Thousands of Years Later
Standing on an island with such a tranquil and leisurely atmosphere, gazing out at the endless turquoise waters as far as the eye could see, a look of doubt and concern emerged on An Xian’s face.
Strange. Wasn’t she cultivating in Cangquan Mountain? Why did she end up on a barren island the moment she opened her eyes? More importantly, the spiritual force that had once flowed abundantly between heaven and Earth had thinned dramatically. Could it be that she crossed again?
It’s no mystery that An Xian had this conjecture because she had already experienced it once. Back in the day, there was an unusual air disaster that suddenly occurred out of nowhere which sucked her in and connected the worlds of the 21st-century Earth to the Tianyao star. The world she ended up in revolved around a civilization where cultivation was practiced. Then, she was brought into a Spiritual Sect by her revered master and taught her the processes of making medicine along with other small disciples. After hundreds of years of bitter hard work, she finally became an accomplished pill refining master.
However, it’s a shame that she inadvertently swallowed a high-grade traceability pill during the final minute of the crossing, causing her spiritual power to reverse and return to its original state. Then, she stumbled into the disaster and fell into a deep slumber.
When she regained consciousness, the world had changed, things had changed, and stars had shifted.
Not only had the environment changed, but her cultivation base had also plummeted drastically. Her body’s spiritual power had been depleted to the point where even the most basic spells were complex for her to cast.
Moreover…
An Xian lifted her arms and groped her chest, which laid a wide expanse of flatness. The distinctive features that women should have had vanished, and they had been replaced by a strange physique of unknown gender. She almost believed she had changed bodies if it hadn’t been for the presence of the storage ring on her finger.
As she pondered her situation, a faint whistling sound could be heard reverberating from the horizons. When she cocked her head back, she noticed…an aeroplane surfacing from the clouds in the distance?
‘How could such a technological invention appear on Tianyao Star, which is a bustling civilization of cultivation?’ Of course, the Tianyao Star was not without technological advancements. However, based on mechanical principles, it falls way short of that plane’s metallic materials. Its design was strikingly similar to that of Earth’s airplanes, but it appeared more advanced. The plane’s wings, which were shaped in a semi-arc curve, coupled by a pale golden halo on their tips, made it look like a sharp, blazing arrow flying through the skies.
‘Ah?’
‘The flight trajectory seems a bit weird?
It wasn’t just a little strange, but it was genuinely weird! The plane was actually crashing into the sea!
An Xian stood motionless as the plane’s nose smashed into the sea surface, followed by its entire body collapsing in the deep blue waters, causing a loud bang that shook its surroundings. The powerful explosion caused by the disturbed air stream, combined with the plane’s airframe fragments, exploded immediately in its wake. It was so devastatingly powerful that even if it was ten miles away, one could feel the heatwave and its terrifying force of impact.
Within the mark of ten seconds, the sea surface regained its tranquil, undisturbed state, as if the terrifying plane crash that had just occurred was merely a figment of one’s imagination.
It wasn’t until a faint cry of help was heard echoing from a distance did An Xian come back to her senses. Without much forethought, she naturally leapt off and rushed to the crash site, fighting through the water waves. But before she could go further than ten meters, she involuntarily plunged into the sea, generating a series of splashes against the waves.
An Xian emerged from the water after a while and slapped her dripping wet forehead glumly. She had forgotten entirely that her cultivation had been significantly demoted to a depressingly elementary state and that she was no longer capable of performing the usual cultivation advantages such as flying in the air and riding waves.
After a while of soaking in the shallow water, An Xian had an epiphany and instinctively took a Shuilian pill from the storage ring. When the host of this pill came into contact with water, it could transform and assimilate the hair follicles, forming an oxygen-absorbing layer on the skin’s surface and allowing people to adapt to the undersea environment, such as swimming naturally like a fish.
Her most outstanding achievement during her years of diligent cultivation in the Lingyuan Sect was successfully combining her earthly chemistry knowledge with the refining techniques to create various pill refining formulas. The pills she had crafted contained a variety of fantastic oddities that proved valuable in a variety of situations. Not only had she created the best pill for increasing one’s cultivation level, but she had also created a pill for back door life entertainment.
Despite her limited mana, the various bottles of elixirs and pills inside her storage ring were enough to help her solve many problems.
