54: Chapter 54 Border

Three days after the Provincial Tournament concluded, a notification from the Provincial Association arrived on Shen Ye's communicator.

"Reward for the top three in the Provincial Tournament: Qualification for border observation in the Eastern Divine Realm. The duration is three days, and the destination is the boundary between the Eastern Divine Realm and the Abyssal Empire—the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist. Please assemble in front of the main tower of the Provincial Association at 6:00 AM tomorrow to depart together via military airship."

Shen Ye read the notification over and over again.

The Sea of Thousand Realms Mist; he had learned this name in Qin Shu's tactical analysis class—it was the longest stretch of border between the Eastern Divine Realm and the territory of the Void Race.

It was not an artificial barrier like the light curtain defense line, but a naturally formed sea of mist.

Within the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, spiritual energy was thin and the laws were chaotic; both human monitoring equipment and the Devouring Abyss perception of the Void Race would be significantly attenuated.

Precisely because neither side could see clearly, the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist had become the grayest section of the gray zone.

Smugglers, deserters, exiles pursued by both sides, and some third-party forces that did not belong to any faction—such as the ruins of the Twilight Civilization that Jiang Yue was researching—were all hidden within this sea of mist.

Shen Ye forwarded the notification to Su Wanqing, Jiang Yue, and Gu Qinghan, then began packing his gear.

He wrapped Gu Yan's broken sword in spiritual silk and tied it to the side of his backpack.

Five bottles of elite-grade spiritual liquid stock, twenty foundation establishment pills, ten sword intent stones, one hundred faith crystals, thirty million in cash, two sets of spare clothes, and he wore Liu Yang's amulet close to his body.

He thought for a moment, then stuffed a few pieces of compressed spiritual plant rations and a bottle of spirit spring concentrate into his backpack.

Qin Shu had said that in the gray zone, sometimes a sip of clean water was more useful than a rare-grade strange item.

After packing his equipment, he sat cross-legged and sank his consciousness into his Cultivation Divine Kingdom.

In the Cultivation Divine Kingdom, Jin Lin was teaching the sword cultivator centurion a new lesson in front of the sword stele—not about reacting to enemies, but "how to maintain sword intent lock-on in an environment where divine sense is suppressed."

This was a topic Shen Ye had specifically set for the environment of the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist.

In the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, the range of divine sense detection was significantly shortened. His kin were accustomed to relying on Shen Ye's mental link for precise coordination; once the link was suppressed, their combat effectiveness would drop significantly.

Jin Lin's solution was straightforward: have the sword cultivators cover their eyes and use sword intent to replace divine sense, perceiving the opponent's spiritual energy fluctuations and killing intent.

The sword cultivator centurion trained blindfolded for an entire Cultivation Divine Kingdom year, going from not even being able to perceive where the opponent was at the start, to now being able to accurately pierce the core of a high-speed moving Wind Elemental while blindfolded.

Mu Sheng was leading the formation master centurion by the spiritual fields, deducing a new vine net structure—not a guiding vine, but a "sensing vine."

The white flowers at the end of the vines could serve as substitutes for divine sense nodes in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, with each white flower acting as a miniature sensing base station.

Mu Sheng had successfully expanded the coverage of the sensing vines to a radius of several hundred meters, but the cost was a decrease in the strength of the vines.

She was working with the earth spirit root body refiners to strengthen the toughness of the sensing vines using powder from spiral mineral crystals.

Daoist Quan sat cross-legged by the spirit spring, with three spiral water currents slowly rotating in his palm.

He was deducing a new form of water flow—the "mist water flow."

It was not liquid water, but water molecules broken down into extremely fine mist droplets, suspended in the air.

The mist water flow could disguise itself as natural mist in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, while simultaneously serving as an extension medium for divine sense.

Shen Ye watched for a while without disturbing him.

Daoist Quan never spoke when deducing new cultivation techniques; he only let the water currents in his palm constantly change shape, sometimes sitting for several Cultivation Divine Kingdom years.

Tie Chui's pill room had been very lively lately.

The success rate of the spiral foundation establishment pill was becoming increasingly stable. He was attempting to refine the natural patterns of the spiral mineral crystals into the pills, allowing the user to absorb the deep mineral vein laws within the mineral crystals while establishing their foundation—this was the "spiral body-refining pill" customized specifically for body refiners like Yan Shan.

Yan Shan had already taken the first batch of experimental products, and the Rock Pattern on his right arm had extended from his elbow to his shoulder, with its hardness increasing by a notch.

Xiao Zhi's divine sense synchronization network had also made progress recently; she had successfully expanded the synchronization range to the entire kin array, but the mental load had doubled as a result.

Shen Ye limited her training time, allowing her to practice for only two hours a day.

Xiao Zhi was very unconvinced and carved a line of text on the stone slab at the entrance of the Scripture Pavilion: "The restrictions of the Heavenly Dao, one day I will break them."

Shen Ye looked at that line of text, recalling his own feelings when he was beaten through by Qin Shu over and over again in projection training, and did not erase it.

In the Land of Gods and Demons, the twilight glow of the Twilight Spirit Spring was more intense than before the Provincial Tournament.

Chen and Ye stood by the spring, with the Angel Legion and the Succubus Legion arrayed behind them.

Chen's six wings were fully unfurled, and Holy Light flowed down from the wings to be injected into the spring water; Ye's abyss patterns extended into the spring water, intertwining with the Holy Light to form a flowing twilight.

