The Coiling Dragon World, the Yulan Plane, the Qingya Continent, Xuanshen Island.
A blue-haired young man in a black robe sat before a mechanical contraption, studying it intently.
"Lord Huosi, Bernas requests an audience!"
A respectful voice came from outside.
"Come in."
The young man spoke calmly, his voice utterly devoid of warmth.
An old man in white robes slowly entered the room, his face filled with reverence.
If anyone on the island had seen this, they would have been stunned.
Bernas was the council chairman and supreme ruler of Xuanshen Island, yet he was so deferential to an unremarkable-looking young man.
Bernas knew full well that everything he had now was thanks to Lord Huosi, and so he held him in the highest regard.
"What is it?"
Huosi drew his gaze back and looked at Bernas calmly as he asked.
"My lord, Young Master Adkins's experiment was a success. The Steam Train is already running, and it should soon be ready for widespread use."
Bernas lowered his head slightly, his voice tinged with excitement.
"Oh? It worked?"
A flicker of emotion entered Huosi's voice. He clenched his fists slightly.
Several thousand years had passed since he crossed into the Coiling Dragon World. Huosi had gone from initial shock to excitement, and now he had grown used to it all.
Like most transmigrators, Huosi had been taken out by a heavy truck on Blue Star, only to awaken in this continent called Qingya. He soon realized that this was the Coiling Dragon World.
The Qingya Continent had once been part of the Yulan Plane. Ten thousand years before the original story began, it was shattered into five continents.
In the end, only one continent remained: Yulan, the birthplace of Linley.
The good news was that Huosi was a god-level powerhouse, one of the few top experts in the Material Plane.
In the Divine Planes, Lowgods were mere nobodies. They weren't quite like Saint Realm fighters, but they were hardly better than slaves.
In the Material Plane, however, gods were the supreme rulers. In a world where Saint Realm fighters could dominate a region, even a Lowgod was a god in the truest sense.
The bad news was that he was a Lowgod who had refined a Divine Spark, and he had done so years before transmigrating.
As someone familiar with the Coiling Dragon World, Huosi knew all too well what it meant to have refined a Divine Spark.
Early on, he had tried to cultivate the Laws and Profound Mysteries. He had tried attuning himself to the earth, simulating gravity, and all sorts of other methods.
In the end, he discovered that he could make no progress at all, no matter what he tried.
He couldn't sense even a trace of the Earth Pulse Profound Mystery, Gravity Space Profound Mystery, Life Force Profundity, Strength Profound Mystery, or Earth Travel Technique that he clearly remembered from his past life.
The only power he could use was the Earth Element Profound Mystery contained within his Lowgod Divine Spark.
Hundreds of years passed. He traveled the continent many times, but in the end, he had to accept that he might never improve.
Gods who refined Divine Sparks couldn't break through on their own. They could only refine more Divine Sparks. Countless people in the Coiling Dragon World had tried over the ages.
In the end, no one had found a solution. An ordinary Lowgod like him couldn't change that, either.
For a time, he had grown despondent and tried to enjoy life instead.
As one of the strongest beings of his era, he could enjoy every material and spiritual pleasure imaginable.
He could eat the most delicious, most expensive food and drink the classiest liquor. No high-end establishment would hesitate to serve him for free.
If he wanted, countless women would throw themselves at him. Even a church's holy maiden or an Empire's princess wouldn't be an exception.
Neither they nor the powers behind them would mind offering themselves to him. In fact, if he were so inclined, he could take the Emperor's entire harem and make the Emperor watch, and the Emperor would have to swallow his humiliation.
But a life of indulgence might look glamorous, yet it couldn't fill the emptiness inside him.
As time went on, he grew tired of it and wanted a new, exciting goal.
Later, he concealed his identity and joined the army. He served as a general on the battlefield, rising step by step to commander and leading a million troops against the enemy.
On another occasion, he pretended to be a young man and went to school as a student, fooling around with a group of boys and girls and savoring the feeling of youth.
A few years later, he taught as well, taking on many outstanding students. His students filled the world, and he became a master of his generation.
But in the end, with the passage of time, it all turned to dust.
In the Coiling Dragon Universe, most people who weren't Saint Realm fighters didn't live beyond five hundred years. Sessler, who lived for over eight hundred, was a rare exception.
And if Sessler hadn't reached the Saint Realm, his life would soon have run its course, too.
In the original world, Saint Realm fighters seemed to be everywhere, nothing special. But that was merely the effect of seeing them all around. In the Material Plane, only a handful of talented people could reach the Saint Realm. For most, it was an unattainable goal—a reality that was all too normal.
The friends and confidants around Huosi died one by one. His classmates, his students, and even his students' children—the children who could have called him their teacher's teacher—slowly turned to dust as well.
