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Six Domain Star
The heavens quaked as Xuan Li, the human Sword Master, faced Demon General Xuroth.
Azure steel hummed faintly in Xuan Li's grasp, the sound like a dragon's sigh before it takes flight. From Xuroth's claws, a tide of demonic Qi erupted, so dense and corrosive it warped the very air, twisting it into screaming shades that clawed at the fabric of space.
They struck.
Sword-light split the firmament, cutting open the sky itself, while abyssal darkness surged forward to devour the world.
When their ultimate moves collided, the impact ripped apart reality, tearing open a howling space channel that churned like a wounded beast.
Without hesitation, Xuan Li stepped inside.
"Running?" Xuroth's roar shook the heavens as he lunged, his claws brushing Xuan Li's sleeve—
Shiiing!
With a single stroke, Xuan Li's sword severed the tunnel itself. Space collapsed with a thunderous roar, the violent backlash flinging the Demon General hundreds of feet away.
When the dust settled, the Sword Master was gone, vanished into realms unknown.
Only rage remained.
---
Mountain Clip
The Withered Ridge stretched endlessly beneath a pale, washed-out sky. Jagged cliffs rose like the ribs of an ancient beast, their edges sharp from centuries of wind carving away the stone. The air here was thin and brittle, each breath feeling like shards of glass in the lungs. No trace of spiritual qi lingered—only the dry scent of stone and the faint resin of dying pines.
Even the stubborn pine trees that clung to the cliffside swayed weakly, their needles faded to a lifeless green. Somewhere below, a single rock loosened and tumbled down the slopes, its hollow echoes swallowed by the silence.
At the summit stood a cracked altar, weathered and half-swallowed by moss. Before it, a lone figure sat cross-legged. His robes were plain, yet the folds moved as though stirred by an invisible current. Across his knees rested a long sword, its blade reflecting the muted light of the sun like a sliver of frozen water.
The world was still—too still. Yet this stillness carried weight, as if the mountain itself dared not disturb the man's meditation. Though the land was barren of qi, the space within three feet of the Sword Immortal seemed sharper, denser, charged with a faint, unyielding presence—like a hidden blade quietly unsheathed in a dull and lifeless world.
Xuan Li's full focus was turned inward, toward his spirit sea—his Dantian. What he found there made his expression tighten.
Chains. Dozens upon dozens of spiritual chains coiled around his spirit sea like iron serpents, sealing it completely. No matter how he willed it, not a single drop of spiritual energy could escape.
His eyes opened. They were calm, yet within them swirled a strange mixture of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Satisfaction—because he had successfully arrived where he wanted to be. Dissatisfaction—because his spirit sea was sealed.
He rose to his feet and began walking along the ridge, his gaze scanning the barren horizon. His mind turned over possibilities, searching for explanations. Then, stopping, he took a deep breath and attempted to shatter the seal. Threads of willpower and force surged into his Dantian—yet the chains remained unshaken.
Again, he tried.
And again.
Time passed in silence. The wind shifted. By the time he finally stopped, his attempts had reached three hundred and forty-five—each ending in the same result: failure.
His brow furrowed, but his gaze didn't waver. If one path failed, he would search for another. He closed his eyes once more and shifted his focus to his knowledge sea. There, floating among the ripples of his consciousness, was a spiritual book.
Its title read: "The Legends of the Space-Time Venerable."
His lips moved, the words slipping out as a murmur to himself.
"At last… in my forty-third reincarnation, I have finally reached the Taixu Domain—the greatest of the six Emperor Domains. Yet my spirit sea is completely sealed by a special array."
---
Six Domain Star and the Emperor Domains
In the Six Domain Star, the legendary Starry Sky Master—Emperor stage cultivator Hu Qing Lan—had once created six small worlds. Each was a perfect, self-contained realm, and he named them the Emperor Domains.
To reach them, one had to travel through a space channel.
But thirty thousand years ago, during the final days of the Bone Crops Man Era, humanity's ancestor Chang Sheng had fought the Bone Crops King and its entire clan. To seal them forever, he made the Emperor Domains themselves the core of a vast formation, drawing upon all their spiritual qi to conceal the Bone Crops clan's existence.
As a result, the space channels closed. The Emperor Domains were sealed.
These Emperor Domains were not mere worlds—they were the personal creations of the Starry Sky Master, and legends whispered that his true inheritance lay hidden within them. Yet because all space channels were sealed, no one could enter unless an earth-shaking event weakened the seal for an instant.
