Star Gate

“Can flourishing... bring all that has withered... back to life?” Li Hao suddenly thought of this possibility. His expression turned solemn. Could all of Spring Autumn’s previously withered replicas be spontaneously brought back to their peak?!

That’s impossible!

If that’s the case, then all eight hundred thousand of her past bodies... suddenly brought back to the peak of life...

Heavens above!

Li Hao nearly choked on his own spit. Spring Autumn had been an eighth rank for at least one hundred thousand years, so she had at least one hundred thousand eighth rank bodies. Wouldn’t that make for one hundred thousand eighth ranks?!

No way. Not even the strongest ninth rank can hold out against that.

“Okay, so that’s not possible. There has to be limitations. Energy, for one. Lack of dao strength to support every replica, for another. The possibility exists, just like it does for emptiness and revitalization, but it can’t be employed infinitely...”

Li Hao could suddenly picture some of Spring Autumn’s trump cards. She must be able to spontaneously bring some of her replicas back to their peak. That was the flourishing aspect of her dao!

When she killed enemies, she typically aged them on the spot. They decayed and withered away. Had she killed many people in this way over the years and stolen their energy and dao strength, preparing it for her replicas?

Strictly speaking, they weren’t her replicas. They were her past selves!

That would make it easier to assimilate than replicas.

The more Li Hao thought about it, the more his eyes widened. If this was the truth of withering and flourishing, then... it was terrifying.

Spring Autumn likely hadn’t utilized her full strength against Five Elements. Everyone misunderstood the southern overlord’s dao to be that of time, which was a testament to her battle strength. Not even Chaos Sky might be able to withstand her.

Did she maintain the appearance of a little girl because she couldn’t grow older or... because she wished to decrease everyone’s vigilance?

“The true meaning of withering and flourishing... is not in withering, but in flourishing! If I combine it with revitalization and reincarnation...” Li Hao sank into deep thought.

He grasped all of these daos, so could he integrate them? His worlds were still mostly independent at present. Could he make use of this opportunity to fuse them all together?

Apart from the sword of time, he still lacked some killing moves when it came to the eighth ranks.

The young man looked at the minor worlds hovering in front of him. The daos of withering and flourishing, huh? I need to cultivate the dao of order next and turn all five thousand dao rules into existences of order. I need to construct real order...

He set aside studying dao for the moment. That consolidation could wait until he made some headway on the dao of order and perfected five thousand worlds. After the fifth thousand... perhaps he wouldn’t create any more worlds.

Even if he did, he might not do so within the river.

His consumption would have grown exponentially after reaching five thousand. Not to mention, he’d decided long ago to ignore the false chaos after he established it. He wanted to reorganize and complete his own dao heritage.

In that case, the future of the dao river was not something he should be concerned about. He should focus more on his own body! Everything now was just practice.

“This is all just a trial run that I can attempt at any time. Even if everything is a mess, that’s a problem for the person from the future...” Li Hao grinned when he thought of the one to come. I’m quite the outstanding person already! I’ve continuously organized the great dao and conducted all manner of experiments. I’ve more or less formed a stable system. As for more than that... what does it have to do with me?

Five thousand dao rules...

That was pretty much what that guy who walked out of the river was at, right?

His dao was an ordered one, which makes him much stronger. He’s almost eight thousand dao rules! This also means... hmm, yep, this is about the limits of what I anticipated.

“So this... is it?” Li Hao laughed with enlightenment. He’d chosen five thousand dao rules to build a dao of order and complete the infrastructure of the river of order. This wasn’t a reflection of the future person’s incompetence, but the limit of the dao rules he’d left in the false chaos.

Breaking the limit was easily said, but how was one supposed to do it when they’d never seen or heard of the limit? Were they supposed to head butt that limit?

Therefore, that person had indeed reached the end of Li Hao’s plan!

“The formation of order is the prototype of the dao rules. Time is then required for the appearance of dao spirit. The key to that lies in the supernatural characters...”

There was no need for him to worry about that. What he should focus on was, what should he do now?

There wasn’t a pressing need for action right this moment, but once he successfully established the false chaos and made it independent of himself, then he would also fully disengage from the dao of time and the current system. A lot of things would be needed for that, as did he need to make a lot of preparations.

“And another thing... large sums of powerhouses will try to stop me that day. Perhaps even Chaos Sky and the others will disapprove of my actions...”

Countless thoughts ran through his mind, yet Li Hao quickly suppressed them all. Perhaps he needed to execute some more plans before undertaking this effort. He also couldn’t put himself at the mercy of others when he was no longer part of the system of time.

Instead, he needed to break through and become even stronger!

“Life and death, emptiness and revitalization, the five elements, yin and yang, order, withering and flourishing, body dao, space and time...”

