Ten Years in Chaihuo Town, A Mysterious Visitor

【Year Forty-Nine, age seventy-three.】

【You returned to Firewood Gate and instructed Ma Bang to expand the sect and recruit more ordinary people to handle administrative affairs.】

【Soon afterward, Firewood Gate officially became a direct subsidiary of the Qiufeng Sect and took over all the territory formerly controlled by the Ironblood Sect.】

【As for how to govern and develop it from there, that was left to the people of Firewood Gate to worry about.】

【You settled down in Firewood Town and continued comprehending divine abilities.】

【“Divine arts really are much more powerful than ordinary spells and killing techniques.

Divine abilities even impose a rule-based suppression on ordinary techniques. No wonder that, no matter how poor a cultivation method is, once it is combined with a divine ability and becomes a divine art, it is guaranteed to be at least third-grade.

Those who possess divine abilities and those who do not truly exist on entirely different levels.

I wonder what kind of divine ability I’ll comprehend next?”】

The simulation continued.

For the next ten years, Chen Yi lived in Firewood Town, serving as Firewood Gate’s Sixth Elder.

As Firewood Gate continued to grow, it developed an inner-sect and outer-sect system, and there was no longer anything that required him to handle personally.

All he needed to do was use his more advanced ideas to guide Firewood Gate’s development.

Although Chen Yi kept a low profile and rarely appeared in public, his prestige among the members of Firewood Gate was far and away the highest.

Ma Bang had proposed more than once that Chen Yi become the sect master. Chen Yi could simply have acted as a figurehead while leaving all the miscellaneous affairs to Ma Bang.

But Chen Yi still refused.

To Chen Yi, reputation and titles were nothing more than illusory bubbles. Only strength truly mattered to him.

Although the area around Firewood Town had suffered from the Ironblood Sect’s devastation, Firewood Town once again flourished after the people of Firewood Gate called the residents back.

Ten years passed, and a new generation came of age.

Firewood Town and the surrounding villages once again became densely populated, lively, and prosperous.

With the expansion of its territory, Firewood Gate’s development accelerated several times over.

Now, in the surrounding region, this human sect’s humane administration and philosophy of shared prosperity had attracted many humans to migrate there.

It had also drawn the attention of several small and medium-sized forces.

Everyone suddenly realized: Could a force really develop this quickly without exploiting and oppressing people?

—In truth, the ones being exploited were the alien bandits and brigands they had captured. They were undergoing forced labor reform in the mines.

With the Qiufeng Sect backing them, Firewood Gate had not encountered any major trouble over the years.

But the Qiufeng Sect was an alien sect as well.

After years of Chen Yi’s political education, everyone in Firewood Gate understood one thing clearly: they must never harbor illusions about the alien races. Only their own strength was the true guarantee.

Thus, as long as a sect member had the potential to cultivate, they had never slacked off in their training over the years. Each one worked harder than the last.

Their cultivation levels soared as if they were riding rockets.

This was also partly because their cultivation resources had become more abundant.

In the past, they had trained through sheer effort because they lacked resources. Their breakthroughs had been slow, but that process had laid a solid foundation. Now, they were finally reaping the rewards.

Over the past ten years, Chen Yi had devoted himself to comprehending divine abilities.

Comprehending a second divine ability was far more difficult than the first.

Shen Yifeng told Chen Yi that this was normal.

The more divine abilities one mastered, the harder it became to comprehend new ones.

Unfortunately, in the face of his “Mortal Bone,” every difficulty was reduced tenfold.

Thus, Chen Yi spent six years comprehending his second divine ability.

Divine Movement: Walk as swiftly as flying, far surpassing ordinary people; capable of traveling a thousand li in a day.

Chen Yi had originally wanted to comprehend Wind Riding so that he could fly freely once more.

But as he worked on it, he somehow veered off course.

Since he had already gone astray, he decided to go with it and comprehend Divine Movement instead.

It was clear that the two divine abilities shared certain similarities, which was why he had ended up veering in the wrong direction.

