Chapter 62: The New Era

The winter sun, mingling with the mist in the hills, was cold and dim.

The demonic cultivator waited for precisely this moment; following the auspicious direction revealed by his Qi-observation technique, he donned cloth robes from a century ago and sprinted down the mountain. He was not unaware of concealment arts—but feared the malevolent energy might draw unwanted attention, so he chose the most primitive escape strategy: running.

Fortunately, the dusk was dark enough, and the southern winter's chill sufficient to keep most people indoors. Yet no sooner had he stepped out of the mountain fog and onto the country path than an xuan cultivator came walking toward him.

In that instant, the demonic cultivator nearly acted on instinct—but immediately recalled he had entered the perceptual range of Lu City's town spirit. If he killed here, the town spirit would sound the alarm, and the trouble would only grow worse. He suppressed his impulse, lowered his head, and kept walking.

The xuan cultivator, meanwhile, was fully absorbed, eyes fixed on his compass. Sensing someone ahead, he merely sidestepped slightly without raising his head. The two passed each other without a word.

"Never thought, after a hundred years, these kids are still playing the same old game!"

The demonic cultivator thought inwardly, letting out a long breath—and couldn't help feeling proud of his unique system.

Ordinary cultivators, whether orthodox or demonic, cultivate the spirit-soul and wield spiritual power. Even without entering the Dao, a single sweep of Qi-observation can distinguish mortals from cultivators by the glow of their spirit-souls. Experienced ones can further judge their realm, even their cultivation method, by the strength, clarity, and purity of that glow. A demonic cultivator can instantly see the blood, grudges, and karmic stains on their body.

But his method of splitting body and spirit draws from the corpse-ghost lineage: he divides himself into two parts—a ghost that clings to obsession, and a corpse that draws malevolent energy. Together, they form a single mass of turbid wishes and earthly demonic qi.

Thus, he possesses neither the pure yang of heaven nor the pure wish of the spirit. As long as he doesn't actively use arts before them, every xuan cultivator sees him as the most ordinary of mortals—the kind who lost his primordial yang long ago, whose body is depleted, whose thoughts are muddled, whose intentions are impure: an "ultimate" mortal. Not only does he lack any cultivation talent, but even the spirit deities in temples refuse to acknowledge his incense offerings.

Still, he understood clearly: walking straight through the city gate would inevitably trigger inspection. Without an identity pass or village witnesses, his true identity would be exposed in moments.

After a brief pause, he fixed his gaze on a small river.

This river was called Lou Chuan, flowing from Crab Lake and existing for over two hundred years. If his memory served, it should have several tributaries threading through Lu City, rejoining at Mingju Pond. The current water volume matched the past closely—so the tributaries entering the city must still exist.

Realizing this, and seeing no one around, he plunged into the river, relying solely on his perception of earthy demonic qi to follow the current downstream.

Then…

"Clang!"

"Damn, they installed iron bars!"

In the murky water, the demonic cultivator forced his eyes open, staring at the rusted iron grating. For a moment, he was speechless—but such barriers couldn't stop him. Grasping the bars with his hands, he used not a speck of spiritual power, only the corpse's boundless physical strength, and snapped the rusted iron apart.

Through the gap he'd torn, the demonic cultivator pressed forward, extending his spiritual sense to sense the air along the riverbank.

Though his memory of Lu City was from a century ago, his view from Ma'an Mountain had shown that while houses had changed, the overall layout remained unchanged. After swimming several miles along Lou Chuan, human presence thinned out—he knew he'd reached a sparsely populated area. Carefully, he raised his head from the water and spotted, in the distance, a mansion.

The mansion's style differed greatly from a century ago, but what drew the demonic cultivator's attention most was its ruinous state: expensive glass windows shattered into fragments, the iron gate bearing obvious claw marks. Yet what truly caught his notice was the faint aura of lightning.

Though barely perceptible, the demonic cultivator sensed its lingering traces through the faint numbness in his spirit-soul.

"A great cultivator used a powerful lightning art here not long ago!"

The demonic cultivator's heart tightened. He immediately left the stream, channeling spiritual power to steam away the wetness—his clothes dried instantly, mud and filth shaken off.

