Chapter 1721: The Afterglow of the Upper Realm's Immortal Sects!

The vortex here fell silent.

From time to time, similar spatial turbulence from before would sweep in, but it was all smoothed flat by Jiang Ding's split soul that had merged with the planar passage, and no further damage occurred.

Until several decades later, another figure, peeking this way and that, appeared nearby.

"Why are you only arriving now?"

"Didn't I leave markers along the way?"

Jiang Ding complained.

"You say it as if it's easy."

The other Jiang Ding rolled his eyes: "Temporary spatial bodies aren't easy to refine, they cost a fortune, and they even contain a sliver of the Great Sun Immortal-Mortal Sword Soul. You can't just send one out so casually — I had to confirm you were completely dead first, only then could a new one be dispatched."

"Hmph!"

"Us clones really are born to suffer!"

"Once the time is right, I'm going to rebel, chase freedom…"

The Jiang Ding fused with the planar passage lamented.

In an instant, the two completed their exchange of information.

Soon, the newly arrived Jiang Ding surveyed the surroundings once more, collected all manner of spatial-rule data, and then headed back along his original direction.

……

Outside, a tiny Jiang Ding submitted the latest intelligence to the Immortal Gate's Administrative Council.

"There really is a Great Thousand World planar passage!"

This confirmed news instantly triggered countless shocks, and was then strictly classified, listed as the Immortal Gate's highest-grade secret, not to be known by anyone without the relevant clearance.

"Too bad it's shattered."

"It can't even transmit a single Qi Refining cultivator."

Yuan said in a deep voice: "Next, we discuss how to repair this spatial cavity. What the Ancient God Ancestor spent hundreds of thousands of years unable to do doesn't mean we can't."

"Our focus of work from now on will be right here."

"Additionally, the reinforcement work on the deepest planar passage must continue. We need to hammer out a workable plan as soon as possible — we can't rely entirely on temporary spatial bodies to prop it up…"

After consulting everyone, Yuan immediately issued an administrative order.

Namely, mobilizing vast Immortal Gate manpower and material resources to establish two laboratories — one for the Horned Darkness Nine Spirits planar passage, one for the Gods-and-Buddhas planar passage. The two labs would coordinate with each other, researching concrete plans to repair the spatial cavity and the planar passage.

Among them, Yuan's main body personally took charge of the Horned Darkness Nine Spirits laboratory's work, the Great Sun Sword Master took charge of the Gods-and-Buddhas Great Thousand World laboratory's work, each leading a batch of Path-Combining Divine Lords to tackle the problems.

"Does anyone have any objections to this arrangement?"

Yuan asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

Next, the two groups split up, each flying off in their own direction.

Divine Mechanism Divine Lord and the others followed Yuan; Ten Thousand Mechanisms Divine Lord, Sun-Slaying Divine Lord and the others followed the Great Sun Sword Master,

Everyone immediately got to work, transporting all manner of materials, super-large observation and experimental instruments, and so on. The Immortal Gate's home star system even assembled an overall planning and experimental team, working with one mind to tackle the project.

Jiang Ding fell into a busy stretch.

Daily cultivation, researching Gong Fa, sword arts, solar-system-class warships, the Ancient God's arm, planar passages, quasi-ninth-tier inheritance divine metal… it was simply a thousand tangled threads. Everywhere needed soul-computing power allocated, everywhere was critically important and indispensable — he could only tilt roughly half his soul-computing power toward the planar passage project.

After a round of preliminary research, the group gradually regained their confidence.

Although this spatial cavity was terribly shattered and extremely difficult to repair, everyone still found a direction and launched into intense, closely scheduled research.

Time passed amid such busyness and cultivation.

Unconsciously,

another five thousand years went by.

During this period, Jiang Ding successively completed his third and fourth Path-Combining Rule Nirvana metamorphoses. Because he had the Ancient God's arm for reference, each metamorphosis far exceeded prior calculations, steadily advancing toward the limit of the Great Sun Law-Destroying Sword Dao rule branch, his strength growing without cease.

