at 23rd of September 2024 1:54 pm

Chapter 871: Otherworldly Paradise

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It was difficult to describe a small world in words.

For a cultivator, a small world was both past and future, the ruiner of wealth and the foundation of prosperity, the beginning of the Great Dao and the end of the Great Dao!

It was an object of both love and hatred.

It was loved because the small world was the most worthwhile investment one could find.

It was a real world that truly belonged to oneself, and it could offer the owner endless wealth in the future. For example, the Martial Lord's hidden realm could serve as a base for resources, a land for raising fiends, a Mustard Seed Bag of infinite capacity, or even a place to comprehend the Great Dao.

But it also required boundless investment, and until it was nurtured to maturity, it was basically useless.

Tang Jie had stuffed an endless amount of resources into his own giant Mustard Seed Bag, and the only time he had really used it was in his battle with the Blood River Lord. At the time, he had been able to wield the power of Violet Palace while still at Celestial Heart, which was quite refreshing, but the consequences on the small world had been severe, and he had needed to double the resources he had used.

Even now, his small world had just developed a basic system, and for the sake of its future development, he was very unwilling to use it. In comparison, the Jewel Immortal Sovereign's small world had shallow foundations which didn't require much investment, so she was able to quickly put it to work. Of course, this meant that its power was limited. Still, Tang Jie had just barely managed to emerge victorious in their battle.

He hadn't expected to see a whole small world turned into a tomb.

This small world was brimming with life, more like an otherworldly paradise than a tomb. From a distance, he could even make out someone belting out a song as they rowed their boat.

Tang Jie flew in the direction of this sound and soon saw a village. These villagers seemed to be in the middle of a festival, and from the look of it, all of them were mortals.

After listening for a while, Tang Jie gained a rough understanding of their tones and pronunciations, which he confirmed to be a native language not found in the outside world.

For some reason, Tang Jie felt an innate closeness to them. Descending from the sky, he transformed his appearance and headed into the village.

Several villagers and some children playing around by the village entrance spotted him and immediately ran off into the village like they had seen a ghost. Tang Jie was unsurprised, perhaps seeking this very effect. A large group of people soon rushed out of the village, gawking at Tang Jie curiously. But they didn't carry any kind of weapons, which had to mean that they didn't live very dangerous lives and weren't very wary around strangers.

An old man holding a cane walked out of the crowd and said in a trembling voice, "Guest, where do you hail from?"

Tang Jie had already used a secret art so that he could understand what they were saying, and he replied in the same tongue, "From the world outside."

"'The world outside'?" The crowd grew restless.

Someone loudly said, "I knew it! There had to be an outside world! All of you didn't believe me, but now look! I was right!"

The villagers were in an uproar.

Thus, they invited Tang Jie into the village so that he could talk about the outside world.

Although he knew the Flame Celestial Sovereign was still chasing him, he felt like the Immortal Emperor's small world was rather strange for having this group of people who didn't cultivate. After all, this was his small world, rich in spiritual energy and possessing all the requirements for cultivation. Back in the Mountain River State Diagram, there were already creatures on the central island that were starting to cultivate. For someone as powerful as Immortal Emperor Yu Cheng, to say that his small world had a country of cultivators wouldn't be strange at all, perhaps with a limitation that nobody could cultivate above Violet Palace. Only that befitted his status.

But the mighty Immortal Emperor had only a single village? It was a little too crude.

Tang Jie wanted to understand why, so he entered the village.

In the village, he was served tea.

The tea leaves were grown by the village from some sort of dark plant, but it was rather fragrant, and the tea was clear. Tang Jie sipped a little and found it sweet, but nothing amazing.

The villagers surrounded Tang Jie and questioned him about the outside world.

After some thought, Tang Jie chose to answer some of the questions while gathering information on the village.

As expected, the villagers had lived here for generations, and as there were no seasons here, they knew nothing about the passage of time. But they had heard from their ancestors that they were not natives of this land and had come from the outside world, so they had known a little about the outside world. Through the passage of time, such matters came to only exist in their records, and the villagers that were born here had no impression of the outside. This village had seen countless generations over the centuries, but the same could not be said of those records, which crumbled away over time, and the villagers gradually lost their knowledge of the outside world. What remained was a myth, a legend that existed only in the memories of the distant past and in their dreams.

