343: Chapter 338 One Hundred Years Later, Let's Go Out

Ye You stood blankly before Su Lin, her pair of ink-green slit pupils not blinking once.

The black leather outfit she wore, which had originally been form-fitting, was now torn in several places. The wound on her shoulder, ripped open by a Yao Beast king's claw, had scabbed over, but the tender flesh beneath still glowed an unnatural purplish-red.

"Revered Master, Youer has been hungry for a long time."

She spoke, her voice raspy, carrying the distinct dryness that comes from long years of solitude.

Su Lin looked at her small face, which had grown thinner from long-term slaughter, and felt a sharp tug in his chest.

When this girl was in the Lower Realm, everything she did was based on the instincts of a Primordial Vicious Beast. Thrown headlong into this desolate, savage land, without him—her Revered Master—to guide her, and without her sisters to bicker with, she had simply relied on devouring Yao Beasts to survive alone in the ice and snow.

"I know. I'll cook for you when we get back."

Su Lin reached out and ruffled Ye You's messy hair twice.

Ye You's slit pupils suddenly shrank into thin lines, and then her entire Aura, previously filled with a murderous intent that made all beasts submit, dissipated. She rubbed her head against Su Lin's palm, the corners of her mouth curling into a tiny arc.

"Mm."

The three Yao Beast kings crouching behind them shivered violently.

They stole a glance at Ye You, who was currently being petted, and then looked at the seemingly unremarkable man in green robes, a thought so absurd it was extreme simultaneously popping into their minds.

This terrifying Prodigy, who had beaten the three of them combined until they were crawling on the ground and had almost chewed up and swallowed their internal cores, actually had a Revered Master?

Then what kind of monster is this man?

"Fourth Senior Sister! You really are wild, girl!"

Su Hongling strode over, planted her great sword—as wide as a door panel—into the ground, her face a mix of heartache and admiration.

"You pinned all three Yao Beast kings to the ground, and they didn't dare move? Not bad, you've basically recruited the Yao Race of this Upper Realm."

Ye You tilted her head to look at Su Hongling and twitched her nose.

"Second Senior Sister smells like roasted meat."

Su Hongling froze, patted her clothes, and chuckled twice. "That was a Scaled Black Leopard I roasted a few days ago; it was indeed delicious. If you're craving some, I'll hunt another one for you later."

"No need."

Ye You pulled a silver giant python tail, fully two zhang long, from behind her back and shook it expressionlessly.

"Youer has her own."

Su Hongling looked at the snake tail, which was still twitching slightly, remained silent for three seconds, and silently retracted her hand.

Chu Weiwei leaned in, her purple eyes scanning Ye You up and down, a meaningful smile hanging on her lips.

"Fourth Senior Sister, you didn't wipe the blood off your face. Come, Weiwei will treat your wounds and feed you a few doses of nourishing soup; look, your skin has become so rough."

"Not needed." Ye You took half a step back, a flash of wariness in her slit pupils.

She had an instinctive wariness of Chu Weiwei's bottles and jars, a wariness even stronger than when she faced the siege of the three Yao Beast kings.

Su Lin couldn't be bothered to watch these two continue bickering, so he raised his hand to cut them off.

"Alright, alright, settle down."

He scanned everyone present. Cold Moon, Su Hongling, Chu Weiwei, Luo Ximei, Gu Qiuyue, Mu Qingxue, Ye You. Seven of them, not one missing.

He silently counted them in his heart, and the heart that had been hanging for so long finally settled completely.

Is it easy for me? Su Lin sighed heavily in his heart. Back in the Lower Realm, he started at the Peak of the Mahayana Stage—how glorious that was. But after Ascension, not only did he not get to enjoy life, he had to run around the world cleaning up messes for these ancestors, going to underground arenas to fish people out, and coming to icy wastelands to pick up kids. This isn't some carefree path to Immortality; this is clearly just running away in the middle of the night with seven troublesome brats.

"While the Beichen Heavenly Palace hasn't recovered yet, we must retreat immediately."

Su Lin turned and walked toward the Void Shuttle, his steps decisive.

"There is only one thing to do next. Find that place called the Wangchuan Secret Realm, and everyone will go inside to Cultivate in seclusion. We can't stay in this Taihuang Immortal Domain for long; once we emerge, we're leaving directly."

"Leave? To where?" Su Hongling chased after him to ask.

Su Lin didn't look back, his voice drifting away in the freezing wind of the far north.

The Void Shuttle restarted, its deep blue exhaust flame tearing through the sky of the far north.

The cabin was rarely quiet for a while.

Su Hongling and Ye You huddled in the corner of the lower cabin, one gnawing on dried roasted meat, the other gnawing on a raw Yao Beast rib.

Neither paid any attention to the other, but occasionally when they exchanged glances, that silent tacit understanding was more solid than a thousand words.