The moment she swallowed the Shuilin pill, a faint dazzling blue halo immediately surrounded An Xian’s body. Its wisps and strands whirling smoothly around on air defied the gravitational principles as if she was wearing an almost transparent floating gauze.
Turning her body over gracefully, An Xian mobilized the scanty spiritual power through her whole body and quickly dived through the waters towards the crash site drawing a faint blue line of light within the depths of the dark sea.
The Shuilin pill had a three-hour duration of action. It could also go back and forth more than a dozen times if used at a leisurely pace.
At the moment, her spiritual sense detected less than ten survivors who were still alive. Surprisingly, all of these survivors had abnormal and chaotic mental fluctuations, as if their entire crew had just experienced hallucinations that usually occur in misguided focus during meditations. Despite the resemblance, An Xian found no evidence of cultivation in these survivors.
Temporarily suppressing the arising doubts in her heart, An Xian started to save the victims regularly and methodically. Because of her current appearance, she’d knock the person down to lose consciousness for her to avoid unnecessary trouble before she saved them.
Since she was in an environment where everything was entirely different from the last time, she hadn’t had a clue, nor even an inkling, of her current surroundings, so it’s better to stay vigilant and cautious this time…
He Lin’s body was floating in this deep blue sea, with its prickly ice-cold waters relentlessly pressing and attacking him. were nearly on the brink of numbing from the unaccustomed chilliness, and his vision was becoming blurrier by the second. Unsparingly, his brain was also in excruciating pain, rendering him unable to concentrate on his thoughts.
He Lin used to have his own private jet. However, it was currently undergoing maintenance and could not be used, so he was forced to fly on this civil aircraft instead. Who knew he’d run into a mentally powerful mutant? This mutant’s insane mental prowess pierced the metal protection of the plane, causing everyone, including the captain, to become blinded instantly (loss of vision and awareness). As a result, the aircraft had lost its control and plummeted from the sky.
He Lin was able to survive this accident due to his formidable mental strength and extraordinary physical ability, and he also saved the lives of many people. However, this assisting and constant mental exertion took a significant tremendous toll on his brain, leaving him temporarily disoriented. He was in such a bad situation that he didn’t know if he could wait further for help to arrive.
A burst of dizzying sensation hit him, and He Lin gritted his teeth painfully and persisted. In the middle of resisting to lose consciousness and muddled-headedness, a beam of bright light flashing through was caught by his peripherals.
The brilliant rays of blue light blasted past like a shooting star, forming a line of exquisite and gorgeous beams of light that illuminated within the entirety of the blue sea.
‘What is that?’
He Lin was about to take a closer look, but the beam of light suddenly vanished. Soon after that, he felt a searing pain in his brain, and soon, his consciousness completely plunged into darkness…
After An Xian rescued the last survivor ashore, the effect of the Shuilin pill was nearing its end.
On the beach, there were nine people lying in higgedly-piggedly arrangements. A total of six men and three women were saved, whose ages ranged from teenage years up to their fifties. Moreover, their clothing was obviously different from the quaint style of the era An Xian had lived.
Apparently, none of them could be considered cultivators. However, their mental power was extremely active and there’s an innate spiritual power lying dormant in each of their bodies. And one of them possessed an enormous spiritual ability.
At this moment, two breaths of life were extinguished. Out of the nine survivors, two didn’t survive due to the grave injuries they’d sustained in the crash.
An Xian’s gaze swept over one of the deceased unintentionally, and to her surprise, found that the cadaver’s appearance somehow bore resemblance to her own.
An Xian walked over, inspected the body closely. She found an ID card inside one of the clothes pockets, which contained the deceased’s basic information.
Roy, a male, was born in May in the year 3177, a citizen of Qian Chong Federation, a third level therapist, and a holder of mental power level D.
Looking at the characters written on the ID card, An Xian surmised that she should still be on the Tianyao Star as the scriptures weren’t entirely different from back then. Moreover, with the included date of birth of the dead person, it could be deduced that more than a thousand years had passed since she fell asleep.
Although there was no presence of sun or moon in the cultivation world, the thousand years gap, nevertheless, was too far-fetched from her cognition.
After spending some time on this matter, she placed her plan on Roy’s forehead and began to dig into his memories. This obtrusive method would surely harm the brain of the living target. But if it was conducted on a dead person, then there’d be no possible consequences to worry about.
