After silently reflecting on his gains from this experience for a time, Yang Kai slowly rose to his feet.
Liu Yan and Hua Qingsi were nearby—he wasn't sure when they had arrived. They had likely been drawn by the disturbance he'd caused, though both women had kept their distance and hadn't dared to approach.
Now that Yang Kai was standing, the two exchanged a glance and drifted over.
"Master, what secret art were you contemplating earlier? Why were your appearance and physical state constantly shifting?" Liu Yan asked, a trace of anxiety in her voice.
"My appearance was changing?" Yang Kai raised his eyebrows in surprise. He had assumed it was just a dream—he hadn't expected it to be real. No wonder he had been able to grasp the Laws of Time and condense the imprint of the Eternity Emperor's secret art. His body had genuinely been cycling between old age and youth this entire time, using those physical transformations to imprint the passage of time upon himself. It made sense, then, that he could comprehend the temporal laws.
"Yes. The old you looked quite pitiful," Hua Qingsi chimed in from the side with a nod.
Yang Kai offered a faint smile but didn't dwell on it. Birth, aging, sickness, death—these were part of the cycle. Having grasped the Laws of Time, he viewed such things with equanimity.
After a moment's thought, he said, "That was the Eternity Emperor's secret art!"
Liu Yan and Hua Qingsi both lit up with astonishment. Liu Yan exclaimed in delight, "Master, you've obtained the Eternity Emperor's inheritance?"
Though Yang Kai already possessed the Heaven Devouring Emperor's inheritance, that technique was essentially un cultivatable by ordinary people. The Eternity Emperor was different—if he had truly obtained that inheritance, his future path would be smooth sailing.
Yang Kai shook his head. "I originally thought the Four Seasons Beads concealed the Eternity Emperor's inheritance, but that wasn't the case. It was only a single secret art of his. Still... my gains were enormous."
Being able to take his first steps on the path of the temporal laws, Yang Kai felt that even without the full inheritance it didn't matter. As long as he persisted in his cultivation, he would one day reach the Eternity Emperor's level—or even surpass it.
But before that, he needed to push his mastery of the spatial laws to their absolute peak. Trying to devour too much at once would only leave him unable to digest anything, and Yang Kai understood that principle.
"How long has it been?" Yang Kai suddenly asked.
He had been trapped in that cycle of alternating ages, unable to sense the passage of time at all, so he had no idea how long this period of cultivation had lasted.
"Almost a year!" Hua Qingsi said.
From the moment Yang Kai had entered wounded, Liu Yan and Hua Qingsi had sensed his presence. Counting the time, it was almost exactly one year.
"A year!" Yang Kai was startled. He had assumed that even if it took some time, it wouldn't be more than two or three months at most. He hadn't expected a full year to have passed.
In other words, during the first year the Shattered Star Sea had been open, he had done nothing but heal and contemplate the mysteries of the Four Seasons Beads? He had no idea whether that counted as squandering his opportunity.
What made Yang Kai even more uneasy was that he had no idea how long the Shattered Star Sea would remain open. If it only stayed open for one year, hadn't he wasted the entire chance?
At that thought, his expression darkened and an inexplicable sense of crisis took root.
"I'm going to go outside and see what the situation is," Yang Kai said, then turned and darted out of the Profound Realm Bead.
An entire year had passed in the blink of an eye, and he had reaped no tangible benefit. Yang Kai couldn't help feeling a measure of urgency.
Emerging from the Profound Realm Bead, Yang Kai found himself back on the massive meteorite. He looked around in every direction and found that the surrounding scenery looked much the same as when he had first arrived at the Shattered Star Sea—not greatly changed.
Still, Yang Kai was certain this was not the same place he had arrived at. He had likely drifted tens of millions of miles, if not more, because this sea of meteorites was hurtling forward at tremendous speed. Heaven only knew where it had carried him.
With a flicker of movement, Yang Kai flew out from the meteorite sea and summoned his wooden vessel.
They said the Shattered Star Sea was a tremendous opportunity for Dao Source Realm cultivators, but Yang Kai couldn't figure out where that opportunity lay. He could only wander about and try his luck.
Several days passed without anything noteworthy occurring. He did encounter a few starry storms along the way. The storms within the Shattered Star Sea were terrifyingly powerful—wherever they swept, even the void itself shattered apart. The sight made Yang Kai's scalp tingle with dread, and he didn't dare let himself get caught in one.
He didn't encounter a single other cultivator either.
In this vast expanse of starry sky, he seemed to be the only living soul. This led Yang Kai to suspect with growing unease that the Shattered Star Sea might have already closed, causing all the other cultivators who had entered to leave—while he alone had remained behind.
If that was the case, things were dire indeed.
On this particular day, just as Yang Kai was flying through the void, he suddenly felt a faint warmth on the back of his hand.
He raised his eyebrows and looked down at the spot.