Chapter 638: 100 Long Years

Chapter 638: Chapter 6: 100 Long Years

By purifying the Desire Power within the Divine Blade, Su Zhou felt his own strength increase—just as he had expected.

‘Hmm, if I just stay in this world a little longer, the Desire Power in the Blade of Annihilation should be enough to break past its limit and ascend to a Commander Tier Divine Soldier.’

‘And once it ascends, it won’t just be at the initial Commander Tier. If I get some High-level Spiritual Materials from Zhengguo or even just collect some locally, it wouldn’t be hard to give it a massive power boost.’

Su Zhou confirmed that as long as the Blade of Annihilation remained in the Divine Wood World, it would continuously absorb Desire Power and grow on its own. With one of his main objectives for this trip accomplished, he nodded. He turned to look at the ‘Taibai Volcano’ behind the Sword Casting Museum.

In the past, the Grand Master and the others had borrowed the Earth Vein Power of Taibai Volcano to forge Divine Soldiers. However, this had also triggered a tremor in the earth’s qi, causing the volcano to erupt. As a result, Taibai Mountain had remained dormant for over a hundred years.

Now, however, as Su Zhou scanned the Earth Veins with his Dragon Pupils, he realized that Taibai Volcano was, at its core, a dormant volcano. Its period of dormancy was over, and it was gradually becoming active again. In about thirty-odd years, it would erupt once more.

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out eventually, but definitely not as early as I have.” Su Zhou said with a smile, “Good thing I’m here. I’ll go down the mountain later and give the local authorities a heads-up so they can prepare. With a Great Array, they might even be able to force the volcano back into dormancy. And if that doesn’t work… in thirty years, I should be powerful enough to suppress it myself.”

At this, Su Zhou sighed. He gazed into the distance, his eyes filled with a profound look. “A Martial Artist’s lifespan is long, but over a hundred years have passed. I wonder if any of my old friends and acquaintances are still alive.”

‘Anyone who reached the Extraordinary Realm, the Innate Stage, shouldn’t have died of old age. At worst, they’d just be middle-aged by now.’

After a moment of silence, Su Zhou turned to Shao Qiming. “Let’s go. We’re heading down the mountain and into the city.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Shao Qiming recalled his drone and swapped in a new high-performance battery—with the snow, solar power was out of the question. He turned and noticed a ‘True Qi Backpack’ worn by a child on a nearby mountain path. He remarked thoughtfully, “The technology in this world is fascinating. Take this True Qi Backpack, for instance. With a few adjustments, it would be incredibly useful back in the Earth World.”

It wasn’t that Earth lacked such simple, portable devices for storing Spiritual Power. The difference was the lack of mature civilian designs, which was understandable. The Spiritual Energy Revival was still a recent phenomenon, and there hadn’t been enough time for such technology to mature.

“Yeah.” Su Zhou nodded in agreement. “That’s why I brought some data and Classics to trade. Don’t worry, none of it is classified Zhengguo intelligence. It’s all my personal stuff.”

“Mutual exchange between two worlds naturally leads to rapid progress.”

As they spoke, the two of them boarded a cable car to head down the mountain.

The cable car also ran on True Qi. A person-sized True Qi Furnace was running next to the cable line, spewing out clouds of pure white steam. This, apparently, was the Divine Wood World’s replacement for the combustion engine. Su Zhou observed it closely, noticing that its basic construction worked on a surprisingly similar principle to the Spiritual Power-driven engines in Zhengguo’s Exoskeleton Armor, though the design details were a bit cruder.

Soon, they reached the city at the foot of the mountain.

At the foot of Taibai Mountain lay a small, thriving tourist city filled with hot spring inns. In fact, most of the tourists they’d seen at the museum earlier were people vacationing at the hot springs here. Some inns even had their own dedicated cable car lines to ferry guests, a special local service.

Su Zhou and Shao Qiming discreetly blended in with the tourists and entered the city streets. They saw that there were no cars here. Instead, the streets were filled with various ‘True Qi Walking Machines’.

The more basic True Qi Walking Machines were for children, simply enhancing their stamina and assisting with walking. The more advanced models, however, could allow someone who had never practiced Qinggong to perform various Qinggong techniques. They were simple to operate, as convenient as a bicycle, and just as fast.

Through his drone’s aerial reconnaissance, Shao Qiming could see ‘Dedicated Qinggong Lanes for Martial Artists’ on the main roads outside the city, which looked much like highways. This wasn’t to segregate Martial Artists from ordinary people; it was mainly because the dedicated lanes were full of Martial Artists zipping about with walking machines or Qinggong, and ordinary people would have a hard time keeping up.

‘It makes sense,’ Su Zhou thought. ‘After all, the walking machines also help train one’s Spiritual Power cultivation. A car, on the other hand, doesn’t meet the needs of a Martial Artist civilization in that respect—unless you had people power the engine directly. And if you’re going to design a car for a Martial Artist to power, why not just use the simpler, more convenient walking machine instead?’

Understanding this, Su Zhou couldn’t help but click his tongue in wonder. At the same time, he noticed that this world also had electric generators. They were simply powered by True Qi Furnaces. As a result, the roadsides were well-lit, and every home glowed with white light at night.

“Strange. If they have True Qi Furnaces, things like electric generators shouldn’t even exist…” Shao Qiming was puzzled by this. He knew that two inventions with similar functions could rarely coexist, at least not within a single country. After all, technological resources are finite; to advance, you have to choose one path to invest in.