Time Stop

Lu Yang gave Meng Jingzhou an odd look. The Meng Family really had all sorts of tricks when it came to making money. "Why are you looking at me like that? It's not like I hyped up the price of Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Ice. It was the Meng Family—the Meng Family from tens of thousands of years ago!" Even though Meng Jingzhou constantly threw around phrases like "our Meng Family," when his personal reputation was on the line, he still made sure to draw a clear line between himself and the clan. Although Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Ice had been maliciously inflated by the Meng Family's speculation, that only applied to ordinary ice. Rare treasures like mystic ice marrow or ice fetuses remained genuinely useful once they had accumulated enough years. For instance, ancient sleeping cultivators often froze their bodies using tens-of-thousands-of-years-old mystic ice marrow, intending to slumber until modern times—only to wake up in Great Xia and walk right into its waiting nets. There were even unluckier cases where the mystic ice marrow hadn't aged long enough, or was an outright fake, causing it to melt halfway through and forcing the sleeper to emerge prematurely. The ancient Body Integration cultivators Lu Yang had run into during the strange rule phenomenon in Buyi Town were an example of that misfortune. "Why bother with ten-thousand-year mystic ice marrow? If you ask this Immortal, a single Immortal Fairy Fruit would guarantee they'd slumber until the end of time, never waking early!" "Fairy, aren't your Immortal Fairy Fruits meant for the dead to keep corpses from decomposing?" "It's practically the same thing! Those fellows who froze themselves in mystic ice marrow aren't much different from corpses anyway. Otherwise, how do you think they evaded their lifespan limits and slept until now? Wasn't it precisely because they were in a state of suspended animation while frozen?" "Mm, calling it suspended animation isn't entirely accurate either. A more precise term would be a near time stop." "A time stop?" The Immortal Fairy nodded seriously. In that instant, she recalled Girl Yun's warning not to tell Lu Yang too many things that exceeded normal boundaries. Then she thought of how she had once laughed proudly in antiquity, traversing the world unhindered and roaming carefree. A mere Girl Yun was hardly someone she needed to heed! She would speak! "What I'm about to tell you next is top secret. You must never tell Girl Yun!" Wise as the Immortal Fairy was, she swiftly devised a way to have the best of both worlds. "Go ahead, Fairy. Don't you know me? My lips are sealed tighter than a vault!" Lu Yang patted his mouth, swearing his absolute reliability. Even though Lu Yang still bore Eldest Senior Sister's warnings in mind, whenever he heard the Immortal Fairy bring up such secrets, he could never suppress his curiosity. Of course, if the Immortal Fairy wanted to recount her embarrassing ancient history, that would be another matter entirely. The First-in-Command and Second-in-Command exchanged understanding smiles in perfect tacit agreement, having already cast aside their squabble from three days ago. "If you cultivate the Heavenly Eye and achieve supreme vision, you will discover that all matter in the world is in constant motion—be it people, objects, specks of dust, or the tinier particles that compose matter as seen through the Heavenly Eye." "Everything, without exception, is in motion." "Immortal Jiuchong possessed the Yin-Yang Dao fruit and controlled extreme temperatures. He discovered that motion is not absolute. If you lower the temperature to the absolute limit, then even the tiniest particles will freeze, rendered incapable of motion." "Immortal Jiuchong consulted Immortal Suiyue about this phenomenon. After studying it, Immortal Suiyue said that under absolute cold, Immortal Jiuchong could also achieve a time stop by utilizing extreme freezing." "'Also'? Immortal Suiyue could stop time too?" "Naturally. Immortal Suiyue could halt time across the entire world, on a scale far vaster than Immortal Jiuchong's." "Later, Immortal Jiuchong discovered that under high temperatures, the speed of those smallest particles accelerated. So he cranked the temperature to the absolute maximum—a heat far exceeding the sun." "Under that ultimate high temperature, the velocity of the smallest particles reached the absolute limit: the speed of light. That, once again, touched upon the domain of the Suiyue Dao fruit." Lu Yang quietly turned over the story in his mind, feeling an immense sense of enlightenment. "Fairy, do you mean to say that regardless of the Dao fruit, all paths ultimately converge to the same truth?" The Immortal Fairy stared into Lu Yang's eyes for a moment. In truth, she had simply recalled the anecdote upon seeing the mention of mystic ice marrow; she hadn't intended any profound takeaway. "Precisely! That is the very truth this Immortal wished to impart to you. Who knew you would deduce it all on your own!" While they conversed, the party arrived at the Metal Vein. The moment they set foot upon it, everyone felt a numbing prickle across their skin. Their Golden Cores immediately acted to protect their masters, coating their skin in a thin film of spiritual energy before the tingling finally subsided. "This is the formless metal qi unique to the Metal Vein," Bai Ming explained. "According to Elder Tong, who is the Metal Vein Elder, this vein is formed from countless lodes of precious refined stone. Precious refined stones possess their own pride, and their pride forbids them from coexisting alongside other ores. The clashes between these refined stones cause metal qi to leak outward, giving rise to this peculiar phenomenon." Vegetation rarely grew in the soil of the Metal Vein. Even when spiritual plants occasionally sprouted, they took on a metallic sheen, having been assimilated by the vein's influence. To be able to grow in an environment so saturated with metal qi, their toughness went without saying. Lu Yang's Sword Spiritual Root was a variant of the Metal Spiritual Root, making him especially attuned to the vigorous metal qi drifting about. If this metal qi were refined, it would form the most rudimentary kind of sword qi. Man Gu noticed many Five Elements Sect disciples sitting cross-legged across the Metal Vein, numerous magic treasures hovering above their heads, gently bobbing like ships adrift at sea. Others worked in pairs, pitting various magic treasures against one another in coordinated contests where the treasures complemented each other to form formidable arrays. Such delicate control spoke volumes about the strength of their divine senses. Bai Ming smiled. "What the Metal Vein excels at most is the manipulation of metal, which functions similarly to sword-kinesis." "When it comes to mastery over metal, none surpassed the First-Generation Metal Vein Elder. His cultivation shook the heavens and earth, and every gesture conformed naturally to the laws of the world—truly a figure of peerless might. If he hadn't relocated several mineral veins here during the founding of our sect, the Metal Vein as it exists today would never have formed." "...So what you're saying is that your Five Elements Sect stole this Metal Vein from somewhere else?" "You shouldn't call it stealing," Bai Ming corrected. "It's called unauthorized mining." "Furthermore, the First-Generation Metal Vein Elder had studied the law. Back then, the Great Xia Dynasty had just been founded, its legal system was still rudimentary, and not even a draft of the penal code existed. So he took advantage of that gap to make a hasty contribution to the sect, sneaking several mineral veins back home." Without so much as a draft penal code, no crime could be established. Lu Yang: "..." "The First-Generation Metal Vein Elder maintained that as cultivators, their words and actions must align with natural laws. This proved that cultivators themselves were an inherent part of natural law. Thus, relocating the mineral veins to the Five Elements Sect wasn't unauthorized mining; it was merely the natural migration of mineral veins. It was just that with his assistance, the migration proceeded a little faster, which could hardly be considered a crime." "And then what happened?" "The imperial court didn't buy it." "I figured as much." "Afterward, he took out a loan from the Meng Family and bought those mineral veins outright." Bai Ming glanced at Meng Jingzhou and added, "As for that loan from the Meng Family, it was fully repaid sixty thousand years ago."