Afterward, while Chen Yi was racking his brain for ways to make use of Divine Movement and had yet to come up with many ideas, he equipped his Advanced Spiritual Root once more to improve his cultivation.

However, Chen Yi discovered that even with the boost from “Become Stronger Just by Breathing!”, the rate at which his cultivation advanced had slowed significantly after his true realm entered the Core Formation Realm.

Even without asking Shen Yifeng, Chen Yi could guess the reason: his Immortal Root had begun to exert its influence.

With insufficient Immortal Root quality, he had to improve the quality of his external environment.

Ultimately, Radiant Star was only a second-tier star. Its immortal qi could be described as nothing more than “meager,” worlds apart from that of a first-tier star.

There were only a handful of Heaven-Ascending Realm cultivators on the entire planet.

Anyone capable of cultivating to the Heaven-Ascending Realm on a second-tier star naturally possessed a fairly high-quality Immortal Root.

Moreover, most of them had channels through which they could travel to first-tier stars.

Whenever they encountered a cultivation bottleneck, they would go to a first-tier star and enter seclusion. Once they broke through, they would return.

Why not remain on a first-tier star?

Naturally, many prodigies were drawn to first-tier stars, and even to special-tier stars.

But there were also those who chose to remain on second-tier stars.

A first-tier star meant fiercer competition.

It was simply a matter of choosing different ecological niches for oneself.

Take the masters of the three great sects, for example. Here, they could serve as sect masters, command immense influence across an entire planet, and wield supreme authority.

If they went to a first-tier star, they would probably only be able to work for a major force.

Seeing that his cultivation could not advance very quickly even with his Advanced Spiritual Root in the environment of a second-tier star, Chen Yi, outside the simulation, simply switched back to his Low-Grade Spiritual Root and Mortal Bone, allowing his simulated self to continue comprehending divine abilities and divine arts.

【Year Fifty-Nine, age eighty-three.】

【Night.】

【Firewood Town, in the old courtyard of Firewood Gate.】

【You sat atop the tree canopy, gazing up at the stars scattered across the sky.】

【“My life is destined to carry me toward the sea of stars, in pursuit of ever-higher realms…”】

【You knew that the day when you would bid farewell to your brothers and sisters at Firewood Gate was drawing near.】

【Comprehending divine abilities would take longer and longer.】

【You could not spend your entire life on this. Your cultivation still had to improve.】

【Thus, you were planning to head to a first-tier star.】

【But there was no need to hurry. After all, now that you had a longer lifespan, you could make long-term plans.】

【Yet you also knew that this was merely an excuse you were making for yourself. To some extent, you were reluctant to part with these lovely people from Firewood Gate.】

【They had now become genuinely wealthy, yet they still lived simple, frugal lives. Even the sect’s headquarters remained this old courtyard; they had merely renovated a few buildings that were too dilapidated.】

【Suddenly, your entire field of vision turned yellow.】

【This was the warning from the “Signal Light,” indicating that danger might be present nearby, though it was still impossible to determine whether it was targeting you.】

【You stood up atop the tree canopy and swept your gaze across all of Firewood Town.】

【The night was pitch-black, and everything lay shrouded in darkness.】

【“Old Wan, give me some eyes!”】

【You shook the Myriad Souls Banner and used Myriad Ghosts Go to Market.】

【One bull-headed soul after another flew in all directions.】

【Whatever they saw and heard, you could see and hear as well.】

【There was nothing unusual in the town or its surroundings.】

【However, there was a stranger in Firewood Gate’s cellar.】

【This person was gravely wounded, barely clinging to life, and covered in blood. In his arms, he held a sleeping toddler of two or three years old.】

【Using your Qi-Sensing ability, you judged that this person was probably at the Extreme Realm!】

【You furrowed your brows slightly.】

【It was extremely difficult for humans on Radiant Star to cultivate to the Extreme Realm. This person had most likely come from another planet.】

【You saw Ma Bang and Shen Yifeng in the cellar as well.】

【It seemed that the two of them had no intention of telling you that an outsider had arrived.】

“Let me hear what you’re talking about…”