A Thousand Years in the Blink of an Eye

"Xiao Si, are you sure you can separate these memories?"

Bai Muye temporarily left the Virtual Universe and communicated with the Soul-Devouring Tree seed in his Consciousness Sea.

After its reincarnation, the Soul-Devouring Tree had returned to its original seed state. It was no longer the seasoned being forged through endless ages, and its temperament was now much like a child's—immature and proud. Since "Devouring" and "Si" sounded alike, Bai Muye simply called it "Xiao Si."

"I told you not to call me Xiao Si. I'm the great Soul-Devouring Tree..." the seed said, sounding deeply displeased. "At my peak, even the Hunyuan Progenitor could do nothing to me..."

"But right now, you're just a seed!"

"..." The Soul-Devouring Tree seed was left speechless.

Bai Muye had no idea what the Infinite Hunyuan Space or the Hunyuan Progenitor were, so naturally, he felt no awe toward them. But given his personality, even if he had known, he probably still would have called it "Xiao Si."

After a long silence, just as Bai Muye thought it wasn't going to answer, the Soul-Devouring Tree seed sent him a thought: "Ignorance is bliss. I won't hold it against you..."

Having braced itself, it continued, "Even in my current seed state, separating memories is no challenge at all. Don't forget who I am! I'm the Soul-Devouring Tree. I can devour souls, so separating a few memories is nothing..."

"Are you sure I won't be assimilated by those memories and lose myself?" Bai Muye asked again and again.

He had every reason to be cautious. If he lost himself by merging with the memories, it would be no different from dying.

"I can remove all the emotional elements from those memories. Of course, the domain he comprehended contains a small portion of the world's rules. After you fully integrate it, it might have a negligible effect on your personality. But your main personality will remain in absolute control. You won't be assimilated or become someone else!"

That was exactly what Bai Muye was worried about.

After considering it quietly for a while, Bai Muye finally spoke. "All right. Start separating the memories. Remove everything that contains emotion and keep only what's related to combat!"

"Wise choice." The Soul-Devouring Tree seed extended its roots.

A second later, it drew them back. "Done."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course!" The Soul-Devouring Tree seed sounded a little impatient. "Trust your Fourth Master's abilities!"

Annoyed that Bai Muye called it "Xiao Si," it had decided to call itself "Fourth Master."

Bai Muye checked. Sure enough, the instinctive sense of danger that had risen from the depths of his heart when he faced those vast memories was gone.

"Xiao Si, how long will the fusion take?"

"Call me Fourth Master." Xiao Si had already been led astray. "This is different from just viewing the memories. A complete fusion means fully absorbing them and making them your own, as if you really had gone through all that training and combat. It'll take much longer. Hmm... about a month."

Bai Muye went to his Training Room. Only he had permission to enter it, though Bastian had the highest access level and could come and go whenever he wanted.

But as far as Bastian was concerned, unless he was coming to summon Bai Muye for a life-or-death battle, he would never set foot in there.

In the Martial Arts Arena, a young man swung the long staff in his hands without pause. As it cut through the air, it let out a sharp whistle. Beside him, an elderly man nodded again and again...

On the ground, a fully equipped youth sprinted after a Planet Rank Fierce Beast...

"The teacher was right. Doing it this way gives my legs more explosive power and makes me run faster..."

In a canyon, surrounded by several Planet Rank Fierce Beasts, Luoluobai Muye wielded his staff so deftly that not a drop of water could get through...

"Spears fear a bobbing head, while staffs fear a quick jab. So that's what it means. This is staff work at the Artistic Conception Level..."

In an underground training camp, facing an equally ferocious opponent, he used every trick he had. Even after the opponent's blade chopped off his left leg, he finally smashed the other man's head with his staff...

On a planet filled with lava, facing an opponent who was also at the first level of the Universe Rank, he used greater striking force to knock the other man's weapon aside, then jabbed his staff into the opponent's forehead. The man's brains burst out, red and white spraying everywhere...

Above a boundless sea of trees, he kept staggering backward, desperately defending against the ice-spike-like Telepathic Weapons stabbing at him from every direction. Pushed to the brink, faint silver-white lightning began to ripple around him...

"So this is the Lightning Domain? Die!"

