At that moment, something slipped out from inside his space.
It was the ancient brocade box.
Yu Weiwei's eyes widened.
The box had somehow appeared in his hand, something that should not have been possible unless he had consciously summoned it. Yet before he could even react, the spiritual power surrounding him suddenly began flowing into the box.
The ancient patterns engraved across its surface lit up one after another.
A strange, ancient aura erupted from within it.
The serpent froze.
Its enormous body came to an abrupt stop, and the terrifying killing intent that had filled the cave vanished almost instantly, as though it had never existed.
Yu Weiwei stared at the serpent in confusion.
The enormous creature slowly lowered its head, its posture almost resembling a bow before its master. The hostility that had filled its golden eyes was gone. Instead, something far more difficult to describe appeared within them.
Recognition.
Yu Weiwei's fingers tightened around the box.
"...You know this?"
The serpent gave a slow nod, its golden eyes fixed upon the ancient brocade box.
Then it lowered its enormous head until it was almost level with Yu Weiwei.
A faint spiritual fluctuation spread throughout the cave.
Yu Weiwei's expression gradually changed.
There was something familiar about that fluctuation.
His eyes widened.
It was his father's spiritual aura.
He had never encountered it before, yet somehow, the moment he sensed it, he knew exactly what it was.
'How strange.'
'Is this what they mean when they say blood is thicker than water?'
Yu Weiwei stared at the serpent in disbelief.
"You..."
The serpent let out a low, rumbling sound.
At that moment, a memory sealed within the ancient brocade box suddenly surfaced in Yu Weiwei's mind.
Lin Zhe.
A much younger Lin Zhe stood inside this very cave.
The enormous serpent lay quietly before him, its massive head lowered in submission.
Lin Zhe placed one hand against its scales, and spiritual power slowly flowed from his palm into its body. Along with it came the knowledge contained within several spiritual slips, which he imparted directly to the serpent.
"I'll be leaving for a while."
The serpent raised its head.
Lin Zhe smiled faintly.
"Don't worry. I'll come back."
But he never did.
The memory abruptly vanished.
Yu Weiwei stood motionless.
His mind was filled with confusion.
What exactly was going on?
Hadn't his father been unable to use spiritual power?
If Lin Zhe had been capable of using spiritual power, then why had he never taught it to the interstellar people? He was clearly aware of the injuries and deaths caused by damaged mental cores. If he had already discovered a way to use spiritual power within a mental core, he could have potentially helped countless people who had lost the ancient path of cultivation.
So why hadn't he done it?
Yu Weiwei looked toward the serpent and slowly released his spiritual power, carefully scanning its enormous body.
The result left him stunned.
The serpent was capable of circulating spiritual power through its body, and the source of that spiritual power was its mental core.
More precisely, its mental core was functioning as a dantian.
Yu Weiwei's breathing slowed.
He stared at the serpent for a long moment before something suddenly clicked in his mind.
His father had already discovered a way to merge spiritual power with mental power.
No.
That wasn't quite accurate.
It was more precise to say that Lin Zhe had modified the mental core itself, transforming it into something that could function as a spiritual dantian.
Yu Weiwei suddenly felt a little dizzy.
He hated this feeling.
He hated the sensation that everything was slipping beyond his control, as though his entire life had been manipulated by an invisible pair of hands.
And now, for the first time, he was beginning to suspect that those hands belonged to his father, Lin Zhe.
Different possibilities churned through his mind.
Wait.
How had his father been so certain that he would eventually come here?
In his previous life, he had never visited this place.
He had died at the age of twenty-five without accomplishing anything. He had spent that entire life as a useless F-rank with an exceptionally intelligent mind, never knowing that another path existed beyond the world he understood.
Could his father have known that he would one day become bound to a system and be transmigrated to another world?
Could he have even known that Yu Weiwei would eventually be reborn into this world?
No.
That was absurd.
The current level of interstellar technology had nowhere near the capabilities necessary to predict or manipulate something like that or even create something like the system.
Yu Weiwei took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
He was overthinking it.
There had to be another explanation.
When he looked up again, the serpent was still watching him quietly.
Beside it, the primordial dragon beast cub had apparently forgotten its fear from moments ago. It was poking curiously at the serpent's scales with one tiny claw, even though it had been trembling in terror just a moment earlier.
Yu Weiwei stared at the cub for a moment before sighing.
How was this little guy so brave?
He reached down and picked it up.
"Hmmm."
The cub happily wrapped its tail around Yu Weiwei's arm, apparently completely satisfied with itself.
Yu Weiwei glanced at the serpent.
"So why have you been waiting for me?"
Judging from everything that had happened so far, the serpent clearly possessed an extremely high level of intelligence.
The serpent did not answer.
Instead, it turned around and used its enormous head to gently nudge Yu Weiwei deeper into the cave.
Yu Weiwei followed.
As they went deeper, the frown on his face became increasingly pronounced.
The amount of treasure hidden within the cave was enormous.
There were countless rare spiritual materials, precious ores, ancient artifacts, and other treasures that even Yu Weiwei had difficulty identifying at a glance.
Why had no one discovered this place?
Even if humans and the other intelligent races had never found it, what about the beasts, star beasts, and hives?
A place containing this many treasures should have attracted countless powerful creatures long ago.
Yet somehow, Sea Sky Planet had remained untouched.
Yu Weiwei looked back at the serpent following behind him.
This creature hadn't merely been guarding the cave.
It had been protecting the entire planet.
Suddenly, countless questions that had once seemed unrelated began connecting in his mind.
Why had no hive ever launched an attack on Sea Sky Planet?
Why had other nations never attempted to occupy or investigate this seemingly insignificant F-rank planet?
Why had the surrounding beasts always behaved with such strange harmony?
Why had the planet survived for so many years despite possessing almost no defensive capabilities?
Why had it never been swallowed by the hives?
It wasn't because Sea Sky Planet was lucky.
Something had been protecting it all along.
And that something was this serpent.
The aura radiating from the creature alone was enough to keep powerful beasts away. Even the hives, whose instincts drove them to expand and consume territory, had instinctively avoided this place.
Yu Weiwei slowly lowered his gaze toward the ancient brocade box in his hand.
His annoyance at all the mysteries surrounding him deepened.
His father had apparently left behind far more than memories.
He had left behind secrets.
And this was clearly only one of them.
For some reason, Yu Weiwei suddenly felt a strange ache in his chest.
For so long, he had believed that his fathers had simply disappeared from his life and abandoned him.
Now, he was beginning to realize that Lin Zhe had probably left behind countless things that no one had ever discovered.
Things that had been waiting for him.
People.
Beasts.
Secrets.
Perhaps even an entire inheritance.
Yu Weiwei tightened his grip around the ancient brocade box.
He looked at the serpent for a long moment before finally letting out a quiet sigh.
"Father..."
"What exactly were you hiding from me?"
"And what do you want from me?"
The serpent continued leading Yu Weiwei deeper into the cave.
The further they went, the narrower the passage became. The countless treasures scattered throughout the cave gradually disappeared behind them, replaced by dark stone walls covered in faint traces of spiritual energy. Yu Weiwei had originally assumed that the serpent would take him to another hidden chamber where Lin Zhe's inheritance was stored, but the deeper they went, the more he felt that something was different about this place.
After walking for some time, the sound of flowing water suddenly reached his ears.
Yu Weiwei slowed down and looked ahead.
The narrow passage opened into an enormous underground cavern, and a vast body of water stretched before him, disappearing into the darkness. He stared at it in astonishment. There was actually an underground ocean beneath Sea Sky Planet, something that had never appeared in any of the information he had seen about the planet.