A Thousand-Year Scar

When Hao Nhien finally raised his head from the yellowed beast-hide map, the pale blue spiritual flame in the study had already burned for nearly an entire day.

The table before him was covered with ancient books, jade slips, old maps, fragmented records written on beast hide, and bamboo strips. Some documents were so old that turning the pages too roughly could cause the edges to crumble, while the light within several ancient jade slips had already faded considerably.

Hao Nhien’s eyes were slightly tired, but his expression had only grown more alert.

Ever since Lieu Thien Van left, he had barely moved from the table. At first, Hao Nhien only intended to search for records related to the Western Wastes and the Firmament, but the more he read, the more he realized how little he truly knew about the Spirit Cloud Continent.

He had lived in this world for quite some time and traveled through many places, yet before today, those names had existed in his mind more like scattered points than parts of a complete world.

Now, for the first time, he had a map large enough to place them all together.

The eastern region of the continent was marked with two words.

Eastern Plains.

This was the land Hao Nhien knew best. Thanh Van City, the major sects, countless cultivation clans, and numerous mortal cities all existed here. Compared with the other regions, the Eastern Plains enjoyed a mild climate, relatively stable spiritual qi, widespread spiritual veins, and a sect system that had developed over many generations.

Thanh Van Town, the place Hao Nhien had once thought of as his entire world when he first awakened, was barely more than an insignificant dot on this map.

Hao Nhien stared at that tiny point for a long time.

From Thanh Van Town to the Tieu Dao Sect, and then from the Tieu Dao Sect to Third City, he had once felt that he had already traveled very far. Yet on the map of the Spirit Cloud Continent, that entire journey still occupied only a small corner of the Eastern Plains.

The western edge of the Eastern Plains bordered the Western Wastes.

Hao Nhien’s finger slowly moved toward the vast yellow-gray region.

Different maps did not depict the Western Wastes in exactly the same way. Some contained large blank areas, others were marked with red and black circles, while certain military maps used special symbols for unstable spatial regions, ancient battlefields, areas inhabited by mutated beasts, and routes that became impassable during certain times of the year.

On a map, the Western Wastes looked like nothing more than an endless desert.

In reality, what existed there was far more complicated.

Ruined ancient formations, shattered spiritual veins, poisonous winds, mutated beasts, and regions where space had become so fragile that even two Foundation Establishment cultivators fighting too fiercely could trigger abnormal fluctuations in the surrounding area.

What caught Hao Nhien’s attention most was the restriction concerning Golden Core cultivators.

According to the records he found, Golden Core experts could not truly venture deep into the Western Wastes.

At the outermost edge, some Golden Core cultivators could barely enter if they suppressed their aura and absolutely refrained from using their true power. But the farther inward they traveled, the stronger the spatial rejection became. By the time one reached regions such as Third City and the current defensive line, Golden Core cultivators were almost unable to appear at all.

It was not because anyone had established a rule forbidding them.

The land itself simply could not withstand power at that level.

If a Golden Core cultivator forced their way inward or released their cultivation, the danger would not be limited to that person alone. Space, already scarred by countless wounds left from the ancient war, could distort further, creating chaotic spatial currents or localized collapses that might drag everyone nearby into them.

Only then did Hao Nhien truly understand why the defensive lines of the Western Wastes were maintained primarily by Foundation Establishment and Qi Condensation cultivators.

It was not that the Eastern Plains lacked stronger experts.

The stronger experts simply could not enter.

That alone made the Western Wastes a very unusual battlefield. The forces standing behind either side might be immensely powerful, yet those actually fighting within the region were constrained by a ceiling that no one could casually cross.

Hao Nhien braced one hand against the table and continued studying the map.

To the north of the Spirit Cloud Continent lay the Northern Frostlands.

Compared with the Eastern Plains, records concerning that region were far more limited. On most maps, the deep north was covered in pale blue-white markings accompanied by only brief annotations. The farther one traveled inward, the lower the temperature became and the stranger the spiritual qi grew, to the point that even high-level cultivators rarely chose to remain there for long.

Some records claimed that ancient creatures slept beneath the ice. Others suggested that the region contained remnants from an age far older than recorded history. There were even stranger theories, but almost none had evidence reliable enough to trust.

Hao Nhien read through them briefly and set the matter aside.

A place that even Lieu Thien Van’s records repeatedly described with phrases such as “unknown,” “unverified,” and “not to be entered without necessity” was clearly not something he needed to concern himself with now.

The south was entirely different.

The Southern Frontier bordered the Spirit Cloud Sea Region, an expanse of ocean so vast that many maps could not depict its true boundaries. Far beyond that sea lay a land known as the New World.

