Chapter 581: Time flows slowly

Even though I am this strong now, I still cannot deal with all the dangers in the starry sky.

Lu Xun sighed.

The world is like a circle.

Inside the circle is oneself, outside is the unknown world.

When weak, the circle is small, the world one contacts is also small, so one feels oneself is the center of the world, heaven and earth are great, I am the greatest.

When one becomes strong, the circle expands, and the world one contacts becomes even larger.

Only then does one realize how vast the outside world truly is.

Even with Lu Xun's current strength, placed in this starry expanse, it is still not considered strong.

Ahead, there are even more powerful spirit stars and even more powerful civilizations.

Fortunately,

there is still plenty of time left for Lu Xun.

Some opportunities in the starry sky look like opportunities, but are actually traps.

Lu Xun deeply realized this.

In the Ancient Road Node, opportunities are countless.

But some opportunities are likewise traps.

One must therefore guard against them.

Lu Xun is not overly worried.

Because over these years, his strength has been continually increasing.

It's just that there hasn't been a particularly large increase.

After all, beings like Gu Yao and Yun Shuoyue, who are at the Tenth Realm, still need a considerable amount of time to advance further.

Other bound targets have reached the Eighth Realm; increasing their strength likewise requires time.

Therefore, Lu Xun is not in a hurry.

After his magic breakthrough to the Eleventh Realm, Lu Xun can now bind a new target, but he has not yet decided whom to bind.

With his current strength, he looks down on those whose strength is lower.

At the very least, they need to be at the Tenth Realm.

Ideally, they would be a Tenth Realm on the verge of breakthrough.

Only then would the gain be maximal.

If he could bind someone even stronger, Lu Xun wouldn't mind.

Precisely for this reason, Lu Xun has remained unbound.

Time flows slowly.

Year after year.

After more than ten years of setting up the Nine Tribulations Demon-Sealing Formation for Fu Tianze, Fu Tianze has finally fully recovered.

"Lu Xun, time flies; I'm seventy now—do you mind that I'm old?"

This day is Chu Youqing's seventieth birthday.

Lu Xun pinched Chu Youqing's little cheek: "How could that be? My Chu Youqing is clearly still an eighteen‑year‑old maiden~"

"Hehe~"

Chu Youqing laughed happily.

As for her current condition, she is indeed indistinguishable from an eighteen‑year‑old.

"Little brother, happy birthday."

After a few more months, Lu Xun's seventieth birthday arrived.

Ning Qianqian came again.

Every year on Lu Xun's birthday, she comes.

But each time, it's a warm face meeting a cold backside.

Ning Qianqian doesn't mind; she still comes every year.

"Little brother, you surely still have us in your heart, you're just unwilling to accept us... Sister knows."

Ning Qianqian gazed at Lu Xun from afar, thinking.

More than ten years ago, Old Master Ning nearly met his doom.

Around that time, Celestial Mechanism City held an auction, and there happened to be an immortal‑grade pill that could aid in tribulation transcendence.

That was the first appearance of an immortal‑grade pill, causing a huge sensation.

The Ning clan spent heavily and finally managed to seize that immortal‑grade pill.

Later, Ning Qianqian happened to see Fu Yue actually consuming an immortal‑grade pill, which made her suspect that the pill might be connected to Lu Xun.

Otherwise, besides Lu Xun, who else on Lan Xing could refine such a formidable pill?

Moreover, the timing of the immortal‑grade pill's appearance is too coincidental.

Ning Qianqian therefore always felt that Lu Xun deliberately released it at that time.

This led Ning Qianqian to fully acknowledge Lu Xun as her little brother, swearing to treat him wholeheartedly from now on.

She even wanted to introduce her close friend Lu Xueqi to her little brother, repeatedly urging Lu Xueqi to pursue him.

As for Lu Xueqi,

after Lu Xun's birthday, she would sneak over and present herself as a birthday gift to Lu Xun.

She does not wish to make her relationship with Lu Xun public.

"Time really flies."

Lu Xun stood on high ground, gazing up at the starry sky.

The perception of time in life is quite special.

In the first twenty years of life, the perception of time is fine and real.

Back then, a day at school, a class, all felt very long.

But after leaving school, if one repeats the same work day after day, time will flow like water, slipping away unnoticed.

By the time you react, a week, a month, even a year has just passed like that.

This is actually a memory folding effect.

The brain automatically folds repetitive meaningless memories, causing time perception to become numb.

At the level of cultivators, the situation is somewhat different.

After all, cultivators' brains are much stronger.

But year after year passes, the flow of time still seems to speed up.

Actually, it's not that time speeds up.

Rather, the perception of time becomes numb.

So cultivators who have lived thousands or tens of thousands of years sometimes will patiently wait tens or hundreds of years for a scheme.

Because they have plenty of time.

And they have plenty of patience.

This patience is cultivated over long years.

For Lu Xun, his life has actually just begun.

His current lifespan is said to be over ten thousand years.

But he is only seventy years old now.

Soon,

Lu Xun's seventy-first birthday arrived.

Then,

Then seventy-two, seventy-three...

Year after year.

Life is not always peaceful; from time to time something still happens.

For example, a new opportunity arises in the ancient road node, causing contention among the various spirit stars.

With Lu Xun's presence, among the eight spirit stars currently acting together, Lan Xing is a unique existence.

After Lan Xing, Astra Star, Yao Xing, and Green Star banded together, the other spirit stars simply cannot compete.

To counter Lan Xing, even the Insect Star began cooperating with the other three spirit stars.

Thus, the eight spirit stars, in their mutual competition, continually pass through one ancient road node after another.

"Congratulations, Yin Ling."

"Lu, this is all your achievement."

That day.

Yin Ling finally recovered to Tenth Realm strength, enabling Lu Xun to break through to Eleventh Realm in martial arts.

Yin Ling, being of the Silver-Haired Clan, has a power system somewhat different.

It counts as martial arts, but with some differences; more precisely, it can be seen as genetic martial arts.

Thus, Lu Xun's breakthrough to Eleventh Realm is not entirely Lan Xing's martial arts, but rather the Silver-Haired Clan's martial arts.

Yin Ling's body also fully returned to normal.

Now she, after consolidating a bit, will begin to assault the Eleventh Realm.

"This is for her."

Gu Yao's side then began to give Ran Bing some resources.

Because after she reaches the Tenth Realm, she and Ran Bing must merge.

Ran Bing's progress, in her view, is too slow.

In fact, if it weren't for Lu Xun being too strong, leaving her helpless, Gu Yao would now have marched to Lan Xing and seized Ran Bing by force.

The previous agreement with Lu Xun stated that without absolute strength as backing, it is just scrap paper.

No, nonsense.

Say tear, and it's torn.

Ran Bing's progress isn't actually slow either.

Gu Yao, to help her reach the Tenth Realm as quickly as possible, occasionally through dreams, synchronously transmits his past-life perceptions of heavenly and earthly power and the laws of heaven and earth to her.

Since the two were originally one entity, this can help Ran Bing grow faster.

Not long after Lu Xun's eightieth birthday, Ran Bing began to assault the Ninth Realm and broke through in one go.

These past two days have concluded; the plot has moved a bit faster, no choice— the new book is at month's end, still a fantasy harem type, so everyone can just click the author's name to see it when the time comes.