It was only today, with Tang Jie's appearance, that everyone learned that there really was a bigger world out there, full of new and interesting things.

"So you are the only people in this place?" Tang Jie asked.

The villagers nodded.

They had explored this small world before, and it turned out that it was much smaller than Tang Jie had imagined. The villagers had long ago measured this place with their own two feet. In their eyes, the world was only so big, and they couldn't imagine anything larger, much less a land without any kind of boundaries. For them, the world had an end.

Tang Jie asked what this end was like.

The villagers gestured and said that it was a transparent barrier. Though it was transparent, they couldn't see the outside world through it.

Tang Jie was flabbergasted, and he felt that there was something fishy.

His Mountain River State Diagram also had a boundary, yet it was no transparent barrier, but the void, which could be expanded into. However, he had seen a transparent barrier like this before, around the Martial Lord's hidden realm!

For some reason, Tang Jie felt that this was all connected, but he had no evidence for it.

He asked a few more questions, but these villagers, living in this limited space, had limited experience and really didn't know much. They only knew that this dimension was rather bounded, having only this mountain and this river.

Tang Jie found it hard to believe that such a small space would be the Immortal Emperor's tomb. It had to be understood that his own Mountain River State Diagram was a hundred times larger. Even without using dimension warping, the exterior of the tomb indicated something larger.

Hold on!

Tang Jie suddenly had an idea.

He recalled how his own Mountain River State Diagram had a bunch of creatures living on the central island, and while they believed that there was a bigger world outside, they had never once left their island.

For them, the island was everything. Let alone the world outside the diagram, even the world inside the diagram was something they had never experienced.

Tang Jie seemed to understand.

There had to be a path leading to an unknown region in this place.

He quickly asked the villagers.

His question immediately bore fruit. The biggest landmark here was the mountain in the distance. The mountain was covered year-round in clouds which crackled with lightning. People had once tried to reach the summit, but they had been scared away by the lightning, and according to the villagers, nobody in all their history had ever made it.

Thus, a rumor spread in the village that anyone who reached the summit would be able to go to the outside world.

Brave villagers who knew no fear had attempted this feat, and none of them ever returned. Had they succeeded in reaching the other side, or had they gone to the afterlife instead?

For a long time now, that high mountain had been a forbidden ground.

Hearing this, Tang Jie knew that this mountain was most likely the path to heaven, though "heaven" in this case was the deeper layer of this small world.

He hadn't expected the Immortal Emperor's world to also be multi-layered.

Now that Tang Jie knew where to go, he didn't linger and set off.

Before leaving, he advised the villagers that this place was dangerous and that they should move.

But most of the villagers were used to living here and were unwilling to leave. Tang Jie didn't force them, only bringing the willing into the Mountain River State Diagram, giving them a new home, with Xu Miaoran and the others there to take care of them.

This was the villagers' first time seeing the feats of an Immortal, and they prostrated in fear. Many more villagers changed their minds after seeing this, more willing to follow an Immortal.

But there were still some old and stubborn ones who refused to leave.

Again, Tang Jie didn't force the issue. In truth, the best choice here was to kill them so that they didn't divulge any information to the Flame Celestial Sovereign, but this idea didn't even occur to him.

Tang Jie wasn't the same Tang Jie of the past. In the past, he was willing to do anything to win, but now, he knew what should be done and what shouldn't be done. Everyone had a life. He would do his best to offer aid, but when people chose their own Fate, he would not go out of his way to protect them. This was his current attitude.

After leaving the remaining villagers, Tang Jie flew toward that high mountain.

As he flew closer, the details of the mountain became apparent.

It was a tall mountain with steep sides, and the clouds covering its peaks seemed to spiral into a giant vortex.

For some reason, Tang Jie found this vortex and mountain to be very familiar.

It was like he had seen them before.

Suddenly, a scene flashed before his eyes.

It was from his time in the Blood River Domain.

A tall mountain covered by clouds, a vortex formed above!

Wasn't this what he had seen in the Heavenly Simulation Formation?

Tang Jie shuddered.

Was he wrong about its conclusion? Was that predicted scene only happening now?

If this was true, if he tried to fly, would a finger come down and pulverize him?

He hesitantly looked up at the clouds.

At this moment, there was a flash of fire in the distance.

He knew without even looking back that the Flame Celestial Sovereign had caught up.

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