"Five hundred years. It's been five hundred years. Do you know what these five hundred years have been like for me?" The deep voice was thick with suppressed grievance and a hint of anger, betraying the speaker's turbulent emotions.
But there was no response.
On the Wenshen Lotus, Fang Tiancai stared at Lei Ying as though looking at an idiot. Lei Ying's composure cracked instantly, and he said in annoyance, "Could you at least ask me something..."
If you don't even ask, how am I supposed to continue?
"Childish!" Fang Tiancai tossed out a one-word verdict.
Lei Ying deflated, utterly exasperated. "Being stuck with a wooden block like you is excruciatingly boring. No woman could ever like you."
Fang Tiancai chuckled. "I have children and grandchildren aplenty!"
Lei Ying turned his head. "Boss, what about this Qiankun?"
Soon, Yang Kai's voice drifted over in response. "The Heavenly Laws are fairly complete by now. There are already some faint traces of life emerging. This counts as a newborn Qiankun. Given a few more millennia, real creatures may appear."
Lei Ying perked up immediately. "Doesn't that mean we're getting closer and closer to the Three Thousand Worlds?"
According to Yang Kai's earlier theory, by examining the Heavenly Laws of the Qiankun worlds they passed through, they could determine whether their direction of travel was correct. The closer they were to the Three Thousand Worlds, the more complete the Heavenly Laws in those worlds would be. Using this method, Yang Kai had been constantly correcting his course for the past five hundred years. Every world they inspected along the way confirmed the theory — the Heavenly Laws had grown steadily more complete.
Until this one. Here, the Heavenly Laws had essentially taken final shape, and infinitesimally small forms of life had already appeared.
The birth of life meant that this Qiankun possessed the conditions for living creatures to survive. Perhaps after another few thousand or ten thousand years of evolution and change, creatures unique to this world would emerge.
The direction was right. All that remained was time.
After all, he was journeying back from the very edge of Heaven and Earth. The time it required was considerable. Five hundred years had passed, yet he still had no clear sense of when he would find the way home.
Now a full five hundred years since the Cosmos Furnace had closed, he had no idea how the war between humanity and the Ink Clan was faring. He needed to speed up.
He didn't linger on this Qiankun and pressed onward.
Another hundred years flew by. When Yang Kai descended into yet another Qiankun to survey its condition, he was startled to discover that this one already teemed with living creatures.
Most of them inhabited the vast oceans; terrestrial life was sparse. Moreover, the entire world was blanketed in green vegetation — a lush, verdant panorama stretching to every horizon. Where life had taken hold, the Qiankun was fully alive. Given enough time, it might not be impossible for it to eventually give rise to a human race, or perhaps some other species entirely, much as the Star Boundary had.
Yang Kai tried once more to link with the World Tree, but there was not the faintest flicker of connection.
The countless Qiankun within the Three Thousand Worlds and the World Tree existed in a relationship of mutual dependence. The World Fruits on the World Tree were, in a sense, reflections of those very worlds. When a Qiankun perished, the corresponding World Fruit withered completely.
This world was clearly brimming with vitality, yet it had no connection whatsoever to the World Tree. In the end, the reason was simple: the power of the World Tree simply had not reached this far.
This place was simply too remote from the Three Thousand Worlds.
Yang Kai's thoughts drifted back to his earlier speculation about the nature of Heaven and Earth. Lei Ying's casual remark long ago had set him thinking deeply.
The Cosmos Furnace had birthed the world. Were the Three Thousand Worlds, the Ink Battlefield, and all the lands deeper still truly the only Heaven and Earth?
Beyond this Heaven and Earth, were there yet more unknown realms?
Or perhaps — were the Three Thousand Worlds one Heaven and Earth, and the Ink Battlefield an entirely separate one?
The place he currently stood should be somewhere deeper within the Ink Battlefield, a region neither humans nor the Ink Clan had ever ventured. If this truly belonged to the same Heaven and Earth, then why could the World Tree's power not reach into a world here whose Heavenly Laws were fully mature, where life had already taken root?
Yang Kai sank into contemplation.
Perhaps... he could find a way to link this Qiankun with the World Tree? If he managed it, he could leverage the old tree's power to return to the Taixu Realm, saving himself the time and effort of continuing the journey on foot.
The road ahead was impossibly long. Even traveling by way of his Space Great Dao, Yang Kai had spent a full six hundred years and still could not see any sign of familiar territory. Even if he kept going, he had no idea how many more years or lifetimes it would take before he glimpsed a landscape he recognized.
At that thought, Yang Kai's heart stirred.
He happened to have something on hand that he could use to put this theory to the test.
The moment the idea came, he acted. Yang Kai launched himself into the sky and soon arrived above this Qiankun, scanning the land below until he found a valley fragrant with flowers. He descended and alighted there.
Then, the gateway to his personal Small World swung open, and a towering tree was transplanted outward from within.
A sapling of the World Tree!