Pursuit of the Truth

Time passed. In the blink of an eye, one hundred and eighty years went by.

Nearly two hundred years. To a mortal, this was more than two lifetimes. It was a luxury they could not imagine. However, to cultivators, this small amount of time would perhaps naturally pass by if they full immersed themselves in isolation.

More than three hundred years had passed since Su Ming came to Western Ring Nebula’s foreign land. But even after that time, the Duke of Crimson Flame still had yet to wake up. He had turned into a brand on Su Ming’s arm, and Su Ming had no idea whether it was because of the mysteries in this land, but the duke remained in deep sleep.

Su Ming had been puzzled by this before, about why the Duke of Crimson Flame had come to this place with him but did not have a stone monument to show his existence. He had thought about it for a long time, but could not obtain an answer, and in time he stopped thinking about it.

The bald crane also could not leave Su Ming’s storage bag. He had tried several times, and discovered that the bald crane could only appear when he was in the world in the stone monuments. However, once he returned to the land with those one hundred thousand stone monuments, it was as if it was sealed, and not even the bald crane could break through it.

Perhaps this was not a seal, but part of the law in this land.

Thankfully, Su Ming had tried once in the golden sea, and the bald crane… could appear. Once he promised a large amount of crystals to it, the bald crane struck its chest excitedly and agreed to Su Ming’s plan, which made it even more likely to succeed.

After his first failure in Possessing the golden tree, Su Ming had once again descended into an obdurate state. He had made his stone monument reach nine hundred thousand feet seven times and entered the cultivation planet within the golden sea seven times more.

He tried to Possess the golden tree time and again, failing repeatedly, and came face-to-face with the golden tree’s crazed and enraged intent to kill him, but with Sui Chen Zi’s law, that power that could instantly kill him several thousands of times over was forcefully turned into the power that reversed time. Due to this, Su Ming did not feel any danger, despite failing.

Seven tries. Among them, the shortest time he had lasted was when the tree had instantly discovered that he was trying to Possess it. The longest time he lasted was a full span of nine breaths.

This made Su Ming’s previous assumption wrong. He was slightly unclear as to how such a deviation of time could appear in regards to the tree discovering someone trying to Possess it.

The span between one breath and nine breaths might not seem long, but those few breaths was usually the key that determined whether a person would live or die. With the tree’s strength, this sort of inconsistency should not be present.

This became something that troubled Su Ming a great deal. He needed time. Only when he had sufficient time would he be able to complete the Possession. He had even made calculations before, because of which he knew that he would need approximately the span of nine hundred breaths to succeed.

As long as his actions were not stopped during those nine hundred breaths, he had confidence that once he had his soul fill all the tree’s venous pathways, then with the Abyss Builders’ inborn ability, his chances of success would be much greater than of all the others that had tried to Possess the tree.

This was because the other people had tried to Possess the tree’s real body, while Su Ming was doing no such thing. An Abyss Builders’ Possession was different from the others. In fact, it was not really a form of Possession, but rebirth!

From the golden tree’s body, he would use its quintessence, its life force, and all its power to form a new body. It would be the same as rebirth, and this reborn body would become Su Ming’s clone.

This was a rebirth stemming from a Possession that worked its way from the soul to the outer parts of the body. Compared to the other Possessions that worked their ways from the outer parts of the body to the inner parts of the soul, it was only natural that Su Ming’s chances of success were greater. It was just like how a person could easily crush a bug that was lying on the skin and wanted to crawl in, but would find it difficult to kill a bug that was living inside the body.

’Just what sort of reason could cause changes in the time taken for the tree to notice me when trying to Possess it..?’ This was a question that had been plaguing Su Ming’s mind for a hundred and eighty years. If he did not solve this mystery, then even if he had perfected most of his plan for successful Possession, he would still not be able to buy himself the span of nine hundred breaths.

This question continued lingering in his mind for another thirty years, and when Su Ming attempted his ninth Possession, he finally noticed something. This time, the time he could spend Possessing the tree was fifteen breaths!

Fifteen breaths was something that he had never achieved before, but the key lay in Su Ming noticing that there were fourteen people’s stone monuments around him that turned from nine hundred thousand feet to only several tens of thousands of feet tall after his ninth try and subsequent failure once again.

This meant that, including him, there were fifteen people who took the stone monument’s one million feet test.

This discovery excited Su Ming. He tried once again after that, and when he was in this place for a full three hundred and sixty years, he was certain that there was a huge connection to the time taken for the tree to notice him trying to Possessing it and the number of people who were taking the test at the same time.

Once he was certain of this, he did not choose to immediately take the test and try to Possess the tree when his stone monument reached nine hundred thousand feet. Instead, he waited.

He did so quietly, looking for the best time, when there would be the highest amount of people taking the test at the same time.

As Su Ming waited, time slowly passed by. One year, and another year… Su Ming waited for fifty years, then a hundred years. He was so incredibly obstinate with his goal that it was already impossible to describe his stubbornness with words. He sat cross-legged before his stone monument. He would rather give up on the chance to train and continue waiting.

There was a time where there were seventeen people who took the test in succession within a short period of time, then there were nineteen people who took it, followed by twenty-one people, but he chose to give up on all of those. He refused to believe that there would not be a time where there would be more than a hundred people among these ten thousand people who would take the test at the same time.

Su Ming continued waiting until three hundred years went by. With the previous amount of time that he spent in this place, Su Ming had been trapped in this foreign land for seven hundred years by then.

Seven hundred years were equivalent to several generations for mortals. Su Ming’s hair was long, his body was emaciated, his eyes were crazed, and his mind was highly strung.

