Chapter 663: Time, Discovery
Chapter 663: Time, Discovery
Translator: Radiant Translations Editor: Radiant Translations
The second boundary of the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique was known as Heart Arousal. As soon as he began cultivating it, Xue Ying's True Deity Heart arrived in an illusory realm.
Within this illusory realm, Xue Ying was standing on top of a mountain peak, shivering. Pain was engulfing him time and time again.
Suddenly, a white, delicate finger touched his shoulder, and the pain he was feeling immediately dispersed.
"Mn?" Xue Ying turned around and saw a beautiful woman. Her appearance was exquisite, her temperament and charm such that even Xue Ying himself rarely saw. Her voice was so soft that it sent a tingling sensation through his bones. "Why torture yourself?" she asked. "Come, accompany me instead." With these words, she coiled around Xue Ying to release her breath next to his ears.
He was feeling genuinely comfortable; all that pain from before had vanished.
But at the very next moment, Xue Ying released his aura to push away the charming woman, then turned around and left. The very instant he drove her away, however, the pain returned to engulf his entire body.
...
An old man was fishing by the side of a lake, next to whom Xue Ying had suddenly appeared, pain still surging through his body.
"Youngster, what is the purpose of your painstaking cultivation? Is everything you're doing not for the sake of living a carefree life? But look at this old man—I can eat whatever I want to eat, and drink whatever I wish to drink. If I feel like fishing or sleeping, I can just do so. Say, why not let go of everything and enjoy the small pleasures of life?" the old man said with a smile.
During the previous encounter, Xue Ying never even spoke a word to the charming woman.
But as he faced this old man, he couldn't help but retort, "If you don't cultivate, you can live but a short hundred years or so. But if you do well in cultivation, you can live for much longer! So you tell me—why not cultivate?
"If you don't cultivate, what can you depend on for your sustenance? You might just starve to death. By cultivating, you get to enjoy all sorts of delicious foods and nectareous drinks, delicacies in all sorts of shapes and sizes; you get to enjoy all of that.
"If you don't cultivate, how many mountains can you hope to climb? How far can you walk? Cultivate, and you can fly anywhere and see the whole world.
"If you don't cultivate, any random soldier you meet might cause you to fall into a predicament. By cultivating, you can become a one-man army, someone comparable to Deities and Demons. Once you've considered all this, let me ask you again: would you rather cultivate or not?"
Xue Ying continued elaborating.
When he was young, his parents had been imprisoned, and this single fact alone allowed Xue Ying to realize that, without power, he could never hope to protect his loved ones. And if he could not do that, how would he be able to enjoy life? He would be like a little ant, hoping not to be stomped someday in the future.
"Furthermore…
"There are millions and millions of lives in the vast cosmos. If you don't cultivate, you will forever remain but one unremarkable being with a hundred years to live. Such a life is short and fleeting. But if you cultivate, you get the chance to stand at the very peak of the cosmos, to see the rise and fall of planets and of clans. You could easily destroy the void itself with a flick of your finger, and your willpower may affect countless lives and deaths."
As Xue Ying continued explaining, the old man simply dissipated at some point.
...
Xue Ying once again changed locations, this time to a luxurious-looking palace hall. He was seated high up on a throne, with a large group of subjects kneeling and begging him.
"Your Majesty, why the need to torture yourself? You are a mighty sovereign with countless generals and a loyal legion. Nobody would ever dare to treat you as their enemy."
"Your Majesty, why are you torturing yourself? The hearts of us loyal subjects ache for you."
Countless people were begging him.
Yet Xue Ying only lightly shook his head. "Only knowing how to enjoy myself would signify that I don't have what it takes to keep a stable hold over this throne."
...
The world had countless desires which people longed for. Be it beauty, all sorts of emotions, power, even gluttony; everything and anything with an alluring quality to it was included.
But Xue Ying treated everything cooly.
Having cultivated to his current realm, he was clear of the myriad existences which existed throughout the cosmos. Nothing could be obtained without an exchange. Holding a stable throne and having earth-shattering power would only be possible by paying an even higher price to control his many subjects to rule the entire world! In order to gain beauty, one needed the power to keep others who coveted her away.
To enjoy all sorts of delicious food, one needed the qualifications to ask great chefs to cook for them, as well as send countless people out to search for ingredients.
Even when it came to a simple relationship, he needed the power to protect it.
The laws of this cosmos were fair.
As such, while the Heart Arousal boundary seemed alluring at a glance, it was not practical. In Xue Ying's eyes, it was no more than a joke.
He was thus able to comfortably get through the Heart Arousal boundary.
******
Having gotten through two boundaries in one shot, Xue Ying had quite a confidence boost going into the third boundary.
The third and final boundary was known as the boundary of 'Time'.
As soon as he first started his cultivation of the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique third boundary, he was once again swept into an illusory realm. The flow of time here was different from that of the external world. Like an ordinary man having a dream, he could live here for a very long time, while in reality, only a short night might pass.
