This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder - Chapter 651

“It’s not easy, and it’s only a general direction,” Confucius said. He closed the gates of the Three Purities Palace with a wave of his sleeve.

Tianyi felt the surrounding space lock up, but he did not take any defensive action. If Confucius and Bao Ling had wanted to trap him, they would have done it long ago before explaining so much. Of course, Tianyi still held some misgivings. He needed to ask the Concealed Emperor and corroborate the two accounts of the end of the primordial era.

“Neither Qingping nor I can take action,” Confucius said. “We can only provide support, and you are the main driving force.”

“So you want me to take all the risk. How calculating,” Tianyi said, raising his head so that he was looking ‘down.’

“It’s a helpless choice. You are our only option,” Confucius said, not minding Tianyi’s unhappiness. Anyone would if they were told they had to shoulder all the burden. “And you must be clear. It’s not that we won’t, but that we can’t. Once we do, we’ll be helpless and might even drag you back.”

That was not surprising, considering what they wanted to get back from the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System.

Although the situation did not change, Tianyi did feel mollified. “Just tell me the plan.”

“It’s not really a plan,” Confucius admitted. “As long as Pangu’s Will is eliminated, then we win. So, we have to repeat the Lord of Primordial Beginning’s action!”

Naturally, the need for success instead of failure went unsaid.

Tianyi frowned. The plan was far simpler than he liked. He thought someone as esteemed as the two reincarnations of the Lord of Way and Virtue and the Lord of Numinous Treasure would have more leverage. Of course, this was natural. Before the end of the primordial era, everyone, even the Three Pure Ones, was just pawns on the chessboard.

Confucius waved his hand, and several jade slips appeared in the air. “These are all the techniques we managed to recover and piece together from our peak and some hypothetical methods that should aid you.”

Tianyi accepted them. The shackled space prevented him from opening a portal, but he simply pushed the jade slips into his skin. They couldn’t affect the inside of his body, and soon, his Nine Heavens Universe consciousness read through it all. Among them was Chaos Genesis.

Confucius and Bao Ling did not become impatient once they saw Tianyi’s glazed eyes. He was reading through the method.

After digesting all the methods, Tianyi had to admire the Three Pure One’s insight and power, especially the Chaos Genesis. He didn’t know about the original World Fusion Method, but it was far superior to his recreated version. If he used this, he would need only two attempts. Even if his failed fusion did not leave a backdoor for him in the nameless system or weaken it, he would still succeed.

“However, it was still far from enough,” Tianyi uttered. It was more for himself than anyone else, but his words did enter Confucius and Bao Ling’s ears.

“Then what else do you need? We cannot provide direct aid, but we will do everything in our power to aid you,” Confucius said.

Tianyi didn’t immediately answer and stared at Confucius. Finally, he opened his mouth. “If I succeed, you want the lost part of your origin returned to you, but what if the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System already digested it?”

“Then I can only reincarnate and follow Qingping’s path,” Confucius said. “But it’s highly unlikely. My origin is not so easy to absorb, especially in such a short amount of time.”

“What if I don’t return it?”

Confucius showed no fury and simply shrugged. “Then I can only blame myself for not seeing your true nature.”

Of course, Tianyi also knew that Confucius had no other option. Since the start of the modern era, only he had the qualification to fuse his divine world with the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System. Unless he could wait millions of more years for another genius with an inner universe like himself, he could only bet on Tianyi.

Tianyi turned toward Bao Ling. “What about you?”

“I don’t need you to do anything except conquer the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System,” Bao Ling said.

Tianyi nodded. In essence, as long as Pangu’s Will disappeared, Bao Ling would succeed. Even if he couldn’t eliminate the influence in his body immediately, it would disappear with time. In fact, it didn’t matter to Bao Ling if he succeeded or not. Bao Ling would reap the benefits as long as Pangu’s Will failed.

On this basis, Bao Ling’s trustworthiness was less than Confucius’.

“However, you must not let your guard down. Although it looked like the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System had regressed since the Primordial Era, its strength had actually increased,” Confucius warned. “The cultivation environment seems to have weakened, but that’s only because it’s been dispersed. The foundation of the system has increased from absorbing all those divinities, and as time goes by, it will only increase as it digests more of the divinities’ origins. Surpassing the height of the primordial era is not a matter of if, but when. The only question is by how much and how soon.”

“Is this why pseudo-systems could exist?” Tianyi asked. Before, he didn’t find the Divine Beast Pseudo-System or the Buddhist Pure Lands Pseudo-System strange, but after interacting with other systems, he found their existence puzzling.

Confucius nodded. It wasn’t really a secret. “Those pseudo-systems were constructed using the origins of fallen divinities that slipped through the cracks.”

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Tianyi had already received everything he should have. If he succeeded, he didn’t really mind returning the Lord of Way and Virtue’s origin. At that point, he would only be more powerful than Pangu. He blinked. There was one thing the two could help him with.

“Do you know any systems unknown to the All Pantheon Alliance?” Tianyi asked.

Confucius and Bao Ling shared a look.

“We do,” Confucius began. “But Chaos Genesis is a technique that can only be used once. Even if you have clones, they would not be able to sustain the method.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I have my own plans. Give me a list,” Tianyi said. For him, information about unknown systems was far better than learning what had happened at the end of the primordial era or the techniques given to him. At the end of the day, his goal never changed.

The number of systems the Three Pure Ones had recorded surprised Tianyi. There were over fifty! Granted, most of them were systems smaller than the Spacetime Divine System he conquered. Only a few were of considerable size, but none of them reached the first echelon like the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System or the Herakles System.

