After shaking off the cultivators of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sovereign, Jiang Ding immediately left the Southern Chu Kingdom. He kept his concealment at its strongest: space, causality, dust, and the laws of the outside world could not touch him as he drifted across the land like a ghost.
Years later, he reached another mortal kingdom where spiritual energy was thin. Without revealing himself, he turned into an ordinary pebble and rested quietly on the ground.
And so, before he knew it, thirty years passed.
Throughout that time, Jiang Ding remained a pebble.
Sometimes hunters ventured deep into the mountains.
Sometimes Qi Refining cultivators fought to the death.
Sometimes, from the perspective of big-data Heavenly Secret predictions, a hidden dragon with a strong chance of becoming a ruler one day suffered a grave injury. He was still only a beggar child; with a small investment, Jiang Ding could place a piece in these kingdoms for the future...
Sometimes, an outer disciple blessed with great fortune from a cultivation sect came here...
And so it went. In this tiny patch of land, over a mere thirty years, so many remarkable things happened. Heroes rose one after another, to his surprise.
Jiang Ding ignored them all.
He was only an ordinary pebble, not a player laying out pieces to control the world. What he needed to do above all was avoid contact with anyone or any living thing and incur no karmic ties.
If there was something he wanted in the future, he could strike with his sword, clear away evil, act as a righteous hero, and take it.
He would not pin his hopes on some grand scheme. That was beyond his ability, and he knew his limits.
Over those thirty years, his ascension baptism gradually drew to a