Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“The Nuwa Clan? The Pangu Clan?”

There was confusion all over Wang Xi’s face, as if too many things that she could not understand had been poured into her. She frowned and said, “I know that the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan are both primeval creatures. A number of their bones and magical equipment were excavated in the Ancient Sages Sector tens of thousands of years ago. But the remains are much fewer nowadays, although they are not entirely extinct. So to speak, the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan were hostile with each other, and the so-called Divine Palace was a warship of the Nuwa Clan?”

Her eyes were suddenly ten times more brilliant than before. She could not help but raise her voice as she said, “So, I was right. There is indeed a boundless universe and infinite worlds beyond the Ancient Sages Sector where I can cruise on such an amazing boat!”

Li Yao scratched his hair, shocked by Lord Wang’s ignorance.

Such general information was not a secret to the Imperium, the Covenant Alliance, or any other force in the universe. It did not concern the safety of the Star Glory Federation, either. Pondering for a moment, Li Yao selected some obscure, basic concepts and explained them to Wang Xi.

Of course, all the information was retained to the war between the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan per se. As to exactly why the war broke out, the role human beings played in the God-Sealing War, and the ‘three fundamental laws’, that was all omitted.

He was not going to give away the history about the conversion from the ancient Cultivation civilization to the modern Cultivation civilization easily, either.

Wang Xi listened quietly. Tears as clear as pearls suddenly flowed out of her glittering eyes, as she declared in excitement, “I was right. My dreams were true. The Ancient Sages Sector is indeed just a narrow, deep well, and only if we crawl out of the well can we view the boundless world!”

Li Yao thought of something and took the opportunity to ask, “If you didn’t know anything about all this, how did the idea to explore the Divine Palace even occur to you? Also, Lord Wang, you seem to be very familiar with the internal structure of the Nuwa Warship, and it is quite baffling that you can pass the identification tests of the most crucial cabin!”

Wang Xi glanced at Li Yao. The brilliance inside her eyes dimmed. This time, she did not reject it coldly but said in a gentle voice, “If I say that I don’t know the reason, either, will you believe me?”

“You… don’t know?” Li Yao was dazed. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what this is all about. That was why I spent my entire life searching for the Divine Palace at all costs!” Wang Xi furrowed her brow. “There have been some voices and mottled pictures in my head, telling me that I will be able to crack everything and find out who I am after I find the Divine Palace!”

Li Yao was greatly shocked. He held his breath in case he disrupted Wang Xi’s memory.

Leaning against one of the giant pillars, Wang Xi slowly slid and sat down. She took a long breath and, staring at something nonexistent in midair, spoke hesitantly. “Since you dared to participate in the exploration of the Divine Palace, you must’ve read my files before and know that I was born in a remote valley at the border between Great Qian and Ghost Qin. Our poor village was the only settlement of human beings in the hundreds of square kilometers nearby.”

Li Yao nodded. It was exactly as the files said.

‘Lead Eunuch Wang Xi’ was not a person who jumped out of nowhere. It was impossible for the royal family to allow a eunuch of ambiguous backgrounds to approach the emperor.

“However, something is not recorded on any of the files.”

After a long hesitation, Wang Xi finally spoke it out. “I was not exactly born in that village. My foster parents told me before their death that I landed from the sky enshrouded in a fiercely burning fire ball to an unvisited place deep inside the valley. When all the flames died down, it was a black, iron shell in the crater.

“My foster parents were both poor, illiterate villagers. Their only son had been killed in a raid of the wolves that year. While they were grieving, they noticed the anomaly in the sky and traced it to the crash site, where they found the mysterious iron shell.

“The iron shell split apart from the center. A lot of thick, blue liquids spurted out, with a wrinkled baby soaked inside.

“Naturally, it was impossible for them to figure out what exactly the iron shell was. They thought that the heavens had mercy and delivered a baby to them to ease their grief of losing the son. So, they took me back to their home and raised me.”

Big iron ball from the sky? Thick, blue liquids? Wrinkled baby? Li Yao thought quickly and had some fuzzy speculation in his head.

“At first, they naturally didn’t tell me my real birth. I grew up together with the other naughty kids in the village,” Wang Xi said. “Although I wasn’t their blood child, my foster parents treated me very well because they thought that I was a blessing, and they had me when they were quite old. They paid a visit to the nearest town hundreds of kilometers away and found a scholar to pick a name for me. My foster father was surnamed ‘Long’. Long Yangjun is my real name!”

