Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 100 Minor Cultivators

Hubble Space Telescope Observatory.

"Did you catch it? Where did it go?"

“Here! He’s flying in a straight line,” the Hubble 2 telescope operator said nervously, pointing to the high-resolution display screen.

General Fitzroy and Dr. Ringer stared intently at the screen. Behind them were journalists from various countries, the US president and NATO commander-in-chief who had rushed to the scene, and the PIA director.

Where did they go?

"It has already passed Mars' orbit!"

"What is the speed?"

"It's climbing!"

What is the acceleration?

"The acceleration rate is 822 meters per second."

“That doesn’t sound like much,” the US president said calmly.

“Your math grades must not be very good. At this acceleration, Luo Qing can increase his speed from Mach 120 to 1% of the speed of light in one hour!” Dr. Lin said in a low voice.

"So what is his current speed?" the NATO Supreme Commander asked.

"The hour has just passed, and Luo Qing's speed is 1% of the speed of light, the same speed as the Trisolaran fleet and the Stairway Project spacecraft!"

Everyone present was shocked.

"It's not that his speed is only Mach 120..."

“That’s inside the atmosphere, and who knows if he’s hiding his strength?” Dr. Ling interrupted his president’s questioning without hesitation.

Thomas Weld, the director of the PIA, asked him, "Are we on the right track?"

Which one are you referring to?

"The universe is so vast, and the Trisolaran planet is harder to find than the eye of a pin. Is Luo Qing's direction correct?"

“Good question, let me calculate it in a moment.” Dr. Ling quickly obtained the data, and his expression soon became quite varied: “The direction has deviated by a very small angle… Oh no, it really veered off course!”

An expert from the Luo Qing Research Institute said, "Luo Qing has radar-like abilities, which he calls 'spiritual awareness' or 'divine thought.' According to calculations, the coverage range of his 'divine thought' should be within 3,000 kilometers, which is not enough to cover North America, let alone on a cosmic scale. In other words, without human guidance, the probability of him deviating from his course by relying solely on divine thought for navigation is too high."

"Can't we find a way to bring him back? Even if we're really going to cause trouble for the Trisolarans, we should at least bring a GPS!" the US president shouted.

“No, use the laser to guide him in the right direction,” Wade said calmly. “Let him keep going!”

What if we can't win?

"Mr. President, you overestimate the Trisolarans. They are carbon-based life forms. If you strip away their technological protection, they will also be killed by the sun, by a knife, or by a rock."

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Ling interrupted the Director and the President’s argument, “it sounds like we could shout and he would hear us. How are we supposed to contact him? Our spaceship is still a dead egg. Send electromagnetic waves? I don’t think he can decipher the information contained in electromagnetic waves.”

General Fitzroy, looking at the figures moving around in the Hubble 2 telescope, said with a headache, "Is the Wallfacer Hines here?"

“I’m here.” Hines and his wife stepped forward, and the people in the middle immediately made way for them.

"What exactly did you do?" General Fitzroy asked angrily.

“I don’t know,” Hines said guiltily. “He rushed out shouting things like ‘Sect Master,’ ‘Human Emperor,’ ‘Great Ascension Stage’ and so on.”

Keiko Yamasugi gripped Hines's clothes tightly in fear.

"This wasn't part of your plan, was it?"

“Absolutely not,” Hines swore.

"Alright, don't make things difficult for Dr. Hines. He's a Wallfacer too. This is obviously an unexpected situation. Didn't Dr. Linger just say he wanted to send electromagnetic waves? Try it. Electromagnetic waves, space lasers, anything that can catch up with Luo Qing, try it all," said the NATO Supreme Commander.

After everyone was completely busy with this sudden event, Dr. Ling found the PIA director.

"Director Wade, does your department have a backup plan for the tiered system?"

“Yes,” Wade said. “Prepare a Stairway Project spacecraft. Ten years have passed; we should be able to increase the speed of the Stairway Project spacecraft from 1% of the speed of light to 1.1% or faster. Put a solar-powered electromagnetic wave receiver inside and figure out a way to make it able to make phone calls!”

"Won't his speed increase any further?"

"It seems he's hit a bottleneck for now. His speed has stabilized at 1% of the speed of light. We have to find a way to bring him back, or he'll really be lost in the vast universe."

...

After 72 hours.

On the Hubble 2 telescope's display screen, the outline of the light spot gradually emerged: a human figure radiating a mother-of-pearl luster—that was Luo Qing.

His body was enveloped in energy streams similar to coronal mass ejections, and whenever he accelerated, he left a trail of afterimages several light-seconds long behind him, like a fleeting chain.

In the past, this high-speed flight at 1% of the speed of light had lasted for 72 hours. Under the tense gaze of the observers, the rate bar chart analyzed in real time by the computer finally began to decline.

"Luo Qing has slowed down!" the observer shouted excitedly.

"Keep your voice down, we can all see it. Neither laser interference nor electromagnetic wave transmission has any effect. It seems that the big red spot stopped him."

After Dr. Ling finished speaking, everyone looked at the screen. Beyond that tiny person, a crimson giant eye was placed in orbit in the middle of the solar system. A gas giant planet, thousands of times larger than Earth, was circulating its cloud bands, and small satellites occasionally drifted by around it.

"Fortunately, Jupiter was there to block him." General Fitzroy felt a heavy weight lifted off his shoulders.

...

"This thing... looks familiar."

Looking at Jupiter in front of him, Luo Qing's intuition told him that this was not the Trisolaran system.

That iconic big red spot is something that everyone on Earth can recognize.

Luo Qing's 'Nascent Soul' level spiritual consciousness easily broke through the three thousand kilometers limit and expanded at the speed of light until it finally stopped when it expanded into a sphere of one million kilometers.

The divine thought, spanning a million kilometers, completely immersed Jupiter and its near-Jupiter orbit within it.

The structure of Jupiter was revealed layer by layer by spiritual perception: a heavy element core, a metallic hydrogen layer, a liquid hydrogen layer, an atmosphere, and a small satellite belt composed of 94 satellites.

Jupiter is a gas giant in our solar system.

Luo Qing got the answer.

A divine sense strength on the order of millions of kilometers, and a speed of 1% of the speed of light—this is very strong, far beyond the range of strength expected of someone in the 'Nascent Soul stage'.

However, it is still far from the Mahayana period recorded in historical texts...

"What's going on? Aren't I a Mahayana practitioner? How come I haven't even left the solar system after flying for three days?"

"As the sect leader of the Dao Sect and the Human Emperor of the Nine Provinces, I can't do this..."

"Wait, this is the universe, where did this Kyushu come from?"

"But I am indeed the Human Emperor..."

"Wait, when did I become the Human Emperor?"

“My identity as the sect leader… is also not right.”

"If I am the sect leader of the Dao Sect, then who is Bai Hongtu?"

"Wait, am I really a Mahayana stage cultivator?" Luo Qing looked inward with his spiritual sense and saw a tiny Nascent Soul figure, its entire body radiating golden light, coldly laughing at his true form.

Oh shit.

Luo Qing finally realized what was happening. He focused his mind and broke free from the shackles of the 'thought imprint'.

"..."

Looking at the vast universe and Jupiter so close at hand, Luo Qing remained silent for a very long time.

"This is so embarrassing..."

(End of this chapter)