Martial World

“Eh? You’re awake!”

As Lin Ming sat up on his bed, thinking about what his next step should be in the Soul World, a young girl pushed open the door. She carried a basin of hot water with a white towel hanging from it.

This young girl only looked to be around 15-16 years old. Her small face was flushed red and her skin was smooth and vibrant. Her large eyes shined brightly, looking quite lovable.

However, as Lin Ming saw this young girl, he was actually quite shocked.

He rubbed his chin, a strange expression on his face.

As Lin Ming stared at this young girl, his behavior caused her to blush. She wasn’t sure just what to do.

“Sir, you…”

For a young girl who had no experience between the sexes to be stared at by a man in such a manner was considered impolite. However, due to her young age and low status as a maid, she wasn’t sure just what do say.

Luckily, Lin Ming had already withdrawn his gaze. He asked her, a bit puzzled, “You… are a human?”

Just a moment ago he had been looking at the young girl’s stomach and had clearly seen the existence of a dantian.

Only a human cultivation method would form a dantian – this was the basis of the essence gathering system.

However, there was something strange here. For human martial artists of the Divine Realm, even if they solely cultivated the essence gathering system they would still start with the first six stages of body transformation. It would begin with strength training, then flesh training, viscera training, altering muscle, bone forging, and finally pulse condensation. All of this was to form a foundation for the future Houtian, Xiantian, and later phases.

But this young maid in front of him clearly cultivated a dantian and yet her bodily strength hadn’t been trained at all. She was a weak normal woman, and this left Lin Ming feeling a bit strange.

Was the Soul World’s essence gathering system cultivation method different?

Moreover, to see a human maid in the Soul World…

“I am… what about it?”

The young girl’s dark eyes were wide open, shining as she looked at Lin Ming. From her expression she was confused about what he had said.

“Oh…” Lin Ming didn’t ask any further, instead falling deep into thought.

This small discovery brought Lin Ming a great deal of information. As he organized this information, Lin Ming felt as if he had encountered a considerably bad situation.

During this trip to the Soul World, wanting to see Sheng Mei would be more difficult than he anticipated.

He looked at the young maid and asked, “Are there many humans here? What percent of the population are they?”

The young maid looked at Lin Ming with surprise, not sure why he would ask such a bizarre question. “There are many humans, but I’m not sure what percent they make up. It is likely less than the spiritas, and especially true on the Cardinal Sky World. This is the central region and most people were are spiritas.”

The maid’s reply confirmed Lin Ming’s speculations.

However, to confirm he continued to ask, “Have the humans here formed any large influences? For instance… World King level influences?”

The young maid thought for a moment and shook her head, a bit lost. “Humans aren’t good at cultivating. We cannot compare with the spiritas. For a World King powerhouse to appear in our people is far too difficult. Sir, are you a Xiantian or Revolving Core martial artist? Unfortunately, it will be extremely difficult for you to cross seven or eight stages of Life Destruction, and if you can reach the Divine Sea realm in the future, every step after that will be far more difficult than the last…”

The young maid mumbled, secretly blaming Lin Ming for having her talk about her vulnerable points. These sorts of things were common knowledge so why did she have to explain them?

However, this was strange. This young man looked as if he had a decent level of cultivation so how come he didn’t know anything at all? Had he just popped out of a mountain somewhere?

Perhaps he was really the hand-taught disciple of a hidden master who had just recently come out of the wilds, but it was far too rare to see a powerful hidden human master.

As the young maid thought this, she laid down the basin and began wringing out the towel.

As for Lin Ming, he was lost in his thoughts.

From what the young maid had said, Lin Ming could confirm many things.

First of all, this was indeed the Soul World, but not the core universe of the Soul World.

Lin Ming recalled the words that Empyrean Divine Dream had once said to him. Billions of years ago, humanity had truly been one of the three peak races of the 33 Heavens, unlike now when they were one of the three great races in name only and had long since been in decline.

When humanity was at their peak, they had occupied several of the 33 Heavens; it had been more than the Divine Realm.

But afterwards, as the God Lamenting Wall vanished again and again, and great wars with the saints and spiritas broke out repeatedly, the human universes were slowly eaten away.

Finally, all that was left to the humans was a single Divine Realm. The other universes were all conquered by the spiritas and saints.

Without a doubt, this universe that Lin Ming came to was one of the human universes that the spiritas had seized billions of years ago.

This world had once been part of humanity’s territory.

After it was captured by the spiritas, they established their influences here, began developing the resources, and grew in population.

However, the spiritas weren’t cruel or merciless. They allowed the indigenous human race to continue living on.

However, as massive numbers of spiritas migrated here and then multiplied over 3.6 billion years, they slowly took full control of this universe. In terms of population size they even surpassed the humans.

And, the key point was that the spiritas had seized control of all main sources of resources in this universe. Humanity had devolved into mostly common mortals that held onto remote lands.

