An Epoch Cycle, 129,600 Years

After the Primordial World Firmament was revealed to Blue Star, the forty-six students who had entered Douzhe Continent also connected to the academy's public trial channel.

Yet the first thing to appear was not information about the Primordial World.

[Linjiang Advanced Transcendent Academy, Class Seven Trial Status Updated.]

[Expected arrivals: forty-seven.]

[Successful arrivals: forty-six.]

[Missing: one.]

[Missing person: Gu Xuan.]

After a brief silence, new messages swiftly appeared in the public channel.

"Gu Xuan didn't enter Douzhe Continent?"

"Did something go wrong during the teleportation?"

"His coordinates are disconnected. Can the school still find him?"

No one could answer.

Several students who had been joking about Gu Xuan and Su Qingxue at the trial plaza earlier also fell silent.

Everyone knew that once someone completely lost contact during an otherworld trial, the odds of returning alive were exceedingly slim.

Su Qingxue's name never appeared in the public channel.

Not long ago, she had personally dissolved her team agreement with Gu Xuan.

Now, their identity bracelets had separately loaded into Douzhe Continent, while Gu Xuan, who should have been in the same world as them, remained forever on the missing list.

Just as the public channel gradually fell quiet, the Primordial World Firmament underwent a new change.

[Time calibration complete.]

This prompt did not appear only in the monitoring hall.

New information surfaced simultaneously on every public Firmament above Blue Star's major cities.

[The flow of time in the Primordial World plane is far faster than on Blue Star.]

[To prevent meaningless footage from taking up observation time, the Firmament will automatically skip periods of anchor sleep, cultivation, and gestation.]

[Normal observation speed will resume when important events occur.]

Immediately afterward, an ancient character slowly condensed within the Firmament.

It was a character no one had ever seen before.

Its strokes were archaic and its structure vigorous, every line seeming to have existed since the dawn of creation.

Though no one had ever encountered it, the instant it fully took shape, everyone instinctively understood its meaning.

[Basic unit of time in the Primordial World: Epoch Cycle.]

[One Epoch Cycle: 129,600 years.]

When the final line appeared, all of Blue Star seemed to fall silent for an instant.

"How many years?"

"One hundred twenty-nine thousand six hundred?"

"Is the Firmament showing it wrong?"

Pedestrians on the streets stopped in their tracks.

In the major transcendent academies, students who had merely been curiously watching the new plane also looked up.

Even trial participants who had returned from other worlds with decades of experience showed obvious shock upon seeing that number.

Blue Star had been connected to the myriad worlds for centuries, so this was not the first time it had discovered worlds with different time flows.

Zhou Ze had lived on Douzhe Continent for twenty-seven years, while only three years had passed on Blue Star. That alone had already drawn the envy of countless people.

But compared to the Primordial World, twenty-seven years was far too brief.

129,600 years.

This was not even a long stretch of history, merely a basic unit the Primordial World used to record time.

The public trial channel for the forty-six students lit up again.

"Soul Masters on Douzhe Continent are considered long-lived if they reach a hundred."

"Even Titled Dou Practitioners can't possibly live for over a hundred thousand years, right?"

"One Epoch Cycle is actually longer than Blue Star's recorded transcendent history."

"How long will that Innate Divine Being need to gestate?"

The successive messages made every trial participant realize that they were watching a world with an entirely different timescale.

Blue Star's Transcendent Association also verified the information immediately.

[Primordial World time information confirmed.]

[The Firmament display is accurate.]

[This plane's system of time measurement differs from all known planes.]

Inside the monitoring hall.

Zhou Ruolan watched the Primordial World Firmament stretching across Blue Star's skies.

She had lived on Douzhe Continent for decades and had long grown accustomed to time differences beyond ordinary people's imagination.

Yet one Epoch Cycle was still too long for her to ignore.

"A fast flow of time doesn't necessarily mean the plane is of a higher level."

After her brief surprise, Zhou Ruolan quickly regained her composure.

"It could also be that life in this world develops extremely slowly."

"Continue observing."

With the calibration complete, the Primordial World Firmament began accelerating for the first time.

The Chaos energy within the image flowed rapidly.

