Having witnessed with their own eyes the whole course of the sun exploding and then becoming whole again, countless people on Canxing were shocked and shaken.
"What a dreadful, awesome power! The sun exploded, and yet he made what was shattered whole again with ease—"
"A cultivator can actually possess might like this, handling with ease even a star that has burned for billions of years. If one day I could do the same—"
"What are you thinking? Even if a cultivation method were set down in front of you, you probably couldn't learn it, let alone cultivate into an immortal or a god."
"What if my talent and comprehension are extraordinarily high?"
"The gap between one person and another is greater than the gap between a person and a dog. Someone whose grades were poor back in school—how dare you think your comprehension is good? Who gave you that courage?"
"Ah, if only I had an oddity. I wouldn't count on the oddity to do this or that. I only want to exchange it with Huang Tian, the Lord on High, and ask him to infuse me with dharma power, so I might ascend to heaven in a single step!"
"Dreams are lovely. Reality is cruel. Stop spinning fantasies."
"It may not be fantasy. Although by now Huang Tian, the Lord on High, has probably contained every oddity, other oddities are sure to appear on Canxing later. Those oddities always end up in the hands of some lucky few. Maybe one of us will be among them?"
"Brother, don't make me laugh. Someone who from childhood till now has never even won a 'one more bottle' still wants to be the lucky one who picks up an oddity?"
While talk boiled across the world, Huang Tian, out in space, moved. In the next second he was back at the headquarters base of the Oddity Management Association.
President Su Qi and the others saw him appear and hurried forward to meet him, their eyes full of awe. "Mr. Huang's divine abilities are vast, his wondrous arts without bound. How admirable!"
Huang Tian smiled faintly. "Once I have taught you cultivation methods, cultivate in earnest. In the future, you may have this ability as well."
The Oddity Management Association had decisively yielded, voluntarily handing over every oddity and cooperating as he smoothly absorbed them. Naturally, they could exchange with him for cultivation methods, divine abilities, heavenly materials and earthly treasures, and the like.
Hearing Huang Tian's words, Su Qi and the others could not help smiling. Although they had previously held extremely great power, that power had mostly come from oddities. However mighty it was, it still depended on external things in the end.
Power that came from external things would inevitably vanish once those things were lost. Cultivation was different. All great power lay in oneself, and power like that was more secure.
Besides, the properties of oddities were endlessly strange, and those that could grant a person life without death were vanishingly few. On the path of cultivation, so long as one walked it step by step, did not have one's lifespan run out along the way, and was not killed by others, there would in the end be a chance to climb to the realm of immortals and gods and attain eternal life!
Not to mention that the power a strong cultivator possessed was no worse than that of some oddities, and one need not bear the price of using an oddity. Compared in this way, it was no wonder their hearts were glad.
After a brief conversation, Huang Tian began teaching them cultivation methods, together with some dharma arts and secret arts. As for heavenly materials and earthly treasures, those had to be exchanged through Yang Chen's One-Tenth Exchange Box.
To this day, on all of Canxing, only two oddities had not been absorbed by Huang Tian. One was the Shelter Ring. The ring was still of use; its power to protect the body was very strong. The other was the One-Tenth Exchange Box, which he needed in order to exchange for precious pills and immortal elixirs and advance his cultivation.
After he finished teaching the methods and secret arts, Huang Tian made a trip back to Changnan City himself. He brought the utterly bewildered Yang Chen to the Oddity Management Association headquarters, then "put" many jade slips of divine abilities into the One-Tenth Exchange Box, exchanging them for some seventh-rank and eighth-rank immortal elixirs, and many precious pills below the seventh rank.
Immortal elixirs of the seventh rank and above were naturally for his own cultivation. The precious pills below the seventh rank were for Su Qi and the others.
With the exchanged immortal elixirs, Huang Tian went nowhere else. He remained at the Association headquarters base and entered seclusion with a settled mind.
Before secluding himself, he looked inward at the crystal ball within his body and found that nearly nine-tenths of it had been dyed blue-purple.
"It still lacks about one-tenth before it is complete. Even if I absorbed the Shelter Ring and the One-Tenth Exchange Box now, it would not be enough to fill it. So I still have to keep waiting for new oddities to appear, then find them and absorb them."
He pondered. "This is not hard for me. Rather, it is very simple. After all, the containment organizations of every nation in the world have now been swept up by me in a single net. No one competes with me, and I have also promised rich rewards. Whoever voluntarily turns in an oddity can receive a corresponding reward. I trust that quite a few of those who obtain oddities will be willing to turn them in.
"Besides, the Brain of Light watches the whole world. Whenever an oddity appears, unless it appears out in the wilds, I will basically be the first to discover it—"
In other words, so long as an oddity appeared, it would all but certainly flow into his hands. There was only the slimmest chance that some individual would find it, hide it away, and hide it well.
