Chapter 46: A Century-Spanning Promise, Chen Changsheng Slumbers Once More
Chapter 46 – A Century-Spanning Promise, Chen Changsheng Slumbers Once More
“Emperor Zuo, it is not that I refuse to collect your remains. My time in this cycle has simply reached its end.”
“Please endure a little longer. I shall return to conduct your rites when the next cycle arrives.”
Chen Changsheng called out to Emperor Zuo, who lay shattered eight hundred paces away.
Thirty years within the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land passed like a fleeting breath.
Over these final three decades, Chen Changsheng advanced another three hundred paces. Yet, a vast gap of two hundred paces still separated him from the ancient bronze hall and Emperor Zuo’s scattered bones.
Seeing the hour of his slumber rapidly approaching, he could only strike a verbal pact with Emperor Zuo, promising to properly inter his bones a century later.
With those words spoken, Chen Changsheng turned and retreated into the ancient bronze hall.
These eighty years within the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land had undoubtedly been the most peaceful era of his long existence.
Here, there was no worldly karma, no slaughter, and no grudges. There was only an endless, heavy silence.
Each day, he devoted himself to comprehending the Dao Patterns, pausing only to collect the shattered remains of whatever ancient dead surfaced in the dust.
While performing his duties as The Undertaker, he frequently salvaged bizarre relics from the corpses.
A rusted iron staff, inert Pills drained of their Essence, and, most absurdly, a massive, unyielding silver bone.
The bone possessed no discernible Dao resonance, yet its sheer physical density was peerless.
After brief consideration, Chen Changsheng stowed the silver bone away.
……
Within the ancient bronze hall.
Chen Changsheng stored his scavenged relics within his inner space, then lay himself down within the heavy stone sarcophagus.
The suffocating darkness of the tomb had long become a familiar comfort.
Yet, before surrendering to the void, he voiced a lingering concern.
“System, despite surviving here for decades, I still hold no absolute guarantee of my safety.”
“Will I face any deadly variables during my slumber?”
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in his mind.
“Responding to Host. You need not worry about this matter.”
“During the slumber period, the Host enters an invincible state. No worldly or cosmic law can inflict harm upon you.”
“Furthermore, all mortal life signs will cease. You will mirror the dead stone of the earth.”
“Why would an existence capable of threatening the Host exert effort to crush a mundane rock?”
A sharp light flickered in Chen Changsheng’s eyes.
“System, by that logic, could I not traverse the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land freely while asleep?”
“The System strongly advises against this. The invincible state is bound by a strict duration.”
“Absolute invulnerability lasts exactly ten breaths. Upon expiration, the Host will be forcibly awakened.”
Hearing this, Chen Changsheng’s expression darkened.
He had genuinely considered forging a massive contraption to launch himself across the Forbidden Land.
The instant he was airborne, he would trigger his slumber, effectively bypassing the domain’s lethal Ward.
While the century-long wait between flights would be tedious, it remained a flawless escape strategy.
Yet the System’s invulnerability held such rigid limits. Truly tight-fisted.
Discarding his disappointment, Chen Changsheng spoke, “System, initiate the slumber.”
“Maximize the duration. My Attribute Points remain pitifully scarce.”
“Slumber commencing. Duration: one hundred and sixty years.”
As the final syllable echoed in his mind, Chen Changsheng’s consciousness flatlined.
He descended into the abyss of sleep, completely erasing the last trace of mortal breath within the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land.
The primordial domain did not react to his absence. It simply continued its eternal, unchanging silence.
……
Grind—
The heavy stone lid shifted, and Chen Changsheng, draped in tattered rags, sat up from the dark.
His joints popped as he stretched his stiff frame, his gaze sweeping the ancient hall.
Not a single grain of dust had shifted. The environment remained frozen in time.
Had his robes not rotted to tatters, and had the System Panel not displayed an additional one hundred and sixty Attribute Points…
…Chen Changsheng would have assumed he had merely blinked.
“This eternal stagnation is truly suffocating.”
“No wonder the ancients claimed, ‘Seven days in the mountains, a thousand years in the mortal realm.’ In a tomb like this, time flows like water.”
Shaking off the dust, he summoned the System Panel in his mind.
[Host: Chen Changsheng]
[Strength: 1]
[Speed: 1]
[Defense: 91]
[Spiritual Qi: 0]
[Lifespan: 320]
He had long grown accustomed to waking with his cultivation completely stripped away.
Staring at his newly harvested Attribute Points, he did not hesitate, dumping every single point into Defense.
Watching the numbers shift, he nodded in satisfaction.
“System, can you append a proper realm label to these numbers?”
“Translate these raw digits into orthodox cultivation boundaries. Otherwise, I cannot accurately weigh my own life.”
The System’s cold voice chimed in response.
“Applying realm labels. Modification complete.”
A subtle shift occurred on the System Panel. Corresponding cultivation boundaries materialized beside the raw numbers.
Predictably, aside from his Defense—which now read as Early Nascent Soul—every other attribute remained labeled as a mere Mortal.
“Tsk.”
“‘Unbreakable below the Early Nascent Soul realm.’ This bodily Ward is barely passable. Still, it should suffice to preserve my life in the outside world.”
Settling his robes, Chen Changsheng sat cross-legged, initiating his first cycle of cultivation within the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land.
Without a drop of Spiritual Qi in his meridians, sustaining Inedia was completely impossible.
If he did not swiftly Condense his Qi, he would unceremoniously starve to death in this supreme tomb.
A torrential tide of Spiritual Qi flooded his meridians. His boundary shattered one bottleneck after another, soaring relentlessly from the Qi Condensation realm all the way to the Nascent Soul realm.
The sole reason he could Ascend with such terrifying, heaven-defying speed…
…was his absolute mastery over the early realms, paired with a mountain of hoarded resources.
Other cultivators spent their mortal lifespans bleeding for scraps of fortune. Chen Changsheng spent decades doing nothing but reading.
He never deliberately sought out cultivation manuals, but the sheer volume of his reading was unfathomable.
The orthodox scriptures of the Shangqing Temple, the body Tempering arts of the Xuanwu Kingdom, the mystic laws of the Night Moon Country—he knew them all by heart.
He possessed perfect recall of the Xuanwu Pavilion’s entire archive, and he had practically worn the texts within the Book Tomb to dust.
Furthermore, his two ventures into the Night Moon Country had yielded tremendous profits.
The Ascension True Person, Wanyan Aguduo, the Fox Clan’s Young Master Hu Zhan, and the Tiger Clan’s Young Master Lin Hu.
Chen Changsheng had personally conducted the burial rites for every single one of them. Naturally, their Storage Rings had seamlessly migrated into his possession.
After all, The Undertaker never conducts business at a loss!