Outside Yuan Dadu, Ling Yi and Zhiruo were surrounded by tens of thousands of Yuan soldiers.
"Master, should these people be killed or not?" Zhiruo asked.
After ten years of roaming Jianghu with Ling Yi, her knowledge, bearing, and strength were worlds apart from those of the little girl who had known nothing.
Zhiruo had now grown into a young woman, graceful and incomparably beautiful.
"Let's see what they want first."
"Master, didn't you say that those not of our race must have different hearts?"
"We should still give them a chance to speak. Even extras have their dignity, all right?"
"You're saying weird things again." Just then, Zhiruo suddenly spotted a beautiful girl in armor among the Yuan commanders at the head of the troops.
She gave Ling Yi an odd look and pouted. "Master, you're not showing mercy because of a beauty, are you?"
"Of course not. Am I that sort of person?"
"Master, you saw every inch of me when I was bathing last time," Zhiruo said mournfully.
"Ahem, that was just an accident. How was I supposed to know you wouldn't even close the door while bathing?"
Zhiruo merely rolled her eyes prettily. Who are you trying to fool? One sweep of your divine sense, and not the slightest movement anywhere on the planet could escape your perception. Accident, my ass. You old pervert.
"She should be Minmin Temür, one of those children of fortune you mentioned, Master."
Ling Yi nodded. "Yes, that's her. She's quite a bold girl, though. I wonder where she found the courage."
Zhiruo pouted unhappily. "Girl" was Ling Yi's special way of addressing her, yet today he had actually called another woman that. She was unhappy.
"Hmph, I'll ruin that woman's face in a moment!"
"You're a little fairy, the Immortal Maiden Zhou everyone talks about. How could you do something like that?"
"Either way, just looking at her annoys me."
Ling Yi was speechless. Were these two destined to clash, born to be each other's bane? He naturally had no designs on Zhao Min. A protagonist blessed with fortune had suddenly appeared, and he was merely curious.
Every version of Zhao Min was outstanding, each delivering an exceptionally brilliant performance in the Heavenly Sword World.
Zhao Min rode forward. Clad in gold-and-red armor, she looked strikingly dashing, with an extraordinary bearing and a face full of confidence and pride.
"I am Zhao Min. Greetings, Immortal Maiden Zhou. Greetings, Master!" Zhao Min said, cupping her fist.
"Hey, who are you calling Master?" Zhiruo demanded unhappily.
"I, Zhao Min, consider my looks and intellect unsurpassed in this world. If Master could accept even you, he will certainly accept me as his disciple. Not only do I want to be his disciple, I could even become your master's wife."
"Heavens, how could there be such a shameless woman in this world?" Zhao Min's words stunned Zhiruo. She had never seen such a brazen woman.
"This is called confidence."
Zhao Min turned to Ling Yi. "Please accept me as your disciple, Master. I will spread your name across the four seas and become the disciple you are proudest of."
Ling Yi had not expected Zhao Min to be like this either. Or rather, he had not expected her to be so bold and unconventional.
Even if Yuan people differed in temperament from those of the Central Plains, such thinking was still rather outlandish in ancient times.
"Disperse. I neither want to take you as my disciple nor make you my disciple's master's wife. We haven't had lunch yet. We're in a hurry."
"Master, I sincerely wish to become your disciple."
"No, you only want to borrow my reputation to bring the rotten Yuan dynasty back from the dead. For the sake of the name Zhao Min, I won't unleash a massacre today. You should know that my temper isn't particularly good."
Over the past ten years, Ling Yi and Zhiruo had made no deliberate effort to conceal their identities or strength.
They had even been besieged repeatedly by martial artists coveting their "immortal arts." Ling Yi had never held back. Everyone who attacked, along with the sects behind them, had been wiped out by him.
More than thirty martial sects, large and small, had been destroyed at Ling Yi's hands.
These included major sects such as the Kongdong Sect and the Kunlun Sect.
Zhao Min had never imagined that Ling Yi would see through her intentions at a glance.
She was about to say more when she saw Ling Yi's gaze turn cold.
"I'm no worse than her," Zhao Min said stubbornly.
"But I like my Zhiruo! I utterly detest scheming, ambitious women."
Zhao Min's expression darkened, but she no longer dared act presumptuously. She could tell that Ling Yi did not care for her.
"Retreat!" Zhao Min ordered with a wave. Before leaving, she added one last thing. "I won't give up."
"She's so annoying. Sooner or later, I'll ruin her face." Zhiruo's aversion to Zhao Min was inborn. Everything about Zhao Min irritated her.
"I'm about to leave this world. Will you go or stay?"
"Of course I'll go wherever you go, Master. This world stopped being interesting long ago. I really want to see that new world you mentioned now."
Over ten years, Ling Yi had made almost no progress in this world.
His only gain was that he had created a world using the power of laws.
It was a truly independent and complete world. Ling Yi named it the "Ling Realm," simple and straightforward.
The Ling Realm was a universe. By now, the Ling Realm universe had completed its first Big Bang, and countless galaxies were slowly taking shape amid collisions and destruction.
Some planets that met the conditions had already begun to produce single-celled life.
Ling Yi believed that as the number of laws increased in the future, the Ling Realm would become ever stronger and ever more spectacular.
Because of Ling Yi's meddling, this world's original plot had long since collapsed.
