Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

An ancient divine will of immense power filled the area, the kind of will that could seep through the crevices that separated universes.

There were rifts that existed between universes, and it was in just such a location that Yang Qi was hiding, making him completely invisible. Yet despite being hidden in that way, the divine will of this old-timer could apparently seep into all sorts of hyperdimensions, which was a real shock to Yang Qi.

As the divine will swept toward him, he shrank himself down and slipped past it like a slippery loach.

A moment later, the divine will was gone.

Yang Qi let loose a shaky breath as he returned to his normal state.

‘So strong! There are old-timers everywhere among the buddha dragons. That must have been a Chaos God, just a step away from the Deathless Throne. I wonder how many minor stairs he’s ascended.’

Yang Qi knew more about the Chaos God level now, and was aware that it featured nine minor stairs that one had to scale to actually reach the Deathless level. It was very similar to how Dao-Demolishing involved nine lineaments on the dao heart.

Being on those nine minor stairs would make a Chaos God a demigod. It was a very mysterious period—often referred to as the Deathless Heavenly Stairway—which of course led to the Deathless Throne. Yang Qi didn’t truly understand it all, he’d just read descriptions of the minor stairs in certain daoist texts he’d come across.

However, based on how things were progressing, Yang Qi felt confident that he would reach the Chaos God level soon. Then he would gain further insights into the minor stairs and begin his own process of gaining enlightenment.

Meanwhile, the words the old man had just spoken were nothing short of astonishing.

Apparently, they had one hundred and eight thousand missions as part of their master plan, and one of the most important had to do with the three hundred imperial snakecharms.

These two young buddha dragons were Tempered Gods who were being told to take advantage of the link between the past and present to experience an increase of five cultivation levels.

That would make them Measureless Gods.

It was completely unprecedented. If a human cultivator, even the emperor of the Tusita Heaven, was told that they could go from the second division to the seventh division in a short moment, they’d probably slap whoever had told them and curse them for being a lunatic.

It was simply impossible.

That was especially true of buddha dragons, who faced more difficulty than average dragons when it came to progressing through the Godmyth level. Increasing one’s level usually required enlightenment, cultivation, power, wisdom, perseverance, and plenty of destiny. In fact, it required astronomical amounts of all those things.

There was no way that this old man was just making up stories. Apparently, when the passageway to the Primeval Age was opened, the power unleashed would be enough to cause just about anyone to experience cultivation breakthroughs.

‘Is the power from the Primeval Age that incredible? I guess it must be. I wonder how soon this is going to happen. Should I just wait around and hope to use some of that power for myself? Somehow, I have the feeling that that's not the best idea. After all, the Brahman Immortal World used the power of the god Brahma to establish the connection with the future world. The buddha dragons obviously have to be using something similar; how else could they establish the connection? I wonder, do they have something similar to Brahma?’

The buddha dragons were ruthlessly ambitious. It seemed obvious that allowing them to open a passageway to the past and summon lokapāla warriors and dharmic rājas would lead to a big disaster. The fight between the future world and the Dao Defense League was still raging, with heavy casualties on both sides.

“The Dragonfolk want to conquer humankind, but it's not going to be that easy. I need to foil their plans and get my hands on those imperial snakecharms. Then we’ll see how things lie. That said, I don’t think I should actually take the talismans. I should leave them in place just like I did with the ones back in the Brahman Immortal World. That way I can use them to keep an eye on the passageway!”

With that, he put thought into the matter, coming up with a host of plans and backup plans.

Considering how strong he was, he could always throw the Eight Tribes Heaven into chaos. But the god dragons wouldn’t be easy to fight, let alone the buddha dragons, who were supreme among the Dragonfolk.

And for all he knew, they might call on the help of the other seven tribes to deal with him.

Even worse, Yang Qi was fairly certain that this temple's warding magics protected universal power nodes. In other words, the palace was likely something that had originally been built by the legion of gods and could not be easily destroyed.

The young man and woman sheathed their swords and hurried into the depths of the palace as instructed by the old man. They walked through a doorway and into a wide square full of altars, atop each of which was a banner that was a god item, embroidered with the image of a heaven-god holding a devil-suppressing wand. As the banners waved in the wind, the images of those gods seemed very realistic, as though they might walk out into the open at any time.

