Chapter 1662: The Helplessness of a Country Bumpkin

"Four-stage Nirvana rule…"

Jiang Ding had long known the answer in his heart.

In the history of the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm, across thirty million years, never had a being appeared who had set foot into the Fourth Nirvana, and this was not merely the mediocrity of the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm, but rather that across the histories of all Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong and similar immortal races, such a being had never appeared.

Once such a being appeared and grew into a Supreme, they would surely unify the entire Great Thousand World!

"Such accumulation truly is not enough."

"Immortal Artifact Son is far from enough."

Jiang Ding looked at his own two hands and whispered: "To slaughter all the Dao Sons and Holy Sons of the entire Great Thousand World, and even launch attacks against other Great Thousand Worlds, to obtain victory in sword duels amid the fresh blood and corpses of hundreds of Dao Sons—only thus can one inevitably step into the Fourth Nirvana, without any accidents."

"If I were such a one, in the endless cosmic starry sky I would no longer be a nobody."

"Such a me would be an existence drawing close to a True Immortal Son."

Placing hope on the birth of a being in a Great Thousand World who transcends the limit of the Third Nirvana could only ever rely on miracles, on extremely small-probability chance encounters.

The present facts prove that such a miracle has not appeared.

At the Void Refinement stage, perhaps one must accept such mediocrity.

Jiang Ding stood up.

He glanced at the three Immortal Artifact Son spoils in the distance, then flew toward the solar system where the Immortal Gate was located; a streak of invisible light swept across the cosmic starry sky, approaching the mother star at the speed of light.

A Celestial-Human-grade being was already a lifeform capable of light-speed travel.

As for the Immortal Artifact Son's spoils, they could not be touched for now; the other party, being a Dao Son of the Immortal Artifact Sect, might carry Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong-grade dangers on his body, so everything would have to wait until the spiritless universe had worn them down completely.

The vastness of this universe was endless.

Here, the distance from the mother star was extremely remote; even Jiang Ding had to pass through a natural spacetime wormhole to return to the mother star, and had specially applied for this passage.

At such a remote distance, even if the Supreme methods on the Immortal Artifact Son's body acted up, it would only be a momentary display of ferocity, and could not conceal anything.

The higher the energy of an object, the stronger the spirit-dispersing effect it suffered in this spiritless universe.

After several transfers, and a long passage of time, Jiang Ding finally returned to the solar system, once again returning to his homeland.

At the edge of the solar system, Jiang Ding's footsteps paused slightly.

In merely a few thousand years, the solar system had undergone very great changes.

A transparent shield, occasionally revealing iridescent hues, enveloped the entire solar system, covering the sun and the eight planets and Pluto—nine celestial bodies moving within the transparent shield, never ceasing.

Within the shield, the Shenmu Shenmu Futianrong bloomed with radiance; paths of banyan-tree heavenly ladders connected the mother star with the many planets and the sun, and on the banyan leaves, spirit-energy light points like Poké Balls were continually

born from time to time, spilling throughout the entire solar system, extremely subtly raising the spiritual energy concentration of the solar system.

Within the canopy of the Shenmu Shenmu Futianrong, dreams emerged one after another.

Some were scenes from the Youming Sword Cave Heaven domain, some were scenes from the Jiao Jiao Mingyu domain, some were scenes from the Black Heaven domain; citizens strolled, studied, cultivated, or practiced swords, did research, and so on within them; the vast distances between domain starry skies were reduced to a single step, and citizens of the entire world cluster could communicate with extreme convenience.

The vast world cluster seemed to have become a small village.

Unconsciously, it had already been five thousand years since last seeing the mother star.

These five thousand years were the five thousand years since the Immortal Gate became a Celestial-Human-grade power; all sides' technologies iterated extremely rapidly; with the help of the eighth-tier Central Array Spirit Computer, the Immortal Gate's immortal-path science had undergone explosive development, and all kinds of changes occurred with each passing day.

