Chapter 694: A New Era

Ever since he achieved the Thirteenth Realm as a Lord of Law, time for Fang Xing had become almost as worthless as dirt.

Although the myriad worlds of the heavens all have their "lifespans," that is an infinitely large number.

By the time the River of Time itself dries up, only those who have transcended will be able to survive.

But that is as laughable as an ordinary person worrying about a star reaching the limit of its lifespan!

If, in the Earth era, an ordinary person could live to the lifespan limit of the sun, that would be practically equivalent to "immortality."

Therefore, while contemplating the Eastern Zhenwu Great Dao, Fang Xing would occasionally relax and enjoy himself for decades or even a century.

As for those who came later? He couldn't even be bothered to pay attention to Xun Heihu himself.

This is the indifference of the immortal!

One cannot speak of ice to a summer insect.

Unknowingly, hundreds of thousands of years had passed in the outside world.

Boom—!

On this day, Fang Xing felt the vibration of the world's origin!

"Finally... has the world ascended?"

He was somewhat surprised.

A world's upgrade could never be achieved in just a few hundred thousand years; this was the uniqueness of this world!

The heavens and ordinary Great Thousand or Small Thousand worlds are like the difference between the human race and the race of wild beasts—it is a difference in essence.

The essence of this world is "Heaven-level"; even if it is still young, it is a human infant, not comparable to an animal cub.

And at this moment, it had entered another stage of growth!

"Hm? Has it already been over two hundred thirty-eight thousand six hundred years?"

With a single thought, Fang Xing merged with the external monitoring of the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman.

Subsequently, the scenes of what had transpired appeared before his eyes:

"Xun Heihu was not bad, or rather, heart met heart. After Jiang Yuer and their pair of children achieved the Void Realm, they all extended their lives by a thousand years, a family growing old together..."

"But after passing down for several generations, Eastern Zhenwu Mountain split into two factions: the Disciple Faction and the Xun Family Faction. They fought in the shadows, vying for control of the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman... and within the Xun Family Faction, there were further divisions between the main branch and the collateral branches, the direct line and the side lines..."

"After about ten thousand years of this, the 'Pan Wu Legacy Poison' erupted, and Eastern Zhenwu Mountain fell into chaos... the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman went missing..."

As the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman itself, Fang Xing naturally knew very clearly that it was a traitor within the Xun family who had stolen the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman while taking advantage of an invasion by external enemies.

Eastern Zhenwu Mountain perished then and there, but the Eastern Zhenwu orthodoxy was at least passed down.

"This traitor, if you trace the source, still comes from that lineage of Xun Biao? Heh... I knew there would definitely be problems with that, but Xun Heihu probably didn't care... After all, it had been who knows how many generations..."

Fang Xing continued to watch.

That traitor later hid his name and identity, using the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman to cultivate to the peak of the Void Realm, and even a half-step beyond the limit...

He laid low for five or six hundred years, and seeing that it was difficult to break through to a realm above the Super Grade, he finally emerged to walk the martial world. With a realm half a grade higher than the Super Grade, he swept across the world and established the "Great Wu Dynasty"!

The Great Wu Dynasty unified the world and actually lasted for over thirty-nine thousand years...

"Hm... in all these years, technology actually made limited progress?"

When Fang Xing saw this scene, his eyes nearly popped out: "Was it the existence of transcendent martial arts that suppressed the development and progress of technology?"

After all, practicing martial arts could allow one to live for a thousand years!

Who would still go and do basic research? Excellent geniuses would definitely all head toward the martial way...

However, there was significant progress in the smelting techniques for various divine weapons and high-grade steel.

Besides that, there were also developments in the breeding of exotic beasts with richer blood-Qi and techniques for cultivating spiritual grains... all had seen some development.

In short, everything was in service of the martial way.

Even under the governance of the Great Wu Dynasty, a unified imperial dynasty, the lives of the common people were not as good as during the Nine Provinces period; it could be called a great regression...

"By the end of the dynasty, the Great Wu Dynasty had become corrupt to the extreme, much like a rotting corpse..."

"The world's limit was slightly relaxed... allowing Void Realm martial artists the possibility of going further, but there were too many in the imperial family who did not seek progress, and thus they were surpassed?"

Even so, that battle was fought very dangerously; all the Void Realm experts participated, nearly destroying the Great Wu Imperial Capital in one fell swoop...

"After Great Wu, it was another era of sectarian fragmentation, until a peerless martial arts genius appeared, unified the world, and the cycle repeated... Of course, in this process, the struggle for the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman was the most bloody and cruel..."

"The Eastern Zhenwu Talisman circulated through the hands of various martial artists, including righteous heroes, demonic giants, and even beggars, prostitutes, wealthy merchants, bodyguards, and cooks..."

"As of now, it is held by the 'Turtle-Snake Sect,' hidden in the Turtle-Snake Sect's Ancestral Hall... The founder of the Turtle-Snake Sect had obtained the Eastern Zhenwu orthodoxy of Eastern Zhenwu Mountain, which had once been glorious, and having emerged from the Dark Ages, left a last testament that the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman must not be revealed to the world, and could only be passed to the next sect leader..."

Fang Xing's consciousness projected out from the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman, and he could see a stone secret chamber.

The walls of the secret chamber emitted a metallic luster; this was "Stone Gold," a very strange meteorite metal from beyond the heavens, possessing the efficacy of isolating all auras and preventing the spiritual detection of martial arts grandmasters.

And in the center of the secret chamber, there was a large red altar table, upon which were rows of spirit tablets of the Turtle-Snake Sect founders.

