Laozi Travels Among the Human Race

"The Human Race!"

In the East Sea, Ao Changsheng opened his eyes in seclusion, an incomparably complicated look in them.

Ao Changsheng had long since told himself countless times that he was mentally prepared.

Countless times, he had told himself that these were humans Nüwa had molded from earth through the Dao of Creation, not the Human Race from that little blue ball in his previous life.

But as Ao Changsheng gazed at the newly born, innocent humans far away on Mount Buzhou, he still could not stop ripples from spreading through his heart.

"Humans!"

Ao Changsheng looked toward Mount Buzhou, his gaze seemingly piercing the endless distance to see the scene upon the mountain. Then he lowered his head and looked at his present dragon body.

"If I appeared before the Human Race now, I'd either be worshipped as a divine beast or feared as a beast of calamity, wouldn't I?"

Ao Changsheng could not help a self-mocking smile.

Perhaps he would take human form and live among the Human Race for a time in the future, but Ao Changsheng always remembered one thing in his heart.

He was no longer "human," in either body or soul.

The only "human" part left of him was probably that tiny fragment of memory and feeling.

Ao Changsheng let out a long sigh in his heart.

"Fire, houses, clothes... they've got everything!"

Ao Changsheng looked down at a small tribe gathered from several thousand humans.

The houses were scattered, yet arranged in an orderly fashion. Cooking smoke curled up from every home, and the humans walking about all wore clothes woven from various leaves and plants.

Though somewhat unusual, it actually looked little different from a small village in later generations.

"Sure enough, all that talk about merit descending from the heavens for helping the Human Race start fires by drilling wood, sew clothes, build houses, and so on was a lie."

Ao Changsheng was certain that, since the birth of the Human Race, not a trace of merit had descended apart from the merit Nüwa received for becoming a Sage.

Even so, Ao Changsheng was not particularly surprised.

After all, the Primordial World he inhabited was a real world, not some imagined myth.

If one could gain merit in the Primordial World simply by helping the Human Race with a few things, then the Human Race would surely become the target of all.

Even if the Witch and Demon races spared the Human Race from extermination out of respect for the Sage Nüwa,

they could still easily employ some means to restrict the Human Race's development.

And as for the supposedly fated protagonists of the Primordial World?

Sorry!

If Ao Changsheng had not known about it,

then no matter how he looked at them now, he could not see how the race before him, with a population of ten million at most and no understanding of cultivation, would become the protagonists of the future Primordial World.

And what about the Human Race's Innate Dao Bodies?

In the present Primordial World, even creatures with the most ordinary bloodlines belonged among the innate beings.

Moreover, upon reaching the Heavenly Immortal realm, they could all take the form of an Innate Dao Body to travel the Primordial World more conveniently.

Though the Human Race's inborn Innate Dao Bodies were unusual in the Primordial World, they were not precious.

Compared with the many weak races in the Primordial World, the Human Race's greatest advantage now was that they had a sufficiently powerful backer standing behind them: the Sage Nüwa.

Of course, as the first generation of the Human Race, beings Nüwa had directly created from nine heavens breathing soil, their aptitude was still promising.

At the very least, many of the humans Ao Changsheng saw absorbed considerable Spiritual Qi with every breath to nourish their bodies, even without a breathing technique.

They simply lacked a method to refine Spiritual Qi into Law Power, which was why they had never been able to embark on the path of cultivation.

In truth, the physical qualities of this generation of humans were terrifying.

Even without embarking on cultivation, every one of them could easily withstand an Earth Immortal-level demon with their physical bodies alone.

Still, Ao Changsheng could not help wondering why Nüwa had not passed a cultivation method on to these humans.

Even if she had passed down only the most basic method of refining Law Power, with this generation's aptitude, setting aside Taiyi and Daluo,

it would still have been easy for them to reach the Heavenly Immortal or True Immortal realm. If the method passed down were a little more profound,

there would surely be some among this generation of humans who could aspire to Daluo, and the vast majority could even hope to reach the Golden Immortal realm.

Ao Changsheng was not the only one with this question. Many mighty figures in the Primordial World had similar doubts.

Although Nüwa had set up a barrier on Mount Buzhou to protect the Human Race, it was not an enclosed barrier like the one Hongjun had once used to trap the Witch Race.

Rather, it was a suppressive barrier.

Nüwa had laid this barrier using a Sage's methods, and even Quasi-Sages who entered the area would find the suppression extremely uncomfortable.

The Law Power that had once circulated at will felt heavier than Mount Tai, exceedingly difficult to mobilize.

And the Great Dao, which ordinarily responded as readily as an arm to its master's command, also seemed utterly unfamiliar in this area. Mobilizing it took almost ten million times the usual effort.

If Quasi-Sages could still barely wield their Law Power and mobilize the Great Dao within this area, cultivators at Daluo and below were utterly powerless.

Whether Law Power or the Great Dao, Daluo cultivators who entered this area could not use the slightest bit of either.

This method immediately left many of the mighty figures who had come to observe the Human Race shaken beyond measure.

