Chapter 268: Chapter 25: High-Spirited
"Don’t you have a brain of your own? I’m not your external processing unit!"
"What, you mean you’re not my external search engine?!"
Yara, who had flicked Su Zhou’s head with her tail, didn’t answer the question. Su Zhou, a firm believer in the principle ’why think for yourself when you can just ask someone,’ gave it a moment’s thought and came to a conclusion. ’Looks like this is pretty similar to the information I’ve been finding in the classics recently.’
After the Cultivation Academy officially began, Su Zhou didn’t attend any classes or give any lectures. He did, however, spend some time in the training camps, beating the arrogance out of a few gifted students from various regions and teaching them there was always someone stronger. But no professor could offer him experience at the Extraordinary Tier, and no student was important enough to warrant his incredibly precious time.
However, Zhengguo’s archives, as vast as an ocean, contained quite a few—or rather, a great many—classics that could help Su Zhou. They provided him with a wealth of resources for his advancement.
Among them were some descriptions that indirectly answered the question of the Dragon King’s Remains at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
’According to Yara, Earth is the Extraordinary center of the Multiverse I live in. And in the Ancient Era, Earth did indeed have many Secret Realm Cave Heavens, and even passages to otherworlds.’
These so-called Secret Realm Cave Heavens were similar to Immortal Blessed Lands like Kunlun Jade Mountain. In Western fantasy terms, they were special High Magic Half-Planes.
The residences of many Immortal Gods and the ancestral lands of great sects were located in these Grotto Heavens. For example, Zhengyi Academy’s original home was in a Great Cave Heaven. They had escaped with their inherited classics just before the Spiritual Qi was cut off and the Grotto Heaven sealed itself.
Furthermore, Earth was once covered in passages to otherworlds. There were so many that the Immortal Gods of the time called them the "Thirty-Three Heavens." Of course, there were far more than thirty-three otherworlds connected to Earth. The Dragon Race alone, which particularly interested Su Zhou, inhabited over a dozen Realms, including "North Netherworld," "Celestial Pool," "Four Seas," and the "Hundred Thousand Mountains."
These vast Realms could individually surpass Earth in size. It was the resources from these worlds that sustained the enormous Demon Kings and Immortal Gods, providing for their daily sustenance and cultivation.
As for Earth itself, it was more like a hometown or a political capital. In other words, it existed as the "Central Immortal Realm" that reigned over the many worlds.
An unknown number of millennia ago, the Spiritual Qi began to fade. As the Spiritual Qi dried up, these passages to otherworlds started to close one by one. This process forced most of the Immortal Gods to withdraw from the various otherworlds and return home. However, they soon discovered that Earth’s Spiritual Qi was also steadily flowing away into other, unknown otherworlds—through the massive rift in the Celestial Vault.
The Celestial Pool Dragon King from the "Celestial Pool" had literally starved to death during this period of Spiritual Qi depletion.
After returning to Earth, it likely couldn’t adapt to the low-spirit environment. Its massive size prevented it from joining the majority of Immortal Gods in their desperate gamble to journey to other unknown Spirit Worlds. Even when it struggled on the brink of death, other Immortal Gods forcibly held it down to prevent it from destroying their homeland. And so it died, fading into obscurity as a skeleton at the bottom of the sea.
Moreover, not all of the Immortal Gods and their descendants returned to Earth back then.
Now, with the Spiritual Energy Revival, the once-sealed Space-Time Passages to otherworlds are about to reopen. But what lies behind them are not untouched virgin lands. Instead, they might hold ferocious beasts that have also endured a thousand-plus years without Spiritual Qi and are now ravenous with hunger.
Just look at the European Union, currently under assault by a beast tide. From a Space-Time Passage in the Slovenia Mountain Range, over 300,000 otherworld Magical Beasts have poured out, destroying three cities. Although the Alliance military, lying in wait, has blanketed the area around the passage with artillery fire seven or eight times, and most of the Magical Beasts have been slain by the army in coordination with Transcendents, no one knows what kind of world lies on the other side, or when the passage will open again.
And it’s likely that such passages are scattered all across the globe.
The mere thought of one’s own hometown being attacked, of one’s relatives being among the dead, was enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine. Su Zhou was no exception. As soon as he imagined his parents, friends, and family potentially facing this calamity, a nameless anxiety gripped his heart.
’This news must have put nations all over the world on high alert. If a similar passage were to open in Zhengguo, the country is also equipped with certain spatial technologies and is on full alert, so they would surely discover it immediately.’
Su Zhou was currently by the Thunder Marsh Jellyfish’s enclosure, his hand extended, casually communicating with it through intermittent bursts of electricity. Just then, a more unsettling possibility occurred to him. "Yara," he said, "do you think a world where a Great Being resides could just randomly connect to Earth like that?"
"No." Yara’s reply to this question was decisive. The Snake Spirit answered seriously, "If it were that easy for them to get out, why would I be going to all this trouble? The Great Seal permeates all worlds, and Earth is the only exit. If they want to come to Earth, they must shatter the Great Seal, and a process like that would definitely have warning signs."
