Lan Xiaobu had no intention of fleeing. It was like encountering a dog’s bite—running might make it bite harder or attract more ferocious dogs.
“Who are you, daring to spy on our Great Blue Starship?” The two approaching figures blocked Lan Xiaobu’s path. Sensing he wasn’t trying to escape, their oppressive domains eased slightly.
Feeling no killing intent from them, Lan Xiaobu relaxed a bit and clasped his fists. “Greetings, fellow Daoists. I’m merely a wandering cultivator. I accidentally intruded on your esteemed ship today. Please forgive me.”
Hearing he was a wandering cultivator, the two glanced at his flying divine artifact, exchanged a look, nodded, and seemed to believe him.
“As a wandering cultivator, don’t you know this billion-mile radius is the territory of our Great Blue Starship?” one of them asked, staring at Lan Xiaobu. Though it was a reprimand, his tone had softened considerably.
Lan Xiaobu thought to himself, *You’re just a flying treasure, yet you claim a billion-mile radius of the void as your territory? Where’s your shame? Don’t you know that, aside from personal caves or planets, the void is public for cultivators to traverse? Besides, if you want to claim a billion-mile radius, at least set up a defensive array. Without one, how would anyone know? And not long ago, I saw a technological spaceship pass through here.*
Unfamiliar with the situation, he apologised again. “I’ll retreat immediately. My apologies.”
As he spoke, Lan Xiaobu quickly drove his divine artifact forward. To his relief, the two didn’t pursue, as if they truly just wanted to drive him away without causing trouble.
Lan Xiaobu hesitated, then steered his ship back.
Seeing him return, the speaking cultivator’s face darkened. “What else do you want? Speak quickly and leave. A lowly ant from a high-tier universe shouldn’t be swaggering around here. If we mistakenly kill you, don’t blame us.”
Lan Xiaobu’s heart stirred. He realised why they dared to be so rude—they had sensed he came from a high-tier universe, likely detecting his Dao rhythm fluctuations. He needed to find a place to enter seclusion and elevate his Great Path’s rhythm. The cosmic rules here were clearly far superior to those of the Hundred Zero Universe.
Clasping his fists, Lan Xiaobu said, “I’d like to ask about the Great Cosmos…”
“Heh, someone like you wants to go to the Great Cosmos? Did you stumble into this vast expanse by some stroke of luck?” The cultivator sneered mockingly, his eyes filled with disdain.
Lan Xiaobu quickly explained, “I’ve always been in this vast expanse, but my strength is low, and I’ve only ever aspired to reach the Great Cosmos…”
Before he could finish, the cultivator tossed him a jade slip and waved dismissively. “Hurry up and leave. Don’t linger around our Great Blue Starship, or you won’t be so lucky next time.”
Though his expression was disdainful and his tone unfriendly, he seemed to recognise that people like Lan Xiaobu were common.
“Thank you, both,” Lan Xiaobu said joyfully, taking the jade slip and retreating swiftly.
He could tell they only wanted to drive him away, not kill him.
As his ship moved forward, Lan Xiaobu’s divine sense scanned the jade slip. After grasping its contents, he finally understood what was happening and was astonished by the wonders of the vast cosmos.
The Great Cosmos was indeed a great cosmos. In this vast void, there might be planets, but most were private gardens of cultivators. Whether open or not, they belonged to individuals. Even if open, they were merely like void cities.
Most people lived on a vast continent, boundless and immense. Even now, no one had reached the edge of this cosmic continent, nor did anyone know what lay beneath or above it, or whether it floated in the void.
This cosmic continent was the Great Cosmos Lan Xiaobu sought.
The Great Cosmos was so vast and boundless that, logically, anyone could live and cultivate there, free to come and go. But in reality, this wasn’t the case.
The Great Cosmos was enveloped by a grand, majestic cosmic principle, so profound that no one had ever grasped even a fraction of it. Unable to comprehend it, no one knew what level of existence this mysterious principle encasing the Great Cosmos was.
The Great Cosmos had an entrance, but not just anyone could enter. For those living within, everything outside—planes, universes, planets—was dispensable. In the vast expanse, only the Great Cosmos mattered.
Where there are people, there are conflicts, even for sages or supreme sages.
The Great Cosmos was such a place. There, proving the seventh step wasn’t remarkable, nor was reaching the pinnacle of the Great Path. The cosmic rules were so vast and complex that anything you couldn’t comprehend simply didn’t exist. Imagine, even supreme sages who had proven their ultimate path couldn’t grasp a fraction of the principles encasing the Great Cosmos, showing that no one could ever cultivate to the absolute peak there.
Due to its immensely powerful and profound rules, the Great Cosmos had birthed countless supreme powerhouses and forces over countless years. These powerhouses and forces established rules for entering the Great Cosmos.
These weren’t mere written rules but true cosmic principles, located in the space designated for entering the Great Cosmos. Only by perfectly meeting these entry principles could one enter.
These entry rules applied not just to individuals but primarily to planets and universes.
First, cultivators from a star region typically arrived as a group, not individually. For a star region’s cultivators to enter the Great Cosmos, two conditions had to be met.
The duration, in tens of thousands of years, depended on the planet’s size, the level of its cultivation or technological civilization, and the number of powerhouses.
Lan Xiaobu realised that the Great Blue Starship carried many cultivators from the Great Blue Universe. Before entering the Great Cosmos, they couldn’t simply walk in; they had to guard the Great Cosmos’s periphery for a time.
This guardianship was necessary because the Great Cosmos was frequently invaded and attacked by external forces. As the Great Cosmos grew stronger, these invasions became relatively weaker.
There were countless beings like those on the Great Blue Starship in the Great Cosmos’s periphery.
No wonder the two cultivators were relatively amicable—they, too, wanted to enter the Great Cosmos but weren’t yet qualified. Thus, they couldn’t recklessly kill. Had they not sensed Lan Xiaobu’s low-tier Dao rhythm, they might not have dared to suppress him with their domains.
As for the technological spaceship that had sped by earlier, its origins were clearly significant, likely native to the Great Cosmos, so the outsiders from the Great Blue Starship didn’t dare complain. Their claimed billion-mile void was merely a matter of planetary pride, applicable only to cultivators not from the Great Cosmos. This was why they didn’t set up a defensive array.
The second condition was that the planet had to produce a seventh-step powerhouse or a technological civilization exceeding level seventeen, both extremely difficult. Cultivating to the seventh step in the Great Cosmos was arduous, but not impossible. For example, while the people of the Great Blue Starship lived on a ship, some cultivators could enter the Great Cosmos to cultivate and prove their Dao through other means.
Proving the seventh step elsewhere was hard, but in the Great Cosmos, it wasn’t impossible with sufficient talent and opportunity. There was a good chance of reaching the seventh or even eighth step.
Achieving a level seventeen technological civilization was equally challenging. Lan Xiaobu had no concept of what constituted a level seventeen technological civilization and didn’t bother to figure it out. What mattered to him was the requirements for an individual to enter the Great Cosmos.
