Published at 22nd of September 2024 11:59 pm

Chapter 622: Omens of Strife (2)

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

At the same time, Hu Xiansheng and Niu Baidao were admiring the moon on a loft not far from Source Soul Research Center.

Looking at the distant research center, Hu Xiansheng sighed sorrowfully. "My beloved research center. It now belongs to Su Yu. I wonder if I'll be able to get it back again."

Meanwhile, Niu Baidao was enjoying the liquor and food in front of him. With a smile, he said, "Stop worrying so much. I reckon you won't be able to complete your teleportation formation anytime soon anyway."

Suns and moons revolved in his eyes as he looked at the distant research center. After clicking his tongue in amazement, he said, "It is true that talented individuals will emerge in every generation. The moment that kid moved into the research center, I saw a sun descending from the sky and fire springing up everywhere."

"Is that an ill omen?"

Niu Baidao rolled his eyes and said, "Nonsense. I saw a sun. And fire. That's not a disaster. That's the sign of hope. Get him to pick a few geezers to join his research center tomorrow. The prefect said that he has a natural fire of enlightenment. I doubted that, but I have no choice but to believe that now. Those geezers are too old. They are probably going to die soon. Since they are my old friends, I really can't bring myself to just watch as they die, right? Send them to him. Perhaps they might find the path forward there."

Hu Xiansheng spoke frankly since he had known Niu Baidao for hundreds of years. "The kid might not be willing to accept them. After what he experienced in Great Xia, he is probably guarded against everyone now. Who are you sending over?"

"Let him pick." Niu Baidao smiled and said, "He might be cautious, but he is also ambitious. And he needs manpower to achieve his ambitions. He might find those geezers useful."

Hu Xiansheng nodded.

Niu Baidao said, "Old bastard, you should consider cultivating as well. I can feel that great changes are coming soon. You can already see the signs of the coming of a new era. People like Xia Longwu, Zhou Polong, Zhou Potian, Xia Xiao'er, our Prefect Zhu, Qin Zhen of Great Qin, Liu Wushen of Great Han...all these people were at the eighth and ninth-stage Sunmoon Realm. They are all not far from the Invincible Realm. After centuries of accumulation, the time has finally come for the human race to reap the harvest."

Hu Xiansheng replied doubtfully, "It won't happen too fast, right?"

"It will." Niu Baidao solemnly said, "These people will definitely be affirming their dao one after another after this. Or perhaps they might all do it at the same time. And that will be a great calamity for the human race.

"The current chaos in the Human Realm is essentially the various prefectures fighting for the chance to advance safely. Some will be advancing openly, while some will be doing it in secret. Those in the open will face a lot of danger, but it will be even more dangerous for those doing it in secret. Nobody knows who will end up succeeding and who will end up failing."

Regardless of the result, numerous people would definitely die after that event. An era of strife was about to arrive. After centuries of peace and growth, a group of peak Sunmoons had been produced. And the time had arrived for these Sunmoons to take that step forward.

Hu Xiansheng nodded and asked, "What about you?"

"Me?" Niu Baidao rolled his eyes and said, "It's still too early for me. I'm only a seventh-stage Sunmoon. It doesn't matter that I'm old if my talent is not as good. How can I compete against those super geniuses?"

People like Xia Longwu, Zhou Potian, Zhou Polong, and Zhu Tiandao were all super geniuses.

Niu Baidao was a genius, but not a super genius. After over three hundred years, he had only reached the seventh-stage Sunmoon Realm. And he was already a Mountainsea during the founding of the prefecture.

His progress had been extremely slow. In fact, this was the case for a lot of people.

Hu Xiansheng frowned and asked, "Are you hiding your strength? Your Great Dream Incarnation Art is pretty strong. Have you been hiding some of your stronger clones?"

"Nonsense!" Niu Baidao said, "I'm not hiding my strength. Do you think everyone is as treacherous as Wan Tiansheng?"

Hu Xiansheng laughed and said, "Speaking of, Wan Tiansheng sure is patient. How strong do you think he is?"

"He is definitely not weaker than me."

Niu Baidao said, "That fellow has always been a super genius. He was already a peak Mountainsea fifty years ago. And he's actually quite young. He had reached peak Mountainsea at around forty years old. Is it possible that he will stop growing for fifty years after that?"

Hu Xiansheng shook his head. Bullshit. Nobody believed that Wan Tiansheng was still a Mountainsea.

Sure, there definitely were cultivators out there that had been stuck in the Mountainsea Realm for decades, but Wan Tiansheng would definitely not be one of them. He was a super genius.

