"That's a good question."
"If it were someone truly at the very top, it might take several hundred years."
"If the environment changes later and the suppression of heaven and earth fades, the fastest among them might need a hundred years."
"But I'm different."
Chen Yu said, "Before I learned to walk, I was already studying Daoist scriptures. Over these past ten-odd years, cultivation has long since become one with me, inseparable..."
"Then how many years would you need, Teacher Chen?"
Ye Fan asked, brimming with anticipation.
With a calm expression, Chen Yu held up five fingers. "I could try for fifty years."
In the original story, the prodigies of that golden age had become Saints at different speeds, with most taking around a hundred years.
Ye Fan had ranked among the fastest. Even with the Sacred Body Curse dragging him back, he had ultimately taken only fifty or sixty years to become a Saint.
By comparison, Chen Yu's own circumstances were much better than Ye Fan's.
After all, he was using cheats, with no shortage of physique essence or resources of all kinds. Under these circumstances, challenging himself to become a Saint in fifty years seemed fairly reasonable to him.
His words were already quite outrageous.
If word got out that a mere Sea of Bitterness Realm cultivator claimed to be confident of becoming a Saint in fifty years, nine out of ten people would probably consider him a madman. The remaining one would think him some frog at the bottom of a well, an arrogant fool who had no idea how formidable the ancient Saints were, and simply laugh it off.
But to Ye Fan and Pang Bo before him, this result was still rather too awful.
"Pfft!"
At Chen Yu's words, Pang Bo sprayed out a mouthful of wine.
The anticipation on Ye Fan's face vanished as well, his entire face filled with disappointment. "Fifty years... fifty years..."
Neither he nor Pang Bo doubted Chen Yu's words. They had a mysterious trust in him.
Given who he was, if he said he could become a Saint in fifty years, then he most likely could.
But fifty years was still far too long for them.
"My parents are already in their forties. If they have to wait another fifty years, can they live to see that day?"
Ye Fan and Pang Bo were both in their twenties. Judging by their ages, their parents were all over forty, and the older ones could even be said to be nearing fifty.
Making them wait another fifty years under these circumstances would turn them straight into centenarians.
Although there were centenarians on Earth, neither Ye Fan nor Pang Bo was confident that their own parents could hold on until then.
If it really came to that, every dish would probably have gone completely cold.
"Isn't there any other way?"
Ye Fan muttered to himself, at a loss for what to say.
"Of course there is."
Chen Yu spoke, then took out an altar under the gazes of Ye Fan and Pang Bo.
"This is..."
"A secret treasure passed down in my family, an altar for crossing domains."
Chen Yu said casually, "Sending people straight back to Earth is indeed beyond me, but if it's only sending some messages back, I can still manage that."
He continued, "To be honest with you two, my family has quite a bit of influence back home."
What?
Pang Bo and Ye Fan froze at first, then were overjoyed.
"From this day on, Teacher Chen, you're the parent who gave us both a second life!"
Pang Bo immediately shouted, his face flushed red, looking incredibly excited.
Indeed, for two people far from home, even if they could not return and see the people they treasured, finding a way to send back even a little information was still a precious opportunity.
"All right, whatever you want to say, say it now."
Chen Yu said, "I'll help send it over."
Unsurprisingly, Ye Fan and Pang Bo had similar requests. Both hoped that Chen Yu's people could help find their parents and look after them.
"If they see my parents, please tell them not to worry too much."
Ye Fan hesitated for a moment, weighing his words, then said, "Just say that because of what happened on Mount Tai, the organization has secretly relocated me, and I'm taking part in some projects now, so I won't be able to come out in the short term."
"When I get the chance later, I'll send them a message."
"Same for me."
Pang Bo nodded and said, "Let's tell them that. If we really told them about our current situation, we'd only make them worry."
For the elders back home, knowing that their children were still alive and that nothing had happened to them was enough.
As for everything else, telling them would only cause worry, so it was better left unsaid.
"All right."
Chen Yu nodded and took out a piece of Source in front of Ye Fan and Pang Bo, placing it on the altar.
As the altar lit up, the Source Stone turned into essence Qi and vanished in an instant, transforming into pure divine power to activate the altar.
"It shouldn't be long before they receive the message over there."
That was what Chen Yu said.
"Activating this altar once actually takes an entire piece of Source?"
Watching the Source Stone turn to ash, Pang Bo could not help feeling the sting of the loss.
They had already taken their first steps into cultivation and had some understanding of how precious Source was.
Source was formed from the essence Qi of heaven and earth and contained abundant essence Qi of heaven and earth. It was far superior to things like Hundred Herb Liquid and was one of the cultivation world's treasures.
Spirit Ruins Paradise was only a small place. In their everyday cultivation, Pang Bo and the others could not even use things like Hundred Herb Liquid freely and had to collect their allotments at regular intervals, let alone genuine Source.
Never mind them-even their teacher Wu Qingfeng would have coveted that piece of Source that had just turned to ash. Seeing it reduced to ash for a single communication inevitably felt like a wanton waste of a heavenly treasure.
"Did you think communicating across domains was something simple?"
Chen Yu smiled and said, "If I hadn't set up an altar on Earth beforehand, contacting that side wouldn't have been so easy."
"The cost of a mere piece of Source hardly amounts to anything."
For communication across domains, the expenditure of one Source Stone really was not very much.
The key was setting up a communication altar on the other side of the starry sky in advance. That was what truly cost a fortune.
Strictly speaking, Chen Yu had gone out of his way to set up the altar for Ye Fan, who stood before him.
This, too, counted as an investment in goodwill.
Whatever happened in the future, just considering everything Chen Yu had done to let him contact his parents early, surely it would not be too much to ask him to give Chen Yu a helping hand someday?
He was a future Heavenly Emperor Above the Sacrificial Dao, the ultimate powerhouse of the entire trilogy.
As long as Chen Yu could secure a place in his memory, he would not die, no matter what.
Amid their anticipation, time passed bit by bit.
A few days later, a reply soon came back from Earth, reporting the situations in Ye Fan's and Pang Bo's homes.
Things on Ye Fan's side were easy enough to explain, with everything fairly normal, but Pang Bo's side was very unusual.
"What do you mean, there's another me at home?"