Chapter 222: 221 Eternal Stagnation

The strength of the State of Chu was actually quite strong, at least during the Shang dynasty. However, after being conquered by the Shang, the country has been suppressed ever since, up to the present.

After the fall of the Great Shang, although Chu has recovered a lot through many years of rest and recuperation, it is still far behind its heyday.

Nevertheless, the country is already strong enough; at least compared to Eastern Wei and Western Wei individually, none can match Chu's national power.

But despite Chu's relative strength, the nation has a characteristic of internal strife, especially within the royal family—today the monarch kills the crown prince, tomorrow the crown prince kills the monarch.

Just like the ancient Chu of my hometown during the Warring States period, I recall a saying: the eight‑hundred‑year history of Chu is essentially a history of regicide and usurpation.

That may be an exaggeration, but regicide is indeed quite common in this country.

Both the ancient Chu of my hometown and the Chu here.

Wang Wu has little interest in the internal political struggles of the Chu beyond the Li River; he only knows that the Chu people's attire is truly… damn, this is so domestically produced fantasy animation.

The kind with ancient costumes paired with stockings, that kind of…

Being refined is definitely not the point… no, this is a damn otherworld, the most refined. In a photo studio, hanfu must be paired with stockings—purple silk, meat‑colored silk, black silk, gray silk, white silk…

And those ultra‑modern, perfectly matching Wang Wu's modern‑society aesthetic indecent clothes… it's basically a hanfu‑style bikini!

One word: eye‑candy.

Although there are few humans in Baichi City and hardly any monsters wearing Chu's traditional dress, that was the part Wang Wu was most dissatisfied with before he inexplicably flew to another star system.

But after a few days here, Wang Wu gradually came to accept it.

Of course, if you look carefully, you can still easily find them.

After staying in Xie Yu's room for a while, the two demons did nothing; Wang Wu merely greeted the other side, and seeing Xie Yu's face he knew she was in her usual jade‑like mood.

Wang Wu didn't disturb her thoughts; after a few casual words he let her go off in solitary melancholy, and he moved to another place.

In Baichi City's White Chi Palace, every time Wang Wu thinks of the city's name he finds it hard to keep a straight face, and the same goes for First Day Wu; the two of them can't stop stifling laughter when they mention it, each staring at the other.

Then, as the other's expression becomes increasingly hard to hold, he too becomes harder to hold back.

Finally, each slaps themselves, letting the sharp pain break the emotions inside.

"Teacher, what are we learning today?"

Although they spend all day with Qin Xiang, especially Yin Shenli's private tutoring, these two have hardly ever given Wang Wu a proper formal lesson; most of the training is combat in virtual‑reality pods, with cultural lessons being rare.

It's not that combat lessons are bad—combat lessons are certainly excellent.

But sometimes cultural lessons are still necessary; that may not matter to geniuses like Qin Xiang and Yin Shenli, nor to the geniuses they have taught.

For geniuses, combat is definitely better, and whether there are ordinary cultural classes is irrelevant. But Wang Wu is not a genius, or rather, by their standards Wang Wu can hardly be called a 'genius'.

Even after reaching the Complete Realm, even after being reborn.

Yet after rebirth, a genius only becomes more of a genius, and an ordinary person who becomes a genius after rebirth still does not narrow the gap with those equally reborn geniuses.

Of course, there are always some lucky ones, some chosen ones.

Perhaps before attaining the fourth‑grade Complete Realm and fully refining the body they are merely ordinary in talent, but after body refinement, brain restructuring, and achieving a Diamond Body they soar, entering the super‑genius realm.

Unfortunately, Wang Wu is not that kind of person.

So he still has to honestly attend class.

"Today we'll study the True Qi Combustion Efficiency Course." First Day Wu, wearing non‑prescription glasses, tapped the blackboard with a teaching rod in a hastily prepared room, addressing the only desk where Wang Wu sat.

True qi is the warrior's energy source, and using that energy more efficiently reflects a warrior's strength.

Although power reaches a certain level—at the First Day Wu level they already possess virtually limitless energy—this does not mean they waste the energy in their bodies recklessly, even though it appears that way.

Each of their attacks seems utterly casual, as if every strike is a full‑power blow, as if they act without brain involvement.

In reality, before they even think, their super brain has already performed the necessary calculations, controlling energy output with extreme precision.

"Your cultivation methods are the Extreme Heaven Vajra Sect and the Yin Extreme Divine Sect, one metal, one water. Although I have never practiced either sect's techniques, all martial arts converge, and the fundamentals of true qi usage and combustion are essentially the same."

When teaching First Day Wu's class, Wang Wu didn't feel drowsy as he did in school before; instead he listened attentively. The whole lesson lasted only about an hour and a bit.

First Day Wu spoke very quickly; the amount of information in that hour was enormous. After all, a warrior's super brain can receive and process information per second far beyond any ordinary human's brain.

It was a total of one hour and twenty minutes, which reminded Wang Wu of his old school's double‑period classes; he used to despise those, but now…

One can only say, people change.

"Alright, the lesson is over; you may rest and digest."

After the class, First Day Wu planned to go back to study his recipes and cultivate. This is what he does most since arriving in this world:

Cultivation, and cooking.

The former for his personal safety, the latter to find a way to adjust under the immense pressure, otherwise it would affect his mindset.