In merely five thousand years, Jiang Ding was almost unable to recognize his hometown.

Out of sword-path instinct, Jiang Ding made a slight assessment and discovered that if he wished to attack this Celestial-Human-grade civilization, he would inevitably suffer a crushing defeat in a short time, while escape had a probability of over fifty percent.

This civilization was no weakling among Celestial-Human powerhouses, and was still rapidly proliferating and growing stronger—this was precisely what this immortal-path industrial civilization excelled at.

"Not bad."

Jiang Ding was satisfied.

He stepped into the mother star in a single stride.

"Welcome, Grand Sun Participating Governor."

"You have been away for five thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven years, three months, twenty-seven days, two hours, fifty-four minutes, and one second. Welcome back once again. The matters that occurred in the Immortal Gate during this period are as follows: One, the seven hundred and ninety-fourth Citizens' Assembly of the Immortal Gate was convened; the resolutions include…"

The voice of the Central Array Spirit Computer came through, and transmitted a large amount of data information.

Over these years, Jiang Ding's avatar had also been in the Immortal Gate handling various matters and participating in various meetings, but the Central Array Spirit Computer only recognized the true body here—only the true body possessed citizenship rights.

Jiang Ding's divine soul rapidly read through this information.

It was still rather laborious, especially regarding several major Celestial-Human-grade scientific research achievements that could not be digested and absorbed instantly; however, since they were all the conclusion results of projects he had previously participated in, understanding them was very easy.

It would probably take several years to fully digest the civilizational achievements of the Immortal Gate over these five thousand years, and for his foundation to grow a bit more.

"Ding!"

"Grand Sun Participating Governor, the Immortal Gate's Executive Yuan wishes to meet with you. Do you agree?"

The voice of the Central Array Spirit Computer came through.

The Grand Sun Sword Master was an extremely high-danger-level figure, a galaxy-scale mobile destructive calamity; the Central Array Spirit Computer could not but inform the Immortal Gate's Executive Yuan of the Grand Sun Sword Master's location, and could not grant complete privacy rights like an ordinary citizen returning from outside, being roughly equivalent to a

super-grade fleet entering the solar system.

"Agreed."

In the next instant, the radiance of spatial teleportation bloomed, and Yuan appeared before Jiang Ding.

Five thousand years had passed, yet he remained unchanged—a thin, ascetic Daoist in appearance, perpetually absorbed in the study of immortal-path science and technology and in cultivation; he had neither grown older nor younger, though his demeanor had become deeper and more refined; over these years, he had presumably made some progress.

"Hi, Senior Yuan."

Jiang Ding smiled and offered a greeting.

"Meeting your true body once again, the Grand Sun Sword Master of the Immortal Gate."

Yuan looked this blue-robed youth up and down—who had remained exactly the same for tens of thousands of years, identical to when he had entered university—studied him for a long while, and asked: "You haven't resolved your problem?"

He knew that the Grand Sun Sword Master's disappearance was to resolve an extreme, a problem, and that he seemed to be about to die.

But judging by his troubled appearance, he had not succeeded.

"No."

"I didn't succeed; fortune did not favor me."

Jiang Ding sighed.

His luck wasn't good enough — the Taiyin-Taiyang Sword Child and the Heavenly Sword Sword Child hadn't chosen to gang up on him; they left outright, without even the foundation for a breakthrough.

And even if they had ganged up, a battlefield like this still wouldn't be perfect — it would be best if every Dao Child and Saint Child of the entire Great Thousand Realms appeared on a single battlefield at once; only then could one speak of a sliver of possibility for breaking through the limit.

It's just a pity such luck didn't exist.

After this battle, the Taiyin-Taiyang Sword Child and the others would advance to Dao Merging, and the Saint Children of the other quasi-immortal clans wouldn't wait either — they too would advance to Dao Merging step by step, waiting for no one.

An opportunity like this was missed forever.