The name caught Hao Nhien’s attention.

According to the records, the New World was not a land that had only recently appeared. The name merely reflected the fact that the people of the Spirit Cloud Continent had discovered and established contact with it much later than with the familiar regions of their own continent.

In the past, cultivators had crossed the Spirit Cloud Sea Region in search of opportunities there, but the journey across the ocean was extremely dangerous. Sea beasts, spiritual storms, and regions where the laws of the sea were unstable meant that very few people could cross over and still return.

Several more recent records suggested that experts from the New World had begun returning to the Southern Frontier in recent years. There were even mentions of plans to build a teleportation formation capable of crossing the sea. However, the documents in the study said nothing clear about the project’s progress, scale, or true purpose.

Hao Nhien did not speculate further.

He simply remembered the name.

The Spirit Cloud Continent was already far larger than he had imagined, yet this world clearly did not end at a single continent.

Hao Nhien closed the jade slip and leaned back in his chair.

Only now did he truly feel like a small fish that had just swum out of a familiar stream and reached the mouth of the sea for the first time.

At first, he had known only Thanh Van Town.

Then came the Tieu Dao Sect, the Spirit Beast Forest, and Third City.

Now the same map showed the Northern Frostlands, Southern Frontier, Western Wastes, Spirit Cloud Sea Region, and New World. The Eastern Plains alone were so vast that he had explored only a tiny portion, yet beyond them were countless places he had never even heard of.

Hao Nhien closed his eyes for a moment and let out a quiet breath.

There was still far too much he needed to learn.

Lieu Thien Van and Phi Long still needed time to quietly investigate those with ties to the Fire Qilin Tribe and prepare a suitable route. Hao Nhien therefore decided to use the opportunity to remain in the study for several more days.

If he was about to travel deeper into the Western Wastes, then at the very least, he should understand the land he was entering.

The next day, Hao Nhien turned to the records concerning the war from more than a thousand years ago.

This section was far more chaotic.

There was no complete history.

Some jade slips contained only a few surviving passages. Certain records had been left behind by low-level cultivators and described only what they had witnessed over several days. Other documents came from different forces and had been written decades or even centuries apart. Many directly contradicted one another.

The one point almost all of them agreed on was that the Western Wastes had not always been a desert.

The land had once contained forests, mountains, rivers, and vast spiritual veins. Some records even claimed that it had once been rich enough to support several powerful cultivation forces comparable to the great sects of the modern Eastern Plains.

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Then the rifts appeared.

No one still knew the true cause.

Some documents claimed that space itself had undergone a natural mutation. Others said an external force had deliberately opened a path. Several older records mentioned the possibility that the rifts had existed long before the war and had merely been widened at that time.

The name Firmament appeared repeatedly in records written after the war.

What disappointed Hao Nhien was that even those who had written the records did not seem to truly know what the Firmament was.

Some called it a world.

Others called it a force.

One document suggested that Firmament might simply have been the collective name used by the people of that era for those who appeared from beyond the spatial rifts.

None of them offered evidence clear enough to settle the matter.

After more than a thousand years, most of those who had truly known the answer were long gone.

Hao Nhien remained on that section for a long time.

The only thing he could confirm was that, more than a thousand years ago, a force referred to as the Firmament had appeared through spatial rifts in the west, after which an enormous war erupted.

The main battlefield had been the land now known as the Western Wastes.

The battles had been so overwhelming that the surviving records could barely describe the full picture. Low-level cultivators had been unable to see what happened at the highest levels, while many of the true experts who participated in the war had left no records behind.

History had therefore survived only in fragments.

Some wrote that the earth had been torn apart by fissures stretching hundreds of miles. Others described the western sky burning red for months. Still others spoke of rivers changing course, spiritual veins shattering, and entire mountain forests disappearing after battles that those watching from afar could perceive only as light filling the horizon.

In a beast-hide scroll that had almost rotted away, Hao Nhien found several very short lines.

“On the seventy-ninth day, the sun could no longer be seen in the west.”

“On the one hundred and twentieth day, a mountain region vanished after a battle in the sky.”

“On the two hundredth day, the waters of three great rivers flowed backward into the heavens.”

The final line was only half preserved, but enough remained to read:

“On the final day, an explosion came from the east. After that…”

The rest was gone.

Hao Nhien stared at those words for a long time.

He did not know how much of it was true or how much had been exaggerated over the centuries, but the state of the Western Wastes alone was enough to prove that the war had surpassed anything he could presently imagine.

After the war, the Western Wastes never returned to what they had once been.

