Swallowing the Stars: 100x Return for Teaching Apprentices

Chapter 169 Unknown Years of Cold and Heat

This is a strange place that cannot be described in normal language.

And once you enter this strange land, inevitably, all eyes will be instantly drawn to a scene at the heart of this strange land—

It was like the source of all chaos, or like a constantly beating 'heart':
A singularity that is constantly expanding and contracting. It has no fixed shape, sometimes swallowing everything like a black hole vortex, and sometimes spewing out a torrent of spacetime like a supernova explosion.

It devours everything, forming an incredibly terrifying vortex that sucks everything in its path!
The spewing forth caused endless spacetime tides, with layers of turbulent spacetime tides constantly surging and spreading to the farthest reaches of the world.

Inhalation and diffusion, two completely opposite forces, appear to be mutually independent, forming an unusual harmony.

Around that mysterious 'singularity', countless translucent 'threads' intertwine and converge.

Each thread, like a time scale and spatial dimension extracted by some unimaginable great being, intertwines to form a strange network structure, with each thread connecting phantom images of bubble worlds that have not yet completely disappeared.

Endless threads, endless phantom images of the world—the entire strange, net-like structure resembles a microcosm of an endless universe.

In this vast world, conventional rules have lost their meaning, and even "existence" itself has become a paradox.

Perhaps one second you are still standing on solid ground, and the next second you find that your legs have turned into nothingness and space.

You think you've traveled a hundred miles forward, but when you come to your senses, you're still in the same place, except that you now hold a sigh from your future self in your hand.

There are no boundaries of time and space here, only eternal distortion and recombination. All things and phenomena eventually return to this ruin!
Whoosh!
The moment Qi Yuan entered this strange place, his 'bubble world' was pulled by an invisible force and landed at the end of a thread in the strange net structure, turning into an inconspicuous tiny 'dot'.

"Chi chi chi~~~"

As if an invisible channel had been opened, an inexplicable and strange energy seemed to begin to flow rapidly along the translucent, crystalline threads within this bubble world.

As time slowly passed, this bubble world gradually transformed from 'solid' to 'illusory'.

However, given the speed of this transformation, it should take a relatively long time for the transformation from solid to final illusion.

"here it is--"

The instant the small world was 'captured' by the thread, Qi Yuan immediately sensed something and looked out through the small gap in the membrane of the small world.

At first glance, he was drawn to the incredibly dense, vast network of 'threads' that filled his entire field of vision.

The interwoven threads, though seemingly chaotic, reveal a unique harmony and beauty.

The feeling was like the incredibly profound and ethereal forces of time and space, perfectly combined here in a tangible form.

With just one glance, Qi Yuan felt that his understanding of the "Time and Space" secret technique had made a huge leap forward!

"Ah, this, this artistic conception of silk threads, just looking at it has improved my understanding of the combination of time and space!"

"Powerful, it's incredibly powerful!"

Even Qi Yuan was shocked.

The cultivation of laws becomes increasingly difficult towards the final stage.

Using the Bridge to Heaven as a reference, passing the 20th level of the Bridge to Heaven indicates that one's understanding of the laws has almost reached the limit of the immortal stage, while passing the 21st level represents that one's understanding of the laws has reached the level of a cosmic venerable.

It may seem like there's only one level of difference, but to truly break through this final bottleneck, it takes at least ten times longer to cultivate from the first level to the twentieth level!
Qi Yuan chose the most difficult path of cultivating both time and space simultaneously, which would take even more time than focusing most of his energy on one path!

It was only because he had two clones, Yuqing and Shangqing, who each possessed extraordinary talents in time and space, and the system's experience return that he had the courage to choose this path.

Like Bolan, the peerless genius who appeared once every thousand eras in the same class as Luo Feng in the original work, he severely slowed down his cultivation progress because he insisted on choosing the path of advancing in time and space at the same time during the initial stage of cultivation.

This path is incredibly difficult; even the most exceptional geniuses cannot truly maintain a perfect balance between the two paths indefinitely.

The later the game goes, the more severe the divergence in progress becomes between the two paths. Forcing yourself to do both will only delay the overall progress.