For cases like that, he need only take a moment now and then to sweep Canxing once with his divine sense. However concealed the means, they could not block the probing of his divine sense.
"At the soonest, half a year; at the latest, three to five years, and I will have gathered enough oddities to complete the crystal ball—"
The span was so great because oddities did not appear at any fixed rate. Sometimes not a single oddity appeared anywhere in the world for two months running. Sometimes ten oddities appeared one after another within three days.
"Mm. Even three to five years is not long. For me, it will be gone in a flash." He gathered his thoughts. "Now, continue cultivating! The stronger I am, the more at ease I will be, whatever I run into, and whatever special oddity I meet—"
At this thought he sat cross-legged, took an eighth-rank immortal elixir from a jade bottle and swallowed it, then gathered his spirit and began to cultivate—
Time was like the water of a great river flowing east, and in a rush a year had passed.
In that year Canxing was rather quiet, a world apart from the chaos of the year before.
The previous year, oddities had only just appeared. The great containment organizations fought bitterly to seize them, or the vicious properties of certain oddities themselves threw every part of the world into unrest.
This year, many containment organizations existed in name only. With the Brain of Light watching the whole world as well, those oddities were smoothly contained and absorbed by Huang Tian not long after they appeared, with no time to stir up any great commotion—
At the Oddity Management Association headquarters base, in a bright room, Huang Tian's expression was calm. His left hand gripped the Shelter Ring, and his right held the One-Tenth Exchange Box. Thirty seconds later, two points of light flew into his body.
"It is about to be complete. Only the last bit remains!"
Looking inward at the crystal ball in his body, nearly wholly steeped in blue-purple, he softly let out a breath and picked up from before him a longsword carved with plain patterns. This sword was named the Erasure Sword. Anyone it killed would "vanish" forever.
The vanishing here meant not only the death of the flesh, but that every trace vanished along with them.
For example, if Zhou Dongqiang were killed by this sword, then every trace he had ever left in the world would disappear. No one would remember him. Even his parents would forget that the two of them had a son named Zhou Dongqiang.
"This sword can actually threaten my Heavenly Immortal body—" Huang Tian murmured.
After a year of bitter cultivation, he had stepped from True Immortal into the realm of Heavenly Immortal. His strength was a measure greater than that of an ordinary Golden Immortal, and even so, facing this sword, he still felt an extremely strong threat!
This oddity was one of the strongest he had encountered to date. It all but possessed a measure of Daluo might. Its property of erasure was very similar to a Daluo existence tracing the timeline back and "killing" an opponent from the root.
"What, in the end, is the root of these oddities? How did it bring forth so many rare, bizarre, and astonishingly powerful oddities?"
He shook his head. He could not figure it out, but that did not matter. He would understand soon enough— He gripped the Erasure Sword. Thirty seconds flashed past. The Erasure Sword instantly became a point of light, drifted into his body, and merged into the crystal ball, adding the last touch of blue-purple.
With this, the crystal ball was complete!
Whoosh—
In an instant the crystal ball blazed. Blue-purple light shone out through Huang Tian's skin and enveloped him. In a single moment his soul entered the dark and profound, sinking into an especially mysterious state—
The Honghuang Realm. Zhonghuang Yuanji Heaven.
Amid the mountains and the myriad trees, from Huang Tian, who was cultivating with his eyes closed, an extremely profound and vast aura suddenly rose. Like ring after ring of waves, this aura swiftly spread until it reached all of Zhonghuang Yuanji Heaven, the vast Honghuang Realm, and even this boundless Sea of Chaos!
"This aura actually makes my Dao fruit tremble!"
In the Honghuang Realm, within the vast Sea of Blood, Patriarch Minghe rose in shock. With the Yuantu Sword and the Abi Sword on his back, he looked toward where the aura rose, and his face changed at once. Shocked and jealous, he said, "It is Zhonghuang Yuanji Heaven! Fine indeed. The fusion of the eighty-one heavens of our Honghuang Realm has truly given birth to a creation above Daluo—yet he has snatched it!"
Patriarch Minghe's eyes had gone red. He moved and charged out of the Sea of Blood, but he did not head for Zhonghuang Yuanji Heaven. He was no fool, after all. At a juncture like this, how would he dare go alone to make trouble for Huang Tian?
He flew on for a while, passed through heaven after heaven, and came to a stretch of azure sky. In the air, a great peng with a wingspan of who knew how many tens of thousands of li wheeled in flight.
It was Daoist Kunpeng.
"Daoist friend Kunpeng, how can you sit at ease at a time like this?" Patriarch Minghe came straight to the point. "That man seems to be comprehending the mysteries above Daluo. Does that not move your heart?"
