Fifty Years, Peak Pulse Opening Realm

In the blink of an eye, fifty years of time slipped away quietly.

Fifty years is enough for a newborn infant to grow into a steady, middle-aged man.

It is enough for a high-spirited youth to enter old age with white hair and a beard.

It is also enough for an empire in ruins to be reborn, radiating an unprecedented brilliance.

The Great Sui of today is exactly such a case.

Under the iron-fisted rule of Lin Hanzhou, those three new policies that once stirred up monstrous waves have long since been deeply integrated into the bones and blood of Great Sui.

Chang'an, the capital, no longer resembles what it was ten years ago.

The streets have been widened to be broad and tidy, with shops lining both sides, filled with an eye-dazzling array of goods.

Foreign merchants from the Western Regions lead camels, bringing rare treasures and exotic jewels.

Fleets from the East Sea transport fresh seafood.

Travelers and merchants from north and south have turned this place into a gathering point for the wealth of the entire world.

The common people are dressed in bright, clean clothes, their faces brimming with confident and prosperous smiles; the numbness and sorrow of the past are nowhere to be seen.

Looking across the country, the problem of land annexation that plagued dynasties throughout history has been fundamentally resolved.

The people live and work in peace and contentment, and the Great Sui treasury is overflowing.

With improvements in water conservancy and farming tools, the grain production of Great Sui is even enough to support population growth for decades to come.

But the most far-reaching change has been in education and talent.

Over these fifty years, tens of thousands of government schools have been established across the country.

Free primary education has ensured that literacy is no longer the exclusive privilege of the nobility.

Countless children of commoners have changed their own destinies through this path.

The new imperial examination system has further screened a large number of pragmatic and talented officials for the empire.

They replaced the corrupt old bureaucrats, injecting themselves like a clear stream into every limb and bone of the empire.

This has kept the entire state apparatus operating efficiently and incorruptibly.

In terms of military preparedness, Lin Hanzhou has not been slack either.

He established the Royal Martial Arts Academy, promoting these body-tempering techniques on a large scale to the entire army and the public.

These techniques are all basic body-tempering methods from the Blue Star world.

Promoting these techniques greatly enhances the physique of the entire population without creating too many innate martial artists among the common people.

Over fifty years, the overall strength of the Great Sui army has become more than a grade stronger than it was fifty years ago.

The most intuitive manifestation of this was the battle thirty years ago against the northern nomadic tribes.

At that time, a genius who appeared out of nowhere successfully unified the entire north and established the Liao Kingdom.

After consolidating all the resources of the north, the strength of the Liao Kingdom reached an unprecedented peak.

It was precisely for this reason that they became increasingly arrogant, attempting to lay their hands on the Great Sui.

They had long coveted the fertile lands of the Great Sui.

Just like that, a massive army of four hundred thousand from the Liao Kingdom marched south, pointing directly at the borders of the Great Sui.

Facing the aggressive Liao army, how could Great Sui not have noticed?

Upon receiving this news, Lin Hanzhou personally led one hundred thousand elite troops to the border.

In that battle, the Liao army was unilaterally crushed by the Great Sui forces; more than half of the four hundred thousand troops were lost, and the rest fled north in a panic.

But it did not end there. Lin Hanzhou did not intend to stop; he pressed his advantage and led his army north.

Along the way, the Great Sui army was like a hot knife through butter, killing their way directly to the gates of the Liao capital.

The Emperor of the Liao Kingdom panicked and hurriedly sent envoys to sue for peace.

However, Lin Hanzhou ignored them completely and ordered his army to attack the city.

In the end, this Liao Kingdom that had once unified the north was annihilated, and the entire north became the backyard of Great Sui.

After this battle, Lin Hanzhou's prestige in both the military and among the people reached its zenith.

The people spontaneously built shrines for him, hailing him as the Enlightened Sage Emperor, meaning "the sagely monarch who opened a bright and prosperous age."

His name was written into poems by contemporary scholars, turned into legends by storytellers in teahouses, and passed down by word of mouth among the people of the world.

As the creator of all this, Lin Hanzhou has not neglected his own cultivation over these fifty years.

In the secret chamber of the Heart Nourishing Hall, Lin Hanzhou sits cross-legged.

His breathing is long and steady, and with every inhalation and exhalation, he seems to merge with the pulse of the entire world.

Wisps of spiritual energy from heaven and earth are gathering continuously from all directions, pouring into his body.

Beyond this, a more profound and mysterious golden "fortune" lingers around him.

That golden aura was the very manifestation of the national fortune of the entire Great Sui.

As the absolute ruler of the dynasty and the core of the people's faith, he had long since established an inseparable bond with this land and its people.

It was precisely this connection that allowed him to mobilize the power of the national fortune of the Great Sui at will.

If he wished, he could even use the power of the national fortune to directly infuse his cultivation to the third rank.

However, doing so would bind him completely to the Great Sui.

If the Great Sui were to fall later, his cultivation would plummet as well.

Most importantly, if he were to leave the Dream World, the cultivation gained through the infusion of national fortune would cease to exist.

Therefore, Lin Hanzhou had no choice but to cultivate honestly on his own.

Yet, after fifty years of cultivation, his level had only reached the peak of the Pulse Opening Realm.

The reason for his slow cultivation speed, aside from the impact of his trash-tier talent, was the influence of the spiritual energy in this world.

Through his understanding over these years, Lin Hanzhou had learned that this world had only recently experienced a spiritual energy revival.

It was for this reason that the spiritual energy in this world was so thin.

Here, ordinary martial artists needed medicinal herbs to assist them just to break through to the Xiantian stage, let alone anything beyond that.

This was a world of difference compared to the Blue Star world of Lin Hanzhou's reality.

If he had cultivated for this long on Blue Star, his cultivation would have at least reached the second rank Qi Gathering Realm or even the third rank Qi Sea Realm.

"Sigh, what kind of shitty cultivation environment is this? Even the place with the densest spiritual energy isn't as good as a toilet back on Blue Star."

Lin Hanzhou slowly opened his eyes, cursing under his breath.

He felt the surging spiritual power within his body, like a vast river or sea, yet he felt no joy in his heart.

Over these fifty years, he had endured countless nights of bitter cultivation and the倾斜 of the entire dynasty's resources, only to barely reach the peak of the Pulse Opening Realm.

He had thought that reaching the peak of the Pulse Opening Realm would allow him to break through to the second rank Qi Gathering Realm, but he realized he had thought too much.

Due to his D-grade talent, his efficiency in absorbing spiritual energy was exceptionally slow.

Coupled with the thin spiritual energy of this world, he was consistently unable to break through to the Qi Gathering Realm.

He had attempted it several times, but each time he failed to gather enough converted spiritual energy, leading to failure.

Fortunately, the spiritual energy of the Luo Heaven Art was relatively gentle, so the impact of a failed breakthrough was minimal; otherwise, he reckoned he would have already returned to reality.

"Forget it, no need to rush. There is still plenty of time; if all else fails, I'll just go back to break through."

Thinking this, Lin Hanzhou's mindset leveled out significantly as he stood up and walked out of the secret chamber.

Fifty years of time had left its mark upon him.

He had transformed from a youth into a steady and reserved middle-aged man, with an air of imperial authority and natural dignity etched between his brows.

He pushed open the palace doors, and the warm sunlight spilled onto his body.

Looking at the prosperous world outside the palace, he knew that his goals in this world were already more than half complete.

What remained now was to wait—to wait for an opportunity to break through, or to wait for the system settlement.