Over an endless ocean, two figures fought from the sky down to the surface, then plunged beneath the waves before fighting their way back up. A silver-white domain and a Fire-Red Domain shone against each other...

On a White Dwarf Star with immense gravity, a long staff, carrying unmatched speed and explosive force, slammed into the chest of the minotaur standing opposite him, who was nearly three meters tall...

On the floor of the Training Room, the silver-white lightning around Muye suddenly surged. With a crackle, the lightning grew denser, illuminating the entire room...

Bai Muye opened his eyes as he sat cross-legged on the Training Room floor. His gaze was cold, with a trace of age-worn weariness.

"I lived through thousands of years in just two months. I guess that's a thousand years passing in the blink of an eye..."

He closed his eyes again. Those two months had felt as if he had lived for thousands of years.

During the final stage of the fusion, he had sensed Luoluobai Muye's collapse. Thousands of years of training and fighting, under constant pressure and without a moment's entertainment or rest, had left him utterly numb. It was as if that life would never end.

And each opponent in the life-or-death battles was stronger than the last. In the most recent fight, the enemy's strength had cracked his steadfast resolve. He had begun to doubt whether he could truly hold out until the day he defeated his thousandth opponent.

So by the time only his head remained, his resolve had already crumbled. Even without Bai Muye, he would probably have ended up as just another Universe Rank vegetative patient.

Under normal circumstances, the memory fusion would have taken about a month. But when he reached the nine-hundredth life-or-death battle and began comprehending the domain, Bai Muye had deliberately slowed the fusion so he could spend more time experiencing the fights and the process of developing the domain. That was why it had taken twice as long.

The Soul-Devouring Tree clearly hadn't known that. Seeing that he had finished the fusion, it said with a hint of guilt, "Are you all right? Ahem... Maybe time flows differently in this plane... Yeah, that must be it. Fourth Master doesn't make mistakes..."

Bai Muye opened his eyes. His temperament had changed considerably over the past two months. He knew he had been affected. Thousands of years of hellish training and more than nine hundred brutal life-or-death battles had inevitably changed him, even though the emotional parts of the memories had been removed.

But he didn't consider it a problem. As long as "I" was still "me," then becoming calmer, more resilient, and more decisive in battle wasn't a bad thing.

"Not great..." He sent it a thought. "I was still 'contaminated' in the end. It won't endanger my main personality, but I've been affected to some extent..."

"Uh..." Xiao Si was a little embarrassed to have been proven wrong. "How about this? From now on, you kill the enemies, and after I devour their soul energy, I'll send you all their memories..."

It stressed, "Of course! Don't worry. I was a little reluctant to waste energy earlier, so I might not have separated everything cleanly. Fourth Master guarantees that the memories from now on will be completely clean. I'll run through them a couple more times to make sure nothing 'contaminated' remains..."

"By the way, you boasted that even the Hunyuan Progenitor couldn't do anything to you at your peak. You must have plenty of secret techniques and manuals, right?"

"That wasn't boasting. Fourth Master was simply stating a fact!" Xiao Si said in exasperation. "Although I've entered nirvana and returned to a seed state, with most of my memories sealed, what you want is just low-level knowledge to me. I do have some, but your strength is too low. You can't practice any of it..."

"You have no idea how terrifying the beings who have broken free of the Cage are. There are things you couldn't even come into contact with—just being glanced at by them would make your body and soul perish. The difference is like you being a grain of sand on this planet, while your opponent is the entire Source World!"

"Source World?" Bai Muye had heard another unfamiliar term. He couldn't help wondering if he'd watched a fake Swallowed Star.

"Put simply, the universe you live in is just one of the many dimensions in this Source World. And all those dimensions must have a center. That center, together with the many dimensions, forms the Source World!"

"This..." Bai Muye was stunned. It had been mentioned in the original novel's ending, but was this something they could talk about? Wasn't the Will of the Original Universe supposed to forbid anyone from mentioning it? That was why they could only call it the "Ancient Civilization."

He sent it that question. Xiao Si replied dismissively, "Forget the tiny Primitive Universe. Even the Supreme Rule of this Source World can't restrict me... Don't worry. With me here, I can block all karma and attention directed at you. The Primitive Universe and the Supreme Rule won't notice you..."