At these words Daoist Kunpeng beat his wings once, splitting the long sky and rolling up endless clouds, and in a flash he became a black-robed Daoist. His face was cold. "Heh. You came to my heaven only to bluff me into being the one who sticks his neck out. As for a heart being moved—is yours not?"
Far from being ashamed, Patriarch Minghe laughed. "Whose heart would not be stirred? Not to mention you and me—even the Three Pure Ones, who have always styled themselves the orthodox Dao of the mystic gate, must have hearts swaying like banners."
"So you sought me out to invite me to stand against the Three Pure Ones with you?"
"Just so. Besides you, there is also Daoist friend Luohou. The three of us together might yet be a match for the Three Pure Ones."
"Ridiculous!" Daoist Kunpeng shook his head without cease. "Setting aside whether the three of us could defeat the Three Pure Ones, even if we won, would we then be sure of defeating Daoist friend Huang? Besides, why should I make an enemy of him? Who can be certain he is comprehending the mysteries above Daluo at this moment? Would you settle the matter on a single aura alone?
"In any case, if you truly want to move against him, go yourselves. I will not get involved, lest I land myself in a filthy mess!"
Patriarch Minghe bristled his beard and glared, cursing, "You old thing, the longer you live, the smaller your guts get!"
Daoist Kunpeng gave him a cold glance and could not be bothered to answer. He only swept his sleeve, and a fierce heavenly wind struck Minghe full in the face. Seeing this, Patriarch Minghe snorted and flew straight off.
After he had gone, Daoist Kunpeng hung in the air. His gaze pierced the long void and saw, at an extremely distant place, Huang Tian sitting alone and comprehending profound mysteries. After watching for a while, his gaze shifted, and he at once saw many Daluo peers who, like him, were silently watching how things stood.
Their gazes met, yet no one spoke, and no one dared act. They only watched in quiet, patiently waiting for this comprehension of Huang Tian's to end, or waiting for certain people to make a move—
For a time the Honghuang Realm sank into an eerie quiet. In the boundless Sea of Chaos, some other civilization-level powers boiled over in an instant. The many Daluo existences were alarmed and uncertain.
"The mystery of this aura is far more profound than that of us Daluo. Could it be that someone is trying to take the final step?"
"Is there truly still a path after Daluo?"
"That direction should be the Honghuang Realm. But this aura is quite unfamiliar. It is not that of the Yuanshi Heavenly King, nor of anyone I know—"
"Since we are in doubt, we need only go to the Honghuang Realm and look, and we will know! Who is to say that after we arrive, we might not share with them in the mysteries above Daluo."
"Quite right. Let us go, let us go together!"
Daluo existences of several powers—the Wizard Supreme Realm, the Thirty-Three Yang Council, the Seekers' Minor Assembly, and others—set out one after another, crossed Chaos, and sped toward the Honghuang Realm.
Yet at this very moment Huang Tian, the focus of so many gazes, seemed not to notice at all. His expression was peaceful, his spirit reaching into the far and faint.
Hum—
Suddenly, in a certain instant, a majesty far beyond Daluo burst from his body. Behind him a phantom naturally manifested. Its form was vast beyond measuring. Merely by sitting unmoving, the radiance of the Dao of all directions flowed naturally from it, like the spring wind turning to rain, like the bright moon hanging in the sky.
"So that is it. The root of that world of oddities is the True. With the True it seals and mirrors all directions, and mirrors forth a real world of higher dimension—"
With understanding in his heart, Huang Tian opened his Dharma Eye. His gaze looked afar in a certain direction and in one stroke pierced the Sea of Chaos, which many Daluo existences had believed to have no bounds.
Then he saw that this Sea of Chaos where he was, like a bubble, like a shadow, drifted in the void with nothing to rest upon.
And above the Sea of Chaos there was Chaos still. Beyond the void there was another void. There a world shed radiance. Its light was neither red nor white nor blue nor yellow, and its form was neither empty nor existent, neither real nor void.
To look upon it was only to feel a bizarre, shifting splendor, endlessly brilliant, as if trillions upon trillions of suns and moons shone at once, and as if countless rivers of stars lay inverted and strewn in disorder.
That world seemed a lotus of a thousand petals, each petal a complete universe, and like a precious mirror of ten thousand facets, each face reflecting endless Dharma realms!
But when Huang Tian's sight tried to pierce that wholly new real world and get to the bottom of it, he suddenly saw, in the depths of that bizarre and dazzling world, a purple-gold voice line, like a dragon and like a rainbow, winding toward him!
That voice line passed through layer upon layer of space and crossed realm upon realm. The voice was the voice of the Great Dao; the line was a line of cause and effect!
Beside his ear it called and echoed: "Huang Tian!!"
Chapter 251