Blue Star, Linjiang Extraordinary Academy.
A soul-guided vehicle escorted by two Titled Dou Practitioners slowly drove into the academy grounds.
The door opened, and a woman in a pale blue-and-white dress stepped out.
She looked no older than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Her long hair was pinned up, her features gentle, and she carried none of the sharp aura one might expect from someone so powerful.
Yet when she appeared, every instructor waiting outside the monitoring hall fell silent.
Shen Qinghe.
Director of the Life Research Institute at Blue Star's First Extraordinary Academy, and a level ninety-eight healing-type Super Dou Practitioner.
She was one of Blue Star's foremost authorities on the study of life.
She had once kept three gravely wounded Titled Dou Practitioners alive single-handedly. She had also ventured into a forbidden zone of life at the heart of the Douluo Continent and communicated with plant-type Soul Beasts that had lived for hundreds of thousands of years.
She personally kept the piece of Living Beings' Gold used as a calibration sample.
Shen Qinghe did not linger outside.
After entering the monitoring hall, she looked straight at the Creation Green Lotus in the Primordial World Firmament.
By then, Qing Xuan had been sitting beside the Lotus Pond for several hundred years.
Threads of World Dao Resonance intertwined with the aura of Creation, but nothing more had changed.
"That's it?"
Shen Qinghe asked.
The elderly researcher in charge of studying the unknown plane handed her the calibration results for the Living Beings' Gold and the candidate report comparing the lotus to a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone.
Shen Qinghe did not offer an immediate judgment.
First, she examined the Living Beings' Gold again and confirmed that the sample had suffered no loss. Then she personally checked the life fluctuations recorded by the Monitoring Instrument.
Only then did she open the reference material on Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones.
No one in the monitoring hall spoke.
At last, Shen Qinghe set down the report.
"The instrument made no mistake."
"A single life fluctuation naturally emitted by that green lotus does exceed the upper limit this piece of Living Beings' Gold can reach."
They had already reached that conclusion.
But hearing it confirmed by a level ninety-eight healing-type Super Dou Practitioner gave it an entirely different weight.
Zhou Ruolan pressed her.
"How does it compare to a Hundred Thousand Year Life-Type Soul Bone?"
"The earlier assessment was on the right track."
Shen Qinghe looked at the lotus on the Firmament.
"Judging only by the life properties and supportive value it has displayed so far, its overall value is roughly equal to that of a Hundred Thousand Year Life-Type Soul Bone with a perfect attribute match."
"But that is its value as a treasure, not a measure of its combat strength."
"Some plant-type Soul Beasts that have lived for tens of thousands of years possess far more vitality than beast-type Soul Beasts of the same level, yet they aren't necessarily good fighters."
"Likewise, while it possesses an immense life origin, it has shown no power of attack, defense, or authority over laws."
Shen Qinghe paused before giving her final conclusion.
"For now, place it at the level of a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone."
"It has not reached the level of a divine artifact."
For the first time since the Creation Green Lotus appeared, Blue Star had found it a definite place within its familiar Cultivation System.
It was extraordinarily precious.
Precious enough for Titled Dou Practitioners to fight over.
Yet it still ranked below a true divine artifact, one that carried divine power and laws.
Shen Qinghe's preliminary assessment was soon entered into the Primordial World Observation Archive.
The Creation Green Lotus's value was beyond doubt.
But whether it was an Innate Spirit Treasure, a special life-form, or some kind of plant-type Soul Beast beyond Blue Star's understanding remained uncertain.
Shen Qinghe looked at the Lotus Pond on the Firmament.
"If we could collect one of its leaves, or even a drop of water from the pond, most of these questions would be much easier to answer."
The elderly researcher from the Research Center shook his head.
"We can't do that right now."
"The Firmament can only use Qing Xuan as an anchor to capture events as they happen in the Primordial World. We can't send any matter into that world or change where we're observing from."
Shen Qinghe frowned slightly.
"Now that we have stable coordinates, could we build a passage between the planes?"
Several instructors in the monitoring hall turned toward her at the question.
Blue Star had been connected to myriad worlds for centuries.
Stable two-way passages had been established to most planes that had been fully analyzed.
Trainees could enter them.
Some beings from other worlds could also pass through to Blue Star.
Exchanges between the Douluo Continent and Blue Star had continued for hundreds of years.
If they could enter the Primordial World, they could get direct answers about the powers on the Firmament that had so far defied assessment.
"We're already trying."
The old man called up a set of plane data that was still changing.
"But the Primordial World is unlike every plane we've discovered before."
"Its spatial barriers are extraordinarily stable, and its flow of time differs too greatly from Blue Star's. For now, Qing Xuan's anchor only lets us establish a one-way image. It can't carry any living being through."
"At our current rate of analysis, even if everything goes smoothly, building the first temporary passage will take close to a year."
"Blue Star time?" Shen Qinghe asked.
"Yes."
The old man paused.
"And that's the most optimistic estimate."
