On Earth, hidden in a crack between space and time and made to cycle through fixed historical trajectories and major events, an unimaginably terrifying gaze swept through a dimension no one could perceive.
The owner of that gaze had created several universes and cycled Earth through countless reincarnations, trying to reproduce things even he could not understand. He wanted to see whether he could recreate the path of a certain supreme existence and produce another person like him.
He thought it was meaningless, really, but he truly had nothing else to do.
Damn the Desolate Heaven Emperor! Damn my original self!
He was the Immortal Emperor once corrupted by darkness, who would later be nicknamed Emperor Bone Brother by Chu Feng and return with the Rat Emperor's bones beneath his feet...
Or rather, that emperor's dark incarnation...
When the Desolate Heaven Emperor resurrected his original self from before the corruption, he had brought him back as well. It might have looked accidental, but the Corpse Immortal Emperor knew the Desolate Heaven Emperor had absolutely done it on purpose!
Only with the Corpse Immortal Emperor preserved could one know that the one the Desolate Heaven Emperor had resurrected was Emperor Bone Brother.
That beast-milk-drinking bastard definitely had some plan for him!
Firmly suppressed and sealed away, unable to leave and so bored that he could only keep cycling Earth through reincarnations for amusement, the Dark Immortal Emperor continued his grand enterprise of manufacturing children of destiny. He began designing his next prodigy:
"I remember reading a pretty interesting comic when my avatar went to Earth to kill time. The Eight Extraordinary Skills, was it? That world's ideas are worth borrowing. Unfortunately, the originals are too weak. They can't be too strong, but they can't be too weak either. I'll elevate their underlying mysteries to the level of an ordinary first-generation prodigy, then throw in some resources to help him rise."
The Corpse Immortal Emperor conjured a glimmer of spiritual light with a hazy consciousness, hastily wove together some memories of Earth, then added a strand of immortal-path creation essence and eight light clusters containing the true-meaning inheritances of the Eight Extraordinary Skills.
But just before he sent it out, a surge powerful enough to annihilate all heavens and myriad worlds erupted outside the seal.
The phantom of an Immortal Sword, trailing a rain of ascending immortal light and visions of the five elements arising and perishing, Yin-Yang generating each other, the four symbols revolving, and more, cleaved straight through endless ages. All sorts of uncanny powers roared past nearby. Some punched through a corner of the seal, leaving even the Dark Immortal Emperor himself struck several times, while the spiritual light was blasted clean out of the River of Time and fell into the void.
He sensed that his connection to the fragment of his consciousness had been completely severed.
"Hm?" Faced with this sudden turn, the Corpse Immortal Emperor looked outside through the breach in the seal, which was rapidly repairing itself.
"Huang! You cannot stop the Great Sacrifice!" A grand, uncanny voice resounded throughout the heavens.
"Milk-drinking brat, you're finished." The Corpse Immortal Emperor shook his head and went back to making a new "child of destiny."
Escaping was out of the question. Though he had fallen into darkness, he had no desire to bow his head and swear allegiance to the uncanny. Better to loaf around inside the seal and watch the milk-drinking brat get thrashed by them. Going out was absolutely out of the question. He was happy here, with no longing for Shu.
Yet before the void could grind it away, the fragment of spiritual light blasted out of the River of Time by the aftershocks fell into a peculiar place.
It was a dilapidated little courtyard that seemed to have once housed a millstone and flowers and plants. Thin morning mist drifted over the ground. The shattered spiritual light mingled with it and actually stopped dissipating, then was blown out of the courtyard, scattering into separate pieces that fell into different times and spaces.
During the Chaotic Ancient Era, in a secluded courtyard in the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital, in the Desolate Region of the Lower Eight Regions, a small figure was roaming the Void God Realm in spirit. Who knew what great undertaking he was pursuing in there?
In the initial Blood Moving area of the Void God Realm, startled cries suddenly rang out:
"A new Record Stele!"
"After the Double Pupils wielder came here, it's been hard to break any of the usual records, hasn't it?"
"What does it say?"
