The wind blew from distant parts, driving the tide of immortal energy throughout the immortal palace. It eventually reached the immortal foyer, where it streamed past the gathered cultivators.

The immortal foyer was an enormous platform of black stone stele covered with moss and lichen. It emanated a simplistic and ancient feeling, so that when you stood on it, you felt like you had gone back in time. Located in the middle of the platform, it had written information about the three paths. Unfortunately, it was so old that the information was barely legible.

There were currently a few dozen cultivators in the foyer. Everyone who entered the immortal palace had to pass through there first before picking one of the paths.

As Xu Qing, Li Mengtu, and Patriarch Diling appeared, the other cultivators became beams of light that shot toward the left-hand path. When they neared, they lost their powers of flight and were forced to drop to the ground. Warily maintaining distance between each other, they proceeded on foot.

The path they were entering didn’t have much mist. It was almost like a different dimension that was actually darker than the immortal foyer. A light rain was falling there, and the ground was muddy. Clearly, a lot of people had walked onto that little trail. It was quiet and shady. But the rain just kept falling and falling, as if it were slowly devouring the cultivators there.

Xu Qing looked at that path but didn’t move toward it. Instead, he studied his surroundings.

First, he examined the stone slab that made up the foyer. He could tell that it was a real, corporeal object. The mist was the same. It felt humid, and when it landed on him, it created water droplets on his garment. The immortal energy was also real. Even just standing here, Xu Qing could sense his cultivation base benefiting. He could also hear music playing. It seemed to be coming from the area that had been visible from the outside, deep in the immortal palace where the dao was being discussed.

Xu Qing looked up. When standing in the immortal foyer and looking inside, the immortal palace was so enormous that it wasn’t possible to see the end. All he could see… was mist covering everything in front of him.

Within that mist there was a bridge. It looked like there was someone on the bridge, slowly proceeding through the mist.

“That’s Sir Star Ring,” Li Mengtu said. “When we arrived a moment ago, I saw him walking in that direction.”

At this point, there wasn’t anyone else with them in the foyer. Everyone else had already picked their path to enter the immortal palace.

Li Mengtu glanced at Xu Qing. “Which path are you planning to select, Brother Xu? If you take the trail, we can go in together.”

Patriarch Diling looked eagerly at Xu Qing to find out his plan.

Xu Qing said nothing for a moment. He looked at the figure disappearing on the bridge, and thought back to what Patriarch Diling had told him earlier. “I think I’ll take the bridge.”

Patriarch Diling was shocked.

Li Mengtu wasn’t. He looked deeply at Xu Qing, then clasped hands, bowed, and went to the trail on the left. Inside, he sighed. It wasn’t a sigh for Xu Qing, but rather, himself. As one of the Shining Stars, he wanted to push his limits. But he also knew… that with his legacy canon, it wasn’t likely that he would survive the bridge.

From ancient times until now, people who can cross that bridge have been as rare as phoenix feathers or qilin horns. To survive it… you have to have gained enlightenment of your own canon. You can’t rely on the help of a legacy.

Li Mengtu disappeared into the distance. Patriarch Diling seemed to want to say something, but was hesitating to do so. Ultimately, he chose the trail. The two of them were soon gone.

Xu Qing was the only person left in the immortal foyer. And then… he didn’t actually pick the forward path! Turning with shining eyes, he looked at the path on the right!

The right-hand path was full of such dense mist that you couldn’t see anything inside of it. The only thing visible was the seething mist. But there was something else… and that was the sound of running water.

The right-hand path was a black river that led to certain death. Though the words on the stone stele had faded with time, the information had not been lost forever. The most important details about the Aurora Immortal Palace had been passed down by word of mouth over the years.

That was how Patriarch Diling knew so much about the place.

I can sense canon tugging me in that direction….

From the moment he came to the immortal foyer, Xu Qing’s space-time canon had enabled him to sense some sort of space-time resonance with the right-hand path. It was almost like something calling to him. That resonance, that tugging, that call, was clear in his mind, and it led him to one conclusion. A dao with a similar source as his own was in that direction.

I got the sense early on that the Fallen Immortal Moors don’t exist within space-time. After the palace opened up, that sensation got even stronger. And now it’s obvious that… this place has a space-time canon that’s the same as my own!

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. In any other situation, it would be extremely dangerous for something like this to happen. Facing the same origin… would be difficult to survive. It would come down to the stronger of the two devouring the weaker. But since Immortal Lord Aurora had already perished, it was a different story.

But his canon was obviously the aurora. Don’t tell me that if you push space-time canon far enough, it becomes aurora? Or is it that… Immortal Lord Aurora changed his dao?

Xu Qing thought about it. In the end, he came to the conclusion that since the space-time canon he could sense didn’t seem to have a source, the most likely explanation was that Immortal Lord Aurora had changed his dao.

Soon, a look of determination appeared in Xu Qing’s eyes. If he wanted to push his space-time canon further along, he needed to gain enlightenment of the inner nature of this right-hand path. The two ways to do it would be to seek enlightenment himself, or to study the traces left behind by another person who had gone down that path. Both options could be considered a destined opportunity.

A moment later, Xu Qing hastened forward and stepped into the mist of the right-hand path. An instant later, he disappeared. The only thing visible from the outside was swirling mist.

