Chapter 63

Chapter 63: Safe Travels

Light gathered into a single point.

A sword thrust itself into Wang Jie’s mind.

He stood there for a moment, dazed. Then he raised his hand and gripped his sword.

Something had changed.

Star-Gazing Sword Form required three materials, the same as Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger. The power should be similar.

Wang Jie lifted his sword and pointed toward the gray sky. His focus tightened until, faintly, he could see stars—each one a point of impact, each one a future strike waiting to happen.

It was far stronger than Rainbow-Drinking Sword Form.

He spent the next stretch of time cultivating Star-Gazing Sword Form. Half a month later, he finally struck and planted the sword into the field.

A new sprout rose.

A new technique.

Sword Steps.

This time, it required four materials.

Wang Jie touched the four sprouts, heart tightening.

Destroy stars with Star-Gazing Sword Form.

A beautiful sword tassel.

Pick a Seven-Colored Flower and give it to the nearest person.

Step on a hundred people’s faces.

The first two were normal enough. The third was strange. The fourth… the fourth sounded oddly doable.

The hardest was the first—destroy stars. That required Star-Breaking Realm combat power. Blue Star couldn’t reach that level.

Even if it could, he couldn’t do it.

The Seven-Colored Flower and the sword tassel would have to be found.

The scene in the field dissolved. Wang Jie sat back in his chair, staring into the distance.

Sword Steps would have to wait.

But what he already had was enough.

Over these past weeks, he’d done little besides cultivate Star-Gazing Sword Form and run the routine, forcing his strength higher and higher.

His strength climbed to ninety-seven times.

The feeling had been real. The ceiling really had loosened.

In raw physical power, he’d surpassed Shu Mu Ye—even after Shu Mu Ye’s repeated rebuilds.

Shu Mu Ye had been at eighty-nine times. Whether he’d broken higher since then, Wang Jie didn’t know. But Wang Jie had reached ninety-seven.

Days passed.

After another routine, Wang Jie exhaled and felt the truth settle into his bones.

Ninety-nine times.

That was the limit.

He couldn’t go beyond it.

That day also marked roughly a year since the first trialists arrived.

It was time.

Outside Shang Jing City Base, countless cultivators watched from far away, eyes fixed on the crude “spaceship” like it was either a joke or a miracle.

Sister Tang was there. Lian Qin. Hong Jian.

Qing Zheng, Old Five, and Old Nine surrounded Si Yan like a firing squad.

“Old Boss,” Old Five shouted, “go without worry. If this thing fails, we’ll send him along to keep you company!”

Si Yan rolled his eyes. “It won’t fail. And if it does, you won’t even see it.”

“At least don’t let it explode!” Old Five roared.

Si Yan stared at him. “Does it even have anything that can explode? The propulsion is external. I just extracted it.”

He cut himself off, clearly realizing he was arguing with people who didn’t understand a word.

Wang Jie felt genuinely nervous. He’d charged through beast tides and faced Shu Mu Ye, but this… this was different.

Si Yan’s voice boomed. “Hey, little kid—ready?”

Wang Jie raised a hand and gave a short gesture.

Si Yan exhaled and slammed the button.

The ship launched with brutal force, no cushioning at all. It blasted off the ground, punched through the sky, and vanished in a blink, leaving only a thin white streak behind.

Si Yan stared up. “I… might’ve pulled too much.”

Old Five and the others turned slowly toward him.

Hong Jian looked at the empty sky. “Safe travels.”

Across the three major bases, across Hua Xia, countless people looked up and offered silent blessings.

Inside the ship, Wang Jie gripped his seat as if it could anchor his soul.

The acceleration was terrifying—so fast it felt like his spirit was tearing out of his body. Blue Star disappeared in a blink. The sun shrank into a glittering gem set in blackness and kept receding.

Sweat poured down Wang Jie’s face. Imprint Power churned across his skin, trying to hold him together. For a moment, the universe itself seemed to shake.

Then the ship shuddered lightly.

The worst of it passed.

Wang Jie wiped his forehead, breathing hard.

Si Yan.

Old Five better beat him senseless.

The speed was still immense, but once the ship left the atmosphere, the motion steadied.

Wang Jie looked out, stunned anew.

So this was the universe.

He lifted his head.

The bridge was still there.

Wen Zhao had said it before: no matter where you were in the universe, unless it was hidden, you could see the bridge.

Wang Jie shifted his view and saw a beam of light connecting the depths above and below—like a pillar that held the bridge in place.

Bridge-Pillar, he thought.

If there was a bridge, there had to be pillars.

And if you could see the pillar from anywhere, it meant it pierced the entire universe—top to bottom.

No wonder people called it a sea.

With a sea, a bridge made sense. Calling it a river would have been too small.

He stared for days until the awe dulled into familiarity.

The ship carried enough compressed food to last three years, along with disaster materials to replenish Imprint Power. He wouldn’t starve. He wouldn’t suffocate.