Plot progress had also reached an unprecedented 98%.
Yet over ten years, law analysis progress had not changed at all. The analysis was far too slow.
Had he not wanted to accumulate some points, Ling Yi would probably have left the Heavenly Sword World long ago.
Ling Yi could now be described as having a body of laws. Cultivation realms no longer applied to him. The more laws he controlled, the clearer his understanding of the world's essence became.
But if he wanted to truly analyze more laws, the current level 1 Passive Law Analysis Aura was ultimately still far too slow.
To increase the speed of law analysis and raise the level of his laws, he had to upgrade either the Passive Cultivation Aura or the Passive Law Analysis Aura.
Yes, the Passive Cultivation Aura could cultivate not only cultivation methods and skills, but laws as well.
Or rather, laws could also be leveled up.
Although the levels of these laws had not been quantified, Ling Yi could clearly sense that over these ten years, his understanding of laws had grown clearer and his applications of them more diverse.
As his understanding of his existing laws deepened, Ling Yi discovered that he could deduce new laws from them.
However, this required an extremely profound understanding of laws.
But his points were limited. Ling Yi had to choose between passive cultivation and passive analysis.
In the end, Ling Yi chose the Passive Cultivation Aura.
"I need to enter secluded cultivation for a while. Afterward, we'll leave this world," Ling Yi told Zhiruo after returning to the floating continent.
"Huh? How long will you need?"
"It should be quick. It shouldn't take too long. This seclusion is very important to me and may trigger phenomena in heaven and earth, so I need to enter the Ling Realm."
"Will it be dangerous?" Zhiruo asked worriedly.
"There's no danger. Don't worry. I never do anything I'm not confident about."
Watching Ling Yi slice open a spatial rift and slowly disappear before her, Zhiruo suddenly had the illusion that this seemed to be their final farewell, though she did not know why.
She did not know why she felt this way, but the feeling made her deeply uncomfortable, a pain that wrung her heart.
"Master!" Zhiruo called.
Unfortunately, Ling Yi, who had already entered the Ling Realm, did not hear her.
Zhiruo's intuition was sound. Although this parting could not be called an eternal farewell, thousands of years would have passed before they met again. What Ling Yi did not know was that once a world's plot progress reached 80%, time in that world would not freeze when he left.
Nor had Ling Yi expected that once the plot of his current world ended, he would be kicked out of it.
This world would continue to evolve, heading into the unknown...
After entering the Ling Realm, Ling Yi spent all the points he had accumulated over the years in the Heavenly Sword World on upgrading the Passive Cultivation Aura.
He pushed the Passive Cultivation Aura all the way to level 10.
Passive Cultivation Aura lv10 (0/1,000,000) (Enabled): 1. Once enabled, all learned cultivation methods and skills automatically enter cultivation mode. Current cultivation speed bonus: 512×. 2. Automatically enables cultivation method and skill fusion (unlocked at LV2). Cultivation methods and skills of the same system automatically fuse into higher-tier forms, with no bottlenecks or upper limit. 3. Enables cultivation method and skill analysis (unlocked at LV4). Automatically analyzes any cultivation method or skill encountered. After analysis, it automatically enters passive cultivation and fusion mode. 4. Enables cultivation method and skill extrapolation (unlocked at LV5). Low-level cultivation methods and skills are automatically extrapolated to higher levels. Current maximum extrapolation: Immortal Grade. 5. Enables the cultivation domain (unlocked at LV6). Within the cultivation domain, targets designated by the host can share certain Passive Cultivation Aura functions (512× cultivation speed, automatic cultivation method extrapolation, cultivation method fusion). Limited to 3 people. 6. Enables cultivation of a single designated cultivation method or skill (unlocked at LV8). A single cultivation method, skill, bloodline, gene, law... can be designated to enter cultivation mode. The single-target cultivation aura provides cultivation speed 10 times the current cultivation speed.
At that moment, Ling Yi could clearly sense his strength "taking flight."
If nothing else, the 512-fold cultivation speed let Ling Yi experience rocket-like improvement once again.
Vast amounts of information churned through his mind. His understanding of laws leaped to a new level almost every second.
Ling Yi involuntarily entered a state of forgetting both self and surroundings, sinking into the wondrous state brought on by his rapid improvement.
This was not sudden enlightenment. His improvement was simply too fast, with new information constantly emerging in his mind, forcing Ling Yi to shut off all external senses and devote his entire mind to adapting to this enormous change.
His understanding of laws was improving, and the extrapolation of entirely new laws was operating at tremendous speed...
Only after a full thirty years did Ling Yi finally awaken from this self-forgetting state.
But when he awoke, he discovered that he had already left the Ling Realm and appeared in unfamiliar surroundings.
After briefly sensing his surroundings, Ling Yi knew this was no longer the Heavenly Sword World.
"Damn you! System, come out and explain this! Why am I suddenly in a new world?" Ling Yi roared furiously in his mind.
Ding! Once all plot progress in the current world has concluded, the host will be forcibly removed from that world and will passively search for and enter a new world.
Ling Yi instantly understood what the system meant. In other words, the entire plot designed for Heaven Sword had ended, so he had been passively transported?
"How is the end of plot progress determined?"
Ding! By the span of time covered by the plot progress in the current world.
Ling Yi furrowed his brow. This setting really was rather unfriendly.