Chapter 202: Chapter 81: The Immortal Gods of Old

The moment he heard the words "chaotic times," Su Zhou’s spirits soared. His eyes widened, and he leaned forward slightly. His tone and demeanor changed so abruptly that even a casual passerby could tell he was now extremely interested. "What chaotic times?"

Seemingly aware of his own impatience, Su Zhou gave a light cough and returned to his normal posture. Even so, he asked curiously, "What I mean is, isn’t the world at peace right now?"

"The whole world has been peaceful for so long. For the past thirty years, there hasn’t even been any significant conflict. And with the news always talking about controllable nuclear fusion... I thought the Great Unity World was right around the corner."

"Mm, I can see you’re very interested in this... As for what you’ve said, I can’t say you’re wrong."

Daoist Saint Zhang Qingyun was somewhat surprised by Su Zhou’s strong reaction. He had thought that even if an eighteen-year-old high school student was interested in matters of state and the world, he wouldn’t be so sensitive to the two words "chaotic times."

Regarding Su Zhou’s mention of a "Great Unity World," Zhang Qingyun just shook his head enigmatically. "A Great Unity World can’t be brought about by something as simple as controllable nuclear fusion. At the very least, you’d need cheap, convenient, and safe artificial intelligence. And to be honest, according to the Artifice Sage’s research, that’s run into a bit of a snag... But let’s not talk about that for now. As for the matter of chaotic times..."

At this, he glanced at Su Zhou, then said with a thoughtful smile, "If it were anyone else, I would say, ’You’ll find out later. Now is not the time.’"

"But Su, since you’re already Extraordinary, that means you’ve essentially entered the circle of High Tier Extraordinaries... With a Talent like yours, you are bound to surpass us old-timers in the future—in fact, you might have already done so."

"In that case, it would be beneficial for you to know certain things in advance—beneficial for both you and us."

Having said that, Zhang Qingyun asked calmly, "The most important thing is, do you want to know?"

"Of course!"

Su Zhou wasn’t an idiot. He naturally understood the hidden meaning behind Zhang Qingyun’s words. ’Once I know this, I, Su Zhou, can no longer stay out of it and just be a happy, carefree high school student... But so what? Am I not a happy, carefree high school student right now? I *am* a very happy and carefree high school student! Stay out of it? I was planning on taking the offensive from the start!’

’To put it another way—if anyone in this world dares to stop me from being a happy, carefree high school student, I, Su Zhou, will smash their head in!’

Therefore, he agreed without a moment’s hesitation. "I don’t mind in the slightest. I just want to know the truth behind it all."

Zhang Qingyun invited Su Zhou to sit. The two sat on opposite sides of a small table in the monitoring room, and the Daoist Saint seemed just like a friendly neighborhood elder. Signaling for his secretary to pour them some tea, Zhang Qingyun began to speak to Su Zhou. "The origin of this matter goes back a thousand years, to when all the Sects in the world voluntarily disbanded."

"Mhm." Su Zhou nodded. He was well aware of this. The Holy Snake Spirit Prayer Association had been founded around that time, so it wasn’t strange for the story to start there.

Zhang Qingyun didn’t keep him in suspense. He began his narrative smoothly. "A thousand years ago, when Spiritual Qi had not yet waned, our world, the planet called Earth, was home to a great number of Cultivators."

"Whether on the plains of East Asia or in the rainforests of America, in the frigid Ice Ocean or the arid deserts, Cultivators and humans were everywhere. They were the ancestors of all the nations and Sects in the world today—you could even say they were the ancestors of civilization itself."

"And the most powerful among those Cultivators were called ’Immortal Gods’ by our ancestors and civilizations."

As he spoke of the Immortal Gods, the Daoist Saint cupped his hands toward the empty air in a simple gesture of respect. His tone was calm, without a trace of fanatical worship. "That group of Cultivators known as the Immortal Gods were the founders and Pioneers of all the world’s major Extraordinary Schools and Extraordinary Cultivation Methods. They created our writing and our civilization, and they are the ancestors of our bloodlines."