Gain Without Labor had triggered several more times during this period—the reward for the Provincial Tournament champion issued by the Provincial Association included several rare-grade building blueprints and a batch of high-purity faith crystals, and a version two levels higher appeared for every single item in the Land of Gods and Demons.

The Temple of Holy Light had upgraded from elite high-grade to rare low-grade, with daily production of two-winged angels exceeding hundreds; the Abyss Throne upgraded simultaneously; the Twilight Spirit Spring cluster was approaching rare low-grade from elite high-grade.

At this rate, the construction conditions for the Twilight Altar would be met soon.

The Twilight Apostle, the ultimate unit of light and darkness fusion.

For every one born, a considerable amount of angel and succubus faith needed to be invested.

Shen Ye calculated the current faith reserves—the faith of angels and succubi was calculated separately, but the Twilight Altar required both to be injected simultaneously.

After the upgrades to the Temple of Holy Light and the Abyss Throne, the daily production of faith crystals had increased several times over.

Chen and Ye had been preparing for this moment, and their faith reserves were already close to the triggering conditions.

Still a little short.

Su Wanqing's message flooded into his communicator at dusk.

It was not text, but a complete summary of border black market intelligence.

There were three main black markets around the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, each controlled by different gray forces.

One of the black markets specialized in the underground trade of rare-grade spiritual plants and pill ingredients; its scale was much larger than the Nanjiang black market, and ancient species of spiritual plants that could not be found in many provincial capitals were in circulation there.

She was contacting a supplier there; if she could negotiate a deal, Shen Ye's Cultivation Divine Kingdom would gain another stable supply channel for rare-grade spiritual plants.

A private note was tucked at the end of the list: "Be careful on the road, come back alive."

Gu Qinghan's intelligence was encrypted.

She had utilized the core authority of the Provincial Association's tactical analysis department to retrieve the border patrol data and missing persons list for the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist from the last few years.

There were dozens of names on the list, most of which were smugglers and deserters, but a few names were specifically marked in red—Independent Pioneers.

There was also a detailed map of the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist, marking safe observation points, suspected activity areas of the Void Race, and several anomalous energy fluctuation coordinates that she personally suggested Shen Ye focus on observing.

The note for one of the coordinates caught Shen Ye's attention: "The energy fluctuation characteristics of this coordinate do not completely match the known Devouring Abyss power of the Void Race; it contains trace amounts of mixed Holy Light and abyss fluctuations, suspected to be remnants of ancient ruins. Not verified, for reference only."

Twilight Civilization.

Shen Ye saved that coordinate into his data pad.

The postscript had only one line: "My brother told you not to forget to treat him to a drink."

Shen Ye curved the corners of his mouth.

Jiang Yue's message arrived last and was the thickest one.

The deciphering progress of the Twilight script had advanced to nearly thirty percent, and her ancient script comparison table had grown from a few thin pages before the City-level Competition into a thick stack.

This time, targeting the two keywords "Twilight Shelter" and "Four Keys Gather," she cross-verified from three directions: the sacrificial texts of the Void Race royalty, known ancient writing systems, and the Twilight energy samples provided by Chen and Ye, reaching a preliminary deduction: the so-called "Four Keys" were very likely tokens related to the Twilight Civilization, each preserved by one of the four top universities.

Only when the four keys were joined together could the Twilight Shelter be opened.

She used different color blocks to mark the literature sources corresponding to each possibility, the comparison of traces in the Void Race sacrificial texts, and the coupling degree of Twilight energy frequencies; the logic was as rigorous as a formal academic paper.

Shen Ye cross-compared all of Jiang Yue's coordinates, Gu Qinghan's anomalous fluctuation points, and Su Wanqing's black market intelligence.

Three pieces of intelligence, three different perspectives, pointing to the same conclusion—there were indeed fragments of the Twilight Civilization's ruins hidden in the Sea of Thousand Realms Mist.

Jiang Yue deduced it from script deciphering, Gu Qinghan captured it from energy fluctuations, and ancient species of spiritual plants had always been circulating underground in Su Wanqing's black market network; this circulation itself also verified the existence of the ruins.

He merged the three pieces of intelligence into one encrypted file, saved it into his data pad, and then took out the dark golden recommendation badge from the drawer and pinned it to his collar.

Qin Shu's military airship was expected to arrive at the provincial capital airport in the middle of the night, and its speed was much faster than the public airships of the Provincial Association.

He would take advantage of this border observation opportunity to have all the kin who had awakened "self" undergo rotation training on a real battlefield, especially those kin who were not specialized in combat—alchemists needed to see how the Devouring Abyss power of the Void Race eroded the human body on the battlefield in order to prescribe the right remedy and improve the purification effect of the spiral foundation establishment pill; body refiners needed to measure exactly how hard the bone blades of the Void Clan Warriors were, so they would know to what level their Rock Pattern needed to be refined.

Gu Changfeng and Qin Sese were also on the accompanying airship; friendships forged through the clashing of weapons and the bombardment of laws were always more solid than any agreement.

Shen Ye zipped up his backpack and pushed open the door.

The corridor was very quiet, and the morning light had just leaked in from the edge of the dome, dyeing the stone walls a pale gold.

He stopped for a moment in front of a vending machine, bought a can of functional beverage, pulled the ring tab, and drank it sip by sip.

Then he threw the empty can into the recycling bin and walked in the direction of the airport.

There, the airship was waiting for him.