Chapter 2390: Return Cloud Mountain (1)

Inside the gate.

This was a world of emptiness. There wasn't even proper ground to stand on. Simply put, one would have no way of moving around without being at least a Skysoar.

Su Yu was curious. After so many years, had the people in here not been procreating? If they had, where would the younger folks live? Inside the forbidden zones? Or the settlements? So they might be stuck at the same place for life. And that place might not even be that big. That would be quite a sad life.

Also, there was no light here. This was the biggest difference between this world and the world outside. Or to be precise, there wasn't enough light in here. Everything felt dead in here. It wasn't that much of an issue for Su Yu, but this was not a liveable environment for many.

Perhaps there were special treasures capable of producing light in those forbidden zones.

"It sure is lonely in here."

Su Yu suspected that one would develop mental issues after spending enough time in here. The environment was simply atrocious.

Recalling the maps in his mind, he noted that there were several territories nearby as well. The nearest was Return's Return Cloud Mountain. After Return's advancement into a tier-one, his faction had turned into a local hegemon.

Return Cloud Mountain was actually quite popular among unaffiliated cultivators. Of course, even the nearest Return Cloud Mountain was far enough that many couldn't reach even after a lifetime of traveling. Even Su Yu needed some time to go that far.

As Su Yu moved amid the void, he continued focusing on his surroundings. The powers of numerous daos could be felt.

It might seem like this was a world of chaos, but the void here wasn't actually chaos. The daos here were actually orderly, unlike the pure mess that was the chaos. This place might once have been full of life. But eventually, desolation arrived. Regardless, the daos here were indeed orderly. This was the biggest difference between the myriad daos and the chaos.

"This is an actual world, not chaos."

That was Su Yu's conclusion. He could sense the presence of many different daos. He could even faintly sense the River of Time through the faint Heaven Gate on his forehead. But the gate only appeared for a split second before withdrawing again.

The power of the Heaven Gate would radiate an intense yang power in this world of yin. While focusing on the numerous daos around him, Su Yu started drawing a plan to properly comprehend the daos in here. Outside, he had thousands of daos under his control. The strongest reached the first tier, while the weakest was only a Daofuse dao.

In here, something seemed to be obstructing his comprehension of the native daos.

That something felt like a barrier of sorts, one that he couldn't penetrate for now. It was thin, yet it prevented him from actually touching upon the dao right before him. Even when he knew that dao very well, the barrier was preventing him from actually forming a connection with it.

It felt as though...both him and the dao were looking at each other from parallel realities...or different eras.

Yes, different eras!

"So the daos here don't belong to our era? Is that why I can't actually connect to them? But how am I supposed to disguise myself as a native without a connection to the native daos? How am I supposed to create a world in here?"

Su Yu sank into thought. How could he get through the barrier? His current disguise would work against weaklings, but stronger powerhouses could see through it easily. Since he was here in disguise, he had to make his disguise effective, right?

What was the point of a flimsy disguise?

"Why can Return and the others cultivate the daos outside? Is it because they first severed their connection to their previous daos?"

But Su Yu had entered this world without any daos in him. His daos were contained within his world. He sank into thought. He had to remove that incorporeal barrier to resonate with the daos here.

"The barrier is preventing those not from this era from cultivating the daos here. How is the barrier determining whether one belongs to this era?"

Su Yu rubbed his chin. That was the biggest question. He had to resolve this issue, or things could get very troublesome for him. He was not interested in becoming a public enemy like Culture King in here.

Culture King was a researcher as well. Had he researched this topic before? Or had he been too busy for that? Perhaps Master of Time had researched this before. Was the Death Hell a new world he opened? Or was it an object? If it was a new world, it could only signify that Master of Death had a deep understanding of the daos here. Su Yu wondered if he should start his research with the Death Hell.

Su Yu continued with his attempts to cultivate the native daos. After a long while, he sank into deep contemplation. People like Martial King still had access to their strength even in here. This signified that the daos outside was usable here as well.

There was even the River of Time in here. There was a barrier between them and this world, but the powers from the River of Time should be usable everywhere covered by the River of Time. The era would not matter. For example, Return remained a tier-one even after entering the Myriad Realms.