"Even though modern Cultivation Techniques have been optimized countless times, the framework was still established by them. Therefore, even if I, as a modern man, do not worship them, I must still show a measure of respect for the sake of the Elder Sages who created these paths."

"A thousand years ago, during the Severed Communication, the Immortal Gods had already vanished. All the great religious Sects and faiths in Deities chose to fade away on their own... And during that most terrifying period when Spiritual Qi was cut off, it was difficult for Cultivators to even achieve Spirit Awakening. All the cultivation Classics became useless scraps of paper... That period was called the Dharma Decline Era. Many lesser inheritances were completely lost, and even the Great Inheritances nearly perished."

Just as Zhang Qingyun reached this point in his story, the secretary delivered their tea. He picked up his cup, turned his head, and smiled at Su Zhou. "But in reality, we can see from the Classics passed down in our lineage that the Severed Communication actually showed signs as early as two or three thousand years ago. By the time it happened over a thousand years ago, it was already a dead end. All the Cultivators were searching for a way to avoid the Dharma Decline Era, but in the end, they all failed."

"But the most powerful Immortal Gods had not yet given up. In the period just before Spiritual Qi was about to vanish completely, all the Immortal Gods from every civilization in the world disappeared en masse. Before they left, they claimed they were going to try and break their shackles to travel to the ’Void Immortal Realm.’ According to descriptions in ancient texts, the Immortal Gods likely flew out of the atmosphere and left Earth." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Su Zhou had been listening quietly as Zhang Qingyun recounted these events, which seemed rather unrelated to "chaotic times." But when he heard this, he was visibly stirred. "Left Earth? They went to outer space?"

He thought of the dark fissures that crisscrossed the cosmic canopy above Earth, and a guess began to form in his mind.

"Yes." The Daoist Saint smiled, confirming Su Zhou’s speculation. He raised a hand and pointed upward. "However, we who live a thousand years later have no way of knowing exactly where the Immortal Gods went. After all, the Dharma Decline Era followed, and many Classics were lost. The Immortal Gods might have gone to the Moon, but who’s to say they didn’t go somewhere else? Their power was enough to move mountains and overturn seas; it wouldn’t be strange for them to survive in the Cosmos."

"It’s interesting, though. Before the Spiritual Energy Revival and before modern science developed spacefaring technology, we all used to speculate that Spiritual Qi might exist in outer space and that only Earth had been cut off from it. We thought the Immortal Gods of the past had simply emigrated to other planets... But it was later proven that this speculation was wrong."

"Just a few decades ago, the American Federation included a simple Spiritual Qi detector on the Voyager spacecraft, which was launched out of the Solar System. The results showed that outer space did not have the high concentrations of Spiritual Qi we had imagined. The Voyager probe didn’t send back any significant Spiritual Qi signals—until six months ago, we believed that, at least within the Solar System, Spiritual Qi was just as scarce as it was on Earth."

Taking a sip of tea, the Daoist Saint let out a long sigh as he met Su Zhou’s thoughtful gaze, who seemed to have already figured something out. "But a short while ago, around the time of the Spiritual Energy Revival, the Voyager probe, which had already reached the edge of the Solar System, transmitted back an unmistakably strong high-Spiritual Qi signal. And not just that. Other satellites orbiting Earth and the Moon, and even spacecraft exploring Saturn and Jupiter, all detected an abnormally immense and abundant—though overly turbulent—tide of Spiritual Qi at almost the same time."

"What does this mean, Su? It means many things."

"First: the appearance and severance of Spiritual Qi is by no means an event confined to Earth alone. It’s a cosmic event with the Solar System as its minimum scale."

"Second: the departure of the Immortal Gods in the past was probably not a journey into outer space. When they vanished, they went to other places that we still don’t fully understand..."

"For example, other worlds."