In the few hundred years since his birth, this is the first time First Day Wu has felt fear, the first time he has such an urgent craving to improve his strength.

But even so, he still doesn't go to the Wind Country to hunt monsters like Yin Shenli; first, he has his own principles, second, he has a psychological trauma about that place.

It was truly terrifying, family, truly terrifying.

Strong people have little interest in that sort of thing; First Day Wu has been here for a while, so he knows the monsters' habits fairly well.

To avoid trouble, he also uses a technique similar to Yin Shenli's, making surrounding female monsters—and, of course, male monsters—ignore him.

Although this skill is useless against monsters stronger than him, if it were useful he wouldn't even dare to go to the Wind Country; but it works fine for shooing away those little sparrows.

The strongest person in this star system is currently Wang Wu; of course, since he arrived, that's him.

Usually, aside from teaching Wang Wu, First Day Wu hardly ever leaves the house; not because he can't control himself—he's human, not a monster, and his desires in that regard are modest.

Of course, except when facing his wife and… uh, not… when facing his wife.

"Let me tell you a funny story: First Day Wu once accidentally called out his first love's name, Ding Lingling, while being intimate with his wife. Hahaha, damn, that cracked me up; that story was just told to me by that idiot Wu Yun."

During the break, a message from master Yin Shenli arrived, and Wang Wu saw it.

Naturally, he was well‑trained, didn't laugh, and showed no expression.

However, despite his strict mouth, he forgot one thing: Yin Shenli's message was a voice message.

And he opened it just before leaving the classroom.

When he left the classroom, even though Wang Wu was drenched in sweat, the First Day Wu behind him still wore a smiling face, showing no sign of any unit commemoration.

But in another place, a few million light‑years away, Yin Shenli was in a rather miserable state.

She was embedded in the core of a planet—a planet that had become severely demonic and exceedingly bizarre. Demonic corruption not only affects the living beings on the planet, it also affects the planet itself.

It endows the planet with the traits of "life" and with the "desires" that life possesses.

And when such traits are placed upon a planet, they become appetite.

An appetite that devours everything.

As for how Wang Wu's attack crossed millions of light‑years to reach Yin Shenli, the answer is technique: he employed Earth‑Empty Stomach and Channi‑Empty Stomach.

Yin Shenli had already lost consciousness; her two eyes turned into two mosquito‑coil circles, and countless stars orbited her head, turning her into a star.

A star embedded deep within the planet.

Whether there is any danger here? I don't know; in any case, Yin Shenli had been lying on a ruin of this planet, crossing her legs and playing on a phone.

As for the things drifting over the planet and the planet's own demonic corruption, from the massive cavern that pierces the entire world, the planet appears to be dead.

Yin Shenli fell into a deep sleep within the fully pierced core, and time passed unknown; when she awoke, she suddenly found a person standing before her.

"What the—."

And it was a person with an extremely bizarre appearance.

His face was unusually long, giving an indescribable sense of strangeness and absurdity; his open mouth was pitch black, revealing no teeth or anything else, only the deepest darkness.

"What is this thing?"

Yin Shenli didn't know, but she immediately launched an attack.

With a single strike, the bizarre long‑limbed figure was instantly annihilated; the revived Yin Shenli looked around, sensed no aura, and smugly laughed:

"Ha ha."

And the next second, that thing reappeared.

It resurfaced before her, its extremely long face staring fixedly; its eyes, like its gaping mouth, were black, and the whole face forced out an extremely twisted grin.

Now Yin Shenli could no longer smile.

She realized she had probably provoked something.

This is a very bizarre universe, and it is dangerous even for a strong one like her.

Her strength is still insufficient to let her stride across this universe at will.

If she wanders recklessly, dying is the easy part; becoming like the monsters that roam the cosmos is far more terrifying than death.

Although the smile vanished from her face, there was no trace of fear on Yin Shenli's visage.

"Ha." After staring at the thing for a while, she began to laugh again.

"What a ridiculous thing, playing god and ghost."

The Earth fighter's thought patterns may not seem normal to the locals.

For the transcendent beings here—whether human or demon—their first reaction to such situations is usually to find a way out, not to…

…rush in head‑first.

While speaking, Yin Shenli's body was also changing; her transformed form was not as grotesque as Wang Wu's, but possessed a strange beauty.

Her skin began to change color, then shift; it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, yet also felt like ages had passed.

Deep blue, icy, divine.

When the transformation completed, this is her—no, it should be He—impression given.

You cannot generate any reverent emotions, nor will you have many mental activities.

Because at that moment, when the transformation fully ends, your time has already come to a complete standstill.

The Yinji Divine Sect, famed worldwide for its Yin‑extreme power, is so cold that even time can be frozen.

Heat death is the end of all things, but absolute cold can be as well.

"Have you heard of absolute zero?"

Meanwhile, in a distant other place, Wang Wu said to a woman beside him:

"Absolute…"

The woman repeated the term Wang Wu had spoken, a puzzled expression on her face.

She shook her head, "I truly don't know that, Daoist Wang."

Back here, Wang Wu naturally activated his skill again; after all, he is famous here, and leaving without any cover often proves troublesome.

"When temperature reaches a certain threshold, even time will freeze."

"Everything will halt, and the world will fall into eternal stasis."

(End of Chapter)