In heaven and earth, mine alone is the way!

On the plane, Gao Jian recalled the scenes he had seen through the Soul-Seizing Art. As those monsters in suits and polished shoes shared Robert's flesh, they had constantly discussed world politics, mentioning several places they could not infiltrate.

First, the White House.

They had explicitly stated that they could not infiltrate the White House.

Netizens mockingly called President Vance a mediocre ruler. He was no trailblazer, but he was good at easing tensions. Not only had he reopened the Houston consulate, he had even let the Houston missile crisis-a grave incident involving the security of the United States mainland-slide with little consequence. The White House press conference had offered only a few words of condemnation.

His ability to hold the White House meant the situation in the United States had not yet spiraled out of control. He was a ruler who could preserve what he had inherited.

Second, the Houston consulate.

Gao Jian now strongly suspected that the Consul General in Houston was also a mind-state cultivator, most likely one in the falsehood recognition realm. With him there, those monsters could not infiltrate the consulate. After all, the monsters were still people. Bullets could kill them.

Judging by the situation at the Houston consulate, the other consulates general and embassies probably also had falsehood recognition realm cultivators stationed there. The more than two hundred accredited chief envoys serving abroad were probably all falsehood recognition realm cultivators.

Third, China.

The people who had shared Robert's flesh had explicitly described China as a place where "not a needle could pierce, not a drop of water could seep through." Given the large numbers of falsehood recognition realm cultivators stationed at customs, their inability to infiltrate was only natural.

Gao Jian was certain that falsehood recognition realm cultivators could easily see through the disguise of a "false Robert." They could even see through things like color, let alone those "false Roberts" who lacked any sense of being alive.

Those three points all seemed to be good news.

But what worried him was the possibility that they were the only three pieces of good news left in the world.

The crewed moon landing, the geomagnetic storm, the flat world, the Houston missile crisis, the veteran Tang Jide, Elon Musk, the FBI's attempt to arrest Gao Jian, the impostor Robert, his original body's unexpected car accident, the Mind-State Cultivation Method, the customs defenses...

There was far too much information to analyze.

Gao Jian rubbed his forehead. Why had he never noticed how chaotic this world was before?

Had his place in society simply been too low?

Judging by the crewed moon landing, NASA appeared to have already fallen. Blackwell, the launch director, had deliberately avoided filling the fuel tanks, but that had actually been an act of self-preservation. As for NASA Administrator Jasade, Gao Jian could not yet see any problems with him.

He just did not know why the enemy wanted to prevent humanity from landing on the moon.

Of the four astronauts, apart from Commander Robert, who had known part of the truth, Allen, Ron, and Jim had all been innocent victims.

As for the geomagnetic storm, the incident had shown clear signs of human intervention, which was terrifying. The total energy released by the "Artemis-Class Geomagnetic Storm" over that half hour had exceeded the combined yield of the world's nuclear arsenal by several orders of magnitude.

If the enemy possessed that kind of power, how could anyone fight them?

Never mind nascent soul cultivators-even deification cultivators probably could not win, could they?

That was the true power of heaven and earth.

Even unleashing three High-Grade Talisman Treasures would probably be futile. Gao Jian would need to reach the nascent soul stage just to barely protect himself. But back home, the average age at which cultivators formed their nascent souls was over three hundred. He would need at least another three centuries to reach that stage.

Three centuries-with humanity's explosive pace of technological progress, heaven only knew how far things could develop. They might even have Starships by then.

As for the flat world... Gao Jian could not make sense of that at all. He would have to investigate it later.

The Minuteman III Intercontinental Missile's attempt to intercept the return capsule was equally serious. It meant the enemy controlled part of a nation's armed forces.

And even now, he had seen nothing in the news about President Vance punishing anyone in the United States military for ordering the missile launch.

Had the matter been quietly swept under the rug, or was he simply powerless to punish them?

He could not rule out the possibility that the White House had lost control of the military.

And the United States military remained one of the most powerful armed forces in the world. Gao Jian knew that, at his current level, he could not defeat an organized modern military.

The other party in the Houston missile crisis-the side that had launched the Julang-3 missile-was particularly intriguing. They had risked a military confrontation to intercept the Minuteman III and save the return capsule. But why?

No third party beyond those directly involved could possibly have known that he had secretly tagged along on the moon mission. Had they simply wanted to save the return capsule?

Forget it. He could count that as good news for now. At least it showed that his own people were on his side.

The homeless man Tang Jide had also provided plenty of intriguing information, especially about the death of the former president of the United States.

The evil dragon had killed the king.