The Eastern Zhenwu Talisman, where he resided, was hidden in a secret compartment at the very highest position.

"Not only that... I can sense... the Eastern Zhenwu Visualization Technique and the Xuanwu True Art are circulating in the outside world... although there are many branches and variations... they have indeed been passed down."

Fang Xing murmured, feeling quite emotional: "The tide of the era is about to arrive..."

This time, the world transition he sensed was not as simple as raising the martial arts limit by one or two grades over the previous long years!

It was an exponential explosion, a fundamental change in essence!

"The Gate of Longevity has already been pushed open a crack... In other words, in this era, perhaps experts of the Eleventh Realm, or even the Twelfth Realm, can be born?"

Such experts were not far from the Thirteenth Realm, the minimum requirement for Pan Wu's resurrection.

And even... he could faintly sense the terror of Pan Wu!

'Such an era, perhaps it will be very exciting?'

'It's just a pity... it is still not the true Golden Age; the more talented one is, the more tragic it is...'

Fang Xing sighed.

Time passed bit by bit.

The door to the secret chamber suddenly opened, and a middle-aged man with a hunched back walked into the secret chamber.

He was wearing a navy blue jacket, his face was ancient and square... but his gaze was incomparably sharp.

It was the current leader of the Turtle-Snake Sect—Gui Yannian!

His gaze first swept over the altar table in the Ancestral Hall, his spirit scanned it, and seeing that the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman hidden at the very top was safe and sound, he let out a long breath and pinched three sticks of incense.

He didn't even use a flame; the tips of the incense ignited directly, and wisps of blue smoke rose up.

Gui Yannian held the incense with both hands, raised them above his head, bowed three times toward the altar table, and then inserted them into the incense burner.

After completing this series of "rituals," he respectfully took out the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman and sat cross-legged.

Eastern Zhenwu Space.

It was still a small room, and that stone tablet had not changed in the slightest for hundreds of thousands of years.

For Fang Xing, this was just a very short period of time.

Gui Yannian didn't waste words and started practicing his martial arts directly.

The Turtle-Snake Sect had obtained a portion of the Eastern Zhenwu orthodoxy inheritance, but they hadn't gotten their hands on the core Xuanwu True Art; however, they did have a copy of the Eastern Zhenwu Visualization Technique.

【Note: Line 73-74 merged in source, preserved as one.】

Besides that, various sect leaders had racked their brains to create the "Turtle-Snake Stake," "Eighteen Hands of the Coiling Snake," "Turtle-Form Qi Gong," and other strange arts and unique skills, making them a prominent sect in the current "Daluo Dynasty."

Moreover, the Turtle-Snake Sect was very low-key; no one knew that the sect leader Gui Yannian was already a peerless expert in the world.

After completing his daily practice, Gui Yannian began to perform his martial arts.

However, the martial arts he performed this time were very crude, with many flaws; he was probably treating the Eastern Zhenwu Space as a place to create techniques.

Rumble!

His palm techniques were very slow, as if pushing a millstone, faintly carrying the flavor of the blending of Taiji and the Two Instruments.

But with every palm pushed out, the void faintly stirred.

In the end, it even carried a trace of void power, striking the gray mist that shrouded the walls.

The gray mist didn't even ripple, dissolving this palm force that could destroy 99% of the martial artists in the world.

"Every time I come here, I feel my own insignificance."

Gui Yannian sighed: "This Eastern Zhenwu Space is good in every way, except it's too small... I can't perform movement-type martial arts."

Rumble!

Just at this moment, inside the Eastern Zhenwu Space, that stone tablet suddenly sank slowly into the ground.

"Hm?"

Gui Yannian's eyes immediately widened.

If this scene were seen by the disciples of the Turtle-Snake Sect, they would definitely find it unbelievable.

Was this guy, whose mouth could fit a goose egg, still the same sect leader who usually didn't change his expression even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, and who had been ancient and square from childhood to adulthood?

Swish!

The gray mist dispersed, revealing a Eastern Zhenwu Space a hundred times larger.

Stone steps extended continuously, upward... all the way to the throne at the very top.

And on the throne, a living being whose face was shrouded in gray mist was watching him.

That gaze seemed heavier than a mountain, making Gui Yannian involuntarily want to kneel and prostrate.

'Who is that... a god?'

'No! How can I kneel?'

Gui Yannian roared in his heart, his joints cracking, but he was eventually forced to bend his waist inch by inch, forming a ridiculous posture.

Fortunately.

Just as he was about to be unable to support himself, in a prostrate posture—

—kneeling down, that gaze was withdrawn: "Hm, peak of the Void Realm... not bad. What year is it?"

"The eighth year of Daluo Baoyuan. Who are you, sir?"

Gui Yannian looked around in disbelief. Everything that happened today, in the sect's classics, seemed to have no record at all. Master didn't tell him there was someone else inside the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman?

"It seems Xun Heihu is already dead..."

Fang Xing sighed.

People are always wary of the unknown. To put the host at ease, he shouldn't appear all-knowing.

"Xun Heihu? Could it be... the world's first Void Realm expert? Eastern Zhenwu Founder?!"

Gui Yannian widened his eyes: "Who exactly are you?"

"Me? I am the artifact spirit of this place, a sleeper... I have only occasionally seen a few who held the Eastern Zhenwu Talisman. One of them was named Xia Mang, and the other was Xun Heihu..."

"Martial Ancestor and Eastern Zhenwu Founder..."

Gui Yannian couldn't help but lose his focus... ===== CHAPTER 695 =====