Return to the Clan Lands

At that very moment.

Space began to ripple somewhere ahead.

An incredibly viscous darkness surged in front of him. Even nine hundred meters away, Lin Shan could feel its immense spiritual pressure.

"It's coming."

Lin Shan's heart nearly leaped into his throat as he stared fixedly ahead.

Crack, crack!

A point ahead crackled like shattering glass. Cracks gradually widened and spread, tracing a spiderweb across the curtain of darkness.

Then the viscous darkness began to squeeze out through that point, which gradually widened. Even now, Lin Shan had yet to see the entity's true form. All he could sense was its absurdly powerful supernatural power.

As the opening widened, the entity within the darkness began to seep out, but it seemed to struggle, as though stuck halfway through.

Just as he had seen that day, something was preventing these entities from interfering with the space outside.

But it merely added resistance. The entity in the darkness continued steadily seeping its supernatural power outward.

Crack!

Another faint crack rang out, and the fissures around the opening widened again.

At that moment.

Red light flashed inside the dark space.

The next second.

Lin Shan emerged directly through the fissure. The viscous darkness immediately attacked him, and he teleported twice more in succession.

Two thousand meters up in the air, Lin Shan looked at his arm. Corpse spots had actually appeared on it, and a faint corpse stench drifted into his nostrils. The other side of his arm had already begun to rot. The underlying essence of his specter physique was slowly repairing it, but the effect was weak. At this rate, it would take days to heal.

"So this is the supernatural power of sequence 8? Just brushing against it left me like this... I wasn't even properly attacked..."

Lin Shan frowned. He thought about how he would have to obtain sequence 8 materials before he could advance to sequence 8. The gulf was so vast that even advancing both Heart Light and Blood Wing to the ninth stage would not bridge it.

Setting aside sequence 8 for now, Lin Shan began examining his surroundings. The Red Moon hung high in the sky, and the same unchanging ash fog surrounded him.

He descended to the ground. Desert stretched all around him. This was unexplored land.

"No... this isn't a desert!"

Lin Shan scooped up some of the "sand" and examined it closely. It was not sand. The grains were the same size and shape as sand, but their surfaces rose and fell slightly, as though they were breathing.

"Some kind of creature's eggs?"

He crushed the "sand" in his hand. This time, his guess was wrong. No young creature emerged as he had imagined. It was hollow inside, though an exceedingly faint trace of spirituality escaped from it.

"So this is actually some kind of resource... sand containing spirituality..."

If the Cat Clan obtained this stuff, their technology that used spirituality as an energy source would give them a virtually limitless supply of energy.

"It's useful to the Human Race too, but bringing back a little would be pointless. Making trips back and forth for such a small amount of resources would certainly cost more than it's worth."

"Speaking of which... where am I?"

Lin Shan looked at the Parchment in his mind, then froze.

"The last spirit medicine plant is 4,356 kilometers away?"

"How is that possible! I definitely didn't fly that far inside the dark space. What's going on?"

Over four thousand kilometers. This was by far the greatest distance he had traveled to date, yet in reality, he had barely gone anywhere. It seemed the dark space was to blame.

"I should head back first. At this distance, it'll probably take a month of flying. Hopefully nothing else goes wrong..." Lin Shan murmured to himself. He had already spent a long time outside. Gathering the herbs had taken three months, and he had no idea how long he had spent in the dark space afterward. The Human Race's development should have been on track by now. It was time to return.

A month later.

Flying at an altitude of five thousand meters, he had encountered few attacks along the way. With Blood Wing's advancement, his current reserves of supernatural power were enough to sustain an entire day of flight.

Lin Shan stood on the surface of a lake. The Parchment's marker was right here, eight hundred meters underground. The lake was small, only about a thousand meters across. He had not expected it to be so deep.

Without further hesitation, he spread Blood Wing and plunged straight toward the lakebed. Fish and shrimp swam past him. A moment later, Lin Shan spotted his target: a red coral-like plant that emitted a faint spirituality. Growing among ordinary aquatic plants, it stood out conspicuously.

He uprooted it with a hand manifested from Heart Light, then teleported directly above the lake.

At that moment, his legs were covered in densely packed leeches. The sight made his scalp crawl. He had not felt them climbing onto him and had only noticed when he sensed his supernatural power draining away.