Back then, he was a close friend of the fifth principal, an honored guest of Great Xia King, and a celebrity of the Knowledge Seeking Realm. Who would believe that someone like that would be stuck at the Mountainsea Realm?

Hu Xiansheng said, "It's pointless for him to hide his cultivation. The more he tries to hide, the more everyone will overestimate him. A lot of people believe that he's already an eighth or ninth-stage Sunmoon. And if he's not actually that strong, he will be in a lot of trouble."

Niu Baidao nodded. He doubtfully said, "I honestly don't understand him. Everyone knows that he's already a Sunmoon. But he insists he isn't. Why?"

Hu Xiansheng joked, "Maybe he's an Invincible. Who knows?"

"Nonsense!" Niu Baidao said, "Invincible my ass. How can I not know it if he's already an Invincible? How can the myriad races miss it? Each advancement into the Invincible Realm will create multicolored rays in the sky that spread thousands of kilometers while auspicious signs rain down from the sky. An advancement can't be hidden..."

He sighed, "Dao affirmation is very troublesome. If one can affirm one's dao silently without creating such a big ruckus, wouldn't things be a lot more peaceful?"

Hu Xiansheng agreed, "Yeah. Also, one will be the strongest after advancement if one affirms the dao at the Allheaven Battlefield, the entrance of all realms. But Old Niu, can't they find some Invincible ruins and advance in secret?"

Niu Baidao laughed and said, "Are you talking about the fellows from back then?"

Over three hundred years ago, a bunch of humans had advanced in a bunch of ruins. Unfortunately, no new Invincible ruin had been found in many years. At most, only Sunmoon ruins were found.

At the mention of ruins, the two thought about Su Yu. Looking at the distant building, Hu Xiansheng said, "Do you think he has a ruin? If he has one, is it an Invincible ruin? Can that ruin be used for dao affirmation?"

That would be a very big deal if that was the case. All the signs of advancement would be completely hidden when one was doing it in a ruin.

Niu Baidao shook his head, "Don't put too much hope on that. If there is such a ruin, it will be very difficult for others to enter if it is under his control. Of course, you can break in through force, but that will break the ruin so you still can't hide your advancement..."

Hu Xiansheng laughed and asked, "Do you think that the prefect invited him here because the prefect is trying to advance in secret?"

"Don't think so poorly of the prefect...even if he's really not a good person." Niu Baidao said, "I doubt so. Nobody is sure if he really has a ruin. Alright, stop talking about this. Things are getting complicated soon. You should try to enter the Sunmoon as soon as possible. This is difficult for others, but not you. The character technique is the best key for an advancement into the Sunmoon Realm. The myriad races are targetting the multiple character faction, but they have all forgotten about you. This is your chance. Things would be a lot more troublesome if you're as well-known as Hong Tan."

"You’re right." After taking a sip out of his glass of liquor, Hu Xiansheng sighed and said, "The peace has been good. I only hope that this peace can last longer. The first divines and original devils have been staying still, but that is even more dangerous because we don't know what is coming. Things will actually be less dangerous if they openly make a move."

The two major races had not openly done anything against the human race for a very long time. Even their great ancestors had not been seen for many years. They had only appeared a few times over the past few hundred years.

Niu Baidao nodded and said, "Yes. Also, have you noticed? Some minor realms have been connected to the Allheaven Battlefield recently. New realms very rarely appear in the past, but there are more and more of them recently. This is an omen. The chaos of the Myriad Realms is coming."

"Minor realms? Are there any new major realms with Invincibles?"

"Not that we know of, but there are definitely some out there."

Niu Baidao said, "I went to the Allheaven Battlefield not long ago. Some minor realms have appeared at the northern and western sectors. The divines sent three Sunmoons into one of the western minor realms, but all three perished. There are probably some powerful Sunmoons in these realms. Thus, even the divines are being more and more cautious about exploring these minor realms nowadays."

Even with suppression, the three Sunmoons would still be peak Mountainseas in the foreign realm. But all of them had perished. They were supposed to be stronger than ordinary Mountainseas since they were actually Sunmoons. They were probably as strong as a Sunmoon when working together in the foreign realm. But all of them had been killed. It was clear the people in that minor realm had been very decisive during the fight.

Not one of the invaders had been allowed to escape.

"How about our sector?"

Niu Baidao said, "Nothing has been found for now. But I have a feeling these new realms will start appearing in our sector as well. There are too many realms in existence. The Allheaven Battlefield has only existed for a few hundred years yet it has been connected to so many realms in such a short span of time. The battlefield itself is a tribulation of the myriad realms."

