Star Gate

“I…” Director General Wang wanted to say that he hadn’t meant to do so, but he was so worked up that he exhaled a little too quickly. The slight gust of wind that picked up knocked Li Hao’s arm off his body.

The young man wordlessly stooped down and picked up his arm, screwing it back onto his body. Director General Wang immediately jumped as far away as he could!

He stared incredulously at Li Hao. I really didn’t touch you! I admit that I crushed your hand, but I can’t hurt you simply from breathing out!

“It’s fine.” Li Hao smiled after he installed his fragile arm back on his body. Riiip… plop. A patch of skin fell off his face.

It’s fine, really!” The young man laughed dryly. A laughing face without skin was… an even more harrowing sight.

His people frowned at the scene. Why was this happening? Li Hao’s physical body was like a clay doll—it broke apart at the slightest touch.

Li Hao didn’t mind. He’d lost an incredible amount of resources and strength after that battle, but with the formation of his wind and thunder characters, it wasn’t a total loss. The key thing was, he’d successfully entered the secondary dimension.

So it wasn’t the biggest loss in the grand picture of things. There was no helping how frail his body was. He’d already been only a layer of skin before he entered that dimension.

Li Hao turned to Yuan Shuo with a smile. “Thank you for the effort, teacher!”

Skin continued to rain down from his face. Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes. “Fix yourself first, look at how weak you are!”

The young man grinned and summoned a wave of Water of Life. His physical body was swiftly nourished back to health. A trace of blood filled his face and he no longer shed skin with every single movement.

Director General Wang heaved a sigh of relief and quickly stepped forward, but didn’t dare touch the young man again. “Are you alright?” he asked carefully.

“This is just a small matter!”

Is it really now?? The director general quickly followed up with, “Where did you go just now?”

“The secondary dimension.”

“The core origin world?” asked the director general instead. “But core origin has been severed…”

The core origin world had been something similar to a secondary dimension. It was the world in which the core origin dao resided. Every path of dao ultimately manifested in the universe. This was a fact that was beyond the current Li Hao’s comprehension.

Some understanding dawned when he heard the director general’s words and he mused, “The core origin world… so this means that core origin dao has its own world?”

“Of course!” explained Director General Wang. “In the world of core origin, each person is a star. The star falls when the person dies…”

The look in Li Hao’s eyes shifted. How interesting. The cosmos again. He’d seen countless stars when he entered the secondary dimension. Were they part of the same world, or not? All daos would eventually lead to the endless cosmos, so was each dao a universe in itself?

The young man lost himself in thought, drawing strange looks from the rest of the crowd. What was it now?

Li Hao wasn’t dwelling on the danger that he’d just survived. There were thousands of great daos in existence and it was very interesting to cross paths with powerhouses. Hong Tu had given him a lot of food for thought. There was pressure and peril there, sure, but also enlightenment.

The more dangerous a situation was, the more there was to gain. If it wasn’t for Hong Tu being so strong that it forced Li Hao to struggle for survival amid certain death, how would he have entered the secondary dimension?

One bite and one sip at a time, such was the intent of heaven.

The intent of heaven…

Li Hao abruptly grinned. What stupid intent of heaven? That was not to be feared. The heavens might have given birth to some intent in this world; it’d entranced him and set him on a collision course with Hong Tu. It hoodwinked one’s mind and heart. It was not permissible for the heavens to manipulate the human heart!

The young man found this highly inappropriate. The heavens can be conscious, but they can not manipulate the human heart! How dare they extend their hand to me. No wonder I’ve been obsessed with toppling the Wind and Cloud Pavilion after hearing about them. I feel more enmity for them than I do for Ying Hongyue!

That was because Hong Tu was scheming to take over the world.

Li Hao was lost in his thoughts. The rest of the group simply looked at him—some with confusion, others oddly, and more with smiling shakes of their heads.

The young man possessed so much potential that he was sorting through spontaneous enlightenment again. But… he’d just survived an encounter of life and death, his physical body was weak beyond compare. Should he not be resting first?

“That’s enough, you can think about things when you return home!” Only Yuan Shuo would dare interrupt at this stage. His face was pale and he rose to frown at Li Hao. “That was very unwise!

“The universe is rootless and you can get lost in it at any time! This holds true whether it is the real universe or one of dao. The human body is not independent of itself and life is a river that reflects the void. That was the river of life in the universe, you could’ve been lost in it at any moment!”

Li Hao looked at his teacher with certain understanding.

“Just look at yourself.” Yuan Shuo shook his head. “You and I share the same martial dao origin as the Five Styles have the same roots. Therefore, I could vaguely sense your existence. Anyone else would’ve been lost—I wouldn’t have been able to find them.”

So that was the case!