There were the premier daos of the current chaos.

For the moment, his five thousand worlds made use of whoever was available. But in the future, when it was just him, they might need to be modified to ensure that they were a good fit for his use. This needed to be done ahead of time and not hastily adjusted on a spur of the moment.

And he... might need Number Two in this,

Li Hao looked at the cat... who happened to be looking back at him.

Why does this cat suddenly have a bad feeling?

The young man then looked at the dao chess...

This was Skyward’s weapon, at the end of the day. Otherwise, it’d be a perfect idea to conduct the experiment within the dao chess. As it was, Li Hao wouldn’t feel that confident about such a decision.

It wasn’t that he was worried the dao chess might sabotage his efforts, but that the Skyward master might have ways to peer into the treasure and learn of his plans.

The worlds started to fill with energy. Li Hao made adjustments as he went along. He dismantled each of the major worlds that they’d reaped this time, unleashing the dao strength stored within. It flowed into his river, where a slightly dim star of time sat in the center.

A great deal of its power had been consumed in the previous battle. It was yet to fully recover even now.

Li Hao stared at the rotating star, his mind a million miles away.

......

At the same time, within the depths of chaos dao.

Countless statues were quiet. One of them opened their eyes after an indeterminate period of time. “Do we still have no clue when it comes to the third generation cultivator of time? Li Hao is no longer suited to wield time. Time is imperative if we wish to stabilize the great dao and consolidate spirit once and for all!

“We have a myriad of daos among us, only time eludes our grasp. I have a question, Skyward. How come even you are unable to command time? What is so profound about it?”

Whether it was the combination of great dao or nurturing of spirit, all of them were doing so. Yet why were they unable to produce time as ninth ranks?

The first generation cultivation had done so as a sixth rank!

They didn’t understand it. Were a group of ninth ranks inferior to a sixth rank? What was the core of time?

Who among the ninth ranks wasn’t integrating their daos or attempting to foster more spirit? Why... could they not produce the dao of time?

Even Skyward couldn’t do it. All his efforts amounted to the slightly weaker dao of space.

The ninth ranks had been unable to craft the core of time, and the second gen didn’t listen to them. He was even so impudent as to set himself against all of the ninth ranks!

Not even Skyward advocated giving Li Hao more breathing room now.

Li Hao wanted to create his own chaos, that was one major issue.

The second was that he wished to seize the core origin of the chaos. This was general knowledge, the young man wasn’t hiding anything.

The ninth ranks weren’t that worried about the Human King, Long Zhan’s group, or Chaos Sky’s faction. Those guys had ninth rank in their sights. If they did, they wouldn’t destroy the core origin of the chaos.

Even Order wouldn’t break the chaos.

But Li Hao... would.

The young man didn’t seem concerned about ninth rank. Instead, he was more concerned about... Well, no one knew what he had in mind. Why were some mundanes worth so much fuss and effort?

No one believed that was his true reason.

Skyward had remained quiet ever since his defeat. He finally opened his eyes at this time and furrowed his brows. “I think I might know who the third gen is. Calamity... might as well.”

“I have some speculation that... the person who appeared in Li Hao’s river of time... might be the third gen!” Calamity opened his eyes as well.

It was just...

“What I’m worried now is that the third gen stems from the little chaos that Li Hao himself creates,” continued Calamity. “That is his origin story. But therein lies the problem. If that’s the case, it will have unpredictable effects on what we want!

“Skyward...” The man hesitated. “Can we really not wield time ourselves?”

They knew too little about the third gen and none of his specifics. Granted, it might not be that person in the river. But why was time grasped by only Li Hao?

“There is only one time!” Skyward responded after a long moment of silence. “It’s not that we cannot wield it, but that with Li Hao, time has a master. Another will not be born, even if our daos are the same as his.

“There is spirit in time! Where is it? Unless we can end it, there will only be Li Hao for time!

“As for why we have not produced time ourselves...” The Skyward master thought back to when he met War. “Because... War did so ahead of us, not after us. Time is too complicated...

“Anyhow, there is no point in dwelling on this further. If we want time to vanish from Li Hao’s grasp, we must kill Li Hao or kill the spirit of time. Barring that, the young man has to give it up himself. There is no other way!”

It was almost impossible for them to create another star of time. They couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t work even if the method of combination was the same and they fully replicated it.

“Then... do we just watch? How much longer can we wait? We need to get rid of Li Hao as quickly as possible. Whether it’s grasping it ourselves or someone else, Li Hao is no longer a suitable candidate!”

“That’s the long and short of it.” Skyward nodded after further thought. “I have come in contact with Li Hao and attempted to persuade him otherwise. There was no use in my efforts.”

Therefore, they had to switch out the cultivator of time! Li Hao was too difficult to control.

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