One year. Two years. Five years.
Lu Yin spent five years in the parallel universe, though only two months passed in the outside world. In this universe, time passed thirty times faster.
Of course, for Lu Yin, it was a full five years.
The truth was that Lu Yin had been cultivating for far longer than what most people thought. His die had given him a great deal of extra time early on, and access to parallel universes where time passed more quickly had accelerated his cultivation even further.
In a blink of an eye, eight months passed for the outside world, while twenty years passed in the parallel universe.
Some of the creatures that Lu Yin had taken into the universe had survived and started to spread, bringing vitality to the universe. All of these creatures had started in the Origin Universe, which meant that they should already acknowledge Lu Yin.
He tested summoning Lightstream and instantly felt a sense of danger from the universe, which prompted him to immediately stop and leave. What he had done so far was not enough, so he continued.
Another twenty years quickly passed in the parallel universe, meaning that Lu Yin had stayed there for forty years in total. He really wanted to try summoning Lightstream again, but after remembering what Xia Shenji had once said, Lu Yin understood that even repeated tests with Lightstream could easily cause the universe to collapse. For that reason, Lu Yin suppressed his desires and waited even longer.
Another twenty years passed. An entire sixty years had passed for Lu Yin in the parallel universe. This was a significant amount of time for him, as he had only cultivated in the Origin Universe for a bit more than sixty years.
Sixty years in the parallel universe was only two years in the Origin Universe.
Lu Yin finally tried using Lightstream again, and this time, he felt no sense of danger. After sixty years of spreading life through the universe, it had finally acknowledged Lu Yin.
He had really found a shortcut this time. If no lifeform from the Origin Universe had been able to survive in the parallel universe, then Lu Yin would have needed to wait for life to naturally develop in the universe. Not only that, but he would have also needed to wait for that life to develop enough intelligence to be able to acknowledge him in order for the universe to do the same.
The time needed for the overall process would likely need to be measured in hundreds of millions of years.
Being acknowledged by a universe was one thing, but adapting Lightstream to the universe was something else.
Quite a bit of time passed before Lu Yin returned to the Heavens Sect and tested out Lightstream again. This time, he was able to peer forty-eight seconds into the past. The time had increased by thirty seconds.
Lu Yin was excited by these results, so he continued. Next, he would visit the parallel universe that he had received from Luo Shan.
Lu Yin wanted to use this parallel universe to test some things out. Lightstream had just adapted to a universe where time passed thirty times faster, and now, he was moving on to a universe where it passed only twenty times faster. He believed that the slower passage of time would be easier for Lightstream to adapt to, and he wanted to test this theory with the two universes. If Lu Yin could go and quickly adapt Lightstream to this parallel universe, he would gain another twenty seconds that he could see into the past. If he succeeded, then it would validate Lu Yin’s hypothesis. If this was not accurate, then it would mean that all of Lu Yin’s guesses about Lightstream and parallel universes with accelerated temporal flow rates were wrong.
The differing rates of time were indeed related to the durability of space in a given universe, but this connection was not exactly what Lu Yin observed.
The parallel universe that Luo Shan had shared with him proved to be much more convenient than the one provided by Mr. Daheng. There were intelligent creatures in the new universe, though there were no humans.
There were too many parallel universes throughout the megaverse, and only a handful of them had human occupants.
Lu Yin spent a total of twenty years in this universe to receive its acknowledgment, which meant that a single year had passed in the Origin Universe.
Upon receiving the universe’s recognition, Lu Yin discovered that some of his hypotheses were wrong. It was clear that the space in this universe was not as robust as that in the universe where time passed thirty times faster than the Origin Universe. However, Lightstream was not able to immediately adapt to the universe. He needed a new line of thought.
He returned to the Heavens Sect and started testing Lightstream out again.
Sixty-eight seconds. He was able to see sixty-eight seconds into the past, which was more than a minute.
Lightstream now granted Lu Yin the ability to peer sixty-eight seconds into the past. As the time increased, Lu Yin grew more and more addicted to increasing its time. He was eager to visit more and more parallel universes so that he could develop Lightstream to the point where he was able to reverse time by more than just one second. That would be the beginning of a complete transformation.
The time that Lu Yin spent in the parallel universe to develop Lighstream was the most peaceful the Sixverse Association had been in a very long time.
