Ling Yi snapped his fingers, and a cloud resembling cotton candy suddenly appeared, hovering before Little Zhiruo.
"This is the Flying Nimbus. It can carry people through the air. My dear disciple, climb on and give it a try," Ling Yi said with a smile.
Little Zhiruo gazed curiously at the cloud before her and timidly poked it with a finger. Feeling its pleasant texture, her eyes seemed to shine.
The Flying Nimbus seemed quite sentient. To accommodate Little Zhiruo's height, it lowered itself a little further.
Little Zhiruo cautiously tested it a few times, then looked back at her newfound master.
"The Flying Nimbus is sentient. Just sit on it and tell it to fly."
With Ling Yi's encouragement and expectant gaze, Little Zhiruo finally climbed onto the Flying Nimbus and carefully sat cross-legged.
"Flying Nimbus, off we go!"
As Little Zhiruo spoke, the cloud slowly rose, then shot straight into the sky. Her cries rang through the air, but soon the little girl was playing to her heart's content, steering the Flying Nimbus all over the sky.
Everyone was green with envy. Wasn't this the legendary art of riding Teng Yun and mist? They wanted a magical treasure like that so badly.
Who wouldn't want to fly? This was flight!
Zhang Sanfeng, Zhang Wuji, Chang Yuchun, and Zhou Zongyuan, Zhou Zhiruo's father, all craned their necks to watch Little Zhiruo flying wildly overhead.
Zhang Sanfeng was the first to recover. Cupping his hands toward Ling Yi, he said, "Senior, would this granddisciple of mine qualify to catch your discerning eye?"
Zhang Sanfeng knew he had no hope of becoming Ling Yi's disciple, and a magical treasure was even further out of reach, but he dearly hoped Zhang Wuji could join an immortal sect.
Ling Yi looked at Zhang Wuji and shook his head. "This boy has good aptitude, but he has his own fated opportunities. In ten years, if fate allows, I will take him as my disciple."
Ten years? Though Zhang Sanfeng felt somewhat unwilling to accept it, what could he do when an immortal had said so? Besides, the great stone that had weighed on his heart had finally settled.
If an immortal said Wuji had other opportunities, then he certainly did. It seemed Wuji was not destined to die yet, and fortune awaited him.
"Thank you for your guidance, Immortal!" Zhang Sanfeng cupped his hands and bowed in gratitude.
As for Zhang Wuji, he was positively sour with envy. He really, really, really wanted a Flying Nimbus too.
"You are the first people I met after arriving in this world. That counts as a bond of fate between us. These are Senzu Beans, three for each of you. As long as you aren't dead, they can heal any injury in an instant."
Everyone hurriedly accepted them with great care and tucked them into their clothes with the utmost caution.
Zhang Sanfeng, in particular, had a disciple, Yu Daiyan, whose bones and tendons had been shattered, leaving him crippled. With these Senzu Beans, his disciple could finally recover.
"Senior, might these Senzu Beans work on my granddisciple's cold poison?"
"The cold poison is a minor matter. If I intervened, I could naturally cure it. But if I cured him now, it might well affect his future opportunities and leave him ordinary for the rest of his life. Weigh the consequences yourself."
With that, Ling Yi paid Zhang Sanfeng no further attention. Instead, he glanced at the group and said, "Everyone, this is where we part. If fate allows, we will meet again."
Then Ling Yi flew up and caught up with Little Zhiruo, who was playing in the sky.
"Disciple, we're leaving. Come with your master to the heavens."
"Yes, Master!" Little Zhiruo's cheeks were flushed. Clearly, she had been having the time of her life.
"Father, I'm going to the heavens with Master! Don't worry, though. I'll come back to see you whenever I can," Little Zhiruo shouted down.
"Cultivate diligently with Senior, and don't spend all your time playing," Zhou Zongyuan called back.
Watching Ling Yi and Zhou Zhiruo's two figures, one large and one small, vanish into the horizon, everyone came back to their senses.
After exchanging pleasantries, they each departed.
Meanwhile, after taking Zhou Zhiruo several thousand meters into the sky, Ling Yi stopped.
Protected by the Flying Nimbus, Zhou Zhiruo did not feel cold. She was merely curious why her master had stopped here.
Naturally, Ling Yi had stopped to create a heavenly palace.
He directly used Faith Manifestation. This ability had already become the method Ling Yi found handiest.
After all, it was simply too convenient to use.
Moreover, Ling Yi had no concerns whatsoever about consuming faith. Wherever there were people or intelligent beings, there was no shortage of Power of Faith.
An enormous floating landmass slowly appeared, turning from illusory to solid before finally taking shape.
Its area was roughly equivalent to that of a first-tier city, with forests, grasslands, rivers, lakes, mountains, and deserts.
Beyond that, Ling Yi manifested no buildings, instead tossing out several Capsules.
"Boom..."
Following several explosions, a modern villa and a warehouse appeared on the ground.
The warehouse doors opened, and over a hundred robotic puppets emerged. Ling Yi altered their appearances and clothing, turning them into the heavenly soldiers and generals of myth.
These heavenly soldiers and generals would tend to this floating landmass from now on.
After some thought, Ling Yi manifested a tall tower east of the villa and an open-air restaurant to its west.