That former president had extensive experience with assassination attempts. He had even stood inside a tempered-glass enclosure during military parades, so his security had been thorough. Yet he had still died, and in a foreign land at that.

While Air Force One was heading to Western Asia to mediate the situation there, it had been struck by a surface-to-air missile of unknown origin. Everyone aboard, including the former president, had perished.

Judea had claimed the Axis of Resistance was responsible and pointed the finger at Persia. Persia had denied it, but Judea refused to let the matter drop. Using revenge for the United States president as its pretext, it had launched an even larger all-out war. At one point, it had seemed poised to use nuclear weapons, until the Special General Assembly urgently called a halt.

Even now, no one knew who had launched the missile.

In short, once the former president died, Western Asia had descended into endless warfare again. Without his mediation, the wars in Western Asia and Eastern Ukraine had already burned on for seven or eight years.

As for Elon Musk...

Gao Jian was now certain that the world's richest man must have noticed something. He had probably mistaken Gao Jian for a mind-state cultivator, which was why he had deliberately tried to ingratiate himself. All he wanted was to protect himself.

That made sense. If even a president could not stay alive, what could a businessman do?

The FBI's subsequent attempt to arrest Gao Jian further suggested that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had likely been heavily infiltrated as well, even though the arrest had been based on legitimate grounds.

But Gao Jian had reason to suspect that, once arrested, he might find himself on a dinner table before he knew it.

Eating a foundation establishment cultivator? That would make quite a delicacy.

And the impostor Robert incident had demonstrated the enemy's formidable ability to infiltrate.

Removing memories, fabricating memories, implanting memories, replacing people with impostors...

From that perspective, Mindscape Cultivators were precisely the enemy's counter. The two sides had traded blows for over a thousand years, with his own side suffering more defeats than victories. Their greatest defeats had been the fall of the Song and Ming dynasties.

The four great ancient civilizations must have watched over and aided one another in antiquity, as the trade between the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty showed. But history told Gao Jian that, apart from Ancient China, the other three had all perished.

History... History was valuable. He needed to study it.

Gao Jian sighed.

After returning home, he had learned the inside story of his original body's car accident, studied the Mind-State Cultivation Method, and witnessed the stringent customs defenses...

That meant it was safe at home.

At least for now.

But the exhausted expressions of the customs staff also suggested a severe shortage of Mindscape Cultivators. A handful of them could never manage the country's vast borders.

There was one piece of good news, though: the enemy had not yet gained the strength to contend with a nation's power. Otherwise, why bother infiltrating? They would simply attack outright.

Thinking back now, Officer Liu of the State Security Bureau, who had taken him back to Jingzhou, was probably also a mind-state cultivator.

Those Mindscape Cultivators must have already screened him.

He had neither been replaced by an impostor nor turned against his own side, so he had naturally been cleared of suspicion.

However, the vast majority of Mindscape Cultivators, including Officer Liu and the Consul General, had very low cultivation levels-at least, far lower than his grandfather's. He had yet to see a single Mindscape Cultivator who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the old man.

Others were trickling streams; his grandfather was a mighty river.

He had no doubt that the old man could enter the second realm of the Mindscape Cultivation System, the [delusion breaking realm], at any moment.

He wondered what the world looked like through the eyes of a [delusion breaking realm] cultivator. The [falsehood recognition realm] was already so extraordinary that he could hardly imagine the sights the [delusion breaking realm] would reveal.

What about the [truth realization realm]? Did those cultivators see yet another world?

Although the fragment had explicitly stated that Wang Yangming was the last truth realization realm cultivator in five hundred years, Gao Jian did not believe it. The state must possess more surviving fragments of the Yongle Encyclopedia. The covert spread of the Mind-State Cultivation Method made that clear.

Perhaps there were truth realization realm cultivators among those at the top.

At that thought, Gao Jian actually breathed a sigh of relief.

Whatever else happened, Mindscape Cultivators could be trusted. If nothing else, anyone with a corrupt heart could not practice the Mind-State Cultivation Method at all. They would not even make it past the most basic principle of materialism.

Did other countries have similar cultivation systems? He had no way of knowing.

But there was one thing Gao Jian could be certain of.

He was probably the only orthodox immortal cultivator among all eight billion people in the world.

In heaven and earth, mine alone is the way.

Gao Jian's gaze gradually hardened with resolve.

"Since mine alone is the way, I have all the more reason to shoulder a cultivator's responsibilities. I cannot stand idly by."

What were a cultivator's responsibilities? The Immortal Cultivation World had a ten-thousand-year-old precept.

[Let none be sacrificed; together, safeguard the survival of all.]