Chapter 68: An Unexpected Change, Chen Changsheng’s Egg-Watering Life
Chapter 68 – An Unexpected Change, Chen Changsheng’s Egg-Watering Life
The System’s cryptic words left Chen Changsheng covered in metaphorical question marks.
Nevertheless, he obediently settled his mind and began circulating his Qi to restore his cultivation base.
Two hours later.
“Cough! Cough! Cough!”
Sitting cross-legged in meditation, Chen Changsheng suddenly doubled over, hacking violently.
Worse yet, his realm had completely stagnated at the early stage of Soul Formation.
Chen Changsheng: ???
Faced with this inexplicable blockade, he was utterly bewildered.
If his memory served, he had firmly broken through to the late stage of Soul Formation before sealing himself in slumber.
Yet, while attempting to reawaken his dormant meridians just now, he slammed into an insurmountable wall of resistance.
Although the sheer volume of his spiritual Qi had recovered to its former peak, his realm stubbornly refused to advance.
To describe the sensation, it felt as though the Heavenly Dao itself was rejecting his very existence.
After a moment of grim contemplation, a chilling possibility struck him.
“System, the laws of heaven and earth are shifting, aren’t they?”
“The Host’s deduction is entirely accurate. The Great Dao of cultivation mirrors the life cycle of flora.”
“Spiritual herbs will, and can only, flourish in an environment that perfectly suits their nature.”
“When the worldly environment irrevocably alters, a new species will rise to replace the original.”
“The Host may understand it thus: the current paradigm of cultivation has been rendered obsolete by the heavens.”
At the System’s confirmation, a sharp gleam pierced through the depths of Chen Changsheng’s eyes.
In truth, the old paradigm of cultivation had never truly suited him; his foundation was built upon an Artificial Spirit Root.
While theoretically identical to a natural Spirit Root, imperceptible flaws and dissonances still existed within his fabricated core.
This fundamental mismatch was a critical reason why he had never managed to shatter the bottleneck to the Void Refinement realm.
Processing this revelation, Chen Changsheng muttered, “System, if your claim holds true, then these cosmic laws are shifting far too quickly.”
“How many centuries have I even drawn breath?!”
“Yet the laws of heaven and earth are already rewriting themselves.”
“Host, what leads you to believe this cosmic shift is sudden?”
“Your presence in this realm has been brief. Are you aware of how many epochs this current path of cultivation has dominated?”
“The sole reason the Host perceives this transition as abrupt is because you acclimated to the decaying tail-end of an era the moment you arrived.”
“Had the Host descended into this world ten thousand years prior, or perhaps even earlier, would you still harbor such doubts?”
Hearing this, Chen Changsheng froze in realization.
He realized his mortal perspective was far too narrow.
In his past life, there existed an ancient and bizarre text known as the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
It chronicled myriad impossible beasts and demons, yet modern society dismissed the text as the fevered imagination of primitive ancestors.
But if one stretched the timeline out far enough, would humanity ten thousand years into the future view modern encyclopedias with the same dismissive mockery?
Take the parrot, for example. To Chen Changsheng’s modern mind, it was a perfectly ordinary bird.
While not exactly darkening the skies, its existence was universally accepted fact.
Yet, millions of years post-extinction, how would future generations react when unearthing descriptions of such a creature in fragmented texts?
“There exists a fowl draped in five-colored plumage, possessing twin talons and a hooked beak, capable of uttering the speech of men. Its name is the parrot.”
Reading such an account, future generations would likely sneer and applaud the wild, superstitious fantasies of the ancients.
After all, how could a mere beast possibly speak?
It must surely be a myth fabricated by ignorant savages.
The same logic applied to the current era’s cultivation paradigm.
Chen Changsheng’s memory vaults contained countless Secret Arts, many boasting of world-shattering might upon reaching mastery.
He had cultivated several of these Secret Arts to the pinnacle of perfection, yet the resulting devastation fell far short of the ancient promises.
Until now, Chen Changsheng had never found this discrepancy strange.
He had simply assumed the ancient Senior who authored the technique was an arrogant braggart inflating their own legacy.