Inside the restaurant stood an enormous cabinet resembling a vending machine. A square opening at the front connected to a square counter.
It looked somewhat strange, but it was a tool Ling Yi used to be lazy.
Only after finishing all this did Ling Yi explain to Little Zhiruo how to use these things.
"This is the Trial Tower. On its first floor, you can choose the beginner cultivation techniques and skills you want to learn. To learn higher-level techniques and skills, you can earn them by challenging the Trial Tower. There are trial puppets inside. Succeed in a challenge, and you'll earn a chance to select higher-level techniques and skills."
Little Zhiruo gazed at the Trial Tower soaring into the clouds and felt dizzy. "It's so tall."
"This villa is where we rest. Just pick any room for yourself later."
Little Zhiruo was very curious about the villa. It seemed rather different from the heavenly palace she had imagined.
"This is the restaurant, where we eat. This is the Wish-Fulfilling Food Cabinet. See this screen? This is the menu. Whatever you want to eat or drink, tap its recipe here, and the food and drinks will come out automatically."
"Master, is this a magical treasure too?"
"Mm, you could call it a magical treasure."
"These are heavenly soldier puppets. If you want to go down below to play, remember to take them with you."
Heavenly soldiers! They must be very powerful, right? It would surely be fun if Father and Uncle Chang saw them.
"Go familiarize yourself with the surroundings first. If you're hungry, order something from the Wish-Fulfilling Food Cabinet yourself. Practice your cultivation techniques diligently. Your master needs to enter seclusion for a while."
Little Zhiruo was instantly dumbfounded. What? Master brought me to the heavens, and now he's leaving me on my own? Why does this feel rather unreliable?
Ling Yi was not wrong to call it seclusion. He was preparing to activate a new passive aura.
In the aura list, Ling Yi had discovered a passive aura he urgently needed right now.
The Passive Law Analysis Aura automatically analyzed the laws of the current world. Once all its laws had been analyzed, the current world would become fully open to the host.
What did fully open mean? It meant this world would have no defenses against Ling Yi. He could come and go as he pleased, bringing people in and taking them away at will.
But the Passive Law Analysis Aura required far too many points-a full 500,000, just to activate level 1.
Had Ling Yi discovered this aura in the Marvel world, he would probably have activated it long ago.
This was a passive aura Ling Yi had discovered by chance while browsing the aura list after arriving in the Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber world. He simply did not know how efficient its analysis would be, and he was rather looking forward to finding out.
Returning to the villa, Ling Yi picked a bedroom at random and prepared to officially activate the aura.
The 500,000 points vanished in the blink of an eye, instantly reducing his original 710,000 points to 210,000.
As the aura activated, information about the Passive Law Analysis Aura appeared in Ling Yi's mind.
Passive Law Analysis Aura lv1 (0/1,000,000) (Activated): Analyzes the laws of the current world. Number of laws in the current world (108). Current analysis progress (65%).
Why had the analysis progress reached 65% right at the start? Because the cultivation techniques, magic, Divine Power, skills, and so on that Ling Yi himself practiced already contained a certain amount of information about laws.
For instance, the various elemental spells in magic, as well as aspects of life, creation, destruction, reincarnation, souls, and so on contained within Faith Manifestation, all held a certain amount of information about laws.
Much of this overlapped with information about the laws of the current world. Passive law analysis would automatically calculate the essence of the powers he controlled, perfecting them and elevating them into laws.
Naturally, overlapping information did not need to be analyzed again. What the passive aura truly needed to analyze were this world's other laws.
And with the activation of this aura, Ling Yi's body underwent a fundamental elevation, inside and out.
All his original attribute data vanished. Only laws remained on the entire system interface.
Host: Ling Yi Laws controlled: 64 (Law of Space, Law of Time, Law of Wind, Law of Water, Law of Lightning, Law of Souls, Law of Life... Law of Darkness... Law of Light... Law of Reincarnation, Law of Destruction...) Combat power: 17.2 billion Law analysis: The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber (65%) Points: 210,000. Plot progress: The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (35%), Goodbye Mr. Loser (50%), Seven Dragon Balls Z (29%), The Avengers 1 (51%), The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber (2%).
This interface was so simple that it left him speechless.
Though the interface was simple, it contained quite a lot.
Laws were the essence of a world, its true rules.
Just as one plus one equaled two-why did it equal two? There was no reason. That was the law, so it had to equal two.
This was a fundamental elevation. Whether internal power or spiritual power, both were products of laws.
Everything between heaven and earth existed beneath laws and was a product of laws.
That included Power of Faith and Faith Manifestation. These were still powers beneath laws.
Controlling laws meant controlling a portion of this world's authority. It was like a computer programming language. Once you mastered that language, you could design games, management software, artificial intelligence, and so on.
You could... create a world.
Ling Yi entered seclusion in earnest. This time, he intended to create a world himself.
Using the laws he currently controlled, he would create an independent world that belonged entirely to him.
Otherwise, he would not even be able to smuggle himself across.
As for fully analyzing a world's laws and turning that world into his own backyard?
Sorry, that was truly wishful thinking. It was almost impossible.
Although the Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber world had only 108 laws, and although his analysis progress had already reached 65%, the time needed to analyze the next law... started at a thousand years.