Chapter 1622: The Civilization of Puppets

A youth in blue, silently wandering between the middle domains of the Upper Realm.

He made contact with no one, took part in nothing, drifting through the world like a ghost, quietly observing everything that happened in the world.

He passed through one middle domain after another, experiencing the vastly different customs and landscapes of the Upper Realm.

Unknowingly, several hundred years passed.

On this day, beside a river in a middle domain called Thousand Mountains, a youth in blue quietly gazed at the ceaselessly flowing water, falling into a momentary daze.

"It passes away like this…"

"Time is like this—how much do I still have?"

Jiang Ding murmured to himself, speaking only for his own ears.

He could still live a very long time; after comprehending the embryonic immortal art, the Sword of Time's Destruction, his lifespan had once again grown, and now living past a hundred thousand years was effortless, with no problem at all.

However, would the Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Dao Child and the saint-children of the near-immortal races wait a hundred thousand years for him at the Void Refinement realm?

Absolutely not.

Perhaps the Tianjian Sword Child would be willing to wait for him.

That person should likewise yearn for a swordsman of equal standing, likewise yearn for a thoroughly exhilarating sacred sword duel.

As for the other Dao-cultivating Dao Children, it was entirely impossible.

They would only cultivate step by step, until they confirmed they had reached their own limit, then cast a dim gaze toward the distant, nearly invisible tales of true immortal beings that existed only in legend, and then step by step ascend to Dao Merging.

A Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Dao Child at the Dao Merging stage could instantly kill him as he was now.

This was the sorrow of the Sword Dao—opponents would not wait forever.

But what could be done?

As he was now, he could not influence a Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong-level battlefield.

He could only wait, wait, wait for an opportunity for battle to appear.

Or perhaps, no opportunity for battle would ever appear, and all the Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Dao Children and saint-children of the near-immortal races would peacefully ascend to Dao Merging.

Such a possibility not only existed, it was very likely.

"If it really is like this…"

"Heaven has not favored me, then I can only face reality."

Jiang Ding, helpless and fragile like a child, on the verge of sobbing, said dejectedly: "This sovereign can only ascend to Dao Merging, and then continue waiting for an opportunity."

"If there is no opportunity at Dao Merging, then Heaven-Human; if there is no opportunity at Heaven-Human, then above Heaven-Human!"

"If a hundred thousand years of waiting cannot exchange for a sacred sword duel with the Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Dao Children, then two hundred thousand years, five hundred thousand years, a million years!"

"One day, this sovereign will surely step across the first threshold of immortal ascension."

One day, one day, the goal would be achieved.

As long as he did not die in battle, the goal would definitely be achieved.

But if a dream of youth is realized by the person one becomes as an adult, is it still a dream?

Could the incomplete foundation of his youth be mended by a near-immortal existence?

If he did not seize the best time of youth to lay his foundation, could all the resources and opportunities of a great thousand-world realm enable a near-immortal to advance further and achieve the foundation of a true immortal?

Countless sour, aching emotions welled up in Jiang Ding's heart, then gradually faded away.

The many complicated emotions gradually settled into calm.

Jiang Ding's mind continued to rest on the ceaselessly flowing stream before him, watching these waters that would never return; through the surface layer of matter and spiritual energy, he saw deeper-level rules, deeper-level laws.

These rules, compared to those of the Lower Realm, were more complete, their structure more beautiful, and held an extremely strong reference value for his Sword Dao and the path of the immortal gate.

This was also an important reason why strong practitioners emerged generation after generation in the Upper Realm—the environment was truly too superior.

In such enlightenment, Jiang Ding's six Solar rules gradually strengthened, his entire foundation slowly mended, the flaws of his Lower Realm origin slowly disappearing.

The flying sword within the Sword Soul grew ever sharper and colder, forlornly yearning for an enemy.

Jiang Ding stayed in the Thousand Mountains middle domain for several more decades, then continued traveling toward new domains, seeing all the myriad waters and mountains of the Upper Realm, yet not taking a single spirit stone, not drawing a single thread of spiritual energy, not entangling himself with a single thread of karma.

With a Fortune-Suppressing Treasure suppressing his presence, even the mightiest might not be able to divine his tracks.

Jiang Ding stepped into the domain wall and entered an entirely new middle domain, without triggering any celestial phenomena.

This was an entirely new domain—the sky a clear blue, the waters a clear blue, greenery covering the land, mountains and rivers rising and falling, not much different from the Thousand Mountains middle domain.

The only difference…

Jiang Ding looked up.

In the distance, a column of straight, rolling black smoke rose into the air, its color like ink, churning, looking exactly like the steam-and-black-iron age of ancient times.

Only within that black smoke was not coal slag and dust, but the grievances of living beings.

Within that pillar, several hundred li in size, was contained astonishing grievance—of children, of adults, of elders, of the human race, of the demon race, and even of ghostly beings.

This grievance was so much, so dense, that one could not believe what they had suffered in life.

These pillars of black grievance smoke stood one every several tens of thousands of square kilometers, rising straight up, flying toward some unknown existence in the high heavens, without affecting anything at all.

Black Iron 29 Domain.

This was the name of this middle domain.

Its name was its purpose: it mass-produced all kinds of spirit iron from first to eighth grade. The name held none of the emotional weight of names like "Long River Sword Domain" or "Thousand Mountains Domain"—it was simply a number. The size of the number related to this middle domain's output types and order of discovery, following a fixed naming method.

This middle domain belonged to the Qi Sect.

"Could this be a civilization of puppets? …"

Jiang Ding thought silently.

He walked slowly, crossing streams and valleys, arriving at a village, where his footsteps paused for a moment.

This was the first time in the Upper Realm.

He did not know how many tens of thousands of years it had been, but his footsteps once again paused for mortals outside the immortal gate; he stood quietly in place, not knowing what he was thinking.

This was a village of mortals.

This village contained only men and girls under sixteen.

In the village's ancestral hall grew a flesh-and-blood tree, a first-rank flesh-and-blood tree. Its trunk was covered in many split flesh-wounds, oozing fluid from time to time, densely distributed across every part of the trunk.

Looking up from the roots, the trunk branched out into limbs, into forks, and dangling from the tips of those forks hung women's heads—some aged, with deep wrinkles, some young, barely sixteen, with rosy lips and pearly teeth.

On some empty forks hung a few withered skulls, swaying in the wind.

"Son…"

"Daddy, I'm thirsty…"

"Husband…"

The women's heads among the branches wailed, calling out to the villagers who passed by from time to time.

These villagers rarely paid any heed to the heads. Occasionally a man would come by, and occasionally someone would take a fruit from beneath the tree—potato-like—and bring it home. These were their future children.

Their daily work was to line up in neat ranks, enter the mines one by one to dig spirit ore. Each was as strong as an ox, every one of them comparable to a bulldozer, their strength nearly indistinguishable from that of a Innate martial artist. They had half a shichen of rest each day.

After ten years of this, they would come again beneath the flesh-and-blood tree, fall into a mire, and their flesh would turn to pulp.

Whenever this happened, another person would come, take a fruit from beneath the tree, bring it home, and after half a month of raising it could reach adulthood, then take the place of the miner who had already died.

The village's population was always maintained at a suitable number—no more, no less.

And so the cycle continued.

The only exceptions were some fruits with outstanding spirit roots. They would be carefully nurtured by the flesh-and-blood tree, then taken by some of the stronger villagers, raised for sixteen years, and waited for the people from the town to come fetch these children of excellent spirit roots and take them away to an unknown place.