The Ancient Age in Progress (Laying the Groundwork)

Seeing the storybook into which she had poured her heart and soul burned to ashes, the Goddess of Life finally unleashed the resentment she had bottled up for nearly a thousand years.

For nearly a thousand years, this inherently evil young dragon had relied on the restriction to suppress her at the slightest provocation, and had even... even spanked her!

Worse still, the young dragon had not only spanked her, but had recorded it with an Image Recording Stone!

And on ordinary days, he had often taken secret, indecent... sleeping pictures of her.

Whenever he pressed her to work or she didn't feel like working, he would toss an Image Recording Stone in his hand and say with a grin, "Xiao Lu, you wouldn't want me to spread thousands of Image Recording Stones throughout the Divine Realm, would you?"

She had endured it before, but now this blackhearted young dragon had dared to set fire to her world-shaking masterpiece!

If she could endure this, what couldn't she endure?

She, Xiao Lu, would never forgive him!

"You inherently evil young dragon, today I'll raise the banner of rebellion and overthrow you!"

The Goddess of Life's pretty face flushed red with anger. Divine power circulated through her body as she bared her claws and pounced at Gu Yue, determined to restore the dignity of a goddess.

Unfortunately, rebellions usually lasted only a second.

With a slight thought from Gu Yue, the little bit of divine power she had just gathered instantly scattered without a trace.

Before she could even touch Gu Yue, he grabbed her and pulled her over.

"So, you're a human! How dare you disguise yourself as one of us beasts."

Gu Yue promptly pressed the full-figured Goddess of Life face down across his short little legs.

Smack!

The crisp sound rang out particularly loudly in the quiet space.

"Ah! You... you spanked me again. Let me go!"

A sharp pain came from her backside, and the Goddess of Life's entire face turned crimson. Ashamed and angry, she kicked her legs and struggled desperately across Gu Yue's lap, wishing she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

Little Gu Yue sat on the chair, watching Xiao Lu struggle without end. He gave her another smack and said irritably:

"What kind of thing did you write? Is this something a god should be writing?"

Held down and unable to get up, the Goddess of Life was both embarrassed and angry. She retorted, "Living beings reproduce through bonds of affection. They crossed the prejudices between their factions. Isn't their deep love, their willingness to follow each other through life and death, worthy of praise?"

Gu Yue was so angry that he laughed.

"What deep love? This is clearly an ungrateful traitor who turned against their own, trampling over the bones of their entire race to satisfy their selfish desires. Their people are all dead, yet they still have the gall to sit by the fire, moved by their own feelings?"

"Xiao Lu, you usually seem clearheaded enough. I've reviewed everything you've written over the years, so how did your brain break after only a thousand years?"

The Goddess of Life was left speechless by the rebuke, unable to find a reply.

Only then did Gu Yue withdraw his little hand, release the restriction, and help her up.

He tapped the table and looked at the red-faced Goddess of Life rubbing her backside, then glanced at Ah Yin. While he was at it, he gave little Gu Yuena, who was preparing to have a long sleep in the Sea of Consciousness, a warning as well.

"Listen up, all of you."

"In a discipline that hasn't been fully written yet, I call this being love-brained. If any of you dares to be so foolish, I'll drain the water out of her brain."

The Goddess of Life shrank back, guiltily muttered a few words under her breath, and hurriedly destroyed the remaining unfinished world-shaking masterpieces in secret.

Even Ah Yin and little Gu Yuena began to ponder it in earnest.

Gu Yue withdrew his attention and shook his head, shaking the world-shaking masterpiece from his mind. His divine sense spread out toward the vast ancient continent.

A full thousand years had passed, yet the outside world's ecology was still primitive.

Countless wild beasts and Soul Beasts rampaged across the continent, and the strongest Soul Beasts had already reached a thousand years of cultivation.

Humans, on the other hand, had learned to use tools and form tribes, but only a thousand years or so had passed since their birth. They had not learned how to cultivate at all, and their fighting strength was still weak when facing wild beasts, let alone Soul Beasts.

Within his perception, more than twenty burly primitive hunters gripped stone axes and sharpened wooden spears, their faces tense as they surrounded a pile of rocks.

And at the center of the rocks crouched just one Soft Bone Rabbit.

The hunter chief at their head let out a roar, and several wooden spears flew through the air.

Who would have thought that the startled Soft Bone Rabbit would kick off the ground with its hind legs and move with incredible speed?

The rabbit's faint Soul Power erupted. Several hunters were flung away by its kicks as though struck by a heavy blow, their fates unknown.

The remaining hunters were so frightened that they screamed and hollered.

After a few bounds, the startled Soft Bone Rabbit vanished in a puff of smoke.

Gu Yue pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed helplessly.

He needed to rely on humans for the grand plan he was laying out, but their current development was truly giving him a headache.

After a full thousand years of development, more than twenty of them couldn't even defeat a Soft Bone Rabbit with a few decades of cultivation, and several had been kicked to death instead.

Looking at the crude weapons in their hands, Gu Yue's eyes flickered as he fell into thought.