Li Yao blinked and took the opportunity to ask, “So, this is your real appearance. Are you a woman?”

Long Yangjun coughed in embarrassment. Instead of answering Li Yao’s question, she simply went on. “However, as I grew older, I gradually discovered some uncanny features on my body that couldn’t be explained in any way. I was too different from other kids!

“Since you are the bloodline of the barbarians and you can display the distinctive features of the ferocious beasts with the ‘Berserker Arts’, you should know that most of the people in the borderland between the Great Qian Dynasty and the Dark Cloud Prairies are hybrids who have some bizarre features more or less. Tusks, feathers in their private parts, and even tiny horns on their heads are nothing unusual!

“However, even compared to the bizarre-looking kids, I could also be called the strangest one. For example, the crystal external skeleton that I can trigger at will from my body is one of the inexplicable features.

“However, my weird body is not worth mentioning at all compared to the pictures and sounds that often appear in my head unbearably!

“I don’t know if you have had similar experiences, but ever since I can remember, every time I went to sleep late at night, the most dazzling and inexplicable pictures would always show up in front of my eyes. I would also hear a lot of noises and people talking!

“You dream what you think during the day. Generally speaking, however creepy one’s dream is, it can’t be far away from the real world that they are living during the day, despite the twists and distortions.

“My dreams, on the other hand, were absolutely nothing that a four-year-old kid could bear. They crawled into my head like vipers at night, causing me excruciating pain and driving me crazy!”

Li Yao’s heart was pounding, and he almost moaned out. He struggled to ask, “What—what were your dreams about exactly?”

Long Yangjun shook her head and said gloomily, “They were like the swirls made of countless bodies of mottled butterflies. It was very rare that I could understand part of the information. In general, some of the bizarre-shaped humans were fighting each other, or they were moving in the boundless universe surrounded by burning stars. The real stars!”

Li Yao’s breath grew more and more hasty. “Are you referring to the God-Sealing War in the primeval era?”

“I don’t know,” Long Yangjun said straightforwardly. “I didn’t know the concepts about the Nuwa Clan, the Pangu Clan, and the God-Sealing War until today. How could I have understood the meaning of the uncanny dreams a hundred years ago?”

Li Yao was silent. Two different thoughts were fighting hard inside his brain.

Although Long Yangjun’s answer was not completely flawless, it was indeed logical and contained tremendous information. It did not seem to be entirely made up.

The mental devil, however, shouted desperately inside his brain. “False! False! It is certainly false! Wang Xi or Long Yangjun, she is one of the most terrible existences in the Ancient Sages Sector who manipulated the entire world of Cultivators by herself! How can such a great schemer trust an alien of unknown backgrounds in just an hour and tell her birth to you honestly? That’s too childish!

“She must’ve dug a great pit waiting for you to jump in. Watch out!

“I know that you haven’t had a competition of beliefs with Ding Lingdang for a hundred years, and you must be thirsty, but even if you are to fall for a woman, you must not be fooled by the quirky ladyboy!”

“Fair enough!” Li Yao calmed himself down, but he was not so sure. “However, she is indeed by herself and did not foresee that I would break into the room. The wound that she suffered from Yan Liren is authentic, too. All this suggests that even if there is a trap, she did not prepare it in advance but is improvising!

“Therefore, this is unlikely to be a trap targeting me or the Star Glory Federation. I must’ve been involved by accident. Assuming that she is lying, what is her real purpose exactly?”

“Who knows?” the mental devil sneered. “Chances are that she is trying to earn your sympathy with her pitiful past so that you will help her gain control of the Nuwa warship. Do you think that she will be as friendly as right now after she gets the Nuwa warship up and running?”

“Exactly!” Li Yao was suddenly alarmed. For such an enormous Nuwa warship, even someone who was deeply associated with it in the past would not be able to maneuver it on their own.

Li Yao was a master of refining, and he appeared to be quite familiar with the Nuwa warship. It was possible that Long Yangjun was tricking him into being her assistant. After they finished maintaining the Nuwa warship and soared into space, Long Yangjun would reveal her real face.

“When then?” Li Yao secretly wiped off his sweat in his head.

Long Yangjun glanced at him coldly and said, “Don’t you feel that your question is too long? Shouldn’t you trade your own background for such priceless intelligence regarding the secrets of my birth? Who are you exactly? What is this mysterious force behind you that has the capability to craft such a delicate armor?”