Now, a chilling truth dawned on him: those Secret Arts might truly possess the world-ending power they described.
It was merely that the breathing laws of heaven and earth had degraded, unable to fuel the ancient techniques as they once had.
His subconscious skepticism was entirely born from his own limited existence within a fading era.
Following this train of thought, Chen Changsheng asked, “System, since a new paradigm of cultivation is taking root,”
“what dictates the structure of this new path?”
“Are the new laws directly imposed by the Heavenly Dao, or do they manifest from another origin?”
“Answering Host, the Heavenly Dao does not interfere with the specific mechanics of cultivation; the Heavenly Dao merely shapes the environmental vessel.”
“The actual paths of cultivation are forged by mortal flesh and spirit. Whosoever establishes a Dao most attuned to this new heaven and earth shall ascend as the absolute sovereign of the coming era.”
Hearing this, greed ignited in Chen Changsheng’s heart so fiercely he practically salivated.
“System, according to what you’re saying, even I could forge a new Dao?”
“Theoretically speaking, the possibility exists.”
Receiving the System’s affirmation, Chen Changsheng threw his head back and laughed heartily. “The heavens truly favor me!”
“With such a supreme karmic opportunity, I, Chen Changsheng, must absolutely seal myself away in seclusion for another eight hundred or a thousand years!”
System: ???
Did I hear that correctly?
“Host, based on karmic deduction, the probability of divining an era-defining Dao through closed-door meditation is negligible.”
“Only by carving a path of blood and bones through the impending golden age can you seize the providence required to establish a new paradigm.”
“System, quit joking around. Do I look like a bloodthirsty battle maniac to you?”
“I am perfectly content to sit on the sidelines of this golden age. I intend to be a spectator of history, not a martyr bleeding for it.”
“The moment the new sovereign of the era emerges, I will immediately go curry favor and establish a superficial friendship.”
“Then, once I outlive him, I will forever be revered as the ‘ancient friend of the Sovereign.’ How terrifyingly prestigious would that status be!”
System: “……”
Confronted with Chen Changsheng’s shamelessly cowardly logic, the System fell entirely silent.
As for what cold calculations ran through the System’s consciousness, the heavens only knew.
However, compared to the System’s dead silence, Chen Changsheng was practically buzzing with excitement.
Because he was currently surveying the terrain, calculating the geomancy to lay down a peerless great Formation for incubating the egg.
He had long since successfully refined the Heaven-Mending Paste. Back in the day, had he not used the Heaven-Mending Paste to forcefully stitch A-Man’s soul to her mortal coil, she likely would never have reached the end of her natural lifespan.
Now that his earthly tethers were mostly severed, Chen Changsheng naturally shifted his focus to incubating the hollow shell.
Whether life could truly be breathed back into a husk of stagnant ash remained to be seen, but it was an excellent way to kill time.
……
A radius of five hundred li was brutally scoured and etched with intricate Formation runes by Chen Changsheng’s own hand.
To carve this gargantuan array, Chen Changsheng exhausted every sliver of profound knowledge he had accumulated across his lifetimes.
Furthermore, he mercilessly engraved the tyrannical Dao Patterns he had plundered from the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land into the array’s core nexus.
With the sprawling web of runes complete, Chen Changsheng gently laid the dead, hollow egg at the absolute epicenter of the Formation.
The great Formation groaned to life, greedily devouring the essence of heaven, earth, sun, and moon, funneling the stolen providence to slowly nourish the dead, ashen shell.
Scrutinizing the natural resonance of the array, Chen Changsheng nodded in cold satisfaction before extracting the Heaven-Mending Paste and a vial of spiritual spring water from the Water-Moon Cave.
Diluting the potent paste into the spring water at a precise ratio, Chen Changsheng meticulously poured the slurry over the dormant shell.
Mortals watered their gardens; Chen Changsheng watered a dead egg.
Thus, this bizarre routine of “watering” persisted for an unbroken two hundred years.
However, on a fateful day two centuries later, the descent of a stranger finally shattered his tranquil routine.
……