"If Qing Xuan enters an area completely sealed off from the outside world during that time, or if his anchor coordinates change again, it will take even longer."
Shen Qinghe did not give up.
"Bring over the Life Research Institute's plane-analysis equipment."
"Starting today, I'm staying in Linjiang."
A level ninety-eight Super Dou Practitioner had personally joined the research into the Primordial World plane.
This was the first real change in the world beyond the Firmament since the green lotus appeared.
That same day, the Transcendent Association officially launched its plan to build a two-way passage to the Primordial World.
Estimated completion time: one year.
The news was not made fully public, but it spread quickly among Blue Star's leading transcendent powers.
For the first time, people began seriously considering the possibility of entering the Primordial World.
And for the first time, they began wondering what would happen when Blue Star's Soul Masters met the beings known as Innate Divine Beings.
Within the Primordial World Firmament.
Another thousand years passed.
The world behind Qing Xuan had become one with the entire Lotus Pond.
Whenever a mountain range rose within his world, a fresh thread of Dao Resonance emerged from the Creation Green Lotus.
Whenever a drop of water fell into the Lotus Pond, a spring rain swept across the mountains and rivers of Qing Xuan's world.
The World Dao bore Creation.
The Creation Great Dao nurtured the world.
Each confirmed the other, and the path to taking human form, once a blank, grew clearer and clearer.
On this day, the Creation Green Lotus, which had long hesitated, finally moved.
The Twenty-Four-Petal Lotus Platform slowly rotated.
The entire Innate Grand Formation stirred back to life.
Boundless Creation energy gathered from every direction, yet the Lotus Pond's surface remained perfectly still.
The outermost petal of the lotus platform silently separated from the main body.
Then came the second petal, and the third.
Stream after stream of azure origin peeled away.
Only when twelve petals of the lotus platform had completely separated from the Creation Green Lotus did it stop.
The origin of the Twenty-Four-Grade Creation Green Lotus had now split into two complete halves.
One half still carried the spirit that had already been born.
The other returned to the purest Creation Origin and slowly flew toward Qing Xuan.
Qing Xuan opened his eyes.
He made no show of refusing.
This half of the origin settled what the Creation Green Lotus owed him in exchange for the path to taking human form. He had also earned it by breaking the Innate Grand Formation and using the World Dao to work out that path for the lotus.
What was his needed no refusal.
Qing Xuan raised a hand and accepted the twelve petals' worth of Creation Origin.
His world drew it in.
Surrounded by boundless mountains and rivers, the Twelve-Petaled Lotus Platform coalesced once more. It became an azure lotus platform that shared its roots and origin with its former self, but now possessed an independent origin.
The Twelve-Petal Creation Azure Lotus.
No new spirit had been born within it.
Nor did it retain the consciousness it had carried before.
From this moment on, it was simply an Innate Spirit Treasure that truly belonged to Qing Xuan.
At the same time, the remaining twelve petals' worth of origin at the center of the Lotus Pond began to draw inward.
Vast Creation energy washed over it without cease.
The Chaos roots that had once taken hold in the void gradually vanished. Amid Dao light that filled the sky, the azure lotus platform slowly began to change shape.
Its spirit was truly shedding its existence as a Spiritual Treasure.
Qing Xuan rose to his feet.
The image of his world rose behind him and spread into a dark Firmament, completely shielding the Lotus Pond.
When an Innate Divine Being took form, its Dao Body would be remade.
He would not look.
Nor could the Primordial World Firmament see past Qing Xuan's World Dao to capture anything within.
Above Blue Star, the once-clear image of the Lotus Pond was instantly swallowed by Qing Xuan's dark Dao light.
All anyone could see was boundless Creation energy rising toward the heavens.
They could see nothing of the changes within the light.
"Has Qing Xuan started refining that lotus?"
"Didn't it just split in two?"
"Qing Xuan took one part, so why is the rest hidden?"
Speculation poured through the public channel.
Inside the monitoring hall, Shen Qinghe had already returned to the life Monitoring Instrument.
Though it could not pierce Qing Xuan's World Dao, it could still detect the changes in life taking place within the Dao light.
The vast life origin that had belonged to the Creation Green Lotus had split completely in two.
One part had fallen dormant and entered Qing Xuan's world with the Twelve-Petaled Lotus Platform.
Qing Xuan had not absorbed the other part.
It was rebuilding a complete living structure in a way never seen before.
A heartbeat.
Blood.
An Innate Dao Body.
Shen Qinghe watched a second life fluctuation gradually take shape on the Monitoring Instrument. For the first time, her composure slipped.
"Qing Xuan isn't refining it."
Zhou Ruolan looked at her.
Shen Qinghe slowly raised her head toward the Primordial World Firmament, now completely concealed by dark Dao light.
"That green lotus..."
"It's becoming a true living being."
As her words fell, an aura utterly different from Qing Xuan's, yet just as pure and ancient—an Innate Divine Being's aura—slowly awakened within the azure light filling the sky.
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