Chapter 2074: Changes

"Chu Yuan and the others made it back? When?" Lu Yin asked.

Xi Yue softly replied, "I don't know. I haven’t gotten any news from the outside world after I arrived here at the Astral River."

Lu Yin looked out at outer space. It seemed that Chu Yuan and the others had returned to this era before him. After falling in the river of time, it could easily take several years or even tens of years for anyone to escape. They had confirmed his death because they had seen the sword plunge into his chest.

"Please tell me what’s going on right now," Lu Yin requested.

Xi Yue pursed her lips. She then proceeded to slowly recount what she knew of the events that had played out in the Fifth Mainland over the past twenty years.

Lu Yin listened in silence. These twenty years had been twenty years of drastic changes for the Fifth Mainland. They had brought about terrible crises, but also many opportunities.

The silver light from the sky was slowly replaced by dazzling sunlight, announcing the beginning of a new day.

Inside the shack, Xi Yue swallowed the pill that Lu Yin had given her, and her wounds started to heal at a visible rate. Even her battle force stabilized a great deal. All that remained untouched were the scars on her face.

"Why didn't you change your appearance back to normal?" Lu Yin wondered.

Xi Yue answered softly, though her voice no longer had a hoarseness to it. "I'll take that back the day I avenge my people!"

"You want to avenge your clansmen? Why didn’t you go to the Lu Heavenly Gate?" Lu Yin asked. From what he had learned from Xi Yue, the Great Eastern Alliance was currently being protected by Gatemaster Lu Buzheng. Since the Souldream Tribe was a part of the Great Eastern Alliance even before the Aeternals’ attack, it should be a given that the Lu Heavenly Gate would act on their behalf and get revenge for them.

Xi Yue’s voice remained quiet, "In this day and age, people can't get revenge no matter how badly they want it. The Semi-Progenitors have split up among the various gatemasters in order to deal with the Aeternals, and all internal conflicts between humans have been forbidden. The Lu Heavenly Gate doesn’t care about a small person like me, and this a matter is impossible for the Souldream Tribe to deal with, as our tribe was attacked by another gatemaster."

"Your Souldream Tribe was attacked? By who?" Lu Yin was shocked. According to Xi Yue’s explanation, her enemy was someone incredibly powerful, and even if Lu Buzheng acted on behalf of the Souldream Tribe, it could lead to tremendous repercussions.

Xi Yue did not answer, and she instead looked over at Lu Yin. "What do you plan on doing now?"

Lu Yin held onto the sword. Plans? He first needed to get a good grasp of the current situation. While twenty years was not a lot of time, many changes had occurred during these two decades. It was similar to when he had united both the Innerverse and Outerverse, as that had also taken less than twenty years. The entire Fifth Mainland had undergone drastic changes.

Essentially, the last forty years had seen the Fifth Mainland undergo a greater transformation than the countless years before that. These changes had been caused by Lu Yin, the arrival of the ancient powerhouses, as well as the Aeternals’ attack.

"Is there any way to get in contact with the outside world from here?" Lu Yin asked.

Xi Yue replied, "Nowadays, all long-distance communications rely on wireless jincans, and while it’s not too difficult to get a wireless jincan, it’s up to each person to know the way to communicate with someone else’s."

This made sense to Lu Yin, as it was similar to how gadgets had functioned in the past. Without a person’s contact information, it was impossible to send them a message.

Lu Yin had possessed his own wireless jincans, but he had given them to Lu Buzheng and the other people before he had gone into seclusion. This had allowed them to communicate with Arch-Elder Zen, but it also meant that Lu Yin currently did not have a wireless jincan on him.

"Do you want to leave?" Xi Yue asked.

Lu Yin shook his head. "I’m going to stay here for now."

Xi Yue felt puzzled by this. Given Lu Yin's status, there had to be some meaning to him staying, but she decided not to question the matter. He had been publicly declared dead, but then had returned. She had no idea what ramifications might occur from this.

It was not that Lu Yin did not want to leave. Rather, his body was in a very strange situation right now. There was no stellular energy in the true universe, so he could not recover any that he used, and his death energy had become unusable. If he ran into any powerhouses, he would be in grave trouble. Also, Xi Yue had said that in the twenty years that had passed since Lu Yin had disappeared, during the fighting against the Aeternals, the Semi-Progenitors had started taking on each other’s appearances. If Lu Yin revealed himself and ran into Kui Luo, it would be fine, but if someone else found Lu Yin, he could not guess what might happen, especially if he ran into Jue Yi.