The memory of this man was a bit vague, but it was enough to provide An Xian with a general idea of Roy’s life. He was an orphan, and although he had only a D level of mental power and mediocre talent, he was, nevertheless, a diligent and studious person. Furthermore, by the age of 21, he had graduated from Bellevue Medical School and became a third-level therapist. ‘Since I’ll be back this time, I plan to find a stable job first. Then work hard to earn money, and do my best to fund the orphanage where I grew up.”
It’s a pity that there was a sudden storm that arose out of a clear sky. Roy was about to return home and celebrate his success, however, his life was immediately taken away by an aviation accident.
An Xian looked at the ID card in his hand and made a decision in her heart.
“Roy, I hope you won’t be offended but, as I may have to borrow your identity for a while.” An Xian whispered to the dead youth. “As compensation, I will fulfill your wish and help you fund that orphanage.”
An Xian raised the body slightly, then her hands grasped the hems of the young man’s clothing and took it off. She then proceeded to draw out a new set of clothes from the storage ring and put it on him again. The suit she extracted from the ring was woven from special high-grade materials; both fire and water couldn’t infringe the cloth nor would it decay after a thousand years which also maximized the protection of the body to be in good condition. After managing to fit the clothes on Roy, she changed into the suit Roy originally wore.
Then, An Xian searched for a well-situated place on the island. She properly lowered the body of Roy in it, and naturally returned to the beach as she finished burying him.
During this time, the sun already descended into the horizons, and the bone-numbing sea waters became pitch black. Only the cold light reflected by the shells on the beach could be seen.
An unknown period of time had passed, the remaining seven survivors woke up from coma one after another. When they found out that they were still alive, they all cried tears of joy.
Silently watching the people celebrating, He Lin sat alone by himself and recalled the blue light he saw before he fell into a coma. If he wasn’t mistaken, the light he saw should belong to a person or, perhaps a merman?
This island was at least ten miles away from the site of the accident. If there was no external force that helped them, then people like them wouldn’t be able to survive the destructive impact of the plane crash. Especially, when they all had sustained mental damages, serious injuries, and also the loss of consciousness. How could they even stay afloat and arrive safely at the shore?
He Lin’s line of sight swept across the bodies of everyone as if he wanted to find or confirm something.
An Xian could sense He Lin’s probing gaze, but he didn’t mind, as he just concentrated on studying the watch he took from Roy’s wrist. This should be an electronic device that could be connected to the Internet. Unfortunately, the watch had been damaged, and except for the lighting, other functions couldn’t be activated and worked.
Fortunately, the watches of the other survivors were still in good condition even with broken exteriors, and an emergency signal had already been issued out.
A few beams of faint light emerged from the dark sky in the distance, then several search and rescue teams followed the source of the signal and successfully found the island where everyone was stranded.
Several light flying machines landed on the island one after another. Then, hundreds of heavily armed soldiers flowed out of the aircraft in an orderly manner. A non-commissioned officer trudged forward to He Lin and gave him a military salute as he reached him: “Mr He, I deeply apologize for the late rescue. We have frightened you.”
“You don’t have to be polite, let’s just leave here first.” He Lin swept his vision behind the man and saw a middle-aged man in his forties trotting towards him. A surprised and pleasant expression was plastered on his face, “Hey, you’re all right. That’s really good!”
He Lin said in a deep authoritative voice, “My bodyguard and assistant have lost both contacts. You must take your subordinates to further search the sea to see if there are any other survivors.”
“The search and rescue operation is in progress, please rest assured.”
He Lin nodded and stopped talking. Albeit he had just experienced a traumatizing crisis, the sharpness in his eyes hadn’t diminished at all. And his notable straight posture was just like an adult pine tree, steady and haughty.
An Xian and the others boarded the plane one after another under the escort of the armed soldiers, while He Lin boarded another plane alone.
She could see that his identity was both extremely unusual and special from the masses, but An Xian didn’t put any interest in it. What she needed to do first was to understand and adapt to this familiar yet not so familiar era as soon as possible.
‘More than a thousand years have passed, and the spiritual energy that once circled heaven and earth richly has become so thin. I wonder if there are other cultivators still living in this foreign era?’