Spiritual veins shattered, space became distorted, and the environment gradually transformed into desert. Ancient battlefield ruins, broken formations, mutated beasts, and unpredictable opportunities became scattered throughout the land.

Survivors, groups of cultivators who later entered in search of opportunities, descendants of old forces, and communities of uncertain origin gradually formed the tribes of the Western Wastes.

Some claimed to be descendants of people from the Spirit Cloud Continent.

Other tribes possessed bloodlines or characteristics that certain records believed might be connected to the forces from beyond the rifts.

Many more had existed for so long that even they could no longer determine where their ancestors had originally come from.

They only knew that the Western Wastes were their home.

Hao Nhien continued reading.

The spatial conditions also imposed a special limitation on those who lived deep within the Western Wastes.

Foundation Establishment cultivators could train there.

But as their cultivation approached Golden Core, the limit began to reveal itself.

Only then did Hao Nhien understand why the theory that some tribes wished to leave the Western Wastes carried a certain logic.

To the Eastern Plains, the Western Wastes were a defensive line. But to many of those born there, the land was both home and cage.

It sustained them.

It also limited how far they could go.

Even so, Hao Nhien did not conclude that this was the reason behind the current disturbances.

Some tribes might wish to find a path out.

But what the Heavenly Eye Tribe wanted, he still did not know.

In a very old jade slip, Hao Nhien found a theory that made him stop for a long time.

The writer suggested that the force which had once appeared through the rifts might never have completely abandoned the Western Wastes. If the damaged regions of space could somehow be stabilized, then beings that were currently unable to travel deep into the region might one day return.

There was no evidence attached.

Beside the passage, Lieu Thien Van had written a brief note.

Unverified. For reference only.

Hao Nhien set the jade slip down.

Even if it was only a theory, it immediately reminded him of recent events.

The tribal attacks had become more organized.

Their targets no longer entirely resembled ordinary struggles over territory and resources.

People bearing the mark of the Heavenly Eye had appeared while carrying genuine military tokens.

If the theory in the jade slip was correct, then what was happening now might be more than simple tribal conflict or rebellion.

But Hao Nhien did not want to convince himself using clues that had never been confirmed.

He continued reading.

Other documents proposed that those who had once crossed through the rifts might not have disappeared completely after the war. Some may have been trapped and, over many generations, gradually merged with the local tribes. Several records mentioned intermarriage, assumed identities, or secret connections with forces outside the Western Wastes, but almost all lacked direct evidence.

Other accounts rejected such speculation entirely.

Hao Nhien did not know which side was correct.

For now, he only recorded one conclusion in his mind. The Western Wastes were more than a border between the Eastern Plains and a chaotic land. They were like a scar left behind by a war more than a thousand years ago.

And now, something was making that old scar ache again.

On the third day, Hao Nhien temporarily set the historical records aside and turned to writings concerning the cultivation path after entering Foundation Establishment.

This surprised him in a different way.

Previously, Hao Nhien had understood Foundation Establishment simply as the transition from gaseous true qi into liquid spiritual power, creating a firmer base for the longer path of cultivation ahead.

That was not wrong.

It was simply the most basic description.

After entering Foundation Establishment, the differences between cultivators began to become far more pronounced. Cultivation methods, spiritual affinities, body training, the use of artifacts, remote control of spiritual power, the Divine Soul, and combat experience could all create large gaps between two cultivators at the same realm.

Some cultivation methods focused on condensing spiritual power, reducing consumption while making each attack more stable. Others emphasized physical cultivation, using a stronger body as the foundation for enduring larger flows of spiritual power. Certain sword cultivators spent almost the entire Foundation Establishment realm refining their sword techniques and control over artifacts, while formation cultivators used this stage to develop circulation patterns suited to formation arts.

The more he read, the more Hao Nhien realized that Foundation Establishment was not a single path.

It was more like a broad foundation.

Once someone stepped onto it, they began building something of their own.

The records concerning geniuses also caught his attention, but unlike the exaggerated stories of folk legends, Lieu Thien Van’s materials were far more realistic.

Some early Foundation Establishment cultivators had been able to contend briefly with mid Foundation Establishment opponents because of exceptional sword techniques. Others used formations and terrain to resist several cultivators of the same realm at once. A few peak Foundation Establishment cultivators had escaped pursuit from Golden Core experts in regions outside the Western Wastes, but almost all had relied on prior preparation, special artifacts, or favorable terrain rather than possessing the ability to confront a Golden Core directly.

Cases of cultivators fighting far beyond their realm certainly existed.

But they were extremely rare.

And the higher one climbed, the harder it became to bridge the gap between realms.

Hao Nhien did not feel discouraged after reading this.

If anything, the records made more sense to him.