From Xi Yue’s understanding of current matters, the Fifth Mainland had been decisively split between the humans and the Aeternals.

There were many human Semi-Progenitors, but due to the lack of stellular energy, Arch-Elder Zen and most of the other human powerhouses had been greatly weakened and were not able to do much. Instead, Hen Xin and the other ancient powerhouses had become far more active, and they had started working to restore the glory of the Heavens Sect era. They were trying to unite the entire Fifth Mainland, rebuild the Heavens Sect, and restore the Twelve Heavenly Gates.

For example, Hen Xin had recreated the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate. There were several other Semi-Progenitors following him. The entire Xia family and many other forces had turned to the gatemaster as well.

Jue Yi was also working to reestablish the Undying Heavenly Gate, and the Specter clan had started following him. As a result, they had returned to humanity and become the orthodox sect of the God of Death’s teachings.

As for the Sixth Mainland, the Bloodlines Heavenly Gate had been established. This was mostly because only the Progenitor of Bloodlines remained, and thus everyone from the Sixth Mainland belonged to the Bloodlines Heavenly Gate.

Additionally, Arch-Elder Zen, Highsage Grandmaster, and the other original Semi-Progenitors from the Fifth Mainland had established the Honor Heavenly Gate.

Elsewhere, Lu Buzheng and Kui Luo had set up another gate, and they called it the Lu Heavenly Gate.

At the moment, every human in the Fifth Mainland fell under the control of one of the Heavenly Gates, which used sourcebox arrays to move between locations and provide support for each other. Alternate cultivation methods such as battle force, domains, spiritual force, and death energy were being popularized so that humans could fight against the Aeternals. On top of that, the greatest transformation seen in the era was the advent of microarray technology and pyrolyte.

Lu Yin was surprised to learn that pyrolyte could actually be mined from the Astral River. When the substance had first been discovered in the Astral Wilderness, it had triggered a massive competition between forces from both the Innerverse and Outerverse. If not for the fact that too little had been found, even the Neoverse would have been interested.

A single gram of pyrolyte could explode with the force of an attack with a power level of 10,000. Furthermore, there was no limit to how powerful the explosion could theoretically become. This was the most terrifying aspect of pyrolyte.

When pyrolyte was combined with microarray technology, it had become the defining symbol of the last two decades: a new weapon that humans had designed incorporating pyrolyte as the fuel and microarray technology as the mechanism. It was powerful enough that even an ordinary human could kill an Explorer. This was the weapon that humans were using to hold out against the Aeternals.

Along with this new weapon, there was another name that had become the most famous throughout the known universe: Hen Xin.

The master of the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate had taken control of Aurora Enterprises, which meant that he had forcibly taken control of microarray technology to stand at the forefront of the era and lead humanity into the future.

These accomplishments should have belonged to Lu Yin, but at the moment, the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate held them all.

Lu Yin let out a breath. Hen Xin was someone who had risen up from an ordinary person with no background to become the gatemaster of one of the Twelve Heavenly Gates. It would not have been unexpected for him to eventually become a Dao Monarch.

Lu Yin’s first impression of the gatemaster was that Hen Xin had been able to instantly see through the various relationships and realize that Lu Yin had been the decision-maker, despite being a one-tribulation Envoy at the time. In direct contrast to Lu Buzheng, who only knew how to solve problems with direct force, Hen Xin knew how to use his brain.

With both determination and intelligence, it was no surprise that Hen Xin had risen so high.

However, Hen Xin had also only managed to accomplish so much because Lu Yin had been missing for these twenty years. If Lu Yin had been present, it would have been impossible for Hen Xin to have stolen the microarray technology.

People like Wang Wen and Wei Rong had no idea how to handle Hen Xin.

The Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate boasted the largest number of Semi-Progenitors, and because of Ni Huang and the others who followed Hen Xin, it was only natural that the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate constantly targeted the Lu Heavenly Gate. Regardless of how smart Wang Wen and the others might be, it was impossible for them to deal with the pressure of the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate.

However, Aurora Enterprises had been protected by Elder Gong, no? How could Hen Xin have taken control of the company?

For the time being, Lu Yin needed to wait for his strength to recover, while also gathering information about the rest of the universe. Since no one was able to contact him, it was possible that he needed to take advantage of the people monitoring the tidal flats.

Xi Yue simply knew too little.