In the ancient age, the Soul Master system had yet to take shape, and humans were weak and powerless.

Even in Tang San's era, the human Soul Master cultivation system was still extremely crude and rudimentary.

In the ancient age, it was even easier to imagine. Even if they later became Soul Masters, they would probably still be cultivating blind. Faced with a continent full of Soul Beasts, they would at most be a few slightly more filling morsels to pick their teeth with.

So, to survive, humans could probably only take an unorthodox path and tinker their way into developing Soul Guidance Technology.

Once Soul Tools hurt the low-level Soul Beasts whose cultivation was still shallow, the enraged high-level Soul Beasts would naturally wash humanity in blood, bringing civilization to an end.

Attack-type Soul Tools in particular would certainly all be wiped out. After all, in the Douluo I era, there weren't even any attack Soul Tools; they were all functional.

The more Gu Yue analyzed it, the more he muttered inwardly.

Why did the course he had worked out look more and more like what he was planning to do next?

"If humans really do develop Soul Tools in the future, I'll just take the whole pot, contents and all."

Gu Yue withdrew his divine sense and looked at the Time-Reversal Trajectory in his Sea of Consciousness. It was still entirely illusory. No matter how he had tried to activate it over the past thousand years, it had shown no response at all.

"Ah, building a cart behind closed doors won't work."

Gu Yue said to Ah Yin:

"Ah Yin, get ready. It's time for you to make a trip to the outside world."

Gu Yue tapped lightly with a fingertip, sending out a ripple of spiritual fluctuations that went straight into Ah Yin's Sea of Consciousness.

Over the years, he had become keenly aware of humanity's weakness, and so he had selected a human tribe.

It was a small tribe living on the wasteland, and its hunting party was currently facing a calamity that threatened to wipe them out.

Gu Yue projected all the information into Ah Yin's mind.

Looking at the images in her mind, Ah Yin's eyes showed a hint of pity.

She asked softly:

"My lord, humans are helpless against wild beasts. On this trip outside, should I give them a little more protection so they can gain a secure foothold?"

Gu Yue met Ah Yin's concerned gaze. His expression indifferent, he asked in return:

"Then how do you think the Soul Beasts of your era compare to these ancient humans before us?"

Ah Yin pondered briefly.

In later generations, humans held the advantage, and powerful Soul Masters emerged one after another, while Soul Beasts needed a long time to cultivate. Soul Beasts were driven back and suppressed step by step, confined to the great forests and the Far North. They became prey for humans to hunt when breaking through to the next level, or were slaughtered on a massive scale for their Soul Bones.

Whenever a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast was exposed, it would draw the greedy hunters among the powerful Soul Masters from across the continent.

By comparison, these ancient humans certainly had it hard, but wasn't the same true of the Soul Beasts that later generations regarded as consumables for advancement?

Seeing Ah Yin fall silent, Gu Yue said:

"Natural selection: the fittest survive. I'm sending you to the continent because humans are of great use to my plan. Whether they live and how they live is their own affair."

"Let them stumble and bleed on the edge of life and death. As long as they aren't wiped out and can continue developing according to my plan, the objective will be achieved."

Ah Yin's expression grew solemn, and she bowed. "I understand. I won't let a woman's misplaced compassion disrupt your grand plan, my lord. Please give me your orders."

Gu Yue nodded slightly and said:

"Do you see that girl who's fleeing? Go save her and teach her the most basic meditation method. Whether she passes it on to her people is for her to decide. As for your title, it shall be Holy Spirit Envoy. Guide her from the shadows to establish a place of faith, then you can withdraw behind the scenes."

He was not at all worried that the sudden appearance of a cultivated beast on the savage continent would alert the Divine Realm.

After the great war in the Divine Dragon Realm broke out, or even before it, there were naturally ordinary beasts who weren't gods living in the lower realm, and quite a few had been sent there during the war as well.

According to the course of the original Douluo Continent story, the ancient age had been a world ruled by Soul Beasts. From that alone, it could be deduced that as long as no divine beast appeared in the lower realm, the Divine Realm would not interfere with it at all.

Of course, a certain pure-as-ice, clean-as-jade Little Scumbag of later generations, who was addicted to double standards, didn't count.

The entire continent was now covered in weeds, the so-called Blue Silver Grass of later generations. As the emperor of trash fish... grass, Ah Yin could communicate with them and use them to see, making her the perfect choice to go do the work.

In the eyes of ignorant primitives, the words "holy spirit" were like salvation from a god.

But only Gu Yue knew that, from the first day of its existence, this faction would be a puppet power base he had planted in advance for his future plan to introduce Soul Spirits, and even for all his grand plans.

But under the present conditions, it was impossible to carry out any of his plans, much less create Soul Spirits, which required Electrolux's magic.

He couldn't help thinking that if future Soul Masters absorbed his Soul Spirits, even the inheritors of divine seats would ultimately be no more than puppets wearing the guise of gods.

"I shall obey your orders, my lord," Ah Yin said respectfully.

Gu Yue nodded slightly, tore open a spatial rift, and sent her to a place near the target location.