Upon hearing Lan Xiaobu’s words, everyone immediately understood his intention. Lan Xiaobu, whose origins were unclear, didn’t seem to know much about the Path of Eternal Life. Calling everyone together meant he wanted to ask the group for information regarding immortality.
Realising this, the crowd felt a wave of relief. Indeed, while Lan Xiaobu’s displayed strength appeared to be that of a First-Turn Sage, he was almost certainly not just that—quite possibly a Ninth-Turn perfected powerhouse.
Thinking of how he had previously offended Lan Xiaobu, the Yellow Spring Ancestor wanted to improve his standing in Lan Xiaobu’s eyes. He took the initiative and said, “Lord Lan, have you ever heard the phrase, ‘All beneath a sage are mere ants’?”
Lan Xiaobu nodded. “I’ve heard it, though I didn’t pay it much mind after proving my Dao.”
The Yellow Spring Ancestor inwardly sneered—‘didn’t pay it much mind after proving your Dao,’ huh? But he didn’t dare show his disdain and instead said cautiously, “Lord Lan, this saying, ‘All beneath a sage are mere ants,’ refers to Eternal Life Sages, not the usual Ninth-Turn Sages we speak of.”
Hearing this, Lan Xiaobu understood. It wasn’t that he was too humble; he’d been overly confident. In short, it meant he didn’t yet qualify as a true sage.
“Go on,” Lan Xiaobu said, unconcerned about whether he was a true sage. What mattered to him was whether he’d remain an ant in the future.
The Yellow Spring Ancestor breathed a sigh of relief, worried that Lan Xiaobu’s odd temperament might misinterpret his words as mockery.
“‘All beneath a sage are mere ants’ means not only that life and death are beyond one’s control, but also that the world itself isn’t under one’s command,” the Yellow Spring Ancestor explained.
Lan Xiaobu’s expression remained calm. He understood this. The people before him all controlled their own planetary domains, didn’t they? Though he governed the Great Desolate Divine Realm, he was merely a nominal Dao Lord. These others, however, treated their planets as personal property, able to sacrifice them at will.
“Lord Lan should know of the World-Ending Calamity, right? It’s said that the last one nearly destroyed every planetary domain in an entire plane…” the Yellow Spring Ancestor continued.
Lan Xiaobu gave a soft acknowledgement. “Indeed, I do. I come from the plane where that calamity struck. Beyond the World-Ending Calamity, there are also smaller calamities in certain planets and domains. After investigating, I learned these calamities likely stem from a heaven-opening divine technique called the Great Cosmos Art, or perhaps the Great Star Art.”
In truth, Lan Xiaobu had long suspected a link between the World-Ending Calamity and the Great Star Art. Qu Peng, who cultivated the Great Star Art, had billions of avatars, some of which even developed independent personalities—like the quasi-sage Qia He in the Blooming Love Sage City.
The Yellow Spring Ancestor said, “Lord Lan’s guess isn’t entirely wrong, but it’s not completely accurate either. I know you’re likely thinking of the Great Cosmos Sage who修炼 the Great Star Art, but the reality differs slightly from your assumptions.”
“Please enlighten me,” Lan Xiaobu replied, genuinely moved. He’d never held the Yellow Spring Ancestor in high regard, assuming his achievements came from slaughter and ruthlessness. Even his treasure, the Heavenly Dao Yellow Spring, was a mere imitation, suggesting limited potential. Yet this man knew such hidden secrets—Lan Xiaobu had underestimated him.
Sensing the shift in Lan Xiaobu’s tone, the Yellow Spring Ancestor grew more spirited. “Many believe the Great Star Art and the Great Cosmos Art are the same technique, but they’re actually distinct. The Great Star Art is a heaven-opening Dao technique, while the Great Cosmos Art is a self-created one.”
Lan Xiaobu’s heart stirred. Initially, he hadn’t thought the two were the same, even speculating that the Great Star Art might lead into the Great Cosmos Art. But as his cultivation deepened and his knowledge grew, he concluded they were identical, just with different names—like a yam and a sweet potato. Now, it seemed his first instinct was right: they were indeed different.
What puzzled him was this: if they were distinct, the Great Cosmos Art should be the heaven-opening scroll, and the Great Star Art should be called something like the Lesser Cosmos Art.
The Yellow Spring Ancestor explained, “The Great Star Art is the heaven-opening scroll, obtained by Qu Peng, also known as the Great Cosmos Sage. He’s arguably the most astonishingly brilliant figure in the vast cosmic river—without equal.”
At this, Lan Xiaobu frowned slightly. The Great Cosmos Sage was on par with the Great Dream Sage, both formidable, but to call him the most brilliant without peer seemed excessive. Lan Xiaobu had slain the Great Dream Sage and taken the Earth Dream Tower. As for the Great Cosmos Sage, he’d killed a few of his avatars—even the independent-minded quasi-sage Qia He—and found them underwhelming.
