Chapter 600: Discovery

Zhou Guang stared at Li Pin's back, dazed.

He... really left just like that?

He was in a daze for a long time.

No need for everyone to worship him? No need to enslave all of humanity? No need to rule Blue Planet? No need for its other resources? Just some mental spirit cultivation techniques and martial arts methods that even they themselves admitted were of low quality?

***

Inside the conference room, the gathered leaders exchanged glances after hearing Li Pin's request from the Secretary-General.

They had braced themselves for Blue Planet's total subjugation, for the loss of all freedom and autonomy so long as survival remained possible. And yet... this was all he wanted?

"He really only asked for cultivation methods?" Qin Dongsheng couldn't help but ask again.

Zhou Guang nodded. "Yes, but all of them."

Nikola Novich frowned. "All cultivation systems... We've spent decades combing through every known method since learning about the existence of True Gods.

"Martial arts, immortal cultivation, mythology, knighthood, witchcraft, magic, bloodlines... In the end, we arrived at the most suitable system for mental spirit cultivators. Could those methods still hold some unknown secrets?"

"I don't know," Zhou Guang replied. "But if they did and we failed to find them, then for us, it's no different from them never existing in the first place."

He shook his head. "Like owning a gemstone. You know it's worth a fortune, but if no one buys it, it's just a rock."

"As the saying goes, 'Wisdom from external sources can be valuable for self-improvement.' Maybe... he just wants them as a reference?" Arslan suggested.

Speculation continued, but no matter the reason, orders were quickly issued. All available cultivation techniques were delivered to Li Pin's residence at the fastest possible speed.

***

Li Pin didn't choose to live in a mansion. Instead, he requested a penthouse on a high-rise across from Frontier Corp.

Frontier Corp was the company founded by Baili Qingfeng's father, Li Xian, on Blue Planet. It had grown into a sizable enterprise.

Staying here made it easier to keep track of Li Xian and the rest of the Li family.

Just as he settled in, the first batch of cultivation manuals arrived from the presidential office. Most were digital, with only a few printed copies, all annotated with detailed explanations.

Li Pin sat on the balcony, pulled out a tablet-like device, and began flipping through the files. "Plenty to go through."

The first thing he examined was this world's mental spirit cultivation system.

It had already spread among the pioneers, with some even refining it further. They pushed its original ten tier structure to the eleventh and twelfth levels. Additionally, when combined with mech development, it could theoretically grant combat prowess equivalent to the thirteenth or fourteenth tiers.

However, the Celestial Barren Domain's industrial capabilities lagged an entire century behind Blue Planet's. In each cycle, building a usable mech from scratch required first elevating the Celestial Barren Domain's industrial foundation. Even when it barely reached a functional level, constructing factories and assembling a workforce demanded further massive investments.

When the first mech was finally built, more than half a stellar year had passed. By then, the top pioneers would have already ascended to True Godhood.

With such industrial constraints, this system was widely regarded as impractical.

Li Pin thought,

The pioneers' knowledge and vision far exceed those of Blue Planet's experts and scholars. Compared to the mental spirit cultivation techniques Zhou Guang provided, the ones developed by the pioneers are on an entirely different level.

Nevertheless, he patiently went through each technique.

Who knew? Perhaps one of them concealed an overlooked mystery—something that could spark inspiration and offer a new insight toward the Transcendent path.

***

Half a month later.

Li Pin set down the twenty-first book on mental spirit cultivation.

As expected, he had overthought things.

Blue Planet's civilization had compiled twenty-one mental spirit cultivation methods tailored to different practitioners, but none held any real secrets. They were just ordinary, low-tier techniques. They were so basic that even in Gaia's civilization, no one would bother practicing them.

He shook his head but felt no frustration over the time spent.

Reaching for the next major category, he took out a martial arts manual.

He skimmed through the descriptions of the martial arts realms. "Overt, Covert, Transformative, Core, Aura, Martial Saint..."

All paths led to the same destination.

"This is exactly the same as the martial arts system from my previous life on Blue Planet," muttered Li Pin.

He pulled out the report he had requested from Zhou Guang. It contained detailed records of the county and village where Li Pin had once lived, meticulously documenting population numbers, household registrations, and other data.

He flipped through the pages. His name was nowhere to be found.

After receiving the report, he had personally visited the village.

It was nothing but a barren wasteland.