Inside Buzhou Mountain, Gu Xuan finally sensed a pressure from the outside world through the Origin of the Chaos Pearl.

That pressure was everywhere.

Ancient and majestic, it was as though it supported the entire heaven and earth.

Even with the Innate Grand Formation separating inside from outside, the lingering traces of the Great Dao within the mountain continued merging into the Origin of the Chaos Pearl that was gestating.

When Gu Xuan's consciousness came into contact with one of those traces, a name naturally surfaced in his mind.

Buzhou.

It was the true name inscribed into this divine mountain's own Great Dao.

At that moment, Gu Xuan completely confirmed the world he was in.

Chaos Pearl.

Buzhou Mountain.

Together with the Pangu pressure that had naturally shrouded this place from birth.

This was the Primordial World he had seen only in myths and novels in his previous life.

A world that had never appeared in any of Blue Star's records of known planes.

Gu Xuan did not panic because of this.

His identity on Douzhe Continent no longer had anything to do with him.

Since he had arrived here by accident, he would no longer place his hopes in a teleportation passage that had already been severed.

Although the Chaos Pearl had shattered, its remaining origin was still enough to gestate a true Innate Divine Being.

Gu Xuan steadied his mind and allowed his True Spirit to continue merging with the Origin of the Chaos Pearl.

There were no pre-existing cultivation methods here, nor did he need to cultivate from the most basic realm like an acquired lifeform.

The endless creation within Buzhou Mountain was drawn in by the Innate Grand Formation, continuously pouring into the Chaos Pearl's remaining origin.

Gu Xuan's innate spiritual radiance gradually grew stronger along with it.

A hazy phantom of a world also began flickering in and out of existence in the deepest part of the origin.

That was the Dao Resonance inherent to the Origin of the Chaos Pearl.

It was also the first embryonic form of Gu Xuan's World Great Dao.

The Primordial World did not count years.

Within the grand formation, there was neither sunrise nor sunset, only the cyclical flow of Chaos energy.

Under the Firmament's acceleration, the image, which had originally shown almost no changes, began advancing rapidly.

A thousand years.

Ten thousand years.

One hundred thousand years.

For Blue Star, such a long passage of time could have buried countless dynasties, yet it stirred no ripples inside Buzhou Mountain.

Gu Xuan still had not taken form.

But the Innate Origin, which had once been nothing more than a faint glimmer, had become far more solid than before.

Chaos energy swirled around it.

World Dao Resonance continuously gathered.

Vaguely, phantoms of mountains, rivers, suns, moons, and stars could be seen flashing past within that world that had yet to take shape.

At last, the Firmament's acceleration came to a stop.

[This acceleration concluded.]

[Time elapsed in the Primordial World: three Epoch Cycles.]

[Anchor status: gestating.]

[Has not yet taken form.]

Across Blue Star, countless people stared at the final two lines, unable to decide how to respond for a moment.

Three times 129,600 years.

After such an immense length of time had passed, the Innate Divine Being in the Firmament had still not truly been born.

For the first time, the reactions of the forty-six students in the public trial channel diverged.

"Three Epoch Cycles have passed, and it still hasn't taken form?"

"Perhaps Primordial World lifeforms simply need that long to gestate."

"If merely being born takes so many tens of thousands of years, this world's rate of growth is a little too slow."

"But what are those suns, moons, and stars surrounding it?"

Some were shocked by the Primordial World's timescale.

Others began to suspect that the so-called Innate Divine Being was merely an ancient lifeform that grew exceptionally slowly.

A long lifespan did not necessarily mean great strength.

At least so far, this Innate Divine Being had not displayed any real power.

The Transcendent Association soon updated its first public observation conclusion.

[The Primordial World's timescale far exceeds known planes.]

[The anchor lifeform's gestation cycle is abnormally long.]

[Its actual strength cannot yet be determined.]

Zhou Ruolan looked at the mass of Innate Origin in the Firmament, which still had no form, and did not linger any longer.

"Maintain observation."

"Notify me again once an important change occurs."

She turned and returned to the monitoring area for the forty-six students.

Compared to an unknown lifeform that might still need who knew how long to gestate, the students who had already entered Douzhe Continent were clearly more deserving of her attention at the moment.