After drinking his blood, the leeches turned pitch-black. Before long, they died from the corrosion of his supernatural power. Lin Shan's blood was not so easy to drink. They were simply courting death.

With a casual sweep of his hand, he knocked all the leeches off his legs. Every one of them burst apart just before hitting the lake's surface.

He put the Red Coral Grass into his bag and spent a month of his lifespan to locate the clan lands.

They were exactly five hundred kilometers away.

Three days later, above the Human Race's clan lands.

Below, rows of brick-and-tile houses had been built in an orderly arrangement. Streets crisscrossed between them, with more than a hundred meters of width set aside for each.

There were not many brick-and-tile houses yet. Most dwellings were still crude tents, but construction was ongoing throughout the area. It seemed they intended to skip the wooden-house stage and build brick-and-tile houses across the entire city, living in tents until those were ready.

At the very center stood a three-story hall, still unfinished. Hundreds of people could still be seen working inside. This appeared to be the new Clan Hall.

Lin Shan searched for the pioneers, but his gaze ultimately returned to the Clan Hall.

He found that only the Clan Hall contained several sources of transcendent power.

To avoid trouble, Lin Shan teleported straight into the Clan Hall beside one of those sources. On closer inspection, he found Si Zhennan, who was writing something on rough paper.

Si Zhennan was completely unaware of Lin Shan's arrival. Lin Shan considered how to get his attention without startling him.

Just then.

A young woman in formal attire walked in, holding a thick sheet of cardboard. She spoke directly:

"Minister, the farmland plans have been finalized. Please take a look. Construction of the irrigation channels is also fully underway. The Agriculture Department has recruited over five thousand people, and we expect to cover all the farmland within two months."

Si Zhennan continued writing his book and replied without raising his head:

"All right, just leave it on the desk. I'll look at it in a moment."

The woman had actually noticed Lin Shan as soon as she entered, but seeing him standing behind Si Zhennan, she assumed Si Zhennan had summoned him. Still, Lin Shan's unusual attire made her steal a couple more glances at him.

"Yes, Minister."

The woman nodded and left.

After the woman had gone outside.

"Ahem."

Lin Shan deliberately coughed twice.

Si Zhennan was startled enough that his pen-holding hand trembled. However, the years he had spent fighting on battlefields, combined with the bearing of authority he had recently begun to develop, kept him from showing much expression.

Yet in an instant, his upper body was enveloped in a Pale Golden Spiritual Mantle. Lin Shan noticed that his Heart Light had already reached the third stage. His progress was about as fast as Lin Shan's. Without the spirit medicine, Lin Shan might still have been at the third stage himself.

"Don't get worked up. It's me," Lin Shan said.

Hearing that familiar voice, Si Zhennan breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to Lin Shan and said:

"You went away for half a year this time. How long are you planning to stay now that you're back?"

Lin Shan smiled. "I might stay a little longer this time. Are there any vacant rooms?"

"Vacant rooms..." Si Zhennan thought for a while, then said, "Housing is a scarce resource in the clan right now. Even with tens of thousands of people working on construction every day, there are simply too many people. Half a year isn't nearly enough."

After a brief pause, Si Zhennan continued:

"Besides, you're a pioneer of the Human Race, and you're known as its strongest fighter. It wouldn't be appropriate to have you live with ordinary people... How about this? There are rooms set aside on the third floor of the Clan Hall. That's where we keep the Clan Artifact and all the clan's books. If you stay there, you can help protect the Clan Artifact while you're at it."

Then, apparently remembering something, he smiled and said, "That would also fit the pattern of the strongest people always living in the Library Pavilion."

"..." Lin Shan was speechless for a moment before saying, "I don't mind where I stay."

"All right, come with me. I'll take you upstairs," Si Zhennan replied with a smile.

Lin Shan suddenly asked, "What's the Human Race's population now?"

Si Zhennan replied, "We lost over eleven thousand people during the last migration... But over the past six months, around two hundred people have crossed over every day. The population is now close to seventy thousand."

Lin Shan nodded and asked no more questions. He would probably be staying for quite a while this time anyway. He needed to raise his Heart Light sequence to its peak. During that time, perhaps he could witness the Human Race's development firsthand.