Tianyi guessed that they had saved these larger systems for conquest or resource utilization in the future, but the disaster happened too slowly, leaving them no time or chance to implement. However, he didn’t mind. After all, he was the one benefiting from this.

He immediately dispatched several conduits to each system. The information was from over three million years ago, and he would be lucky if he could locate over half of the recorded systems. That being said, he couldn’t expect the systems to remain stagnant. Who knows what happened to each system. Perhaps they produced a divinity of power, or maybe they disappeared forever, with none the wiser.

After asking a few more questions, Tianyi bid farewell.

“Wait,” Bao Ling called out.

Tianyi’s body halted, and he stared at the sword divinity. “Is there anything else?”

“Let’s have a fight,” Bao Ling said.

Tianyi didn’t immediately answer. His first reaction was to reject the challenge. He was more concerned about freeing his mother, but after thinking about it, Tianyi felt he could benefit from it. Part of the reason was that he wanted to regain his lost pride by defeating Bao Ling, but the greater reason was to steal Bao Ling’s law.

He already had an inkling of Bao Ling’s path during their last spar. If he could master it, it should give him a unique angle to attack the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System. After all, it should be a law that never appeared before. Even if Bao Ling had not expelled the Heavenly Dao’s influence from his body, the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System should not be prepared for this never-before-seen law.

With all these considerations, Tianyi nodded. “Okay.”

Soon, the two stood in the True Nothingness hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart, but for experts at their level, it wouldn’t even take a second for their attacks to reach. They had flown a fair bit away from the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System to hide their traces.

Bao Ling unsheathed his sword. The cyan blade gleamed brilliantly even in the True Nothingness. “This is my lifebound artifact, the Qingping Sword. After my apotheosis, it has fully risen to a divine artifact.”

According to legend, Qingping was the name of the Lord of Numinous Treasure’s sword, said to be forged from a lotus leaf. However, this was not that sword.

Tianyi looked at the sword with interest. Lifebound artifacts could rise with the cultivator’s realm, but everything had a limit. If the materials were not powerful enough, they would not be able to rise in ranks. For example, most possessors of lifebound artifacts could raise them to the true immortal level at best. Beyond that, it was not impossible to raise the rank of the artifact, but the gains were not proportional to the results. So, most cultivators chose to dissolve the lifebound artifacts and merge with them, restoring themselves.

If a cultivator wanted to have a lifebound artifact to reach the divine level, the cultivator would have had to create the lifebound artifact with divine materials. It was such a strict requirement that it was practically impossible, but Bao Ling accomplished this miracle.

Considering his identity, Tianyi wasn’t too surprised, just a bit envious. He himself did not use a divine artifact. He did have a set, but it wasn’t suitable to appear right now.

Tianyi reached out with his hand so that it appeared Bao Ling stood within his palm from his gaze. He clenched, and the spacetime around Bao Ling compressed. Under that force, even a star would be condensed into a black hole.

Yet, Bao Ling acted as if nothing had happened and swung his sword. The blade cleaved through the spacetime suppression.

Tianyi’s actions didn’t stop. He clasped his hands together and then split them apart as if he were ripping something. Correspondingly, the space around Bao Ling shifted. Anyone who saw from the side would feel like they were looking through a cracked mirror.

In response, sword light erupted from Bao Ling’s body. They created a domain millions of kilometers long. Within, it was as if a sword was slashing through every available space at every moment. Tianyi’s disruption of spacetime was forcibly halted.

The sword lights constantly slashed at him, but the barrier of spacetime formed an uncrossable distance. At least, the current power of the sword light could not reach him. However, it impeded Tianyi’s control of spacetime.

Within the domain, Tianyi could sense countless laws fused with the sword lights, all of them at the divine level. The Law of Fire, the Law of Water, the Law of Earth, the Law of Wood, the Law of Metal, the Law of Wind, the Law of Light, the Law of Darkness, the Law of Space, and most of all, the Law of Destruction. Each sword light contained the Law of Destruction, fused with one or more of the other laws.

This puzzled Tianyi. He knew that Bao Ling had created a new law, the Law of Sword, but he could not sense it, unlike their last fight. He didn’t think Bao Ling had given up on this path, which meant something was amiss.

Tianyi’s figure vanished, hiding between the layers of spacetime beyond the sword domain’s influence. He still had to be careful to avoid the sword lights containing the fusion of multiple laws and the ones that contained the Law of Space.

To Tianyi’s surprise, Bao Ling’s figure also disappeared. He swiftly came to the conclusion that Bao Ling had hidden himself among the sword lights through some unknown means. In that case, Tianyi erupted.

A spacetime domain containing destruction intent appeared. It directly expanded beyond the sword domain several-fold. The clash between the two domains created spatial turbulence. All the while, Tianyi searched for Bao Ling’s traces.

Tianyi failed. He increased his efforts and compressed the spacetime domain until it was the same size as the sword domain. The compression increased the spacetime domain’s power by three times, completely suppressing the sword domain. Now, only a few sword lights lingered within. And even when they appeared, they were disrupted and destroyed before completing the arc.

Yet, Tianyi still couldn’t find Bao Ling’s trace. He increased his effort until he completely suppressed the sword domain, yet he still failed to find the sword divinity.

It was entirely possible for Tianyi to engage in a war of attrition, but that wasn’t Tianyi’s goal. So, he showed himself and waited for Bao Ling to take the bait.

Bao Ling accepted the challenge.

Tianyi couldn’t sense anyone around him, yet Bao Ling suddenly appeared right in front of him, sword slashing down. Tianyi crossed his arms, but the Qingping Sword easily cleaved through them and struck deep into his torso.

“I see, so this is the Law of Sword,” Tianyi muttered, his eyes unprecedentedly bright.