Though he knew a great cultivator had been here, he also knew such a cultivator could not escape his perception. With no spiritual glow detectable nearby, the cultivator must have moved elsewhere. Though the mansion was ruined, it had once housed such a hero—and would not be hastily repaired in the short term. It made a decent temporary refuge.

Realizing this, the demonic cultivator formed a hand seal. A faint spiritual aura rippled out, concealing his form. Unlike outside the city, where he avoided arts to evade detection, inside the city he no longer shied from using them. Even after a hundred years, temples and shrines would still abound. If that gray rat dared search the city, the local City God would deal with him first.

"The lightning aura is dense but unchanging—must have consumed vast spiritual power. Yet lacking subtlety… a wandering cultivator? No, probably just too lazy to bother with technique."

Feeling the lingering aura in the room, the demonic cultivator shook his head and began a cursory search of the mansion.

"Cleaned up thoroughly. Of course—someone just broke in. Even if the enemy was weak, they'd avoid ghostly tricks. But then…"

The demonic cultivator's expression turned strange. The lightning traces here were no more than two days old. Coupled with today's awakening… one answer emerged clearly—

"I'm probably just collateral damage!"

The thought ignited a surge of rage—but as a demonic cultivator who had reached the Grand Master realm, he swiftly quelled his agitation.

The Dao of cause and effect often works through coincidences piled atop coincidences. Call it coincidence—but it might just be the Dao of humanity using chance to deliver a calamity.

Recalling countless elders who had fallen victim to seemingly random human misfortunes, the demonic cultivator's emotions cooled. He found a secluded room in the house, took out each item from his Hu Tian pouch, and sorted them. The yin pouch bound to this Hu Tian pouch, burdened by too much weight and volume, remained locked in the cave below—but that was no issue. Even if he couldn't retrieve it, he could simply bind another box or warehouse with sufficient capacity.

His immediate priority now was to understand the current environment as quickly as possible.

Having lived through centuries, he knew a hundred years was enough to transform a city's customs. Charging in blindly would expose him in moments. Fortunately, the poor often wore the same clothes for generations. If he dressed in rags, he'd likely pass unnoticed.

With this in mind, the demonic cultivator settled down. He was currently stuck at the turning point of becoming a reborn corpse-ghost. Regular cultivation was impossible. Yet the town spirit's presence restricted his hunting for cultivation bases.

As he pondered what to do through this endless night, a tempting aura rippled from nearby.

He snapped to attention, moving to the window. Though "nearby," it was over two li away. To a normal xuan cultivator, this subtle aura would be undetectable—and its meaning incomprehensible. But as a demonic cultivator who once fed on others' primordial qi, he knew its essence instantly—

"Someone is feeding a spirit ghost with their own primordial qi? And this volume, this purity… Suck! Has the xuan cultivator community developed a new method of primordial qi extraction in a hundred years? Otherwise, why would anyone waste it like this?"

The demonic cultivator, having gone a hundred years without replenishment, felt a sudden thirst—but his reason forcibly suppressed the craving.

Still, he memorized the direction of the aura, planning to investigate this wasteful… ah, no, this extravagant young successor at dawn.

They always said the synopsis was hard to understand, so I've added a Kong Yiji version—it should be much simpler…

PS: I wrote the cultivation foundation too detailed… longtime readers should know—I started with crossover novels, so I have my own understanding of infinite flow and multiverse genres.

I dislike stories where the protagonist learns one technique and uses it until the end, or switches powers entirely upon entering a new world. That's obvious—if I rely on one trick to rule all worlds, why even travel? If I abandon everything I learned each time I enter a new world, wasn't all that effort wasted?

So I believe in multiverse, crossover, and infinite flow stories: the system must reflect the protagonist's own thinking. It can't be "whatever power I find, I use." Instead, he must develop his own independent system by unifying all systems under one theory.

Like the con artist's core abilities—alchemy and Nen—he still uses alchemy and Nen, but he integrates all sorts of bizarre elements. In the end, the thing that can destroy and remake worlds, manifesting as countless twisted beings, is nothing like the original. Yet every step of his development, how he achieved it, is laid bare for the reader—so no ability feels sudden or unreasonable. That's how a good ability system should be.

So the system in my book must be complex from the start.

It's like learning basic formulas at first. Once mastered, you can apply them to any problem. Better to lay out the setting during the free period than wait until after the book is monetized.

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(End of Chapter)