Most of the fighting had died down across the Endless Frontier, and there was practically no fighting at any of the member universes of the Sixverse Association’s borders.
Both the Sixverse Association and Aeternus were waiting for their top experts to recover.
During this time of peace, the White Dragon Clan welcomed a mysterious guest to the Perennial World. The guest had already stayed with the clan for more than a year.
After the destruction of the four ruling powers, the White Dragon clan had moved to the Lower Realm to be closer to the Python Ancestor. This move was both their atonement and their escape.
The living conditions in the Lower Realm were not ideal. The place was filled with various types of beasts, though none of them posed any threat to the White Dragon Clan. Grand Elder Ni Huang possessed Progenitor Long’s strange eye, which allowed the man to possess the combat strength of a Progenitor. Lu Yin had also agreed to let the White Dragon Clan move to the Lower Realm, which meant that they were tasked with guarding the Lower Realm, in the same manner that the Celestial Frost Sect and the others had been tasked with protecting the 100,000 currents.
There was no one capable of serving as the guardian of the Lower Realm, aside from the White Dragon Clan. Their members possessed auras that were similar to the Python Ancestor’s, which allowed them to stay close to the Python Ancestor.
In the Lower Realm’s third region, Elder Ni Huang had been meditating for a year. He had arrived in this location shortly after their guest arrived. Ni Huang was sitting directly under the Python Ancestor's head, and if he looked up, he would see the bottom of the Python Ancestor's jaw.
Only in this place could he calm his heart.
"The White Dragon Clan has been banished to the Lower Realm to live among beasts. If he wasn’t able to use you to protect the Lower Realm, your clan would have been erased. Do you really think that using the Python Ancestor to rise up and banish the Lu family would not incur a cost?" a sharp voice asked Ni Huang.
The man opened his eyes. "How are you able to get so close to this location?"
"You underestimate me too much. We are from the same clan, so why wouldn’t I be able to get close?" A dark figure shrouded in a black robe approached the old man, standing a short distance away from Ni Huang.
The man looked up and stared at the Python Ancestor with conflicted emotions flickering through his eyes. "We betrayed the Lu family once, and yet the Lu family did not wipe us out. They have shown kindness to my White Dragon Clan."
"And yet your clan is now only able to remain here in the Lower Realm. How is that any better from being wiped out? What do the people of the Perennial World think of you? You have already betrayed the Lu family, and now, you might as well have betrayed the four ruling powers. Throughout human history, such people are destined to suffer the worst ending imaginable. You can only start over by returning to your own people. We can help you step onto the path of being able to surpass the rest of the four ruling powers. Ni Huang, you are no fool. You should understand which choice you should make," the sharp voice spoke again.
Ni Huang sighed heavily. "I have been sitting here quietly for a year, and yet I still can’t rid myself of my greed. Yes, I want my White Dragon Clan to return to the Higher Realm and replace the Lu family once more."
"Then return to your own kind."
"My White Dragon Clan does not want to stay in the Lower Realm."
"Return to your own kind."
Ni Huang turned his head to stare at the black-robed figure once more. "Even if we do, what makes you believe that my White Dragon Clan can return to the top? Do you understand just how terrifying that person is? He lost all of his memories and cultivation, but in just a few dozen years, he rose up and cast us down from the top.
"He went to the Sixverse Association and overturned the status quo there. Even you were swept away by him. If he appears here now, do you have the courage to face him?
"With such an opponent, why would you help us?"
The black robed figure shouted back, "Shut up! You think too much of him!"
"And you think too little of him. I admit that, when you arrived and spoke to me a year ago, I was very tempted. And yet, my sense of reason told me that this is a path of no return and that stepping onto it will push the White Dragon Clan completely off of the edge and into the abyss. That is why I came here to meditate. I wanted to suppress the greed that fills in my heart. Right now, the White Dragon Clan only needs to survive, and yet my greed cannot be suppressed.
"Give me a reason to trust you and lose my doubts, or else my White Dragon Clan will never take such a risk."
The black-robed figure remained silent for a while and did not move, either. Suddenly, Ni Huang's expression changed. His face grew pale as the figure approached, and he unexpectedly spat out a mouthful of blood. His body underwent the White Dragon Transformation, but not voluntarily. Also, this time, the transformation was different from before. This time, it seemed that Ni Huang had fully transformed into a monster.