In the middle of all the altars and banners were three hundred talismans. They were enormous, and pulsed with the aura of King Heaven-Devourer, which gave them the form of a primal-chaos elder-snake as they devoured the energy pulsing off of what appeared to be some sort of pearl!

It was small, only the size of a human head, but it pulsed with immense godly might.

‘What incredible faith and godliness! And… the power of the past world!’ Yang Qi was stunned.

Suddenly, he heard the photonic computers of the Cruiser of Civilization speaking to him.

[Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep. Heterogeneous power discovered. Power source is the past civilization! Extremely pure and strong! Compatibility level one hundred and twenty percent. This power can be used to travel through space-time.]

‘What's that supposed to mean? One hundred and twenty percent? I thought one hundred percent was the highest possible.’ He sent out some divine will to check the photonic computers and confirmed that they were really saying the compatibility level was one hundred and twenty percent.

That meant this power surpassed that of the future world.

If he could get that power into his fragment of the Cruiser of Civilization, it would definitely replenish the reserves and push the cruiser to a higher level. Right now, the power he’d fed into it had only reached the level of one ten-thousandth. The next major watersheds were one thousandth, one hundredth, and one tenth. Afterward, the fragment of the cruiser would reach its ultimate potential.

“Junior Sister, let’s begin our cultivation,” the young man said. “With King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans to control the ancient passageway, we can draw on the power here to achieve progress vastly superior to anything outside. I’d say we can achieve a hundredfold speed at the minimum.”

“Ah, what a pity. There just aren’t enough of the talismans. If we had three thousand to stand guard over, we could probably be Chaos Gods in the blink of an eye.”

“Hmph. There’s no way we would ever get the chance to stand guard over three thousand of them. They would only give that privilege to the son of the clan chief. From what I’ve heard, the son of the chief is guarding a powerful artifact from the scientific and technological civilization, something called the Engine of the One God. It provides an even faster cultivation speed. With that, he's almost guaranteed to become a demigod, and by extension, one of the most powerful people in the clan—just like the old-timers.”

‘What did he just say?’ Yang Qi thought, his jaw dropping. He’d heard of the Engine of the One God before, and knew that it was one of the most powerful systems available to the Cruiser of Civilization. It made it much easier to locate and take other fragments of the cruiser, even against the will of those who possessed them. With that, it would make the task of piecing together the full cruiser far easier.

“You can wear out iron shoes in a fruitless search, then find what you're looking for without even trying!” Yang Qi looked on as the two young buddha dragons began their session of cultivation and simultaneously stood guard over King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans.

Being very careful, he sent some of his true energy into both of them.

They suddenly shivered and opened their eyes.

“Junior Sister, did you just feel something? It was almost like the aura of some powerful person just entered us, causing our cultivation bases to improve.”

She nodded. “Yes, I felt exactly the same thing. Where did that energy come from? It's so pure! It’s consummate energy from the Eight Tribes Godfist!”

“What? Did someone combine all eight forms? No one among the Dragonfolk has ever done that! People are saying that the clan chief’s son might be able to, with the help of the Engine of the One God.”

“Where did the energy come from?”

“Maybe one of the ancient ancestors is about to come through the space-time passageway and is showing favor to us.”

“I'd say that's highly likely!”

“Well, let’s see how far we can push our cultivation now!”

Of course, they had no idea that it was Yang Qi trifling with them. He had used some of the pure power of the Eight Tribes Godfist to push their energy arts to a higher level. But the truth was that he did that to mask the fact that he had inserted some of his nascent divinity into them. Now he could possess them at will and make them do anything he wanted.

As the two sank deeper into trances, circulating the energy of the Eight Tribes Godfist, they began absorbing the power provided by King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans.

Meanwhile, Yang Qi’s nascent divinity was seeping into the power pearl.

POP!

Slowly but surely, he was fusing with these three hundred talismans!

In that moment, the power coming from the past world surged to thousands of times the previous level!