I Think, Therefore I Am

At the end of the twenty-first island of the Illusion Sea, a black-scaled elder smiled as he watched Gulanxiu and commented, "Not bad! To break through the seventh island so easily—let me see where your limit lies!"

As the guardian of the Illusion Sea, this elder had seen too many geniuses, but those who could pass the seventh island at the Cosmic Level were few and far between. After all, the illusions on the seventh island could trap even many Realm Lords.

Under normal circumstances, the elder would have marveled at encountering another genius. But this time was different—not long ago, he had personally witnessed a Cosmic Level genius directly break through the eighteenth island of the Illusion Sea.

With such a peerless prodigy as a benchmark, Gulanxiu's performance now seemed merely decent in his eyes.

Gulanxiu did not hesitate and stepped onto the eighth island.

Instantly, Gulanxiu felt as though he had returned to that terrifying night.

It was the tenth year after he had transmigrated into this world. A band of space pirates had discovered this native planet.

Facing an overwhelming disparity in strength, even the planet's strongest fighters resisted fiercely, but they could not change the planet's fate.

Under the crushing power gap, Gulanxiu watched helplessly as his parents in this life fell beneath the space pirates' blades, powerless to do anything!

"Boss! There's a kid here. Looks about ten years old, but he's already broken through to Star Level!" A slightly plump space pirate said to another, tall and armored.

"Capture him! Implant a chip and train him well! If he can break through to Star Level, we'll make a good profit!" The leader said indifferently.

"Yes, boss!" The pirate who had just spoken nodded, reaching out to grab Gulanxiu.

A single tear traced down Gulanxiu's cheek. A giant axe suddenly appeared in his hand, and he swung it at the space pirate before him.

As Gulanxiu struck, his body instantly matured into that of a young man, and his cultivation surged to Cosmic Level 9. With a single axe blow, he shattered both space pirates into fragments!

Standing on the eighth island, Gulanxiu gazed at the snow-white sand beneath his feet and murmured to himself, "You scum, don't rush. Your death is coming soon!"

With that, he flew toward the ninth island.

Arriving at the ninth island, Gulanxiu once again returned to his childhood in this life. But this time was different from before.

This time, the planet was not attacked by space pirates. Under the care of his parents, Gulanxiu grew up smoothly, eventually becoming the strongest on the planet and leading it successfully into the cosmos.

Countless ages passed, and Gulanxiu ultimately rose to become the pinnacle existence of the Human Race. Together with Lord Luo, he defeated the Realm Beast, passed through Reincarnation, and established his own Holy Land.

But at this moment, Gulanxiu suddenly opened his eyes and said, "A beautiful dream! My parents are alive, and I've reached the peak of life. But a dream is just a dream. No matter how beautiful, it must eventually end. The regrets of loss cannot be mended for now, but the future will only be in my own hands!"

As he spoke, the illusion before him vanished, revealing the true form of the ninth island!

Without a trace of lingering attachment, Gulanxiu flew toward the tenth island.

At the edge of the Illusion Sea, the black-scaled elder's expression had grown serious. Though a gem had come before, Gulanxiu's performance still fell far short of that one's.

But aside from that unparalleled genius from not long ago, Gulanxiu was the farthest any Cosmic Level had gone in hundreds of epochs.

Every epoch, the Virtual Universe Company and the Axe Fighting Arena each held a Strongman Battle and a Genius Battle respectively.

Each epoch, four thousand geniuses were recruited. Adding those like Gulanxiu, who joined through internal selection, and geniuses from the other three major forces, nearly ten thousand Cosmic Level geniuses would challenge the Illusion Sea every epoch.

Yet even so, no genius had reached this point in hundreds of epochs.

Yunmiao from not long ago was one thing—a peerless genius who had drawn the attention of the Human Race's upper echelons. No matter how outrageous her performance, it was acceptable.

But Gulanxiu was different. Though his feat of passing the fifth floor of the Sky Bridge in thirty years in Chaos City was impressive, it was ultimately just that. Such talent appeared every few epochs, yet very few of them ever became Kings!

Now, however, Gulanxiu's advance to the tenth island of the Illusion Sea convinced the scale-clad man that as long as Gulanxiu did not fall, he would most likely become a King in the future.

On the tenth island, a terrifying pressure had already reached the level of an Immortal God, pressing directly down on Gulanxiu's consciousness.

But this time, Gulanxiu once again fell into an illusion. Only this time was different—his consciousness returned to the last night of his previous life on Blue Star.

A youth with dyed yellow hair, carrying a girl with red hair on the back of a Ghost Fire motorcycle, sped straight toward Gulanxiu.

Instinctively, Gulanxiu stepped aside, and the Ghost Fire roared past, grazing his body.

Still shaken, Gulanxiu cursed, "Driving that fast, rushing to reincarnate?!"

But no sooner had the words left his mouth than the Ghost Fire youth suddenly drifted and crashed into an oncoming Dump Truck.

In an instant, the scene was a mess of blood and flesh.

Not far away, Gulanxiu's mouth hung slightly open. He hadn't expected these two young lives to wither before his eyes.

After a moment's hesitation, Gulanxiu still called the police, but he didn't dare stay and quickly left the scene.

In the days that followed, Gulanxiu's life returned to normal. He worked every day, occasionally visiting his parents when he had time.

Under his parents' arrangement, he married a fairly pretty woman, had children, and lived a life.

In the end, he passed a plain yet complete life.

But on his deathbed, the image of that Ghost Fire couple flashed before Gulanxiu's eyes again. His already clouded gaze instantly cleared.

Under the astonished gazes of his children, he murmured to himself, "Without you, this would have been my life, wouldn't it? Plain yet real, ordinary yet fulfilling. Truly enviable! But what's false is false in the end. It's time to end!"

The illusion before him gradually shattered, revealing the true form of the tenth island. But this time, Gulanxiu did not rush to the next island. Instead, he stood still, deep in thought.

"The past life was false! This life is also false! Only I myself am real! Even knowing it's an illusion, I can't help but reveal true emotions. Yet when I close my eyes, everything in the illusion vanishes." Gulanxiu murmured to himself.

"Or rather, when I am not here, does this world still exist? When I am not here, what meaning does this world have for me?" As he spoke, his eyes grew brighter.

"I think, therefore I am. I am, therefore I think. If I am not here, what relation does this world have to me? Whether past life or present life, I am the foundation!" As his words fell, the form he had condensed on the tenth island of the Illusion Sea seemed to become ethereal and elusive.

Gulanxiu did not know that his state of mind at this moment bore many similarities to the third realm of heart cultivation on Earth—the Heart Infinite and Boundless.

But the third realm of Earth's heart cultivation was about the heart being infinite, embracing all things. Gulanxiu, having been reborn into a fictional world, had always harbored doubts about the reality of the world. Now, with the help of the Illusion Sea, he had comprehended the absolute idealistic realm of "the universe is my heart, my heart is the universe."

This realm might seem like a self-deceiving deviation, but who could say it was not a path to the heavens?