Super Gene

Han Sen looked at the ocean mountain with his right eye. Under the effects of the Purple Eye Butterfly beast soul, the history of the ocean mountain played across his right eye like a movie.

Deified beast souls were truly wondrous. It was impossible to fully imagine what using one was like if you never had. In the flashback Han Sen was watching, he saw a ten-thousand-meter-tall chunk of rock forming from a smaller rock. The stone was divided into skin-like layers, which were peeled away one by one.

Han Sen did not know much about geography, but he knew that stones were not usually formed that way. But the Purple Eye Butterfly beast soul could not have been giving him incorrect information. Whatever the eye showed him was the truth.

“Weird. Are ocean stones not really stones? Are they actually plants, perhaps?” Han Sen wondered. But he didn’t think that could be right, either; they looked nothing like any plants that Han Sen had ever seen. Ocean stones were obviously rock, and if they were alive, then they had to be some kind of living stone.

Han Sen’s mind flicked back to the theory of living stones that Left Crazy had given him a long time ago, but he thought the situation he was dealing with right now was different.

Because ocean stones took forever to form, it took a long time for the video to play all the way back to the stone’s origin.

In the center of the ocean stone, there was a very, very small stone bug that looked rather like a silkworm. That stone bug was living inside a sea of lava as if it was a calm ocean. Its body rolled slowly through the lava until it decided to emerge.

The lava on its body slowly hardened to become a shell of stone. Then, that stony shell would mix with the discharge of the bug’s body. Slowly, over time, the stone began to transform. It became black and shiny like a piece of black jade.

When the stone was completely black, the stone bug leaped back into the lava, then rolled and swam through it again.

The stone bug kept repeating this process over and over, as more and more stone began to build atop it. As time passed, the rock grew bigger and bigger.

The body was initially only the size of a finger, and after a great many years, it became a big stone.

The stone shell eventually became too heavy for the stone bug to move by itself. It didn’t have the strength to climb out of the lava, and its body just sank inside it.

As time passed, the seas of lava kept creating stone layers over it. The stone bug didn’t stop releasing its substance, mixing with every new layer of stone it was crusted in. And after billions of years went by, it became an ocean stone the size of a mountain.

The whole flashback shocked Han Sen. He couldn’t have imagined a little life like that could literally make mountains. It shone a new light of appreciation upon the miracle of life. Life really was truly amazing.

This discovery also made Han Sen a lot more curious. He did not know what the creature was, but that stone bug had the power to turn molten lava into an ocean stone.

“I wonder if that bug is still living inside the ocean stone. If it is living, I wonder what it eats to survive?” Han Sen thought to himself.

Han Sen had no way of determining this, though. The mountain was too thick, and he couldn’t sense a life force in the center of the mountain.

The chunk of ocean stone would be flawless. It wouldn’t have stress-cracks like an ordinary mountain.

Even if the outside was cracked, though, the creature inside wouldn’t care. Unless an attacker was stronger than the ocean stone, they wouldn’t be able to cut it open.

Luckily, the analysis provided by the Purple Eye Butterfly had given Han Sen an abundance of useful information.

While Han Sen watched the flashback that showed the creation of the stone, he noticed something rather interesting.

Although the stone that the little stone bug created looked flawless, Han Sen noticed a small hole approximately where the forehead of the stone bug should have been. The hole was so small that Han Sen barely noticed it.

Han Sen ran the flashback in reverse and found a small pore on the stone bug’s forehead.

“Do stone bugs need to breathe? If so, what is it breathing in? Oxygen or something, like a normal creature?” Han Sen thought.

He didn’t understand, but he was pretty sure that no matter how many layers were added to the stone, that little hole would run through every one of them.

But through all the ages the mountain had existed, no one else had noticed that microscopic hole.

If Han Sen hadn’t used his Purple Eye Butterfly to look into the past, even with his Dongxuan Aura, he wouldn’t have paid any attention to the hole even if he did manage to spot it.

But now that Han Sen had found it, he wanted to know more. He thought about it, and then he walked towards the ocean mountain.

“Finally, he’s moving. I wonder what Han Sen is going to leave upon the ocean monument. Just his name, I wonder?”

“I don’t think he will leave behind just his name. For someone like him, leaving his name would be practically lazy. Perhaps he will leave behind a poem or a drawing. Something like that would be more fitting of his identity.”

“Yeah, but what sort of poem or drawing? Have you forgotten that Han Sen uses weapons? I think he is going to leave behind a knifemark. Think about it. If Teacher Han Sen left behind a deep knifemark with the sensations of his skills, then we could study it, and our students might become better at knifeskills. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing?”

“You are right. But if that is the case, then leaving behind a swordmind might be even better.”

Thousand Feather Crane, the Yun sisters, and First Day Buddha watched Han Sen silently approach the ocean mountain.

“What will Han Sen leave behind?” Yun Suyi asked under her breath.

She knew nothing would ever happen between her and Han Sen, but seeing Han Sen leaving, she still felt profoundly upset.

“Han Sen has never seemed to seek fame. He will probably just leave his name or a simple knifemark behind,” Thousand Feather Crane said.

“That is possible. Han Sen is good at everything, so why is he always so withdrawn and lonely?” Yun Sushang said while nodding.

As everyone discussed this matter, Han Sen used his red cloud to head to the top of the mountain. Not long after, he reached its peak.

The move surprised a lot of Sky Palace’s elders because when Yisha left, she had done the exact same thing.