The Silver Salt Expanse earned its name for decades to come.
Above ground, white storms scoured the land into lifeless dunes. Below it, five hundred feet beneath relocated bedrock, Wei Yuan existed in a state of Absolute Stillness.
Through the Echo of the Void, he had once watched Lin Fan stagger toward a healing spring—one Wei Yuan himself had manufactured.
The Protagonist paused.
Danger sensed.
Yet too injured to retreat, Lin Fan activated his final treasure, forcibly purifying the pool.
Wei Yuan remembered the system notification with perfect clarity.
[Notification: Your interference has triggered a 'Life-Saving Breakthrough Opportunity'.]
[Ripple Value: 0.5 — brief spike.]
The Explosive Poison had transmuted into a Mutated Lightning-Fire Spirit Liquid.
Wei Yuan had felt only mild irritation.
"Of course," he had thought flatly. "Even sabotage becomes his fortune."
That was the moment he stopped watching.
No more updates.
No more threads.
No more anchors.
He severed all sensory links to Lin Fan and retreated inward, devoting everything to the refinement of his Golden Core.
Time flowed.
[Age: 57 — Golden Core stabilized.]
[Stillness Essence: 8,400]
[Age: 77 — Mid-Stage Golden Core achieved.]
[Lifespan optimized by 'Essence of Earthly Veins'.]
[Current Lifespan: 1,250 years.]
[Age: 97 — Silver Salt Expanse declared 'Forbidden Land'.]
[Stillness Multiplier increased to 3.0x.]
At age 107, Wei Yuan opened his eyes.
The chamber hummed softly with perfected alchemical arrays. His skin gleamed faintly—pearlescent, halfway converted into a Spirit Body.
"One century," he murmured.
The sound made the lead-lined walls vibrate.
"The Blue Mist Sect is dust. Lin Fan is either dead or immortal. And I am still walking."
He summoned his status screen.
[Ripple Value: 0.0000]
[Stillness Essence: 25,000]
[New Store Unlocked — Heavenly Path Simulations]
Wei Yuan's gaze sharpened.
[Heavenly Path Simulations: 1,000 Essence.]
[Simulates highest-probability outcome of the next 10 years.]
"No more guesswork," he thought. "Excellent."
He activated it immediately.
[Year 1–3: Undisturbed seclusion. Late-Stage Golden Core.]
[Year 4–6: Spirit Pulse eruption. Silver Salt Expanse collapses.]
[Year 7–9: Upper-Realm Demon Hunter detects you.]
[Survival Probability: 12%.]
[Year 10: Death.]
Wei Yuan calmly analyzed the red text.
"The land betrays me. Not fate."
A second simulation followed.
[Simulation: Relocate to Northern Forbidden Zone.]
[Survival Probability: 98%.]
"Perfect."
He dismantled the chamber completely—no residue, no traces. Under a moonless sky, he emerged onto the surface for the first time in sixty years.
The world felt thin.
Stretched.
Toward the north, the horizon glowed faintly.
The war is peaking, he concluded. The ripples are becoming waves.
He traveled underground, surfacing only briefly. Villages lay abandoned. Spirit boats lay skeletal. The Southern Kingdoms had been bled dry.
At last, he reached the Grey Desolation.
The former site of the Blue Mist Sect was now a leveled ash plain shrouded in soul-eating mist.
Wei Yuan stepped inside.
[Warning: Highly Toxic Environment.]
[Poison-Resistant Body (Advanced) activated.]
At the center of a vast crater—once the Medicine Hall—he dug five hundred feet deeper.
[Age: 110]
[Golden Core: Late-Stage]
Twenty years passed.
The Spirit Pulse erupted.
The Central Plains shattered.
Lin Fan ascended.
Wei Yuan noticed none of it.
He was preparing for Nascent Soul.
"I need a soul anchor."
[System Recommendation: Eternal Observer's Anchor — 15,000 Essence.]
"Purchase."
The Golden Core cracked—not violently, but rhythmically.
Above, the ancient Soul Transformation entity stirred.
A vast divine sense swept the land.
Wei Yuan became nothing.
Dust.
Silence.
The sense withdrew.
Crack.
A translucent infant emerged—its eyes cold as stars.
[Nascent Soul Stage achieved.]
[Longevity +2,000 years.]
[New Ability: Era-Crossing Eye.]
Wei Yuan looked forward.
He saw the Age of Heroes fade.
He saw the Age of Decay begin.
Spirit energy thinning.
Sects rotting into myth.
"Good," he whispered.
He set his system alarm.
"Wake me in five hundred years. I want to see what mortals do with steam and gunpowder."
[Entering Grand Stillness…]
As the world burned, rebuilt, and forgot—
A god slept beneath the ashes.