Gu Qiuyue sat beside the control console, resting the cracked Golden Abacus on her lap, her fingers stroking it repeatedly.

Her lips moved slightly, as if she were calculating some extremely complex account.

Luo Ximei walked over carrying a cup of Immortal wine and sat down beside her.

"Sixth Junior Sister, you really should fix your abacus; if you click it a few more times, it's going to fall apart."

Gu Qiuyue looked up at her, rarely revealing a smile that didn't involve calculation.

"Fifth Senior Sister, thanks."

Luo Ximei raised an eyebrow, a flash of surprise in her white-gold heterochromatic eyes.

"Oh? You, a money-grubber, actually know how to say 'thanks'? I thought you only knew how to express emotions with Immortal Stones."

"When I was surrounded in that sea of stars for over ten days, unable to even eat a hot meal, I finally realized something." Gu Qiuyue touched the largest crack on the abacus, her tone softening significantly. "Some things are worth more than Immortal Stones."

The cabin was silent for a moment.

Cold Moon sat upright in the seat closest to Su Lin, her purple-gold phoenix robe neat and crisp. Her golden eyes were slightly closed, and she was using her Imperial Dao power to deduce the Luck ahead.

"Revered Master, I have sensed it."

She suddenly opened her eyes. "About thirty million li to the southwest, in the cracks of the Laws between the thirty-six Great Domains, there is indeed an extremely strange blank space. The flow of Luck there is completely severed, as if someone had forcibly gouged it out of the map of this world."

Su Lin looked up from the main control console. "Can you confirm the location?"

"I can. Although my Imperial Dao Dragon Qi has been suppressed quite a bit by this Upper Realm, it is still sufficient for the small task of deducing the location."

The Void Shuttle changed course and sped toward the southwest.

Over the next few days, the warship passed through vast, desolate Void Realm wildernesses, skirted the boundary zones of two Great Domains, and avoided several sensitive areas clearly patrolled by high-level Cultivators.

On the dusk of the fifth day.

The scene in the Void Realm ahead underwent a highly bizarre change.

The originally dark purple sky faded over a large area, as if someone had taken a giant eraser and wiped away the colors of this Void Realm layer by layer.

In the end, the area ahead turned into an extremely pure, nearly transparent milky white.

"We've arrived."

Su Lin stood up and walked to the observation window.

In the milky-white Void Realm before him, there were no stars, no meteorites, and even the fluctuations of Immortal Qi could hardly be sensed.

But in the perception of the world tree sapling within his body, this seemingly empty area was emitting an extremely ancient, extremely profound calling.

"The density of the Laws inside is terrifyingly low."

Mu Qingxue walked to Su Lin's side, her pale blue eyes gazing ahead. "It's like a bubble that was deliberately gouged out of the rules of the world; it's not in the same System as the Taihuang Immortal Domain outside at all."

Su Lin nodded slightly, channeling his Chaos Immortal Energy to resonate with the milky white area.

A low vibration came, and the Void Realm split open a narrow, long slit, like melting milk.

The Void Shuttle passed through.

On the other side of the opening was a world of green, quiet to the extreme. There were mountains, water, wind, and clouds. The air was filled with a delicate floral fragrance; that scent did not belong to any plant in the Taihuang Immortal Domain, but rather to a more primitive, more primordial breath of creation, closer to the time when the world first opened.

The Void Shuttle passed through the opening, and the slit behind it healed extremely quickly, completely isolating all the oppression and slaughter of the outside world.

Everyone in the cabin simultaneously felt a sense of relief they had never experienced before.

The heavy suppression that had followed them like a shadow from the first day they stepped into the Taihuang Immortal Domain vanished at this moment.

Su Hongling twisted her neck, her bones popping with a crisp sound. "Comfortable! This place is countless times better than that ghost nest outside!"

Chu Weiwei also took a deep breath, her purple eyes filled with amazement. "The Immortal Qi here is warm; there's not a hint of throat-stinging sensation. Cultivating with this kind of Qi will increase efficiency by at least several times."

The Void Shuttle landed steadily on a flat grassy field.

Su Lin walked down the gangway, his feet stepping onto the soft green grass. The grass blades held the coolness of morning dew, and the air was so clean it was almost drinkable.

"This is the place."

He looked around, a rare trace of satisfaction rising in his eyes, and then turned around to look at the seven disciples filing down.

"Listen carefully to the following arrangements."

Su Lin's voice was steady, carrying the composure of someone in control. "This place has one biggest advantage. Its time flow is the opposite of the outside."

Cold Moon was slightly stunned. "Revered Master, what do you mean?"