Just look at the current state of Chaos City; among all the cultivators below the Venerable level in the entire universe's Chaos Stele lineage, only King Juekun has achieved this level.

Cultivation is so difficult. Even with all the opportunities Qi Yuan has, it will definitely take him a considerable amount of time to reach the end of this path.

At this moment, Qi Yuan had only been observing the strange net-like structure of countless interwoven threads for a short while, yet a great deal of insight was already growing in his mind. If he continued to observe it for a long time, he would definitely be able to shorten the time required to perfectly master the laws of space and time!

"Deep within this incredibly dangerous prison of time and space, there actually exists such a place of extraordinary fortune!"

Just as Qi Yuan was vaguely shocked by the incredibly vast and strange net-like structure—

"breathe--"

"breathe--"

A strange pulsation, like a highly regular heartbeat, rapidly spread through me.

Immediately afterwards, Qi Yuan's gaze was drawn to the mysterious 'singularity' that was constantly absorbing and exhaling!
Time and space converge at this point and combine perfectly.

It was as if the embryonic form of a universe was being conceived within it, emanating waves of immense mystery, profound depth, and vibrant life force.

With this strange fluctuation, Qi Yuan's feeling of continuous enlightenment grew stronger.

For a moment, he almost forgot his current situation and was almost unable to help but immerse himself in it.

"Amazing, truly amazing! Sensing this strange pulse and observing this mysterious network structure has greatly impacted my cultivation in the realm of combining space and time!"

"Deep within the Time-Space Prison, which is clearly known as a forbidden zone, lies such wondrous creation. Was it formed naturally? No wonder it is the most peculiar place in this secret realm; it is truly incredible!"

Qi Yuan kept sighing in amazement, but then he also had some doubts—

Since I was able to survive safely in the core of this spacetime prison by taking advantage of the protection of the bubble world, others should be able to think of this method as well.

What about those who accidentally fell into the core area? Even if only one in ten thousand people is as lucky as he is to appear near a small world, over the long course of time, many would have survived. So why are there no records of anyone surviving in the information he collected? Even if they can't get out for the time being, as long as they stay in the small world, they don't need to worry about dying, right?

'Small World'

His gaze shifted, and he quickly noticed the other bubble worlds that were on the same thread as his own little world.

Those worlds are like a string of lanterns connected by a thread.

The smaller worlds closer to my direction are alright, they've just become slightly more illusory.

But the further away he went, the more illusory and dilapidated those worlds became, until they completely withered into a hazy phantom that seemed to exist outside of reality.

"Will this little world gradually head towards destruction?"

Qi Yuan immediately understood.

This makes it easy to understand: when the small world is destroyed, the life within it loses its protection and naturally cannot survive the terrifying vortex raging in the core of the Time-Space Prison!

These lucky ones, at most, only live a little longer than those who are directly annihilated by the tides of time and space.

"1236, 6! After advancing about 6 more small worlds, my current small world will be destroyed to the point where it can no longer sustain human life. I just don't know how long it takes for each world to completely enter the destruction stage."

Qi Yuan tried to calculate how long he could continue to survive here.

Since he was going to retreat to the human territory to cultivate in seclusion anyway, if this small world could protect him for a long enough time, then letting his two avatars stay here to cultivate would be a good choice!
After all, here one can sense the strange pulse of the 'singularity' and observe its mysterious network structure.

These things subtly and greatly influenced his cultivation in the combination of spacetime laws, so this place could be considered an ideal 'seclusion place' for him!
Of course, all of this is predicated on his ability to survive here.
"Whatever, I can't get out of here anytime soon anyway, so I'll just hide in this little world for now and use the special environment here to cultivate. Hehe, maybe this little world will last long enough to last until I completely comprehend the laws of space and time and become the master of the universe!"

"At that time, with the power to control a region of space and time, getting out of here will be a piece of cake!"

Qi Yuan thought optimistically, but stopped worrying about it too much.

Anyway, it's just a clone here. At worst, I'll just lose a few valuable treasures and some resources. It's not a big deal.