But he had no idea when he would meet anyone.

Based on Si Yan’s estimates and the ship’s speed, it should take about a year to reach the region where signals were strongest.

Eventually, the emptiness stopped feeling new.

Wang Jie began to cultivate.

His Ten Seals realm couldn’t rise further, and he didn’t know how to reach Star-Breaking Realm. So he turned to Qi Refining.

He still didn’t know how to increase qi, but he could train control.

He’d brought a bag of soybeans for that exact purpose.

Back on Blue Star, he could float seventeen beans at once with qi, placing them around his body at will. The more precise his control, the more terrifying his combat power would become.

That was how Shu Mu Ye had been so overwhelming.

With the same raw strength, Shu Mu Ye had been far stronger than Wang Jie. Without combining qi and strength, you couldn’t even survive in front of him.

And Chen Art made the gap even clearer.

At the same Eighth Seal realm, Wang Jie had needed every trick and borrowed force just to keep up. Shu Mu Ye had used only his own power and Starforce.

If Shu Mu Ye could do it, Wang Jie believed he could too.

It would take time. It would take monotony.

And nothing was more monotonous than the void.

Two months passed. Wang Jie floated more than forty beans, sweat beading on his brow as he refined control again and again.

Then, without warning, a formless force swept the ship and hurled it violently in another direction.

The Combat Power Detector screamed.

Wang Jie tumbled inside the cramped cabin, slammed hard, then managed to grab the chair and anchor himself. He looked out through the viewport and caught only a glimpse of something massive sliding past—so fast it was almost unreal.

A beast.

A giant beast.

The Combat Power Detector froze on a number:

303,219.

Wang Jie went still.

Over ten thousand combat power meant Star-Breaking Realm—that was what the captured trialists had said.

And this was over three hundred thousand.

He couldn’t even see its shape clearly.

He glanced down at the Combat Power Detector in disbelief. Could it really measure that high? Had Si Yan modified it, or was it always this sensitive?

Then a worse realization hit.

The ship’s trajectory had shifted.

The beast’s wake had flung him off course.

Wang Jie stared at the screen. The deviation was significant, but the old signal direction was still there. He could correct.

He tried.

The ship didn’t respond.

His expression changed.

He tried again, harder.

Nothing.

Something in the violent tumble had broken the direction control.

He couldn’t turn anymore.

He couldn’t steer.

Wang Jie’s face went pale. He stared at the screen as dread settled over him like ice.

He was a rock thrown into the dark.

And now he didn’t even know where he was going.

—

Deep in the starry sky, a colossal battleship tore forward. The space around it twisted under its passage, the stars stretching at the edges like warped glass.

Inside, the air was heavy with tension.

Suddenly, alarms blared.

Hearts clenched. Faces tightened.

In the command room, a young man opened his eyes and stared coldly at the screen. “They caught up?”

“Reporting, Prince,” someone said quickly, “no. Something is approaching. Direction unknown.”

The young man frowned.

The image grew closer.

Clearer.

Until an oval object filled the screen.

“What is that?”

“A rock?”

“It’s a spaceship.”

The young man stared. “That’s a spaceship?”

“We’re detecting a person inside. It’s approaching us.”

“Move out of the way.”

“We can’t,” someone said, voice rising. “We detected it too late.”

“Drive it away!”

The battleship tried to maneuver, but the oncoming ship didn’t slow or dodge. It slammed straight toward them, unstoppable.

With no choice, the battleship opened.

“Force a stop!”

The crude ship punched into the interior bays. Nets snapped open—boarding barriers meant for war, designed to prevent enemy ships from ramming in.

The ship’s speed was too high. Net after net tore apart, but each one slowed it a fraction.

It finally slammed into a compartment wall, wrecking nearly half the machinery on impact, and wedged itself deep into the cafeteria’s structure, smoking.

More than a thousand soldiers flooded the area, weapons raised and aimed.

The ship shuddered.

Weapons tightened.

In the command room, the young man watched the cafeteria feed, brow furrowing.

With a thunderous impact, the hatch was kicked off.

Someone stumbled out, coughing violently.

Weapons swung to track him.

“Surrender!” someone shouted. “Don’t move!”

“Surrender now!”

Wang Jie coughed until his throat burned. Smoke stung his eyes. He forced himself to breathe, forced himself to focus.

Damn it. He nearly died.

Half a year ago, he’d left Blue Star in this crude ship, following a route Si Yan had calculated. Then an unknown giant beast had swept him off course, broken his controls, and left him drifting in terror for months.

And now this.

A battleship—so huge it looked like a moving fortress, larger than any base on Blue Star.

It had been directly in his path.

He’d watched himself about to collide, convinced it would be the end.

And instead of dodging, the battleship had opened and swallowed him whole.

He coughed again, chest aching.

The Combat Power Detector kept flashing numbers as it scanned the crowd.

So many cultivators.

And so many weapons.

A harsh voice cut through the smoke. “Surrender. Crouch down.”