The rest of the group blinked with incomprehension, but Director General Wang turned over the old man’s words thoughtfully. Being a core origin cultivator, he’d once experienced the core origin universe. Hence, he could understand these words to a certain degree, but he still found them incredible. What did this represent?

Then Li Hao and his teacher had discovered a truly new dao. One dao, one world. One dao, one universe. Was it possible?

If not, where else had Li Hao gone just now?

A rumor of the director general’s time came to mind. The Human King had once traveled through the core origin universe when he was weak. The only one who could do so in their age was the Green Emperor!

He could travel through the core origin universe because he was naturally born of core origin and nearly one with it. And yet, Li Hao and the rest were not.

A variety of expressions flickered through Director General Wang’s face. Was there another dao in this world? One in the true meaning of the word?

No one had discovered any other dao during the countless years of New Martial. Even the Human King’s inner world belonged to core origin dao. It was just fully isolated as a standalone world—it hadn’t really broken free of the core origin universe.

A variety of thoughts manifested in the director general’s mind. Li Hao was very weak! Even as a seven element Arcanus, he was very weak. The modern world’s seven element Arcanus was on par with an Apex, which meant to say that they were the equivalent of Apexes cut off from core origin dao. If this was New Martial and core origin still abundant, then Apexes would be on different footing compared to seven element Arcanus.

The two were still very different!

Contrary to what they presented themselves as now, true Apex could fight one hundred six elements at once. Could seven elements fight one hundred six elements at once?

Not at all!

Hong Yitang laughed as the director general’s thoughts ran wild. “All is well if you’re fine. Did you want this mirror? Your sword looks to be inside.”

He handed Li Hao a mirror; it exuded a faint illumination despite its tattered condition. Plainly, it was a very strong treasure.

“This is such a formidable weapon!” Li Hao sighed with appreciation when he received the mirror. This was truly an impressive object that not even Hong Tu had been able to fully utilize. Otherwise, Li Hao felt that the current Stellaris would be less than this mirror, even after swallowing the mallet of the Hongs.

“This is a copy of the Mirror of Wind and Cloud, isn’t it?” Director General Wang nodded appreciatively when he saw the item. “Strictly speaking, this is an emperor weapon!

“Weapons forged by exalted emperors are called emperor weapons,” he explained when Li Hao looked at him. “This should’ve been crafted by one of the Hong emperors. As for which one… that I’m not sure of.

“The notable one of the Hong family forged the Mirror of Wind and Cloud. It was so powerful that it was offered to the Human King. He then forged a copy of the Mirror of Wind and Cloud, and more than one, so the copies are of a slightly lower level.”

They were emperor weapons regardless.

“Strictly speaking, the eight family weapons aren’t much stronger than this mirror,” said the director general after some hesitation. “Not even Stellaris is that strong. They simply carry a lot of importance. Of course, Stellaris is more special than the rest since the Human King specifically made it for the Sword Sovereign. It’s certain to be the stronger weapon when it’s fully unsealed.”

But with the sword sealed, it was less than the copy of the Mirror of Wind and Cloud.

Li Hao nodded. No wonder! He hadn’t thought that Stellaris would be sealed either. He could see it traveling through the mirror, but didn’t know how to take it out.

“Try refining it,” Li Shengzhang whispered when she saw Li Hao stumped for his next move. “Of course, it might be hard for a non-Hong to refine it. Its master is dead now, so you might succeed. You’ll be able to take out Stellaris once you refine it.”

“My target for this trip was this treasure.” Li Hao nodded with a smile. “I just hadn’t thought that Hong Tu would be so strong that he’d almost be the death of me. Ah, yes, where’s that tree?”

The tree was gone. Although there were other trees in the city, Li Hao’s thoughts were on the white tree. It was very big and very strong.

“I ate it.” Director General Wang coughed with embarrassment.

“……” Li Hao’s jaw sagged. You… ate it? What does that mean?

“I expended too much energy just now and ate it. I wouldn’t be able to make up for my expenditure otherwise,” the director general continued coughing. Utilizing the city lord seal was much easier said than done. He would’ve used it early on otherwise. And now, he was a bit too embarrassed to go into details.

Everyone had put forth effort in this battle. Although the white tree was the strongest, Hong Tu wasn’t weak either. He was here to work for Li Hao, but he’d eaten their greatest battle loot. It was… difficult to explain.

He’d thought Li Hao had died earlier, so he hadn’t thought that much in his actions. Li Hao didn’t say anything either. So what if the director general had eaten the tree? He was surprised that the man could kill the plant spirit. That white tree had seemed very strong, but had fallen in the blink of an eye.

Had he… been gone a long time? And what was his teacher doing here? It was only now that Li Hao jerked with a start and looked at his master. “Teacher, what are you doing here?”

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