Having made up his mind, he stopped wasting time thinking about how to escape.

The Jade Purity Avatar and the Upper Purity Avatar settled down contentedly in this small world and began to concentrate on comprehending the laws of time and space.

At the same time, he would often tear apart the membrane of the small world, using the mysterious 'singularity' and the strange 'net structure' to give him a wonderful sensation, and try to guide the mysteries of the laws of time and space that he had mastered to a deeper level.

With the "Time and Space" secret technique as a reference, everything progressed extremely smoothly.

While Qi Yuan's two clones gave up the struggle and began to 'lie down' and cultivate in the unknown and strange place at the core of the Time-Space Prison, the topic of him was once again pushed to the peak of public opinion.

First, a Sky King from the Zerg faction spread the news that he had fought a fierce battle with the Heavenly King and that they had both fallen into the core area of ​​the Time Prison.

At first, those who heard the rumors were only slightly surprised.

Unexpectedly, the human race's "King of Miracles" has risen so quickly that he has already reached the point where he can fight against the Heavenly King!
What kind of existence is the Heavenly King? He is one of the few super strong individuals who are close to being 'invincible as a king' active on the Ninth Battlefield. Without the appearance of the Cosmic Venerable, this is the top combat power on the extraterritorial battlefield!

As for the human race's extraordinary king, he officially began to rise to fame in the last two or three months.

This newly emerged powerhouse possessed strength comparable to that of the Heavenly King, and even dragged the Heavenly King along into the depths of the Time-Space Prison, which naturally surprised them immensely.

The Rift King, who spread the news, arrived just as Qi Yuan and Tian Yu King's battle was nearing its end and they were swept into the depths of the Time-Space Prison by the undercurrent. Therefore, these people were unaware of the specific details of the battle and assumed that the Human Race's Qi Yuan King had adopted some kind of suicidal fighting tactic.

However, as time went on, the powerful members of the mechanical race suddenly discovered that although their Heavenly King was still alive, they could not contact him no matter what they did.

According to spies lurking in the human territory, the human king Qi Yuan Qi Yuan is still active in Chaos City.

With all this combined, some of the Immortal Kings on the Mechanical Race side immediately became nervous!

The tension reached its peak after the only universe master of the clan to which the Emperor belonged that day failed to reverse time and revive him!
The most likely explanation for this situation is only one:

The Heavenly King has been enslaved by a soul!
Otherwise, how can we explain why the Emperor could not be contacted even though he was clearly alive that day?

As time went on, and when the Heavenly King, the true master, still had not sent any news, this outcome was accepted by all the powerful figures.

It was because of this incident that Qi Yuan's reputation truly reached its peak!
The fact that this Human Race's Extraordinary King could defeat and enslave a master who was close to the level of 'Invincible King' shows that his strength is absolutely terrifying!
After all, even for a true invincible king, killing a powerful king like the Heavenly King is not so easy.

Defeating them is easy, killing them is hard, and enslaving their souls is even harder!

Naturally, the extraordinary King who was able to achieve this feat was met with both vigilance and recognition from various factions who were granted the title of King and Immortal.

Although there has been no news of him making any further moves, in many circles of those who have achieved the title of King and Immortal, he is already being regarded as an existence on the same level as those who are truly 'King and Invincible'!

Qi Yuan didn't pay much attention to what others were saying about him.

His Taiqing clone continued to stay in Chaos City to cultivate and teach, while also searching for suitable disciples.

Yuqing and Shangqing's clones took advantage of the special environment of the strange Time and Space Prison to delve into the laws of time and space.

With the powerful talent of his clone, the blessing of various special opportunities, and the experience return from the system, Qi Yuan's cultivation progressed at a crazy, cheat-like speed.

When one is truly immersed in spiritual practice, the passage of time becomes silent.

In spiritual practice, time knows no bounds; through cold and heat, years pass unnoticed.

In the blink of an eye, more than two thousand years have passed since Qi Yuan fought against the Heavenly King.

But on this day more than two thousand years later, a grand event that will sweep across the entire human territory is about to begin!

(End of this chapter)