And there was only one such event that could do this: the clash of ultimate moves between two True Immortals. Such an impact could briefly unseal a space channel—though only for three breaths. After that, it would close again, its sealing power capable of killing even a True Immortal.
But the real danger wasn't merely the short opening.
The greatest problem was that these space channels appeared at random across the Six Domain Star. Six small worlds existed, but the number of channels was uncountable, and no one knew which led to which world.
Even if one entered, there was no guarantee they would arrive in the Human Emperor Domain—the Taixuan Domain—where the Starry Sky Master's true inheritance was sealed.
If fate dropped them into another domain—say, the Tree Spirit Clan's Emperor Domain—their end would be swift. In such domains, the visitor's cultivation would be entirely suppressed, while only the native race could use their energy. To arrive there as a human was to be an invader, and invaders did not survive the day.
"I have been there before in a past life," Xuan Li murmured. "And was killed by them."
In some of his past reincarnations, he had succeeded in opening a channel. But each time, he had failed to arrive at the Human Emperor Domain.
Only now, in his forty-third reincarnation, had he succeeded. This time, his plan had been simple yet dangerous—provoke a Demon General, fight until the enemy was forced to use his ultimate move, then clash with his own. The collision tore reality open, and he stepped through into the Taixuan Domain.
Yet even in this success, an unforeseen problem awaited him—the same kind of restriction other domains held. His spirit sea had been sealed.
"A cultivator's foundation is their spirit sea. If it is sealed…" His voice was low, grim. "…then the spiritual energy within it is no different from being gone entirely."
---
Xuan Li sank deeper into his knowledge sea. The book still floated there, its surface untouched by time. As his gaze fixed on it, memories began to rise.
---
Flashback
I am Xuan Li, a university student from Earth. In the year 2022, a novel called The Legends of the Space-Time Venerable was released. I read it while bedridden—my heart condition forcing me into long days of rest.
One day, as I was reading the novel, a sharp pain seized my chest. My vision darkened. I died.
When my eyes opened again, I found myself in another place—the Lang Family estate.
It was my first reincarnation.
When I woke, a middle-aged woman sat beside me, her eyes filled with relief and joy at my recovery. Days later, I pieced together the truth: I had reincarnated into the very world described in the novel I had been reading.
The body I now inhabited belonged to Lang Hu Feng, young master of the Lang Family—born into wealth and privilege, yet hopelessly lazy, lustful, and undisciplined. He had squandered his life, relying on pills instead of cultivation, until the day he provoked a young lady and was struck by a soul attack. The injury shattered his spirit, killing him instantly.
When I awoke, I claimed I could remember nothing. They believed my soul had been damaged, and so accepted my story.
But in my knowledge sea, I found something unexpected—a spiritual copy of the very novel I had been reading before death. And in the back, something new: a handwritten note that had never existed in the original version.
---
4/7/2020
I am Yu Chang, once reincarnated to Earth from my original world—an immortal world.
There was a legend who once saved that world, but none remember him. He sacrificed his existence to gain a heavenly power strong enough to defeat the Evil God. In doing so, he erased not only his life, but even his name from the memories of all living things. Only after a year did I realize—our memories of him were gone as if Heaven itself had hidden them.
When I reincarnated to Earth, my memories returned. As respect, I am writing a novel based on his true biography.
---
When I first read those words, my heart pounded. The novel had forty-four volumes, over five thousand chapters—and I had already read them all. Now I was in that world, armed with the knowledge of future events, treasures, and opportunities.
And more than that—I knew of the path to eternal life.
In the ancient world, countless had sold their lives, their fortunes, even their souls, to seek it. In the modern world, human life stretched barely seventy to ninety years. Many gave up living altogether, drowning in despair.
But no matter the age, the truth remained the same: all beings cling to life. Even one on the brink of suicide will feel a spark of survival at the final moment. The first wish of a child who understands death is always to live forever—if such a thing were possible.
In this world, it was.
And so, my only goal was set—eternal life.
---
---
Back to the Present
Xuan Li slowly opened the novel within his knowledge sea. The familiar weight of it, the texture of its ancient binding, was something he had seen countless times in his past reincarnations. But this time—his breath caught.
The moment the first page turned, his eyes widened. More than half of the pages in Volume One… had turned a strange, deep blue. Once, they had been pure white with crisp black characters. Now, the blue seemed to seep from within the page itself, as if the very ink had been replaced by an otherworldly dye.