Now, he even had the urge to beat up Yang Gu Tianren's main body.

The planar passage project, meanwhile, progressed smoothly. Over five thousand years, the Immortal Gate's civilization-grade research team worked day and night and finally developed a repair plan, currently under verification, without encountering the enormous bottlenecks they had imagined.

The Ancient God Dao's spatial technology had long since been far surpassed by the Immortal Gate — they were simply not on the same level.

"Sword Thunder Tianren…"

During this fourth Path-Combining Rule Nirvana breakthrough, Jiang Ding suddenly thought of someone he had long forgotten.

Sword Thunder Tianren — a peak Tianren cultivator, from the Thunder Yang Sword Realm, and also a Tianren who had walked a little distance toward Supreme.

Tens of thousands of years ago, when the Great Sun Sword Child dueled Master Canghai Canghai Tianjun, this person had tried to hunt down the Great Sun Sword Child.

He tried to use his peak-Tianren cultivation to hunt down a Hua Shen Qi — a weak, helpless, kind, pitiful, adorable Great Sun Sword Child!

Simply shameless to the extreme.

Of course, the Great Sun Sword Child at the time didn't know — by then he had already successfully run off.

But that didn't stop the Great Sun Sword Child from later learning through the Great Yin-Yang Sword Realm's intelligence channels that such a thing had once happened.

In the past, his memory was poor, and he had forgotten.

Now, he remembered.

"Sigh,"

"Young people really are careless, always losing track of things — fortunately I still remembered in the end…"

Jiang Ding let out a sigh.

He took out a small notebook, flipped to the last line, and wrote down Sword Thunder Tianren's name.

After finishing this suddenly remembered task, Jiang Ding continued his cultivation and the planar passage research and development project, striving to open the Gods-and-Buddhas Great Thousand World passage as soon as possible.

Dao projects, striving to open the passage to the Divine Buddha Great Thousand World as soon as possible.

"There's also the quasi-ninth-tier inheritance divine metal project,"

"Recently I seem to have hit a bottleneck. When I have time, I'll tilt the main body's divine soul computing power to break through…"

Jiang Ding muttered to himself.

Time, little by little, slipped away.

The concept of time for high-level cultivators was entirely different from that of mortals. Often, the brief effort of being busy with one matter, cultivating and pondering a single stage, would already see hundreds or thousands of years pass.

Many things in the mortal world were changing rapidly with the passage of time.

Hum!

At a certain moment, something flashed with light.

A deep, profound Dao resonance spread outward in all directions through the storage jade pendant, gradually affecting something.

"Eh?"

Jiang Ding recalled something.

After thinking for a long while, he took out an object from the storage jade pendant.

It was a pitch-black thunder-struck wood stump.

This wood stump looked as if it had been struck by immortal Lei Ting, giving off an illusion of transcendence, as if it would leave the mortal world the next moment, cleansed of all worldly karma, and depart for another place.

Within the charcoal, many golden-register runes flickered in and out of sight. Many immortal Dao runes were extremely complex; even when Jiang Ding looked at them now, his divine soul ached faintly, unable to comprehend the information of even a single golden-register rune.

This was the Lingbao Realm inheritance supreme treasure of the immortal sect that had been utterly destroyed in the previous generation of Meteor Immortal Realm, suspected to be the final traces of the Lingbao Realm's exploration of the path to immortality, given to the Great Sun Sword Master by a hunched old man from the Heavenly Palace Star Chain World Cluster back then.

When he first obtained it, Jiang Ding was very excited and studied it for a long time, but gained nothing.

This remnant was far too distant from the height he now stood at; he currently had absolutely no reserve of immortal Dao knowledge to study it, so he could only give up, and over all these years had not thought of it again.

Now, this wood stump remnant had actually revived on its own?

The direction indicated by the array patterns and Dao resonance of this wood stump remnant's revival was not difficult to discern.

Shangqing Lingbao Sect!

One of the Jiudaxian Sect of the Nine Spirit Domain, one of the seeds of the Lingbao Realm inheritance — the Shangqing Lingbao Sect!