[First place in number of trick precious techniques in the Blood Moving Realm!] [A total of four thousand three hundred and twenty precious technique tricks] [Wu Gensheng] [Reward: one bottle of foundation-building secret medicine prepared from spirit medicines, usable to enhance blood and qi in the Blood Moving Realm]
"Wu Gensheng? Who's that?"
"A new prodigy? How much spare time does he have, learning that many precious techniques in the Blood Moving Realm? Is he sick in the head? Isn't that a waste of time?"
"Hahahaha! He gamed an obscure record. Sure enough, there's nothing good to be had!"
"Exactly. Disciple, cultivation is what really counts! Don't copy him and waste your time. The gains aren't worth the losses!"
"But being able to learn that many precious techniques is pretty impressive too..."
Outside the Void God Realm, the young man in the secluded courtyard opened his eyes and let out a long breath.
He was the young man who had broken that obscure record in the Void God Realm. Imitating a shit-stirrer from a certain comic, he had given himself an alias to use in public. This was fairly normal in the Chaotic Ancient Era, much like the Ten-Crown King and the Exiled Immortal.
Because of his personal preferences, and because of the Eight Extraordinary Skills, he had chosen Wu Gensheng. He had also named himself Chen Yao, keeping the character Yao while drawing lots for his surname as he cobbled together a false identity, to distinguish himself from Wu Gensheng, Feng Yao.
He felt he was probably a transmigrator from Earth's era, but he could not remember his own name, and his memories relating to Earth were blurry. Oddly enough, he remembered all sorts of things he had seen and heard on Earth quite clearly.
There was also an interpretation behind the name Wu Gensheng. The name was actually a hidden word puzzle:
What was primordial qi?
It stirred and came into being from the void, and was therefore also called the spiritual root or the yellow sprout.
From nothingness arose qi, and qi divided into the five elements.
Thus, the character "炁," qi, was the character "无," nothingness, with one dot above and four below-a total of five dots, each representing one of the five elements.
In other words, primordial qi was born without roots: wu gen sheng.
That was the meaning of Wu Gensheng, a name originating from a word puzzle whose answer was "primordial qi."
Another explanation, however, was the Buddhist School's rootless beings, the people most difficult to deliver to salvation. The first kind burned away all roots of goodness; the second pitied all living beings and vowed to exhaust the entire realm of living beings.
Although, in theory, this was the correct explanation from the original scriptures, Chen Yao still preferred the former, skewed interpretation. It definitely was not because he knew little about Buddhism.
"From this day forward, I'm Wu Gensheng, Chen Yao." Having just left his stage name in the Void God Realm, he had officially made his debut.
What gave him some comfort was that he had not transmigrated with nothing to his name. A strand of immortal qi and eight Inheritance Light Clusters containing the Eight Extraordinary Skills occupied his mind, allowing him to use the Eight Extraordinary Skills just as first-generation prodigies used their innate precious techniques.
What he had relied on to break the record in the Void God Realm was Feng Hou's Mystic Gate, one of the Eight Extraordinary Skills.
There were four thousand three hundred and twenty Qimen Formations. Each formation could give rise to its corresponding Qimen spell, which could be used as a precious technique in the Chaotic Ancient Era.
Since no one in the lower regions had yet practiced so many precious techniques in the Blood Moving Realm, he could exploit that loophole.
But Chen Yao was somewhat pessimistic about the standing of the Eight Extraordinary Skills in the Perfect World. Precious techniques and even divine abilities with similar effects that could utterly slaughter the Eight Extraordinary Skills were all too plentiful. His situation might be described as resembling that of a first-generation prodigy, but it was actually nothing of the sort. He had neither an innate Treasure Bone nor companion Precious Blood, and his aptitude was nowhere near comparable to theirs. Not to mention that the mysteries of their personally tailored companion precious techniques started at sect master level, with the outstanding ones reaching supreme level or even the absurd heights of immortal level.
Under normal circumstances, the Eight Extraordinary Skills had not the slightest advantage by comparison. He could probably count himself lucky if they matched divine-level techniques.
Whatever. If they really aren't strong enough, I'll improve them bit by bit. Let's set a small goal: improve the Eight Extraordinary Skills into Immortal Emperor Arts, Chen Yao thought, throwing caution to the wind.
Before you continue