His brows drew together. What happened?
Flipping quickly, he stopped at the last fully-blue page. Beyond it, the next sheet was white only at the bottom—the top was slowly being devoured by the same spreading blue, like a wave of ink crawling downward.
He muttered aloud, "What's wrong with it? Is it… becoming like the others?"
For a moment, he stared, but then his gaze sharpened. Inhaling deeply, he pulled himself out of his knowledge sea.
"I'll investigate later," he decided. "But first… I must recover my cultivation. My spirit sea is sealed—that means I have to find a way to unseal it, or find another path to regain strength. If this were still the Six Domain Star, many of my subordinates could undo such a seal easily. But here, in the Emperor Domain…" His voice grew heavy. "…no one can even reach the True Immortal stage. Which means no one in this world has the ability to unseal it."
With that grim truth weighing on his mind, Xuan Li once more immersed his consciousness into the novel, scanning its early chapters for a clue.
---
One Hour Later
His eyes narrowed in thought. "I've read through the first volume again. It's the story of the fortune-chosen one in this world… and it describes only one usable method for my current situation."
His mind recalled the tale clearly:
Zhuo Wuji, the fortune-chosen one—blessed by the Fortune Dao Mark. Born the seventh prince of the Zhuo Dynasty, yet considered trash. His spirit sea was polluted with impure energy, making cultivation impossible. Knowing his weakness, his father sent him to the Profound Mist Sect, perhaps to harden him. Three years passed—without a single breakthrough.
In the end, the sect master advised him to give up cultivation and return home. But on his way back, when he passed a lonely river, assassins sent by his fifth brother struck. They slaughtered every guard at his side, and Zhuo Wuji, in desperation, leapt into the raging waters. The assassins assumed he would drown.
Instead, the river's violent current swept him deep underground… where he stumbled into an ancient tomb. There, he found the first inheritance of humanity's ancestor, Chang Sheng. It was the man's own spirit sea—preserved as an inheritance artifact. Chang Sheng, in his lifetime, had discovered a method to create a second spirit sea. Before his death, he had left behind his original spirit sea along with instructions to make it one's own.
Zhuo Wuji claimed it, making it his second spirit sea. Though his original Dantian was polluted, the second one was pure but can only cultivate in Fire Path—and from that day, his cultivation journey truly began.
Xuan Li's fingers tapped against the side of the book as he murmured, "If I can find that forbidden island, I can regain my cultivation… and gain a second spirit sea."
---
But he also knew there was another method—one far more dangerous. "There is another way to gain a second spirit sea," he whispered to himself, "but I don't have the strength for it now. The only realistic choice is to take the fortune-chosen one's opportunity."
His lips thinned into a grim line. "The problem is… I'm in the western lands. He finds the tomb in the southern plains. This world may be only one-third the size of the Six Domain Star, but it's still seven times larger than Earth. With my spirit sea sealed, I am now no more than a mortal."
He glanced down at his hands. They were steady, but the faint pulse of energy that had always been there was gone. Only the strength of his immortal body remained—equivalent, perhaps, to the Initial Spirit Stage in raw physical power.
"Still," he thought, "my divine sense remains. Against anyone whose soul is not strong, I can kill with a single thought. With these two advantages, I can make the journey."
---
Without hesitation, Xuan Li withdrew from his knowledge sea. He summoned the Azure Sword, its blade humming faintly, along with several precious artifacts from his storage ring. He examined them for a moment, then let out a slow breath.
"These cannot travel with me," he decided. "First, without spiritual energy, I cannot use them. Second, carrying them will only draw predators to my scent."
He found a deep cave hidden among the cliffs of the Withered Ridge. Walking inside until the light of the entrance faded, he placed the sword and artifacts in a sealed container and pushed it into a shadowed crevice in the stone.
"I hope they remain safe here," he murmured. "Until the day I return."
---
When he emerged, his appearance had changed. Gone were the robes of a Sword Master; instead, he wore the plain garments of an ordinary traveler. The simple robe had no patterns or markings—nothing to catch the eye.
Without his treasures, without his cultivation, he looked like a well-featured young man of no particular station.
He stood at the mountain's edge, the wind tugging gently at his sleeves. His eyes lingered once on the horizon before he began his descent.
The road ahead was long. The journey to the southern plains would test more than just his body. But Xuan Li did not hesitate. Step by step, he started his next journey.
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