He had killed opponents stronger than himself before, but every victory had required conditions: terrain, surprise, Quan Nha’s coordination, the Black Wind, the Spirit Sword disrupting the opponent’s Divine Soul, and a precise finishing strike.

None of those victories had come simply because he was stronger than everyone at the same realm.

That only meant the road ahead was still long.

Hao Nhien put the records aside and reviewed what he already possessed.

The Tieu Dao Sword was his primary weapon.

One Sword had already taken shape, while One Sword Breaks Ten Thousand Arts had only reached its first step.

The Body Soul Fist Art remained an important close-combat method.

The Spirit Wings gave him explosive speed and mobility, though their consumption was considerable.

The Spirit Sword within his Sea of Consciousness was a powerful Divine Soul method when used as a surprise, but it was even less suited for careless overuse.

The Fire Qilin Jade had only recently entered his Sea of Consciousness. It was still quietly absorbing a portion of his spiritual power during circulation before returning faint waves of heat. The Berserk mark between his brows had also only been touched once, and its true effects remained unknown.

Taken together, Hao Nhien possessed many things.

But that was precisely why he needed time to turn them into a system that truly belonged to him instead of leaving them as a collection of separate opportunities.

He took out a blank sheet of paper.

The first thing Hao Nhien wrote was defense.

In his recent battles, he had taken too many attacks directly with his body. The Spirit Wings helped him evade and burst forward, while his sword techniques gave him the ability to end fights quickly. But if he encountered an opponent who denied him the chance to dodge or could not be defeated within a few exchanges, a suitable defensive artifact would still be essential.

The Cosmic Ark was, of course, his final safeguard for survival. As long as he could still enter the Cave Dwelling, he would at least have one path of retreat.

But that secret could never be exposed.

Hao Nhien understood very clearly that if outsiders discovered he possessed a special space where he could hide, rest, store items, and even escape pursuit in a critical moment, the very thing meant to save his life could immediately become the reason countless people began hunting him.

For that reason, the Cosmic Ark could only be used when no other choice remained.

In ordinary circumstances, he still needed a sufficiently strong defensive method so that every dangerous situation did not force him to think of his final hidden card.

The next thing Hao Nhien wrote was concealment and disguise.

The journey to the Fire Qilin Tribe would not resemble an ordinary mission. He needed to conceal his aura, change his clothing and behavior, and might even have to live among people who knew nothing about where he came from for a long period of time. If everything went smoothly, it would be best if no one knew where he had traveled, much less had any chance to guess what other secrets he carried.

After that came recovery medicines, supplies suited to the environment of the Western Wastes, maps, survival materials, records concerning the Fire Qilin Tribe and the Heavenly Eye Tribe, and information on routes leading deep into the desert.

Hao Nhien thought for a while, then added another line.

How to use Fire affinity.

He had no intention of rushing to find an external Fire cultivation method.

The Fire Qilin Jade was already an inheritance he did not yet fully understand. Carelessly introducing another system at this stage could make things unnecessarily complicated. What he needed now was simply to understand the flame that had only just been planted within him.

At last, Hao Nhien looked at the long list on the paper and smiled faintly.

Three days ago, he had only been thinking about completing the mission immediately before him.

Now, this no longer looked like preparation for a short journey.

It looked like preparation for a very long road.

He folded the paper and placed it into his storage bag.

Whatever Third City could provide, he would ask Lieu Thien Van about tomorrow.

Anything he could not obtain immediately, he would gather along the way.

By the night of the third day, Hao Nhien finally stood up from the table where he had spent nearly every waking hour.

Outside the small window high on the wall, a young moon cast a thin layer of silver over the camp. Desert winds passed through the distant formation pillars, carrying a low sound very different from the winds of the forests and mountains of the Eastern Plains.

Hao Nhien’s mind was tired, but no longer clouded.

Three days were not enough for him to understand the Spirit Cloud Continent.

They certainly were not enough for him to see through the Western Wastes or the Firmament.

If anything, the more he read, the more he realized how obscure the name Firmament truly was.

Hao Nhien walked to the largest map in the study and stared at the Western Wastes for a long time.

One day, if he became strong enough, he would cross this land.

If the Heavenly Eye Tribe knew something, he would find them.

If the Fire Qilin Tribe still preserved traces of the ancient war, he would uncover those traces.

And if the rift from a thousand years ago had truly led to the place called the Firmament, then one day he would find a way to stand before it.

Not today.

Perhaps not even within the next few years.

But for the first time since awakening in this world, Hao Nhien felt that his path toward finding Anh Nhien was no longer only a promise he had made to himself.

Now, it had a direction.