"I can't use the power from my world because my world does not belong to the River of Time.

"But I can use the power of the various daos from the River of Time.

"The nature of the power might change in here, but it is still the power within the same river.

"I don't cultivate the river daos anymore, so I can only rely on the power contained within my body here. In short, is Martial King actually stronger than Culture King here?"

Because Martial King still had full access to his own dao. Meanwhile, Culture King couldn't fully utilize the power of his world. Numerous thoughts surfaced in Su Yu's mind. Su Yu's curiosity grew. It had been quite a while since he last spent his time in research. Thus, this journey into a new world was actually a very interesting experience for him.

He had always loved research. Unfortunately, he had been too busy to put much focus to it. During his time in the academy, he did found the Source Soul Research Center. He also deduced the Heaven Gate, the yin aperture, and yang acupoint himself. Of course, the Book of Time had also helped a lot in his research back then.

Here, he had to start anew. That had reawakened his dormant interest in research.

"I need to find a proper test subject for this."

Su Yu muttered to himself. He needed more observation to better understand the beings living inside the gate.

"Return Cloud Mountain..." Having made up his mind, Su Yu accelerated toward Return Cloud Mountain. That was Return's old lair, and a bunch of people were living there.

The unaffiliated cultivators inside the gate had complicated backgrounds.

Some were former residents of forbidden zones who had been banished due to overpopulation. Yes. Banished. For the most part, the forbidden zones were fixed in size. Expansion wasn't easy, and the masters wouldn't go through the trouble of expansion because of overpopulation. Thus, banishment became the way to deal with overpopulation.

In this world within the gate, birth itself was a source of danger as it might result in banishment. And the world outside these forbidden zones was extremely dangerous. Some ancient beasts and old monsters could still be found in the void.

There was also a life form unique to the world inside the gate. The devouring locust. This was also one of the natural disasters of this world. These life forms would devour everything they could reach.

In fact, these locusts were the biggest reason for the world inside the gate to be a vast space of emptiness. According to Return, these locusts were produced by nature itself at the end of an era. Or to be precise, they emerged from the River of Time to devour everything in existence.

In short, the world inside the gate would cease to exist one day. Everyone knew that. At the moment, the powerful forbidden zone masters would remove these locusts frequently, prolonging the time this world could continue to exist.

Some of the unaffiliated cultivators originated from the forbidden zones, and some were the descendants of the various powerhouses of the Creation Era. As these original powerhouses died, their descendants continued procreating and surviving in the gate.

Su Yu once asked them about the sealing of the Creation Era. Return gave a simple answer. One normal day, the world was suddenly upended. All powerhouses felt the world shifting before them. Before they knew it, they had all appeared behind a gate. In the beginning, the world inside the gate wasn't as bleak and desolate. It only became what it was due to the locusts.

Su Yu didn't know what to say about that answer. So the world had ended in the span of a single day? Did none of the many powerhouses sense anything?

If Return was right, Su Yu could only assume that the whole thing was done by Master of Time. Nobody else should have the ability to carry out such a feat. One ought to know that the Creation Era had a large number of powerhouses. That was an era when the myriad realms in the Myriad Realms were created.

That was a time when the River of Time had just appeared. Like Su Yu's world, the early powerhouses of the world would benefit massively as early adopters. Many years later, when all the daos in Su Yu's world had been occupied, it would be very hard for newcomers to surpass the veteran members who were there first.

Eventually, growth would no longer be possible. What were the newcomers supposed to do, then? In short, the early adopters were the ones to block the path of the newcomers. As Su Yu thought about that, his eyes flickered.

Yes, many of the daos were occupied during the Creation Era, making it hard for the subsequent generations to keep growing. Was this why...the era ended?

Perhaps this was not what Master of Time wanted. Thus, he acted and swept all the antiques behind a gate, splitting the world into yin and yang. This created enough space for the newcomers to cultivate.

Were the locusts essentially cleaners to remove the unwanted? Numerous thoughts surfaced in Su Yu's mind.