Fang Tianci's calm voice drifted up: "If one day the Boss's consciousness falls dormant again, who do you think should take over the body — you, or me?"
Lei Ying immediately fell silent…
Inheriting the Grand Dao of cultivation along with Yang Kai did have its benefits. If the Boss's consciousness truly did fall dormant one day, it was only natural for Fang Tianci to take over the body, since he could draw out more of Yang Kai's true strength.
Lei Ying's sudden takeover before had been an accident. Yang Kai's consciousness had abruptly gone quiet just as Lei Ying happened to awaken, so taking control had been the obvious course of action.
It wasn't until Lei Ying had chased Monaye fruitlessly that Fang Tianci's consciousness finally stirred. Had Fang Tianci awakened first, Monaye might never have gotten away.
That was why Yang Kai had felt that Monaye was truly the kind of pest who would linger for a thousand years — his fate simply refused to let him die.
"Quit jinxing things, Second Brother!" Lei Ying had stewed in silence for a long while before finally squeezing out a retort. "Just be more careful in the future. That situation might not come up again."
"There's always a possibility, and it's happened before. We have to guard against it!"
"How many 'possibilities' do you think there are…"
The two clones bickered on inside his head, and Yang Kai let out an amused chuckle. Far from feeling irritated, he found the experience rather novel.
For so many years, whether facing powerful enemies or exploring unknown territories, he had largely been acting alone — solitary, with no one to depend on. Now that he had both a human form and a demonic one, at least things wouldn't be quite so lonely.
He let them carry on with their argument and turned his attention to quietly sensing his surroundings.
When he had first entered this world within the furnace, it had been saturated with incredibly dense and chaotic fragmented Dao marks. Those fragments had coalesced into all manner of terrain, even forming the Endless River, and had given rise to native creatures as unique as the Chaos Spirit race.
But after undergoing successive cycles of Grand Dao evolution, the omnipresent fragmented Dao marks had become exceedingly faint. In their place, order and stability now prevailed. As far as his current senses could tell, the environment within the furnace world was somewhat different from the Three Thousand Worlds, but no longer drastically so.
Why had the Qiankun Furnace undergone such Grand Dao evolution? What did this evolution signify?
When he had first received the intelligence brought in by the human cultivators, Yang Kai had already begun mulling over this question. During each cycle of Grand Dao evolution, he had carefully perceived the changes in his surroundings, hoping to uncover some pattern — but he had found nothing substantial.
It wasn't until he had ventured deep into the Endless River and comprehended the wonder of ten thousand Daos converging that he had formed a tentative hypothesis, though he couldn't be certain.
The Qiankun Furnace truly lived up to its reputation as a supreme treasure of heaven and earth. The Supreme Open Heaven Pills it nurtured alone were an enormous opportunity, and this world within the furnace was a self-contained realm unto itself. The Chaos Spirit race born from it was a vast and complex collective, and the Chaos Spirit King possessed strength that was in no way inferior to a human Ninth-Order cultivator or an Ink Clan King Lord.
Yang Kai had a growing suspicion that the Supreme Open Heaven Pills were not the greatest opportunity the Qiankun Furnace held. The furnace itself was the true treasure. If he could locate the main body of the Qiankun Furnace, that would be the real prize.
Yet throughout all of history, through every appearance of the Qiankun Furnace, no one had ever glimpsed its true body, let alone sought it out.
Yang Kai wanted to find it. If he could succeed, it would be an immense boon to humanity. At the very least, Supreme Open Heaven Pills would no longer be something people had to fight over.
Of course, he knew this was an extraordinarily difficult task. The great powers and sages of ages past had never managed it — there was no guarantee he could succeed either.
Do your utmost, and leave the rest to heaven!
From the intelligence he had gathered so far, the Endless River seemed to be the key. That great river spanning the entire furnace world had to be intimately connected to the Qiankun Furnace's main body.
And the furnace's Grand Dao evolution was nothing more than the process of Chaos giving rise to the myriad Daos, divided by the Qiankun Furnace's mysterious power into nine distinct stages, allowing people to perceive it more clearly and directly.
Yang Kai had a nagging feeling that the fundamental nature of the Qiankun Furnace might simply be the mystery of transforming Chaos into the myriad Daos. As for the Supreme Open Heaven Pills it produced and the Chaos Spirit race that had spawned from it — those were merely byproducts.
"Boss! Second Brother has ulterior motives — he's always scheming to take over your body!" Having lost the argument, Lei Ying cleanly threw Fang Tianci under the bus.
Yang Kai laughed, about to respond, when his expression suddenly shifted. He looked in a particular direction, a hint of surprise and delight crossing his face: "Found it!"
With that, he activated Lei Ying's innate divine ability and shot off in that direction.
Inside his head, the two clones were still at each other's throats. A moment later, Fang Tianci sensed the change and snapped: "Shut up. Something's come up."
"Oh." Lei Ying fell silent at once, though a few seconds later he muttered indignantly: "See? It's still my innate ability that does the trick."
Fang Tianci couldn't be bothered with him.
A short while later, Lei Ying spoke up again: "That Chaos Spirit King really doesn't have a brain to speak of. Why has it come back here? You'd think it wanted people to find it."
What lay before them was a strikingly familiar scene — it was precisely the spot where Yang Kai had previously snatched the Supreme Open Heaven Pill from under the Chaos Spirit King's nose, a gathering place for the Chaos Spirit race.
Back then, Xiao You had drawn the Chaos Spirit King's attention away, intending for a False King Lord to seize the pill. But Yang Kai and Lei Ying had beaten them to it, triggering a prolonged chase that had left Yang Kai gravely wounded and forced them to flee into the Endless River.
After that, Yang Kai had reappeared to rescue the humans, tossing out a spirit pill to lure the Chaos Spirit King away while the human and Ink Clan powerhouses fought a bloody battle. No one had paid any attention to where the Chaos Spirit King went — and now here it was, back in the exact same place.