Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Finding the true form of the Ghostly Demon Lord on such a vast continent is no easy task. If its true form were located on this continent, it would be relatively easier to find, because the Ghostly Demon Lord's true form is enormous, reaching heights of thousands of meters, making the search much easier.

However, barring any unforeseen circumstances, its true form is located within the Gate of Life and Death. One must enter the Gate of Life and Death to reach the other side of the Reverse River before having a chance to capture its true form. And such a wondrous object as the Gate of Life and Death is much easier to conceal. At this moment, it's inconvenient for Lanno to conduct a large-scale search. Making too much noise would expose his location, essentially giving the enemy an opportunity to ambush him. Being in the dark while he is in the light is clearly a very disadvantageous situation.

The only option is to use reconnaissance tactics to search inch by inch, pinpointing the possible hiding places. Even if the enemy has hostages, capturing them means you've gained another card to play.

Meanwhile, in the soul world, time moves much faster than in the outside world. This technology is also borrowed from the Republic of Mountains and Rivers. By combining two parallel acceleration methods—dream acceleration and time acceleration—a true one-day reality can be equivalent to a year in a dream, or even more exaggerated time ratios.

The time flow ratio between dreams and reality can easily reach 1:10 or even faster. The Immortal Aperture itself has an advantage in time flow speed. It wouldn't be difficult to create a server specifically designed to store spiritual will, thereby saving time.

Therefore, at this very moment, those who have spent a longer time in the soul world have already experienced several years or even decades. Some have already completed their first leg of their journey through time.

Take Xu Duo, for example. He eventually ascended the throne. Afterward, he found a reasonable way to travel to other worlds. In fact, it was the prelude designed by the Ghostly Demon Lord within the system that started running automatically, arranging the plot for him.

In the world of martial arts, even if one becomes an emperor and masters the most powerful martial arts manual in the land, their lifespan is at most only around a hundred years. After conquering the Central Plains through sheer force, Xu Duo was already quite old. And the desire to survive is undoubtedly the most fundamental need deep within everyone's heart.

Feeling his body aging, even someone with immense power would eventually fear death. So, like countless emperors throughout history, he searched for the elixir of immortality, seeking a way to live forever.

Under his rule, the dynasty passed year by year, gradually quelling the unrest on the frontiers with its superior weaponry. Although it wasn't entirely orthodox due to numerous mistakes, it ultimately prevailed over its opponents through technological superiority.

The entire nation mobilized to explore the secrets of immortality, even going so far as to excavate ancient tombs in search of clues about immortals.

Generally speaking, a normal emperor wouldn't think of digging up information about immortality from tombs. After all, the person was already dead, which meant that the attempt to achieve immortality had failed.

However, people from different worlds have different perspectives. Xu Duo, as a native of the Gu Realm, was culturally influenced by that world. Although he had never actually seen immortals or high-level powerhouses, he had been exposed to many through cultural and entertainment works. He also gained a partial understanding of how those powerful individuals obtained their inheritances and opportunities.

Exploring the secret realms, tombs, and ruins of our predecessors has always been a popular way to encounter unexpected adventures in literature and entertainment.

Xu Duo followed suit, without considering the rationality of his actions, and chose to excavate various ancient tombs in an attempt to find the secret to longevity.

If history had unfolded normally, he would not have succeeded. In Jin Yong's martial arts world, there is virtually no truly achievable method for achieving immortality.

But this world of souls is nothing more than a piece of code. As long as its creator wants it, even the most outrageous plot can be realized.

During the excavation of the ancient tomb, they unexpectedly discovered burial remains that appeared to be those left by immortals or other civilizations. Excited, Xu Duo personally led a team to attempt to unravel its secrets. After overcoming numerous hardships, they finally found a unique bronze door at the heart of the tomb complex. According to the inscriptions within the tomb, the door required a long charging time. Once fully charged, the first person to touch the door would have their consciousness extracted and transported to a consciousness vessel in an unknown world.

In short, this person can travel through time. There's no way to verify this, and according to records, it takes decades to recharge. If someone else were to try this, they would probably be dead by the time they could travel again.

"It's too early to try now. The political situation is stable now, and I don't need to worry about anyone usurping my throne. I can enjoy this wealth and glory for a few more years. I'll try it myself when I'm really old. At that time, it's just death. If I live to that age, even if I really die, it won't be a loss."

With this in mind, he remained in this world. However, he also began preparing for his next journey through time. Now that it was certain, the next challenge would most likely be soul transmigration. Having already experienced one transmigration, even if he wasn't some extraordinary hero, he had learned to summarize his experience and knew what would be most useful during soul transmigration.

Without a doubt, knowledge and experience are the most useful things when one's soul is transported. Nothing else can be taken with you. Therefore, during his years in power, he tried his best to learn various industrial knowledge, with relatively less focus on chemistry and biology, because the different rules of the world meant that these technologies might not be feasible. Or even if they were, the paths and principles would be different.

The focus was placed on mathematics and physics, especially classical physics and basic mechanical structures. These are the things that are easiest to apply universally.

Even if the rules of this new world are different and materials science is vastly different, the fundamental mechanical structure of a lathe will not change significantly. The shape of the rotating and cutting tools will also remain largely the same despite the change in materials.