Now, the mist was the only thing Xu Qing could see. It covered the sensory organs of his fleshly body, as well as the senses provided by his cultivation base. As Xu Qing went forward, the sound of running water eventually disappeared. Everything was pitch black.

It was impossible to determine if he was in the middle of some mist, or if he had entered the water of a river. Everything was just black.

There was nothing dangerous. Just deep, endless darkness.

Time seemed to lose meaning. He had no idea how much of it passed. Keeping his guard up, he proceeded through the pitch black until he reached the end of the path. It was still completely dark. Because everything was pitch black, all he could tell was that he had reached a wall that blocked his way forward.

Magical techniques couldn’t pierce through it. Divine abilities couldn’t break it. His fleshly body was useless. After probing the seemingly invisible wall for a time, and doing a few tests, he closed his eyes and tapped into his eighth extreme. He entered his space-time state….

Everything opened up. His thinking became clear. It was as if he had surpassed the darkness inside. He had emerged from the painting. But using the thoughts of his space-time canon, what he could see… was only a dot of darkness.

It was a dot that was immeasurably large. And there wasn’t just one. There were innumerable dots of darkness, connected together to form a string.

There was something intangible pulling at him, and now he perceived that he could only go forward or backward, not to the left or right. His thinking also revealed to him that the thread of black dots did not have an element of height. It was the same with each individual dot.

Nothing existed on either side of the thread, as if the thread itself were the most paramount entity in existence, and didn’t tolerate the existence of anything else. If you tried to look to either side of the thread, everything rippled until the distortions started to affect you personally.

Xu Qing with his space-time canon could see something a bit different. It was as if he was looking at… infinite remnants of shredded space-time. And if he looked for too long, he started to feel increasingly unwell. This was a bizarrely simple world.

After a while, Xu Qing opened his eyes.

With my space-time thinking, I can leave this black dot. But my fleshly body can’t.

When in his canon state, his fleshly body was definitely his biggest weakness. However, he now had an idea of what to do. If he had to use the state in a fight, he could just deal with the withering effects. As long as the fight ended quickly enough, there would be no long-term effects. As for his current situation, he couldn’t do any significant exploration in a short time.

After thinking for a bit, he put his fleshly body in the Sageheaven Pagoda. It would be safe there for the time being. There would still be some side-effects. What was more, the safety wouldn’t be absolute. What was more, he couldn’t stay away for too long. If he did, his body would still wither away.

Having made the necessary arrangements, Xu Qing’s space-time canon thoughts were not restrained. He gently pushed against the wall in front of him. He went through it instantly.

And then… he allowed the force of this bizarre world to pull him forward. He wanted to see what was at the end of the thread.

Time really didn’t have any meaning here. Or perhaps it was most correct to say that time didn’t even exist. Space became a thing of the past. The only thing that existed was forward momentum.

Thankfully, Xu Qing wasn’t the only one here. At a certain point, he saw something else in a similar state as his own. It was a medicinal decocting pot that had grown four limbs and a white beard. It looked extremely freakish. It stood on the thread, and a medicinal pill would occasionally fly out from it. They would land on the black dot, whereupon they would turn black.[1]

The decocting pot sensed Xu Qing, as it smiled warmly and said, “Welcome to the fairy tale!”

Then it pointed off into the distance and said nothing further.

Xu Qing continued on his way and soon encountered a second freak. It was an octopus whose every tentacle had a face on it. Each face had different expressions, but all were cursing and swearing. Upon sensing Xu Qing, all of the faces started crying. Xu Qing looked at the crying octopus and wasn’t sure what to make of it. He finally just kept going forward.

Eventually, he saw a finger with the head of a lion.

It was calling out, “Run, run….”

He saw a frog that thought of itself as a fish, and was swimming around. When it saw Xu Qing, it trembled and then remained in place, unmoving.

***

Xu Qing ran into eleven freaks, all of which reacted to him in different ways. The eleventh freak was the last.

It was an old woman in black clothes, with a walking stick in her hand. Her face was huge, while her body and limbs were very small. Her expression was ferocious as she reached out, grabbed a black dot, and chewed it up in her mouth.

After catching sight of Xu Qing, she grinned. “Nice death. Nice death.”

Xu Qing didn’t respond. A moment later, he left. He wasn’t sure how much longer he continued onward, but he didn’t see any more freaks. Eventually, he reached the end of the thread, where he found a mirror. Countless black dots were all lined up and entering the mirror. They vanished.

Xu Qing looked thoughtfully at the mirror.

Countless black dots form a thread, and that becomes a linear world. Now I’m starting to get a sense of what Immortal Lord Aurora’s space-time canon state was. As for those eleven freaks….

Given Immortal Lord Aurora’s status, the fact that there were eleven freaks made him think of the eleven Immortal Lords in the Fifth Star Ring.

This place must have formed from Immortal Lord Aurora’s thoughts as he died! That’s why everything is so weird….

Xu Qing further considered the fact that Immortal Lord Aurora had been killed by the Immortal Paragon.

I wonder if all of this has something to do with the Immortal Paragon’s canon. What is that canon…? All of a sudden, Xu Qing thought to what the first freak, the decocting pot, had said.

Fairy tale?

1. It’s only been a few chapters since I shared the pictures of the decocting pots, but here’s the link to the pictures again. ☜