Now, among the people he knew, only the powerful figures in the continent's major factions remained, along with Bernas and Adkins at his side.
He could have done nothing and waited for Linley to be born, then hitched himself to Linley's rise.
But first, Adkins and Bernas had only just reached the Saint Realm, and no one knew how many years it would be before Linley was born.
Adkins would be imprisoned in the Plane Prison billions of years after Linley's time. The gap between then and now was simply too vast.
Second, Huosi had done so much since arriving. Who knew whether the butterfly effect would kick in and prevent Linley from being born at all?
Billions of years was too long. Even the slightest deviation could have enormous consequences.
Third, being a Lowgod didn't mean he couldn't die. In the original story, powerful figures from other planes descended in the future, shattering the continent into five. Later, four continents sank, leaving only the Yulan Continent.
No one knew how many gods died in that process. In the end, aside from Beirut's family, only Catherine and O'Brien remained on the continent.
Even if the events were unlikely to happen now that he was here, who could guarantee that he would survive? A Lowgod might have an infinite lifespan, but that didn't mean he couldn't die.
It wasn't until decades ago, when Huosi returned to his hometown, that he finally began to see a glimmer of hope. Perhaps because he had come to understand things, his own cheat finally loaded.
The Tech Cheat System Space contained a set of Interstellar Battle Armor made exclusively for him, which could be upgraded and improved continuously. It could absorb energy to increase his combat strength.
As long as he fed it ores, divine power, or other energy-rich resources to refine, it could keep upgrading.
It also contained all sorts of scientific products that could absorb and convert resources, along with information and technologies capable of changing the world directly, regardless of the fundamental differences between universes. They included things straight out of science fiction—things even his past life's novels wouldn't dare describe.
Some of the technology seemed no weaker than that of the mechanical civilization, or even the Main Universe. Huosi had only seen a portion of it, yet it had already made his scalp tingle. He strongly suspected it surpassed the mechanical civilization of Hongmeng Space.
He didn't know what effect the system's arrival would have on the Coiling Dragon World, or whether Hongmeng had noticed it—or what his attitude was.
But Huosi knew that if he did nothing, he would regret it.
So now, his goal was simple: use science to change this world!
"Come on. Let's go take a look!"
After a long silence, Huosi pulled himself back to the present and nodded at Bernas.
The two of them then flew quickly toward the Design Department.
Meanwhile, outside the laboratory in the Design Department's main hall, a towering skyscraper stood.
Countless people came and went on the ground. Many checked the documents in their hands as they walked, now shaking their heads, now nodding.
In the plaza, the blond Adkins stood with a group of people, gazing excitedly at the iron contraption before them.
"Lord Adkins, our tests show that this experimental model, called the Steam Train, can reach a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. That's only the initial result, of course. We expect to increase it further in the future."
A white-haired old man spoke with a tremor in his voice.
"Good. Stephenson, give the complete blueprints to the Manufacturing Department later, and have them coordinate with the Finance Department to prepare for mass production."
As he answered, Adkins began thinking about the plans ahead.
Lord Huosi had said that technological development required talent. So we have to improve the lives of ordinary people and make them feel that they belong on Xuanshen Island.
Once trains are running across the island, merchants will be able to travel more easily, and goods will move more freely. What was that thing called again? Right, the economy will boom, and there'll be more and more talent.
Adkins had been lucky as a child. Until he was five, he had a happy family and loving parents. His father and Bernas, the steward, were both ninth-rank powerhouses. As the son of an Earl, he lived in luxury, with a life among the best in the Empire.
But that day, everything changed. The assassins from the Ryan family came, and blood covered the estate. He only remembered that his father, his mother, and everyone else had died. Only Grandfather Bernas had escaped with him through a secret passage.
For the next few years, Grandfather Bernas took him from place to place, and their lives were extremely difficult. Things improved only after Bernas reached the Saint Realm.
But their good fortune didn't last. The Ryan family found them in the end, and Ryan himself appeared on the scene, staring at them coldly.
As the Linggeste Empire's first general, Ryan had long since reached the Saint Realm Mid-Stage. Bernas, only at the initial Saint Realm, couldn't stand against him.
That day, Adkins thought he was going to die. But then that lord descended from the sky.
He would never forget Lord Huosi's imposing figure as he descended from above. With just a glance, Huosi had immobilized Ryan.
Only later did Adkins learn that it was the legendary Divine Domain, something only those who surpassed the Saint Realm and reached godhood could achieve. The most powerful Saint Realm fighters he had once believed to rule the continent weren't its true rulers at all.
The four Empires, the two churches, the ruler of Dragon God Forest, and that lord—those eight god-level powerhouses were the true masters of the continent.
The god's magnificence was etched deep in young Adkins's heart. From that moment on, he decided to follow that lord and devote everything he had to him.
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