Black Wind, we are brothers

“Hide the Five Elements Root Artifacts?”

Chen Yi had originally planned to carry the Five Elements Root Artifacts with him. Once the simulation began, he would spend several decades lying low in the Human Realm and wait for the fish to take the bait. If the Black Hand made a move again, just as it had in the previous simulation, he would be able to find out who it was.

However, doing this might not necessarily lure out the Black Hand, since Chen Yi himself was quite intimidating.

Moreover, it would delay the simulation’s progress, causing many of the paths already traversed during the sixth simulation to diverge drastically simply because events would occur at different times.

That would make it impossible to speedrun the second playthrough.

“Hiding them is an idea worth trying. I can also make a trip to the Dragonfolk Realm and give the dragonfolk a little taste of the shock that comes from a mighty figure of the Real Realm!”

In the past, crossing between planes from the Void Realm had been extremely troublesome. For the vast majority of people, it had been impossible.

But now, Chen Yi had nine different ways to cross between planes.

“The mission only requires me to hide three. I already have three in hand: the Heaven-Earth Mirror, the Nine Provinces Cauldron, and the Sun-Moon Pagoda. Still, it would be best to hide the Mountains-and-Rivers Armor as well.”

If he knew where the Heaven-Earth Sword was, Chen Yi would hide it too.

Unfortunately, Chen Yi estimated that the Heaven-Earth Sword was already in the Black Hand’s possession.

The Mountains-and-Rivers Armor was still with Hua Wuyan. Chen Yi first had to go to the Southern Border to find this Humanity's Dao Protector.

Before setting out, Chen Yi adjusted his traits.

[Name: Chen Yi]

[Lifespan: 25/1000]

[Realm: Desolate Land—Mid Stage (True Realm: Desolate Land—Early Stage)]

[Arts:

—Qi Refinement: Threefold Flame Body-Tempering Profound Art (Third Grade, Mastery Beyond Perfection)

—Body Refinement: Vermilion Bird Flame Scripture (Fifth Grade, Returning to Simplicity), omitted

—Soul Refinement: Myriad Dragons Divine Art (Fifth Grade, Returning to Simplicity), omitted

—Spell: Divine Weapon Revelation (Fourth Grade, Peak Mastery), omitted

—Killing Move: Astral River Divine Art (Fifth Grade, Peak Mastery), omitted

—Divine Abilities: Bear the Mountain, Divine Movement, Ride the Wind, Heavens within a Pot, Budding Premonition;

—Divine Arts: Lightspeed Punch (Third Grade, Peak Mastery), Quantum Ghoststep (Third Grade, Peak Mastery), Traffic Light (Third Grade, Mastery Beyond Perfection), omitted]

[Equipped Traits (33/33):

Prismatic—Mastery, Simulator, Enhancement!, Calamity of the Myriad Races, Simulated Clone, Infinite White Porridge, Eavesdropping on Inner Thoughts

Gold—The Myriad Races’ Strictest Father, Trait Slingshot, Materialist Warrior, Advanced Innate Constitution, Eternal Half-Emperor, Heart of Steel, Chinese Incubus, Aura of Leadership, Civil War Specialist, Super Saiyan, Wolverine, What Are Divine Runes?, Dragonfolk Bane, Get Stronger Just by Breathing!

Purple—Short-Tempered Constitution, Kylin Arm, Unforgettable Memory, I’ve Studied Everything but Mastered Nothing, Hulk, Reverse Engineering, Barrier-Free Communication, Myriad Races’ Aura, Treasure-Seeking Nose, Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger

Green—A Serious Punch, Human Scanner]

[Acquired Traits (597): Venom [Gold], Mortal Bone [Gold], omitted]

[Current Trait Draw Probabilities by Quality:]

[White—Common: 15%; Green—Rare: 39%; Purple—Epic: 35%; Gold—Legendary: 10%; Prismatic—Mythical: 1%]

After watching simulations all night, Chen Yi would have needed to rest and relax a little in the past.

But now, with cultivation at the Desolate Land Realm, he was practically a god in the Void Realm, where the laws of heaven and earth were much weaker.

He could basically remain energetic and physically vigorous without sleeping, eating, or even answering nature’s call, like a nuclear-powered donkey.