"If you want to stay here, you’ll need to gather pyrolyte just like the rest of us. However, you clearly aren’t one of us, and the person overseeing this place is Xia Yi, the Xia family’s patriarch. He’s incredibly strong." Xi Yue was already worried.

Lu Yin was surprised. "Xia Yi? Why is the Xia family’s patriarch here?"

Xi Yue shook her head. "I don't know."

Lu Yin was not intimidated by Xia Yi. After becoming a three-tribulation Envoy, forget Xia Yi—Lu Yin would not be afraid to go up against an old monster with a power level of a million. Unfortunately, Lu Yin could not use his strength at this point in time. His physical strength should be enough to handle Xia Yi, but if the man focused entirely on escaping, Lu Yin would struggle to catch up to the man.

"Why don’t you disguise yourself as Old Hei? He just came in here, so no one will know or suspect a thing," Xi Yue suggested.

Lu Yin was left confused. "He came in here? Where is he?"

"Dead," Xi Yue said.

Lu Yin glanced around.

"His body became specks of light, and he disappeared. It was your sword," Xi Yue explained while shooting a fearful glance at the sword in Lu Yin's hand.

Lu Yin immediately understood. "He touched the hilt?"

Xi Yue silently nodded.

"Show me what he looked like. I can disguise myself so that no one can recognize me, and that goes for Xia Yi as well," Lu Yin said. However, as soon as he spoke, he remembered that he could no longer use his death energy. How was he supposed to use the Mask of Death to hide himself? His only option was to change his appearance the normal way and then simply hope that Xia Yi would not see through the disguise.

Xi Yue had no idea what was going through Lu Yin’s mind. With stellular energy and star energy no longer available, the only way that Xi Yue could make a picture of Old Hei was by drawing on the floor. "This is Old Hei. He’s considered to be one of the more powerful people out of those collecting pyrolyte, and he’s also very arrogant. He’s quite good at flattering the supervisor, so if you’re going to pretend to be him, you can’t try to keep a low profile."

Lu Yin arched a brow as he looked at the drawing. He quickly changed his appearance and successfully made himself look like Old Hei.

"What was he doing in here with you?" Lu Yin asked after shifting his face to Old Hei’s. He gave Xi Yue an odd look.

Xi Yue felt thoroughly disgusted when she saw Old Hei's face, and she looked away. “That’s none of your business."

Lu Yin felt that this was a somewhat strange reaction, but he did not press the issue. People soon walked out of the shack and made their way towards the Astral River. Pyrolyte had to be gathered during the day, as powerful creatures would appear and devour any creature with flesh and blood during the night.

"The pyrolyte is at the bottom of the Astral River. Twenty years ago, a massive hand tried to grab the Daosource Sect’s main hall, but it failed. Still, it shattered the mental network that was suppressing the Fifth Mainland, and it also messed up the Astral River, which exposed the pyrolyte at the bottom. The gravel from the river bed has been pulled up, and that’s the tidal flat that we’re on right now." As they walked along, Xi Yue gave Lu Yin a brief overview of the place.

Lu Yin walked along the tidal flat. He was not stepping on ordinary sand, but rather the silt from the bottom of the Astral River. When he glanced around, he could see that there seemed to be some invisible power pulling the silt out of the Astral River and towards the tidal flat.

"The pyrolyte is mixed in with the gravel from the river bottom, and it can only be found by searching with your eye. I know that you mined pyrolyte ore before, but the pyrolyte found in the Astral River is different from what you dealt with before. This pyrolyte is more compressed, and it doesn’t explode so easily, as it isn’t in the air." Xi Yue continued her explanation in a very low voice.

"There’s no mining equipment?" Lu Yin was surprised.

Xi Yue shook her head. "No. The gravel all needs to be visually checked piece by piece."

Lu Yin stared at the Astral River. They were on one side of the Astral River, and from Xi Yue’s information, they should be on the edge of the Astral River that was close to Northline Flowzone. Just how much gravel could be pulled up from the entire Astral River? Inspecting it all would take hundreds of millions of years.

Plop!

One after another, people approached the edge of the Astral River and jumped in. They were all cultivators who had originally cultivated with star energy, but since the true universe had been completely drained, their only option was to try to cultivate battle force.

Some people failed and died from the attempt. Others only succeeded in becoming a bit stronger than ordinary people. However, this was still some level of success, and so they were allowed to join the mining teams. As long as they were able to gather enough pyrolyte, they would be allowed to travel to the Neoverse. It was possible for them to climb up one step at a time.