Unless he transmigrated to a bizarre world where even mathematical principles were completely different, this knowledge would generally remain intact. Besides, he had also collected all sorts of martial arts techniques from across the land. For an emperor, collecting such things was incredibly easy. Martial arts sects in this world were at best equivalent to slightly more sophisticated gangs. Compared to the real government, these dynamic social groups were far inferior. Whether through coercion or bribery, there was always a way to obtain those precious martial arts manuals.

In the latter half of his life, he devoted the vast majority of his energy to learning these martial arts manuals. He focused on mastering the techniques, specifically fighting skills that did not rely on internal energy, such as movement techniques and hidden weapon skills.

Having compared his original world with this martial arts world, he clearly understood that things like internal energy or true essence were unreliable. Not every world possessed them, but fighting techniques based on human anatomy and the power generation methods relying on the distribution of joints and muscles were often universal. At least, as long as the vessel he transmigrated into was a human, these techniques were applicable. If he wasn't even human, then all the preparations beforehand would be useless.

Thanks to these preparations, he actually lived to be over ninety years old through cultivation, during which time he was in a state of high acceleration in the soul world. He thought he had lived for many years, but in reality, it was only a fleeting moment.

When he finally felt himself growing old and nearing his end, he made up his mind to go to the ancient tomb he had previously discovered and placed his palm on the bronze door.

With a moment of disorientation, he found himself in a completely different world. He found himself in an era that, while technologically not advanced, was far superior to ancient times. To his delight, this time he was a child. This meant he had ample time to squander; even if he accomplished nothing, at least he had gained another life.

The shouts of battle outside the door quickly made him realize that something was wrong. When he rushed outside to see what was happening, he saw a giant orange fox with nine tails wreaking havoc in the town not far away.

A group of extraordinary people were struggling against the giant fox. Some wielded thick sticks and briefly subdued the fox, but only for a moment before being knocked away. The attacks from the others, which Xu Duo, who had just been immersed in a martial arts world, found incredibly powerful, felt like mere tickles to the giant fox.

"This behemoth is incredibly powerful. If I hadn't transmigrated, it would probably be comparable to a legendary wild beast. Even weaker immortals might not be able to defeat it. It seems I have to be extremely careful in this world. Ordinary machine guns and cannons are simply not enough to protect my safety."

Just as he was thinking this, he saw someone wearing a green vest running towards him at high speed. Although his muscle memory hadn't disappeared, and his numerous fighting techniques gave him considerable combat power—three or four ordinary adults might not be a match for him—his body was ultimately too damaged. Faced with a professional fighter, he was helplessly grabbed and carried under the arm of the other man. However, seeing that the other man was leading him away from the giant beast, he only struggled slightly before giving up. It turned out that the guy in the green vest was responsible for evacuating ordinary people away from the battlefield.

He only learned this after he settled down a bit. The rampaging monster was called the Nine-Tails, one of the nine tailed beasts in the world. After making some inquiries, he learned that the masters of this world were called ninjas, and they cultivated a power called chakra, which looked very similar to internal energy and true essence.

The chaos of that night eventually subsided. As an ordinary child, there was nothing he could do, but after that day, he resolutely chose to become a ninja, to gain the power to protect himself in this world. With the experience of the previous world, he was already adept at acquiring power, and the village he was currently in was very attentive to the education of the younger generation, so conventional training knowledge was not difficult to obtain.

With his outstanding physical skills and some martial arts manuals that relied on chakra for maximum effectiveness, he quickly became a genius ninja among his peers. His mastery of hidden weapons and machinery reached a level that many adult ninjas could not match.

Xu Duo felt that if he continued to cultivate in this way, he would always have the opportunity to replicate his deeds in the previous world in this world: to cultivate and become stronger, then accumulate capital, then gather a large number of people as his subordinates, and finally unify the world with a powerful army.

The idea is good, but without knowing the plot, trying to become stronger through conventional training is just wishful thinking. Even if he has some background in the martial arts world and can become a special Jonin at a young age by using movement techniques like Lingbo Weibu and sword techniques like Dugu Nine Swords that are known for their mystery and don't rely much on internal energy, in this world, if he doesn't rely on acquiring a powerful bloodline and doesn't have a strong bloodline limit, his strength will at most be able to barely touch the threshold of Kage level through his own efforts.

Xu Duo, unaware of this, clearly didn't realize that no matter how hard he tried on the conventional path, he would be as fragile as an ant in the face of the great bosses who would emerge in the future.

In this world, a Six Paths level expert wouldn't be considered weak even in the Gu Realm. In terms of destructive power alone, they're basically on par with a Seventh Rank Gu Master, although their abilities are less bizarre and diverse. However, there's already a significant gap between them and the Shadow level.

And so... after cultivating for many years, Xu Duo faced a strange man whom he was no match for.

The other party had strange black rods stuck in their face, and they had five helpers with them. There was no one in the village who could defeat them. It seemed that the six of them combined were even stronger than the previous nine-tailed fox.

Xu Duo wasn't brainwashed by the so-called Will of Fire. Seeing that the village couldn't withstand the attack, his first thought was to escape. However, he was caught red-handed. Seemingly believing him to be too strong, they wouldn't let him go. Left with no other choice, he could only use both Lingbo Weibu and Babu Ganchan simultaneously to try and increase his speed to escape. This speed was already incredibly fast, but unfortunately, his opponent possessed the ability to control gravity, leaving him nowhere to land and rendering him unable to use his abilities.

It seemed they were forced to engage in a deadly battle with those six extremely powerful beings.

[To be continued]

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