Unlike the terrifying power that had nearly crushed Quasi-Sages in the battles that had shocked the Primordial World over the years,

this method of Nüwa's was gentle and silent, seemingly utterly ordinary.

Yet all the mighty figures who had experienced it could not help feeling a chill in their hearts and a sense of awe toward Sages.

"So this is... a Sage's method? My Law Power and Great Dao as one who has severed two corpses cannot resist a measure Junior Sister Nüwa casually left behind."

Laozi felt the Quasi-Sage Law Power within him, so difficult to mobilize, and the Great Dao, which seemed to have turned into a block of chaos refined iron that he could not budge.

"Sure enough... the gulf between a Sage and a Quasi-Sage is unimaginably vast!"

Laozi sighed softly in his heart.

Though he had long suspected as much, Laozi still found it hard to accept. But with his temperament, he cut that fleeting thought away in an instant.

Laozi raised his head and looked at the wisps of cooking smoke in the distance. Deep within his seemingly indifferent gaze, however, lay an incredible fervor. That was...

His devotion to the Dao!

His longing for Sagehood!

"A Sage?"

"I'll soon be one myself!"

Feeling the primordial purple qi pulsing in his sea of consciousness, Laozi smiled faintly and, leaning on his staff, walked step by step toward the Human Race.

Time flowed like water, and a thousand years passed in the blink of an eye.

To the Primordial World, a thousand years was merely one session of seclusion for some immortals, or even a single nap for some mighty figures.

But for the newly born Human Race, it was undoubtedly a very long time.

Over the thousand years that passed, although none of the first humans had yet died of old age, time had already carved its marks deep upon them.

By the look of things, this first generation of humans would probably reach the end of their lifespans in ten thousand years at most.

But just as time had carved its marks upon every individual human, its marks upon the "Human Race" were equally plain.

In a thousand years, the Human Race's population had long since surpassed one billion.

Though the aptitude of the second, third, fourth, and even fifth generations was slightly inferior to that of the first generation Nüwa had directly created, the difference was not great.

But the birth of the sixth generation stirred the entire Human Race.

Unlike the previous five generations, whose lifespans reached ten thousand years, not a single member of the sixth generation had a lifespan exceeding five hundred years.

By the end of that thousand years, quite a few humans of the sixth generation had already died of old age, and even some of the seventh generation were nearing old age.

This also led to divisions within the Human Race.

Many parents of the sixth generation wanted to lead their descendants out of the barrier established by Holy Mother Nüwa and into the outside world, so they could cultivate Immortal Methods and extend their descendants' lifespans.

That was right!

The Human Race knew about cultivation and cultivators.

Though few in number over the years, mighty figures had entered the barrier to take a look at the Human Race.

And out of respect for the Sage Nüwa, these mighty figures who entered the barrier were also extremely amiable toward the Human Race.

They did not begrudge them some knowledge of the outside world, and some mighty figures even passed down cultivation methods.

Unfortunately, the barrier suppressed not only the cultivation and Great Dao of outside cultivators, but also the cultivation of the humans within it.

Thus, even with cultivation methods, no cultivators had emerged among the Human Race.

So, faced with the calamity of their relatives and friends, or even their descendants, reaching the ends of their lifespans, many humans wanted to leave the barrier and cultivate in the outside world.

But more humans believed that Holy Mother Nüwa had established the barrier so they could survive and multiply within it, and thus were unwilling to leave.

Most who made that choice belonged to the first five generations, who had no worries about their lifespans, while more humans of the sixth generation and later wanted to go outside and cultivate.

The outcome of the argument went without saying: neither side completely convinced the other.

Large numbers of humans continued to live within the barrier Nüwa had established.

More humans, however, chose over the course of those thousand years to leave the barrier one after another and enter the Primordial World.

Atop a mountain peak, an old man leaning on a staff gazed at the departing backs of tens of thousands of humans, traces of puzzlement in his eyes.

"Why did Junior Sister Nüwa do this?" The old man with the staff could not help murmuring the question in his heart.

That was right. The old man with the staff was not an elder of the Human Race, but Laozi of the Three Purities, who had walked among the Human Race for a thousand years.

Laozi watched as yet another human tribe left the barrier of golden runes and entered the Primordial World.

Over the years, Laozi had seen this scene too many times, and it was precisely because of that that he could not understand.

He did not believe that a barrier established with a Sage's immense power lacked even the simple ability to distinguish friend from foe.

It suppressed the cultivation of the Human Race while suppressing outsiders?

What kind of action was this?

In Laozi's view, if the barrier had not suppressed the Human Race's cultivation, the hundreds of millions of humans of the first five generations within it would all have had the aptitude to strive for the Golden Immortal realm at the very least.

Hundreds of millions of Golden Immortals might not be worth mentioning to the powerful forces of the Primordial World, but they would by no means be a force at the bottom.

And with the barrier's protection added to that,

after hundreds of thousands or a million years in the vast world beneath this barrier, the Human Race would surely have the potential to become one of the foremost forces apart from the Witch and Demon races.

"Because the future of the Human Race does not lie in this world!"