Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 780: Xeno-Immortal Soul Seed

1,000,000 soul threads erupted in Xu Qing’s sea of consciousness, spreading to fill his mind, soul, and body. Ultimately, a rumbling vortex came into being in his sea of consciousness.

At the same time, thunder crashed in the sky over the imperial capital. Bolts of lightning formed, snaking across the sky. It seemed as if some forbidden thing was coming into existence, drawing the attention of the heavenly daos. However, that only lasted for a short time before things went back to normal. It was as if the heavenly daos weren’t sure what this thing was, and thus stopped paying attention to it. In fact, it almost seemed as if they were covering it up, as the thunder transformed into snow.

That said, the lingering glow of the lightning illuminated the night.

People meditating in private chambers were shocked. People on the street stopped walking and looked up in surprise. People in the Imperial University stopped talking. People in big buildings suddenly looked very serious, and there were even people in the imperial palace who looked into the sky.

But in the end, the heavenly dao seemed to cover over all traces of what was happening. Other than a few people who were still paying attention, most people just went back to what they were doing, whether that was meditating or doing something else.

One important person in the Imperial University did just the same, retracting his senses and focusing on the group of 39 students seated in front of him.

“Schoolmaster, what just happened?” one of the students asked.

“I just had a sudden strange feeling, that’s all. It’s fine. Continue, all of you.” The schoolmaster wore a hemp robe and had the standard mask that concealed his cultivation base and everything else about him.

This particular white tower belonged to the God-Merging School.

The students nodded in response, then continued with the conversation topic at hand, which was a discussion of the things that had been happening recently with the Xeno-Immortal School.

If it was some other school of thought, then given the current status of the God-Merging School, they wouldn’t have paid much attention. But the Xeno-Immortal School was different. Fundamentally speaking... the Xeno-Immortal School and the God-Merging School were as opposed as fire and water. One of them weaved the image of a god in the mind, and emphasized completeness. The other replaced the fleshly body and slowly got rid of all vestiges of humanity other than the mind. Ultimately, one had the goal of becoming a Xeno-Immortal, the other was about transforming into a human god.

They were two fundamentally opposed viewpoints, which meant that, in the end, only one of the schools of thought could thrive. That was one of the reasons the Xeno-Immortal School had fallen into decline. Forgetting about their internal issues, the rise of the God-Merging School had just hastened their weakening. It was little surprise, then, that when an enigmatic master appeared who had hundreds of thousands of soul threads, it defied common understanding, and attracted the attention of the God-Merging School.

Though only half a month had passed, the Xeno-Immortal School had already become incredibly popular. However, the enigmatic master never made a second appearance. If he did, it was only possible to imagine how much more popular the Xeno-Immortal School would become. If that happened, it would be completely possible for the Xeno-Immortal School to truly rise to prominence again.

That was the subject currently being discussed at this meeting in the God-Merging School. All of the highest ranking students were in attendance. Some seemed nervous, while others discounted all the rumors. There were a lot of different opinions being expressed.

In the end, the schoolmaster raised his hand, causing silence to prevail in the tower. All of the high-ranking students turned to look at him. The respect in their eyes was clear.

“Don’t worry about the situation with the Xeno-Immortal School. Today... a very esteemed individual will be publicly joining the God-Merging School. With that person as a member, it will be adding flowers to the brocade of our school of thought. Everyone, start getting ready. Our new arrival will be coming in three days.”

The schoolmaster’s placid words left the high-level students with no choice but to calmly nod.

The meeting ended.

Outside, the thunder had ceased. Back in Ningyan’s mansion, Xu Qing opened his eyes in his private chamber. His eyes gleamed with suspicion and confusion. He frowned.

What is this...?

Xu Qing lifted his hand, and a violet snowflake emerged from his palm to float in front of him. The vortex of 1,000,000 soul threads in his sea of consciousness continued to spin without end. As it spun, a frigid coldness emerged, causing more snowflakes to dance around. There weren’t many snowflakes, only 100. Exactly 100.

Upon sensing what was going on in his sea of consciousness, Xu Qing retracted his divine will and focused on the snowflake in front of him. After some contemplation, he took out a transmission jade slip and messaged some swordsages he knew. Before long, a vicious wolf-like creature was delivered to him.

Without any hesitation, Xu Qing waved his hand, sending the snowflake flying toward the beast’s forehead. It pierced into the beast, which shivered and unleashed a bloodcurdling scream.

The snowflake almost seemed to possess life force. It soon integrated into the beast’s flesh and blood, completely disappearing from sight.

Gruishly, the wound in the beast’s forehead quickly healed until there was no indication it had ever been there. The wolf beast closed its eyes and stopped moving, making it look dead. However, its aura was still there. After a short time passed, its eyes opened and it looked at Xu Qing.

Xu Qing’s heart leapt in his chest. Based on what he could sense, he was now connected to the wolf beast. And the basis of that connection was the violet snowflake. It hadn’t actually disappeared. It was actually inside the wolf beast. It had merged with its flesh and blood, becoming part of it.

Xu Qing’s eyes shone with a strange light. Reaching out, he made a grasping gesture, pulling the beast over to him. After probing it with divine sense, his expression flickered. He could sense soul threads inside of the beast....

“Well, isn’t this interesting.”

Next, he ripped the wolf beast’s body open and inspected its flesh. Before long, the violet snowflake emerged from the body of the beast and floated in front of Xu Qing.