And amongst the humans, very few masters were born. Although many humans entered sects, they were all reduced to the role of a servant like this maid. If one had to put it in pleasant terms, they were simply janitor disciples.

Because too much time had passed, humans themselves thought that they were weak, inferior to the spiritas. As the young maid had said, humans believed they weren’t suited to cultivating and could never compare to the spiritas.

If their strength couldn’t compare to others’ then they were on a lower level than the spiritas. For their core resources to be taken was also normal in this situation. No one would revolt and no one would think to revolt!

Moreover, from the tone of the young maid, it was also extremely difficult for human martial artists to cross Life Destruction.

This made Lin Ming feel as if he had returned to the Sky Spill Planet. Only on a lower realms world like the Sky Spill Planet would human powerhouses worry about crossing Life Destruction.

And the reason for all of this was undoubtedly because the humans of the Soul World lacked the very core of a race’s prosperity – inheritances!

Lack of inheritances and cultivation methods would make it increasingly difficult for humans to cultivate. This was because humans possessed a dantian and their spiritual sea was relatively weak. To have them cultivate the spiritas cultivation methods was simply a waste of effort!

Lin Ming didn’t need to ask to know that billions of years ago when the spiritas seized this universe, they also severed humanity’s inheritances here.

Then, they seized all the core resources and established great influences all over. In the subsequent generations of humanity when they lacked resources and inheritances, just what could they do?

It was even possible that all their history was lost.

In the mortal worlds, it was already unclear what happened several thousands of years or even hundreds of years ago, much less something that occurred billions of years ago!

Without those sects with incomparably glorious inheritances, it was impossible to maintain historical records that stretched back millions and billions of years.

Perhaps amongst the humans of the Soul World there still existed some vague legends about how humanity had once been glorious beyond compare, with kings appearing amongst their ranks. But if these stories were still spoken of then they were likely considered nothing but fantastical myths and bedtime stories.

After several billion more years, perhaps the human race in the Soul World would further degenerate until there was nothing left but a few sparse pockets, and finally even they would vanish…

Thinking of this, Lin Ming wasn’t sure just what taste was in his mouth.

This was the sorrow of a race being captured by others. Would the Divine Realm also follow in the footsteps of this world and turn to dust?

In fact, the saints might take an even more drastic method. After seizing the Divine Realm they might recklessly start slaughtering all humans upon sight, causing the process to be even shorter.

Lin Ming gripped his fists. He did not want to see this occur. The Divine Realm was already humanity’s last bastion of hope.

And as he thought of his mission here – to see Sheng Mei, Lin Ming also worried about this.

According to his speculations, this was not the spiritas’ core universe, but was a universe that the spiritas had wrested away from the humans billions of years ago. If so, then Sheng Mei might not even be in this universe!

Of the 33 Heavens, it wouldn’t be strange if the spiritas controlled six or seven or eight of them. Although he had entered the Soul World, the chances that he had entered the same universe that Sheng Mei was in was extremely low!

And such a character like Sheng Mei likely kept her whereabouts a mystery to begin with. To search for her in such a massive possible area, wasn’t that easier said than done?

Moreover, Lin Ming also didn’t know how difficult it was to pass between the several universes of the Soul World.

Hopefully it wasn’t as ridiculous as crossing from the Divine Realm to here.

As Lin Ming was lost in his thoughts, the young maid had already cleaned the towel and was about to wipe Lin Ming’s face.

Lin Ming took the towel and looked at the naïve and innocent girl in front of him. He softly said, “I’ll do it myself…”

The young girl was embarrassed and let go of the towel. Her large watery eyes looked at Lin Ming with curiosity. She couldn’t help but ask, “I hear that Sir was buried in the snow lands for a long time. Did you happen to run into your enemy there?”

“No, I met a storm.”

Lin Ming casually explained, not wanting to deceive this naïve young girl.

“Oh! Could it be that space storm that enveloped a 10,000 mile area several days ago? That was scary! At the time, someone who was standing far away said they saw a deep purple dragon pierce through the skies! I really mean it when they say it pierced through the skies! It descended from the highest heavens like some spiritual god, causing all glaciers for 10,000 miles to break in half. The Elders of Zenith Palace say that it was the sign of a hornless ice dragon being born. That’s likely some ferocious saint beast. The reason that Zenith Palace sent an Elder out here is to subdue this hornless ice dragon.”

Hearing the girl say these words, Lin Ming held onto the towel in a daze, not able to say anything. When he forcefully broke through space barrier to arrive here, his entire body had been wrapped in the Temple of Marvels’ power of thunder as he pierced through the void. He never imagined that others would see this as a giant dragon and cause such big stir that they also mistook his arrival as the birth of a hornless ice dragon.

Really… he had no idea whether to laugh or to cry.

No wonder the people from Zenith Palace had come wandering around where he fell and even found him.

They never would have dreamt that he was the ‘hornless ice dragon’ they were looking for…