Noticing Lan Xiaobu’s confusion, the Yellow Spring Ancestor elaborated, “Lord Lan, you may have encountered and even killed some of the Great Cosmos Sage’s avatars, but he’s essentially unkillable. With billions of avatars, the ones you defeated might have been his most insignificant ones.”
“Friend Yellow Spring, if one masters the Dao of Space and uses spatial soul-tracing, wouldn’t that be enough to wipe out the Great Cosmos Sage entirely?” Lan Xiaobu asked.
When he killed Qia He, he hadn’t yet grasped spatial soul-tracing. But now, Lan Xiaobu was confident he could eradicate the Great Cosmos Sage completely, just as he’d done with Yi Xie, the Dao Lord of the Beast Soul Dao.
The Yellow Spring Ancestor shook his head. “No. Even a sage who’s proven the Dao of Space can’t fully eliminate the Great Cosmos Sage through spatial soul-tracing. He’s a being who’s created his own rule-based universe. Even if you traced and killed all his avatars in the vast cosmos, you couldn’t touch the soul fragments in his personal universe…”
Da Xuanqiong chimed in, “Beyond a universe crafted by personal rules, which spatial soul-tracing can’t reach, those peerless experts who’ve proven the Dao of Time are also immune. Their soul fragments can hide in their own time nodes, beyond the reach of space.”
Lan Xiaobu’s mind clicked—he’d been blind to the obvious because he was too close to it.
Take himself, for example. He’d created the Eternal Life Realm, built on his own Dao principles. If someone killed him and used spatial soul-tracing, they could indeed destroy all his avatars left in the vast cosmos. But they’d never reach his Eternal Life Realm, an independent domain wholly forged by his own rules, unconnected to the greater cosmos.
Lan Xiaobu frowned slightly. Mastering the Dao of Space wasn’t omnipotent after all.
“Such a powerhouse—how was he killed?” Lan Xiaobu latched onto a key question. The Great Cosmos Sage was an eternal being who’d crafted his own rule-based world, much like Lan Xiaobu. So how had he been taken down?
The Yellow Spring Ancestor sighed. “He was already an eternal powerhouse, but the Great Cosmos Sage wasn’t satisfied. He felt his Great Star Art wasn’t the pinnacle, so he sought to elevate it into the Great Cosmos Art. Everyone knows the Great Star Art is brutal to cultivate—using planets as nourishment, triggering calamities that devour the fate of countless worlds. The Great Cosmos Art is even more terrifying, requiring the destruction of entire planes. And he wasn’t the only eternal powerhouse out there…”
Lan Xiaobu began to piece it together. There were many eternal powerhouses, all coexisting in this vast expanse. For the Great Cosmos Sage to cultivate the Great Cosmos Art, he’d need to annihilate plane after plane, likely sparking widespread outrage and a united assault.
Sure enough, the Yellow Spring Ancestor said, “The Great Cosmos Sage could destroy his own plane, and no one cared. But when he aimed to obliterate every plane in the vast expanse, that crossed a line. Hence, that great battle…”
A sudden thought struck Lan Xiaobu. “Friend Yellow Spring, if they’re eternal sages, they wouldn’t still reside in the same plane as us, right? Isn’t there an Eternal Life Plane?”
The Yellow Spring Ancestor explained, “That’s true. But Lord Lan, if you achieved eternal life one day, would you let others meddle in your territory? Every eternal powerhouse has their own Dao foundation—without it, they couldn’t prove eternity. Take my Yellow Spring Star or Da Xuanqiong’s Supreme Sage Divine Land, for instance. In that war, though the Great Cosmos Sage was mighty, he couldn’t face a horde of eternal powerhouses alone. Before his soul was shattered, he unleashed the full might of his plane’s domains and planets, triggering the World-Ending Calamity…”
Lan Xiaobu’s face paled instantly. “I came from the plane of that calamity. Are you saying my plane was the Great Cosmos Sage’s?”
The Yellow Spring Ancestor nodded. “Yes, it was his. But not as you might think. You probably assume he created that plane, but that’s not the case. It existed already—he merely seized control of it with his overwhelming strength, turning it into his personal garden. In truth, it’s not just your plane—behind ours, there’s an eternal powerhouse too.”
Lan Xiaobu’s expression grew darker.
Shan Bu’ang spoke up, “Lord Lan, it’s not that significant. As long as the eternal powerhouse controlling a plane doesn’t face a life-or-death crisis, our plane won’t typically collapse or suffer calamities. Nor are we truly ‘controlled’—we can step beyond this plane and become eternal powerhouses ourselves at any time. Like the first ancestor of the Yellow Spring Sage Dao, the founder of the Beast Soul Dao, or even the creator of my Li Zhou Palace—all proved eternity and left this plane.”
