Gu Changyuan's New Plan

Upon hearing these words, a flicker of surprise stirred within Gu Changyuan.

Could it be that Xing Zixu had foreseen even this? No wonder he had once requested that Gu lend a hand should the Xing Clan ever fall into peril.

Seeing Gu Changyuan lost in thought rather than outright refusing, Xing Wuzhan seized the moment, his tone growing increasingly earnest:

“Senior, I can clearly sense that stellar energy is quietly flowing within you as well, and you have clearly been cultivating it for no short time. Your understanding of the Great Dao of the Stars must also be considerable.”

His words were diplomatic.

In truth, he could not perceive the depths of Gu Changyuan’s mastery of the Stellar Way at all.

“Not only that, to be honest, I am utterly unable to see through your true strength in the slightest.

I can faintly sense that your cultivation has long surpassed the Immortal Emperor realm—unfathomably deep.

I know you must have also descended from the celestial realm, perhaps for some design or action, stepping into this lower realm.”

Xing Wuzhan continued, his face the very picture of sincerity.

“Ancestor Xing Zixu was willing to entrust the ancestral token to you, and surely this implies a wish for you to take his place.

Therefore, if the position of Ancestor would not burden you nor interfere with your plans,

I humbly beg you to accept my request and become the new Ancestor of the Xing Clan.”

Gu Changyuan listened to Xing Wuzhan’s words and sank into deep contemplation, his mind swiftly piecing together the whole situation.

Xing Wuzhan was right: he did indeed possess stellar energy, and he had comprehended the Great Dao of the Stars.

But the time he had spent cultivating the Stellar Way was absurdly short—at most, two days, if he counted it fully.

It had only been after Gu Xing’er awakened the Chaotic Stellar Physique and became his disciple that he caught the pure aura of the Stellar Way from the cultivation energy she reflected back to him, sparking his curiosity to study it.

So over these two days, he had placed himself directly within a temporal domain, delving into the Stellar Way night and day, without rest.

A century ago, after he had buried Xing Zixu, he had claimed all of that legendary figure’s legacy—including those stellar secret arts—and stored them in his dimensional vault.

Over these two days, he had been constantly reading and studying those secret arts.

His comprehension was naturally superb, and compounded by the slowed flow of time within the temporal domain,

his mastery of the Stellar Way had essentially reached the level of the Xing Clan’s seven elders.

After all, Xing Yan and his six counterparts cultivated stellar techniques and secret arts that had been modified by the clan’s ancestors.

Though such modifications made them more suitable for the seven to cultivate, they also stripped away the most original essence.

By contrast, the secret arts left behind by Xing Zixu were the most original and purest versions, unaltered.

Though these arts seemed abstruse and difficult for cultivators like Xing Yan and the others,

to Gu Changyuan, they were as easy to comprehend as reaching into his own pocket.

As for why Xing Wuzhan could not see through Gu Changyuan’s cultivation level—it was not because Gu’s power truly surpassed the Immortal Emperor realm.

Rather, it was due to a heaven-defying secret art he had obtained in the Ruins of Chaos.

This art could forcibly veil his own cultivation fluctuations, preventing any cultivator from prying into his true state.

No matter how strong the opponent, all they could sense was the aura of an unfathomable depth, but they could never discover his actual cultivation level.

In a perilous place like the Ruins of Chaos, revealing one’s true cultivation would only invite countless covetous eyes and pursuits, bringing nothing but unnecessary trouble.

On the other hand, projecting an aura of unfathomable power would cause those lacking confidence and strength to shrink back, daring not provoke him.

As for himself, he was still uncertain whether his strength truly surpassed that of a Celestial Emperor.

Back in the Chaos Ruins, the reason he had been able to defeat a Celestial Emperor was not primarily due to his own cultivation base, but to the boundless spiritual energy available there.

Next, there were those heaven-defying battle techniques and secret arts. Those techniques and arts were infinitely powerful but required an enormous amount of spiritual energy to activate—an expense that ordinary cultivators in the Chaos Ruins simply could not sustain.

Even if they could sustain it, they could only wield one or two of them.

But Gu Changyuan happened to possess an inexhaustible supply of spiritual energy, allowing him to drive these secret arts without restraint. This enabled him to kill enemies at higher cultivation levels, even leaping across multiple realms.

Meanwhile, those Celestial Emperors had to constantly conserve their own spiritual energy while fighting, leaving them constrained and naturally unable to match him.

Now things were different. He had returned to the Nine Heavens Realm, no longer trapped in the Chaos Ruins—a place of spiritual scarcity and constant danger.

The Celestial Emperor-level experts here no longer suffered from a lack of spiritual energy, so they could fight more recklessly without concern.

However, Gu Changyuan was not without confidence. He had been back in the Nine Heavens Realm for three years now. Over these three years, the strength of all disciples under the three major factions had undergone a qualitative leap.

He had improved the Spirit Gathering Arrays in the sects, increasing the spiritual energy density several times over.

On top of that, the vast resources he handed out freely meant that disciples who completed the same sect missions received far better rewards than before. Their cultivation speed had increased significantly.

In particular, the thirty chief disciples under his command had all advanced one sub-realm after absorbing the sacred bones he had distributed. For semi-immortals, a single sub-realm improvement was equivalent to a full major realm boost for over a dozen Dao Attainment cultivators combined.

The eight city lords of the Outer Domain had also joined his cultivation feedback system in the second year, adding another boost to his own power.

As of now, Gu Changyuan’s true cultivation level had reached over 10,000 stages of the Dao Attainment realm.

He felt that with his current strength, even an Immortal Lord should be something he could handle with ease.

And the reason he could still maintain such a heaven-defying combat capability in the Nine Heavens Realm was all thanks to the system.

A single attack he launched might possess enough power to annihilate an Immortal Lord.

But according to the rules of the Nine Heavens Realm, the essence of such an attack was actually a combined strike from over 10,000 Dao Attainment cultivators.

Thus, it was judged as a Dao Attainment-level attack and did not trigger a rule-based reaction.

Yet it was fundamentally different from an ordinary combined attack by Dao Attainment cultivators.

If twenty-odd thousand Dao Attainment cultivators attacked together as normal, their force would inevitably clash and scatter, resulting in severely diminished power.

But Gu Changyuan’s attack, though also over 20,000-stages strong, had all its forces harmonized and reinforcing each other, achieving maximum damage output.

Gu Changyuan calculated in his mind. His current strength had already reached an absurd level.

Give him another hundred years, and he could increase the number of Dao Attainment cultivators under his rule.

Once the Immortal Path was opened and more disciples ascended to immortality, his power would surely soar by leaps and bounds.

By then, even facing a Celestial Emperor, he would have the means to contend.

For now, though, the top priority was not only to enhance the strength of his disciples but also to continue exploring new ways to elevate his own power.

Opening additional elder positions outside the sacred lands had already proven to provide cultivation feedback.

Previously, he had established extra elder appointments beyond the Heavenly Man Sacred Land to recruit powerful cultivators to join him.

It has already been confirmed that this method can bring him cultivation feedback.

Since this model was viable, he decided to expand it, delving deeper into the entire system to further unlock the potential of cultivation feedback.