"One day outside is one year inside." Su Lin slowly revealed the key. "This is the true mystery of the Wangchuan Secret Realm. If we Cultivate inside for one hundred years, at most only three-plus months will have passed outside. Even if the people from the Beichen Heavenly Palace want to pursue us, they first have to come to their senses and then slowly investigate our whereabouts. By the time they find us, we will have long since been reborn."

Once these words were spoken, the breathing of the few people outside the cabin stalled slightly.

"One hundred years?" Su Hongling widened her eyes, and the hand carrying the great sword paused. "Old Man, are you saying we have to hide in this godforsaken place for one hundred years?"

"Less nonsense." Su Lin glanced at her. "Do you think the Realm of the Immortal Realm is Chinese cabbage, growing whenever you want it to? In the Lower Realm, your Mahayana Stage Peak was relying on the Foundation given by the System. Now, you are climbing up from Earth Immortal with real blades and guns; this is the path to Immortality. The one thing the path to Immortality has in abundance is time."

He raised his right hand, his five fingers grasping at the air, and a profound cluster of Chaotic Immortal light slowly rotated in his palm.

"Although you few had great Luck, relying on the Blood Arena, robbing the City Lord's Mansion, and recruiting the Yao Race to forcefully pile up your cultivation, this kind of piled-up Realm is very shaky, and the Foundation is full of holes."

Su Lin's gaze swept over everyone, his tone unprecedentedly solemn. "Once you encounter a real orthodox Immortal from the Upper Realm, they can just point a finger, and your shaky Dao Foundation will collapse on the spot. So, for this hundred years, no one is allowed to slack off."

"Hong Ling, your body was forcefully filled with Immortal Qi; you must spend a hundred years re-tempering every inch of your Meridians, letting the power truly grow into your bones."

"Weiwei, although your poisons are powerful, your own Immortal Foundation is too thin. For this hundred years, honestly and obediently solidify your Medicine Immortal Dao Fruit."

"Ximei, your Heavenly Immortal Realm, which fuses Immortal and Demon, was forced out; do you think I can't see the cracks in your Dao Foundation? If you don't fix them, you will sooner or later suffer Qi Deviation."

The few who were named had different expressions, but none dared to refute.

Every word of Su Lin's speech stabbed into their hearts.

They themselves knew clearly that this entire journey of Ascension and Breakthrough was entirely pushed forward by the situation; their Foundations were so shaky that even they were panicked.

"Then... then what about you, Revered Master?" Chu Weiwei asked in a low voice. "Are you also going to Cultivate in seclusion for one hundred years?"

"The same for me." Su Lin retracted the Immortal light from his palm. "My Earth Immortal Realm was slapped into place by your Grandmaster; it's even shakier than yours. For this hundred years, I must completely nourish that tree in my Inner World and truly establish my own Dao."

He paused, a rare, slightly helpless arc curling at the corners of his mouth. "And during this hundred years, I warn you." Su Lin swept his gaze around, lingering for two seconds longer on Chu Weiwei and Su Hongling. "Cultivate with peace of mind. Don't think about using any crooked methods while I'm in seclusion, and certainly don't think about sneaking over while I'm meditating. Whoever dares to disturb the Dao Heart, after we leave seclusion, will be punished with double the time facing the wall."

Once these words were out, the expressions of the several female Disciples immediately became extremely colorful.

Chu Weiwei pouted aggrievedly, her purple eyes filled with the resentment of "Revered Master, how did you know what I was thinking?"

Su Hongling pretended she hadn't heard anything, lowering her head and vigorously wiping the non-existent dust off her great sword.

Luo Ximei fanned herself with a folding fan, her white-gold heterochromatic eyes slowly shifting, and she began to admire the distant green mountains with a serious face.

Cold Moon and Mu Qingxue remained as dignified as ever, but their slightly reddened earlobes betrayed them.

Su Lin looked at this group of troublemakers, only feeling his temples starting to throb again.

What kind of sin did I commit in my past life? Others Cultivate in seclusion with a pure heart and few desires, free from worldly disputes. I have to specifically set a rule to guard against my disciples when I Cultivate in seclusion. If this gets out, I'll lose face for the entire Taihuang Immortal Domain.

"Alright, disperse."

Su Lin waved his hand and walked toward the upper reaches of the stream.

"Find your own places, sit and meditate honestly, and in one hundred years, we'll head out."

He walked to a flat blue stone by the stream, sat cross-legged, and turned his back to everyone.

The clear stream water gurgled past his feet, and gentle Immortal Qi swirled around.

There is no rotation of the sun and moon in the Wangchuan Secret Realm.

The daylight was always that lukewarm blue-gray, neither bright nor dark; time lost its most intuitive scale here.

Su Lin sat on that blue stone by the stream for a full ten years.

During these ten years, he had hardly moved a single bit. The roots of the world tree sapling within his body were taking root inch by inch into the Law veins of this pure land in an extremely slow yet firm posture.