At that moment, he was completely different from the time when he had just arrived to this place seven hundred years ago. An ancient and aged air radiated off his body, along with madness. In fact, some of the people who came to this foreign land were unable to recognize Su Ming as Su Ming after the Blood Identification Pearl lost its effect upon entering this place

Because at that moment, his outward appearance was not that much different from the old monsters that had been trapped in the place for who knew how long.

However, there was a fire burning in his heart. It was doing so furiously, forcing down his madness, and waiting… for the day it would erupt.

Su Ming waited for almost another hundred years. Then, when he’d been trapped for almost eight hundred years in Western Ring Nebula’s foreign land, the day arrived!

One hundred and twenty-four people’s stone monuments reached nine hundred thousand something feet at around the same time. They might not have reached that height at the same time, but they received the test in succession, and this was the first time more than a hundred people took the test after Su Ming had waited for four hundred years.

Perhaps this was not the largest number. Perhaps if he continued waiting, more people who reached that height would appear at the same time after thousands or tens of thousands of years, or even longer, but perhaps… even after a very long time, such a thing would not happen again.

That was why at the moment those one hundred and twenty-four people took the test at the same time, Su Ming, who had been sitting and meditating without moving for four hundred years, instantly lighted up. It was as if the fire of life that had been suppressed for four hundred years erupted and flamed up at that instant.

’It’s time. If I still fail, then my chances of success will become incredibly slim. This time… is my biggest hope and my greatest chance for success!’

Su Ming lifted his head. The overlapping shadows of the runic symbols in his right eye might not have changed during the four hundred years, but during the times he had worked his way to take the test again, they had long since reached the total of ten thousand. He also discovered a long time ago that once he reached ten thousand runic symbols, their number would stop increasing.

This was also one of the reasons why he chose to wait in place for four hundred years.

At that moment, as the overlapping shadows of the runic symbols in his right eye shone, the vortex appeared on the stone monument before him that had reached ninety-eight hundred thousand feet four hundred years ago. As the vortex spun rapidly, Su Ming’s body became obscure.

When his vision cleared up, he found himself once again in the galaxy near the golden sea. After not seeing it for four hundred years, a brilliant light that could light up even the sky shone in his eyes when he saw it. That light possessed a fighting spirit, madness, and also the strength born from Su Ming holding himself back and bearing with it patiently for four hundred years.

With his fastest speed, he only used the time it takes for an incense stick to burn to shoot through the golden sea that had been incredibly difficult for him to pass through all those years ago. After losing only several thousand runic symbols, he shot out of the highest layer of wind in that cultivation planet and stepped into the sky once again.

As he came face to face with those numerous familiar faces and that branch that came charging towards him swiftly from the distance, a violent burst of light shone in Su Ming’s eyes. At the instant that branch touched his body, his soul… came out with a bang.

At the same time, the bald crane let out a shrill screech and flew out from the storage bag Su Ming had kept on his body and charged towards his soul. The bald crane had always just been an illusion and did not possess a corporeal body. After multiple tests in the world within the stone monument, Su Ming had discovered that his soul could incorporate the bald crane’s existence.

As he fought against the power that reversed time, Su Ming’s soul enveloped the bald crane. Once he touched the branch, with familiar ease, he used his fastest speed and the strongest amount of power he could muster to make his soul explode and spread out. In the blink of an eye, he covered a small area of those golden venous pathways, covering them in black.

Time passed breath by breath, as Su Ming roared in his heart. He did not want to fail again. He wanted to succeed!

’Hurry up! Hurry up! HURRY UP!’ Su Ming roared in his heart. His soul was spreading out rapidly, and during the twentieth breath, he had already occupied nearly three-hundredths of the venous pathways in the place.

This was the most he had occupied out of all the times he had tried. In an instant, he had surpassed the peak of what he had ever achieved. As time passed and Su Ming roared in his heart, the fortieth breath arrived, but there was still no shred of will coming from the golden tree. Su Ming thus occupied a seven-hundredths of all the venous pathways in the tree!

Sixty breaths, eighty breaths… When the hundredth breath arrived, Su Ming noticed that a loud boom coming from the world where the golden venous pathways were. At that time, his soul had already occupied a one-tenth of all the venous pathways in the tree!

This was not just a brilliant achievement Su Ming had never managed to reach in his life, but it was also the maximum that less than ten out of the thousands of people who had tried to Possess the golden tree had managed to achieve over the endless years.

There were still twenty something breaths left!

Twenty breaths later, at the instant Su Ming’s soul occupied fourteen-hundredths out of all the venous pathways, Su Ming gave up on continuing. Instead, he roared in his heart and turned his voice into a sound that echoed within him.

”Bald crane!”

Almost at the instant his voice sounded, the bald crane that had been enveloped by his soul let out a piercing screech.

”Change! Change! I’m telling you, Change!”

The bald crane had known about Su Ming’s plan from the start, since he had told it when they were in the world inside the stone monument. The bald crane also knew just how important the Possession this time was to Su Ming, especially since he had even promised a large amount of crystals. This exited the bird so much that it did not consider failure as an option. Because of this, it used probably an even greater amount of strength than what it had mustered when it fused with the Divinity Incarceration Rune.

As the bald crane roared, all the venous pathways that had been occupied by Su Ming’s soul were immediately covered by a layer of ripples. When they went away, those venous pathways turned from black to gold, and Su Ming’s presence was no longer around, making the tree seem to be in the exact same state as when it was before he’d tried to Possess it.

It was also at this time that a furious roar came from within the tree.

”Damn it, you’re here again, you-you… Huh?”