Xu Qing thought for a moment, then called for ten more beasts. He performed the same snowflake experiment on all of them. After doing numerous such experiments through the night, he emerged from his private chamber in the morning with a much deeper understanding of the 100 snowflakes that had been formed by his 1,000,000 soul threads. There had been a price to pay to get that understanding. The private chamber now reeked of gore, and was filled with the dismembered bodies of numerous wolf beasts....

Xu Qing wasn’t worried about that. His eyes currently gleamed with understanding as he made his way to the Imperial University and simultaneously analyzed the 100 violet snowflakes within him.

Those 100 snowflakes constitute seeds! Putting a snowflake into a wolf beast doesn’t do anything. The beast is still normal afterward. It doesn’t even seem uncomfortable, and its life force isn’t affected. But it starts producing soul threads.

Those soul threads are made from its soul. The big side-effect is that, if the soul in question isn’t strong enough, it withers and dies.

The snowflakes... seem soft and gentle, but are actually very domineering. They can be sent out like weapons, to devour the soul of the enemy... and turn them into soul threads for me. At the same time, they can act like parasites. If someone who cultivates the Xeno-Immortal School techniques merges with a seed like that, then theoretically speaking, their cultivation speed should increase dramatically. The prerequisite is having sufficient soul power.

However, I’m in complete control. With a mere thought, I could extract the seed. Although it won’t affect the target’s life force, they’ll lose all the soul threads they made in that way. I still don’t understand the snowflakes completely enough. It’s going to take more experimentation to get a deeper understanding.

Until he knew a lot more about them, he resolved not to casually use them. Upon entering the Imperial University, he settled his thoughts and went to the Xeno-Immortal School.

There were nine more students present. The place was a lot livelier than before, to the point where the schoolmaster didn’t have to do any of the daily chores. The students all did that to earn credit.

Xu Qing and the original three students were in a similar position. With so many new students showing up, they didn’t have as much to do. Therefore, they started working hard on the next edition of the Xeno-Immortal Enquirer.

Three days passed. Every day, Xu Qing went back to the mansion in the evening to experiment with the snowflakes. On the fourth day, a new rumor was spreading in the Imperial University.

Seventh Prince had publicly announced that he was going to join the God-Merging School. In fact, on that very afternoon, he was going to formally visit the God-Merging School’s tower and pay respects to the schoolmaster there. It wasn’t permitted to reveal one’s identity inside the Imperial University. But those rules didn’t govern what happened outside with imperial princes.

The situation was especially noteworthy considering the twelve sticks of ‘crown prince incense’ on the rainbow bridge. This was the first time any of the imperial princes had done anything noteworthy since the incense was set up, so the development was noticed by a lot of people. It caused a lot of heated debate in the Imperial University, and it caused a lot of excitement among the students of the God-Merging School. After all, this was the first time in the history of the Imperial University that something like this happened. In the past, no one ever revealed their true identity, so even if an imperial prince did join a specific school of thought, no one would ever know.

But Seventh Prince was making a big deal of it. Clearly, there was something unique to this situation. And it was obvious that Seventh Prince was tying himself deeply to the God-Merging School.

Sure enough, that afternoon, Seventh Prince entered the Imperial University and, escorted by a host of excited students, walked in the direction of the God-Merging School. Along the way, they passed the Xeno-Immortal School.

Xu Qing looked at the students clustered around Seventh Prince. Despite how he wore the ordinary student clothing, Xu Qing couldn’t help but think about how Seventh Prince looked when he and his force of saviors had entered the capital of Sea-Sealing County. Back then, Xu Qing had been watching from afar. It was very similar to now. Xu Qing’s eyes looked the same as ever, but his heart was as cold as ice.[1]

The other conclave students of the Xeno-Immortal School were in the white tower looking out thoughtfully at the commotion. The three students who had joined before Xu Qing didn’t seem to think much of it. They quickly went back to working on the Xeno-Immortal Enquirer. Before long, they dragged Xu Qing over to participate.

Meanwhile, the schoolmaster of the Xeno-Immortal School was starting to get very anxious. It felt to him like the Xeno-Immortal School had a good opportunity to rise to prominence, yet nothing he did seemed to be making that happen. He had done a lot of work to try to figure out who the enigmatic master was, but hadn’t had any success.

This isn’t going to work long-term. I shouldered a lot of the responsibility for this Senior’s actions. Logically speaking, he should come offer formal greetings at some point....

As the schoolmaster, he had put together a lot of clues to reach the conclusion that this enigmatic master must have some methods that no one else knew about. Otherwise, it didn’t seem possible for him to have hundreds of thousands of soul threads.

If nothing else, I just hope this Senior can explain how he cultivated hundreds of thousands of soul threads. If he does, the Xeno-Immortal School will definitely rise to prominence! If we could have a few dozen masters with hundreds of thousands of soul threads each... or even just a handful, then Xeno-Immortal techniques would become incredibly famous, and our theories would be proved correct!

As he stewed in anxiety about the enigmatic master, he helped the students produce copies of the Xeno-Immortal Enquirer.

“Shocking secret! As it turns out, Seventh Prince joined the God-Merging School because of HER!”

“Unexpectedly, the schoolmaster of the Plants and Vegetation School has a secret relationship with the head student there!”

“Is this crisis with the head student at the God-Merging School a matter of twisted humanity or degraded morality? For more information, check out the late night edition of the Xeno-Immortal Enquirer, and the article entitled: Where Did My Baby Go?”

1. Seventh Prince entered the capital triumphantly in chapter 509. ☜

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