Chapter 172: Frozen Time

“You’re from another world?” The academy teacher and students were shocked after hearing Abu’s story. Though they read about other worlds every day in the Tianji News, it was the first time they’d seen a living person from one.
“So your world is being destroyed by something like the Twelve Heavenly Kings? And you need us to save it?” The academy teacher felt a little overwhelmed—he was just a mere Nascent Soul Stage cultivator. What right did he have to go save another world? That’s giving him too much credit, wasn’t it?
“What evidence do you have?” The teacher didn’t believe him outright. And even if he did, so what? It wasn’t like they could travel to Abu’s world.
Even Tribulation Stage cultivators couldn’t withstand the chaotic currents of the void. There was no way they could survive it.

“This item is a family heirloom left by an Immortal. I used it to reach the Nine Provinces,” Abu said as he took out the Fragment of the World-Breaking Talisman. With his world on the brink of destruction, he couldn’t worry about hiding the origin anymore.
Was he supposed to just sit back and watch his world fall while clinging to secrecy to stay alive?
Abu didn’t want to be that kind of person.
He’d already done his homework—this world was full of powerful people, but only Human Sovereign Jiang could truly help. The rest couldn’t cross over to his world.
Though Jiang Li was known to be gentle and approachable, he wasn’t someone you could meet just by asking.
He needed help from people in this world to reach Jiang Li.
Abu had also considered the possibility that the teacher might covet the talisman and try to steal it.
But he was gambling—gambling that this teacher was a decent person, someone who wouldn’t take what wasn’t his. And even if the talisman got taken but led to Jiang Li, it would still be worth it.
If the teacher stole it and did nothing… Abu didn’t want to think about that.

Luckily, the academy teacher wasn’t that kind of man.
“This must be reported. It’s beyond our authority to decide,” the teacher said solemnly.
The talisman’s runes were extremely complex. The teacher couldn’t understand them. Whether it could break through worlds, or whether it was left by an Immortal, was uncertain. But it was definitely crafted by someone above the Fusion Stage.
While the talisman couldn’t fully prove Abu’s origin, it definitely proved he was no ordinary person.

The Great Zhou Imperial Academy had a new dean, now only at peak Soul Formation Stage, so he couldn’t make the final call either. He also couldn’t interpret the talisman, but he did determine it must’ve been left by someone above the Tribulation Stage.
The dean took the talisman to the Hall of Nurturing Heart to find Ji Zhi, but found only a single writing brush furiously scribbling away—no sign of Ji Zhi himself.
Later, he found Ji Zhi cultivating in the rear garden.
Ji Zhi was determined—he swore he would break through to the Fusion Stage no matter what.
Ji Zhi took the talisman, his deep double pupils gazed at Abu.
Abu didn’t know what it meant.
Ji Zhi wanted to contact Jiang Li, but realized he didn’t have a Remote Communication Talisman and couldn’t reach him.

“Come with me.”
He brought Abu through several spatial passages and arrived at the Human Sovereign Hall.
Though it wasn’t Abu’s first time being teleported, seeing how convenient the Nine Provinces’ spatial passages were still shocked him.
Back when he’d used the talisman, he’d been focused on escaping for his life and hadn’t paid attention to the transmission process.
The more he compared, the more he realized just how weak his own world was.
Abu looked at Ji Zhi with admiration.
So this was the Soul Formation powerhouse stronger than his father? Supposedly, with the Nation’s Fortune, he could even reach the Tribulation Stage—so powerful.

“Your Majesty.” The Human Sovereign Hall guards saluted Ji Zhi.
“Is Jiang Li here?”
The guards were stumped: “Your Majesty, you sure know how to joke. There’s no wife in wife cakes, no couple in couple’s sliced lung, and no Human Sovereign in the Human Sovereign Hall.”
“…You actually have a point.”
“If you’re not in a rush, just wait ten years and you’re sure to see the Hall Master,” the guard offered from experience.
“……”
Even if I weren’t in a rush, I still couldn’t wait ten years.
“Then Commander Liu should at least be here.”
“Commander Liu is here. One moment, I’ll report it.”

Before long, Ji Zhi felt a shift in space—he and Abu were teleported directly to Commander Liu.
Though not as skilled as the Old Buddha of Mount Sumeru, Commander Liu’s mastery of the Dao of Space was still top-tier in the Nine Provinces.

“Your Majesty.”
“Senior Liu.”
They nodded to each other.

“This is the interworld visitor you mentioned?” Commander Liu looked Abu up and down, clicking his tongue in wonder.
In his entire life, he’d only ever seen Outer World Demons as interworld visitors.

Commander Liu picked up the talisman and examined it: “Definitely not from the Nine Provinces. Judging from the runes, it’s a one-time-use item that randomly teleports the user to another world. Unfortunately, it’s spent—just a piece of scrap now. Even if we know your world is in danger, there’s no way to trace its location from this. We can’t go there.”
Seeing the talisman dull and lifeless, Ji Zhi had originally thought it could be reactivated with enough power. He didn’t expect it to be completely used up.

“W-What do we do then?”
Abu was so anxious he was on the verge of tears. They were this close to finding the Human Sovereign, to saving his world—only to find out his world couldn’t be located.

“I’ll contact the Hall Master. Maybe he has methods I don’t understand.”
After hearing the full story, Jiang Li gave Abu a strange look.
Could it be that the world Abu came from was… this world?
But the timeline didn’t match.
The talisman teleported him forward by several centuries? That’s… impressively inefficient.
Jiang Li wandered through the city with the Remote Communication Talisman and had Abu look around to see if anything seemed familiar.

When Abu saw a familiar city, he froze. His body trembled, tears uncontrollably rolled down his cheeks: “That’s Wubu City—that’s my home!”
“So… we defeated the Heavenly Kings!?”
“But how long has it been? Why does it feel like no war ever happened?”

Jiang Li fell silent.

…

“I heard your group failed the mission because you stopped to save someone and missed the Ice Crystal Flower?”
At the Great Zhou Imperial Academy, students were comparing mission results.

“Hehe, not to brag, but our group not only found the Ice Crystal Flower—we found three! And we made a shocking discovery! Something new for all of the Nine Provinces!”
“Three?” Zhu Zhu was stunned. Ice Crystal Flowers usually grew alone. It was extremely rare to find even a pair, let alone three.
Suddenly, Zhu Zhu remembered—when they rescued Abu, there were three Ice Crystal Flowers under him. But everyone had been too focused on saving him to pay attention.

The student laughed smugly: “We discovered that when three Ice Crystal Flowers grow together, they can freeze living beings in place. For example, if someone gets frozen at twenty years old, then a thousand years pass, and after thawing, they’re still twenty. Their heavenly lifespan just stops ticking! This discovery alone is enough to let us graduate.”

Zhu Zhu had a theory:
Abu didn’t just arrive in the Nine Provinces now. It might have been decades—or even centuries ago. He was sent here by the talisman and, gravely wounded, fell where three Ice Crystal Flowers grew. The flowers froze him, and he, unconscious, knew nothing of it.
Until one day, someone randomly threw trash into the Extreme North—and a Warming Talisman happened to land right on Abu. The heat melted the ice.

“No way…” Zhu Zhu thought her theory was too wild—even she didn’t quite believe it.
But she clearly remembered seeing a Warming Talisman on Abu. Everyone else kept theirs tucked inside their clothes—who would leave it exposed like that?
And Abu came from another world. Where would he have gotten a Warming Talisman?