It wasn’t that Chen Yi could no longer become tired or hungry. It was just that the energy required to maintain his life was like a tiny stream compared to the vast ocean of divine power flowing through his body.

In the Real Realm, that “tiny stream” became a great river, which was why cultivators at his level still had to eat, drink, and answer nature’s call while there.

The sky had already brightened.

Within Whitecloud County, people heading to the market were hawking their wares and calling out from the streets and alleys.

The servants of the Chen Residence were preparing breakfast for Master Chen Yi and beginning the day’s cleaning.

Looking at the guards in the residence, Chen Yi felt that he ought to dismiss them.

Why would a god need guards?

Who was protecting whom?

However, considering that working for him allowed them to support their families, he abandoned the thought.

Besides, he was not short of money.

If he ran out, he could simply visit a wealthy landlord nearby and ask him to make a donation.

When Black Wind saw that Chen Yi was about to leave, he followed from behind.

“Black Wind, stay home. You don’t need to come with me.”

“If the boss is going on a long journey, why not let Black Cloth carry you? It’ll make things easier.”

Chen Yi patted Black Wind’s glossy, jet-black mane.

“Black Wind, unless it’s a special situation, you won’t be my mount anymore. We’re brothers from now on.”

“Boss…”

“Besides, I can fly faster now. If you carried me, I’d only find you too slow.”

With that, Chen Yi became completely motionless.

It wasn’t that he had stopped moving. He was simply flying so fast that the afterimage he left behind seemed unnaturally real.

Black Wind sighed in amazement.

“The boss seems to have become even more powerful. Every time he sits there spacing out for an entire night, he becomes many times stronger than before. He truly is a divine being…”

…

High in the sky, above the clouds.

“Boom!!!”

That was the sound of Chen Yi flying. He was moving so fast that the air itself was being blasted apart.

The trail stretching tens of thousands of meters behind Chen Yi was neither white mist nor a streak of light, but spatial rifts.

These spatial rifts were not caused by the energy of his flight crushing the surrounding space. His physical body was simply moving so fast that it forcibly sliced space open.

Fortunately, the Five Elements Root Artifacts of the Human Realm were still functioning normally, and the world still possessed the ability to repair itself.

Not long after Chen Yi passed, the spatial rifts healed on their own.

However, a squad of soldiers from the Shen Family’s Astral Martial Corps patrolling the starfield happened to glance down through the empty-space barrier. When they witnessed the scene, they were stunned.

“Holy crap! Look! There’s someone flying down there!”

“Hah, what’s so surprising about someone flying? Our Shen Family has plenty of Martial Kings!”

“No, look at how fast he’s going! He’s slicing space open! I’ve never seen anyone fly that fast!”

“Now that you mention it… The last time the Heaven-Earth Mirror caused a commotion in the starfield, I saw it slice space open in the same way while flying.”

After discussing it among themselves, the soldiers suspected that the thing which had just shot past—so quickly that they could not even tell whether it was human or ghost—might have something to do with the Heaven-Earth Mirror.

These low-ranking soldiers did not know much about matters at the upper levels. In their excitement, they hurried off to report what they had seen, thinking that if they had delivered some important intelligence, they might even earn merit.

Although Chen Yi had already flown far away, everything along his route still remained within the range of his divine sense.

That included the conversation and reactions of those Astral Martial Corps soldiers just now.

“My divine sense can already cover most of the Human Realm!”

Not only was the range far greater, but the precision of his perception was astonishing as well.

Every movement of the wind, every flutter of a butterfly’s wings, and every detail deep beneath the ground—all of it was laid bare before him.

The processing speed of his mind was so far beyond what it had been in the Real Realm that he practically seemed like a different species!

“So this is what a dimensionality-reduction attack feels like.”

With the cultivation realm of the Real Realm in hand, even revealing the slightest trace of it in the Void Realm brought him limitless benefits.

“Still, I haven’t seen any sign of the Heaven-Earth Sword…”

During the sixth simulation, the Nine Provinces Cauldron had even fought the Heaven-Earth Sword.

That meant the Heaven-Earth Sword still existed at this point in time, at the very least. It had not been destroyed.

Could it be outside the Human Realm?

Where could it be hidden?

“Could it be that the Black Hand had the same thought as me and hid the Heaven and Earth Sword in another plane?”

That would make it hard to find.

There are so many planes in the Void Realm. Searching them one by one would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.