During the early days of the Federal Government's formation, large-scale population relocations had taken place. Villages left without residents had simply been abandoned.

That village was one of them. Moreover... it wasn't the same as he remembered.

Li Pin flipped through the ancient manual. "The records of human civilization on this planet only go back a little over a thousand years. Something must have happened over a millennium ago, causing a break in civilization..."

Later generations had used archaeology and other methods to reconstruct human history, extending it back eight thousand years. But the records from a thousand years ago onwards remained vague and unreliable.

Rather than true history, they felt more like fabricated narratives—cultural backfilling by various nations.

"So, something drastic happened over a thousand years ago. This planet and the Blue Planet I remember... are not the same."

He thought,

A coincidence? Or a parallel world?

The concept of parallel worlds was too elusive. It was difficult to imagine under what circumstances such a situation could arise.

Then... is it just a coincidence?

"If it is, the resemblance is far too great..."

Across the vast galaxy, countless planets existed. It's not uncommon for planets to share identical names. Even cultures could end up resembling each other. If someone traveled back to a planet's ancient era and spread Blue Planet's culture, given enough influence and time, say, a thousand years, it wasn't impossible for that culture to evolve in a similar direction.

But for the terrain and topography to be identical? The odds dropped significantly.

Unless...

"This planet once had a being of immense power... or perhaps, someone like me, someone from Blue Planet who mastered cultivation, wielding the ability to reshape landscapes and mold an entire planet according to memory, even spreading Blue Planet's culture."

He quickly connected it to Baili Qingfeng's experiences and transformation in this world.

The likelihood that this artificial Blue Planet had once given rise to a great cultivator was growing.

"Who was it? And what kind of cultivation system did they leave behind to guide Baili Qingfeng toward the Transcendent path?"

With that, Li Pin patiently resumed reading the martial arts manual in his hands. Given the similarities between the martial arts of both worlds, he quickly finished the book.

"Nothing special," he commented.

After a brief pause, he added, "But compared to my world, where Aura Force has nearly vanished, this world's martial arts are far more advanced. It's similar to Gaia, where Martial Saints have existed in every era, and there are more than one at a time."

In a world without the supernatural, each Martial Saint represented the peak of human strength. Especially in ancient times, before firearms, a single Martial Saint could easily establish a dynasty or dominate an era.

Ordinary soldiers, even in groups of hundreds, stood no chance against them.

As for commanding vast armies? What good would that do if their opponent was only one person?

A Martial Saint could choose a battlefield where the enemy's forces couldn't move freely or launch a surprise attack in the dark. One person could shatter an entire army, or even topple a kingdom.

Ancient armies would collapse with just a 20-30% casualty rate. Against a Martial Saint—revered as an "Earth Immortal"—fear would multiply. In the dead of night, a Martial Saint could charge through enemy ranks, slaying hundreds or thousands. Even the morale of a ten-thousand-strong army would crumble under the fear of this feat.

Moreover, every Martial Saint stood at the pinnacle of the world. They could use their influence to gather vast wealth, train elite forces, and lead them into battle. Even with just a hundred elite warriors, a Martial Saint leading the charge could break through an army of ten thousand. No army of ten thousand could withstand that.

"But... this isn't what I'm looking for," muttered Li Pin.

As he turned to the last page of the manual, something finally caught him by surprise.

"

Hm?

"

The final page proposed a new realm.

Li Pin studied it carefully. "Void Pulverizer, Glimpsing the True Divinity?"

This realm allowed one to perceive every minute aperture in the body and imprint the mental spirit upon them, unlocking the body's fullest potential.

Such power... it neared the cellular level, a step away from transforming martial arts into divine martial arts.

He sighed. "Half a step into the extraordinary... but still not truly beyond the mortal realm."

The ancients had indeed pushed human evolution to its limits with all their wisdom and effort.

Shaking his head, Li Pin set the martial arts manual aside and picked up a Daoist scripture.

Though deeply profound, Daoist manuals were even less reliable than martial arts theories.

He patiently read through them, eventually concluding that the Daoist system had no practical application.

He moved on to other systems—Buddhism, knightly orders, bloodlines, sorcery....

These were even more illusory. They were purely fabrications, deliberately mystified to deceive the masses.

Li Pin frowned. "How can this be?"

Could it be that my Clairvoyance is inferior to Baili Qingfeng's talents? Is that why I can't discern what he saw in these texts?