Such was the third boundary. Unlike the first two, it did nothing to intensify the pain he was feeling.
However, this stage involved him taking on specific roles in different lives, going from start to finish. Xue Ying could not resist this pull, and neither could he show any preferences! He could only turn into the protagonist and experience everything in this life as if in a trance. Any attraction he had for a girl, for instance, would be accepted within the dream, despite any feeling of rejection he might have buried in his heart.
Nothing was under his control, and events would just develop naturally.
The first role he had involved a long lifespan. He began this life as an ordinary mortal, experiencing love and hatred. Having embarked on the path of cultivation, he eventually took a wrong turn and became a devil. This life of his lasted for a total of 1.5 billion years. He had become a stage two World Deity before being finally killed because of his overwhelming cruelty and craziness.
A total of 1.5 billion years passed just like that amidst his immersion in the boundary of Time.
Xue Ying had never experienced such an extended period of time. How long had he even cultivated for? Even though his cultivation heart was at a very profound stage, he could not avoid being influenced by this life.
His second run proved to be even darker. He experienced all sorts of tragedies as a mortal, turning into a devil entirely by the time he was 16 years old. He relied on a Demonic God to destroy the entire mortal realm and even became a mighty Demonic God himself after entering the Dark Abyss. Savage, cunning, cold and untrusting towards everyone—in this way he lived for a total of 2.3 billion years before being killed at the stage three World Deity realm.
His third life was a much smoother journey. He lived the life of a genius who did not experience any setbacks. His path of cultivation was very smooth, and he even gathered a large group of wives and concubines, as well as having countless beauties sending themselves into his embrace. In fact, at some point, he stopped even desiring any more women, simply because there were too many beauties already around him! As such, he stopped accepting girls whom he did not have feelings for. This role continued all the way until he died as a stage four World Deity after an extremely elegant life which lasted 12 billion years or so.
And as he died…
"Peng."
Xue Ying's True Deity Heart trembled, his cultivation interrupted.
'I failed?' Xue Ying woke up. He was now clear that he had failed in this cultivation of the third boundary of the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique. 'Only 1100 years have gone by in the real world, yet I've lived for more than 10 billion years in the Time Boundary…'
His soul had been affected by the passing of time, preventing him from being able to hold on any further.
Crossing the Time Boundary involved remaining awake during the entire process without being affected by any of the disturbances. Clearly, those three roles he had lived through were but a small part of the entire Time Boundary.
'The notion of time has always been rather mystical. After many long years, most human hearts would transform,' Xue Ying thought. 'Even though my heart is clear and I should be able to tolerate living for a long period of time… how could I be able to just disregard turning into someone else and experiencing new life for more than 10 billion years?'
How long had he genuinely cultivated for?
Xue Ying was even left absent-minded, as he could now hardly even discern what was real and what was illusory. Even his soul felt old and lethargic as if he had already reached the end of his lifespan and was about to die.
...
After his first failure in the third boundary, Xue Ying was in no rush to continue cultivating. The true body in his hometown was accompanying his wife and children. It was in this manner that his heart gradually recovered.
He was not sure how long the Time Boundary would last, and how many roles would he have to experience. It was no wonder that even most powerful Paragons would fail in their attempts at cultivating this secret technique.
After accompanying his wife and children for a total of three thousand years, he felt that he finally made a full recovery.
As such, it was time for another attempt!
On his second attempt, he once again experienced three roles before failing.
Fail.
Fail.
Very soon, the ten thousand years time limit was up.
The white-haired old man stood up. Looking at Xue Ying, he did not seem confused about his troubles. "Trapped in the Time Boundary? This final step is one that very few true gods and paragons have ever crossed. You are ultimately too young." With these final words, he waved his hand. A bubble then quickly enveloped Xue Ying to send him out.
...
Falling snow was covering up the entire sky.
Now back in the Icy Snow Eden, Xue Ying continued cultivating the Cultivating Heart Secret Technique, only to be met with another failure. Gradually, anxiety began creeping up on him.
Thirty thousand years after he was thrown out from the Cultivating Heart Palace, in the corner of the Deity world's starry landscape, an old man dressed in simple clothes was carefully investigating this particular region of the world. He was none other than the most ancient Ruler in the entire cosmos, the Primal Master.
"Mn?" The Primal Master frowned.
"Bloodshed, some of you should rush over here. I might have found the base of the Ancestor Mother Religion," the Primal Master sent over. Once Xue Ying passed the star map to the Bloodshed God Emperor, the Rulers began an incomparably thorough investigation of this particular area.
"You found something?"
"We'll be there as soon as possible."
"We're coming."
The Bloodshed God Emperor, the Temporal Island Lord, the Abyss Primogenitor and all the other Rulers were all feeling quite happy as they made their way over!