Without the Allheaven Battlefield, the various realms would remain isolated from each other.

Hu Xiansheng disagreed and said, "The Allheaven Battlefield is a much older existence than that. It also has a lot of ancient ruins in it. It is more accurate to say that it has merely been forgotten or sealed away for many years before reappearing again.

"If my guess is right, there must be a glorious era during the ancient times. The human race might have been the master of the Myriad Realms during that time. The Allheaven Battlefield itself might be a creation of the human race, a tool to conquer the Myriad Realms."

This was the guess of many human experts. Or to be precise, this was more than a guess. The divines and devils were ancient races that had successfully inherited the legacy of their ancestors. Thus, they had some ancient texts depicting the lost era. A calamity seemed to have befall the Myriad Realms at one point, resulting in the destruction of many ancient records.

But from the available records, the human race used to be terrifyingly powerful. But that was obvious enough from all the ancient ruins they had unearthed thus far. After all, it was through these ruins that humanity had instantly produced dozens of Invincibles when humanity was facing the threat of extinction. One could say that even now, the human race was still benefiting from the legacy of their ancestors.

The conversation ended there.

The two continued drinking while gazing at the distant research center in silence. Just because Great Ming had enjoyed many years of peace did not mean that everyone there had forgotten about the looming crisis. Forgetting how to fight would spell one's end.

The Allheaven Battlefield was getting more and more chaotic nowadays. Even some of those ancient races were starting to reappear after reconnecting their realms with the Allheaven Battlefield. Thus, the Allheaven Battlefield would only grow even more chaotic in the future.

As for the human race, due to the schemes of the myriad races, humanity couldn't even stay united. The human race had been unable to agree on a proper leadership position. Even the strongest human alive, Great Qin King, was unable to unite humanity as a whole. If this continued by the time the final battle arrived, humanity would lose a lot.

***

Su Yu was unaware of the conversation between Niu Baidao and Hu Xiansheng. He was curiously looking at a character in his head. He had just formed his tenth character.

"Beast."

He grabbed at the distant rabbit and activated the character. The rabbit vanished for a moment before reappearing again.

"I'm not even a beast tamer."

Su Yu laughed in amusement. Why had he formed this character? Did this character misunderstand that he was a beast tamer since he had been spending a lot of time with the suanni and the others?

He had formed a character with a beast space within. This was a very rare character. Beast tamers would generally use this character to store the beasts they had tamed. Of course, there were also tiers to this character. At the first tier, one could only store beasts below the Skysoar Realm. At the second tier, one would be able to store beasts at the Skysoar Realm.

Thus, he would need to push this character to the peak second tier if he wanted to store both the suanni and the mountaindrill bull in it.

"I guess this isn't that bad."

This character wasn't exactly useless. He wouldn't be able to have his beasts around him all the time. For example, when he needed to conceal himself, it would be very helpful if he could put all his beasts away.

"What a pity that I can only store a single beast inside a character."

Su Yu complained. This was going to be annoying. It would be better if he could form a character capable of storing countless beasts. But he could achieve something like this even with his character. At the Mountainsea or the Sunmoon Realm, he could use some spatial fragments to modify his character into something similar to a grotto. At that time, he would be able to store a large number of beasts in it.

Normally, only a Sunmoon beast tamer was able to do so without any outside help. A Mountainsea beast tamer would need the help of some devices to modify their beast space into something capable of strong multiple beasts.

In other words, a Sunmoon beast tamer could very well be carrying a beast army with them at all times. As for those below the Sunmoon Realm, they would need to form more characters if they wanted to store more beasts.

"Maybe I can finally get a spatial character after this..."

There were many different types of spatial characters one could form. Storage characters, teleportation characters, space-tearing characters...

Faculty Head Hu probably possessed a teleportation character. It might not be strong offensively, but it was excellent when fleeing. In fact, Su Yu was very interested in something like that. A character like that was perfect for an assassin. It allowed one to sneak close to one's target and complete the job before instantly escaping.

Su Yu exhaled. With ten characters, he could already form a relatively powerful character technique. Should he proceed with his advancement into the Skysoar Realm? But with a laugh, he decided against it.

He would not break through before forming 180 apertures. It didn't matter if he was slightly weaker now as he was sure he would be much stronger in the future. If everything proceeded smoothly, he probably wouldn't even remain a Skysoar for long after his eventual breakthrough. He could afford to take his time now.

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