Chapter 4144: Grow A Future

“Ancestor, have you grown a third innate gift yet?” Lu Yin asked directly.

Ancestor Lu Yuan shook his head before giving Lu Yin an expectant look. “Little Seven, have you decided what innate gift you would like?”

“Teleportation.”

“...”

“Not possible?”

Ancestor Lu Yuan rubbed his head. “Within any universe, you can move fast enough to cover any distance within the blink of an eye. Thus, the teleportation that you are referring to should be the same as Luo Chan’s. Am I right?”

Lu Yin nodded.

“I’d love to grow an invincible innate gift, but does that even help? Innate gifts aren’t wishes that I can just grant.”

Lu Yin pursed his lips. “Then why do you keep asking me?”

That question left Lu Yuan speechless. “Think of something more realistic.”

“Back in your day, neither the Investiture of the Gods nor the Champions’ Stage sounded very realistic either. How did you even come up with them?” Lu Yin asked, genuinely curious.

The Investiture of the Gods and the Champions’ Stage were both among the most powerful innate gifts that Lu Yin had ever seen. It was hard to imagine that such innate gifts had actually been deliberately developed.

Ancestor Lu Yuan rolled his eyes. “When I was young, I had a vibrant imagination. The older I get, the more practical I become. If I were to try again now, I might not even be able to consider such abilities. As for teleportation... it isn’t completely impossible to grow that innate ability.”

Lu Yin’s eyes lit up. “How so?”

Ancestor Lu Yuan replied, “Bring me Luo Chan and let me toss it into my Fertile Soil. With that, I can see if the combination of my sequence particles and Progenitor’s world will allow me to grow an innate gift similar to that bug’s ability, but don’t get your hopes up. The chances are quite slim.

“Even if I’ve never roamed about the Aevum Inch, I still know that it is very rare for completely different species to share the same innate gifts.

“On top of that, even if I do manage to grow such an innate gift, are you certain that you would inherit it?”

Lu Yin started. That was right, he had actually forgotten that detail. Any innate gift that Lu Yuan grew would belong to him; would Lu Yin be able to inherit it?

Long ago, Nutjob Lu had ended suffering greatly precisely because he had failed to awaken the Lu family’s innate gift.

Ancestor Lu Yuan sighed. “Luo Chan’s existence puts a great deal of pressure on our human civilization. I understand how you feel, but there are some things that just can’t be done. If you asked me to grow the Immortal Lord, I wouldn’t be able to succeed throughout my entire life.”

Lu Yin nodded, only to suddenly think of something. “Ancestor, what did you just say?”

“I said, even if I did manage to grow an innate gift of teleportation, are you certain that you would inherit it?”

“No, after that.”

Ancestor Lu Yuan thought for a moment. “Don’t tell me you actually want me to grow the Immortal Lord.”

Lu Yin’s eyes grew even brighter. “Why can the Nests incorporate all the strengths of the creatures in a given megaverse to grant a Verdant Sage its desired abilities? Think about it! Luo Chan is a Verdant Sage, which means that its ability comes from the megaverse it was spawned in. That means that there’s a megaverse with creatures capable of teleportation. That means that the Nest gave Luo Chan its ability—in other words, the Immortal Lord gave Luo Chan its ability!”

Ancestor Lu Yuan nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a valid point, but what does that have to do with me?”

Lu Yin’s eyes were blazing by this point. “If we could take advantage of the Immortal Lord’s power and merge that with your sequence particles and Fertile Soil, wouldn’t the chances of growing an innate gift of teleportation greatly improve?”

Ancestor Lu Yuan was stupefied. “That’s even less realistic than what you suggested before! You want the Immortal Lord to help you? On top of that, you still need to capture Luo Chan, and on top of all that, you need to somehow inherit the innate gift!

“Which of these things can you actually accomplish? Child, I’m not trying to discourage you. You’re already remarkable, but don’t chase after the impossible just to hurt yourself.”

Lu Yin exhaled. “The Nine Odysseys Megaverse has four Immortals, the Spirit Nidus has one, and if I’m counted, the Tianyuan offers a sixth Immortal-level combatant. By these numbers alone, humanity should be at the same level as a fishing civilization, and yet we aren’t. That’s because we lack an absolute means.

“The Nirvana Tree Path can only be given to a few individuals. If I can gain an innate gift of teleportation, that will provide humanity with an absolute means. With that, if we face Obscura, the Seven-Treasure Anuras, or even the Death Megaverse, I’d feel confident facing them, rather than just reacting to them.”

The younger man stared at Lu Yuan. “No matter how remote the odds are, trying is better than giving up.

“Still, I won’t raise my hopes much at all. We’ll try, and in the worst case scenario, we’ll just kill Luo Chan.”

Ancestor Lu Yuan patted Lu Yin’s shoulder. “You’ve had it hard, Little Seven. Whatever you decide, even if you tell me to grow an Immortal Lord, I’ll do it. To hell with the risks! As long as you’re happy.”

A few days later, Greater Sancte Blood Tower reached out to Lu Yin. The Immortal had finished calculating the coordinates.

Lu Yin immediately went to the Sea of Karma to meet with Greater Sancte Green Lotus. His first goal was to explain his plan of releasing the coordinates to the Immortal Lord.

Upon hearing the plan, Greater Sancte Green Lotus immediately agreed. No matter what tricks the Hui-Silver Sky Army might be playing, having the Immortal Lord test the waters would not cause human civilization to suffer any loss.

As for Mister Mu’s megaverse, it had already been defeated. Sending the Immortal Lord there would not change much.

Of course, as a matter of respect, Lu Yin had first shared the plan with his senior sister, Mu Zhu. She had agreed and even hoped that the Immortal Lord might be strong enough to defeat Hui.

Naturally, that was nothing more than a hope.

Even if the Immortal Lord was truly capable of killing Hui, that would not happen. The price of killing an Immortal was too steep.

The other matter that Lu Yin wanted to raise with Green Lotus concerned growing an innate gift of teleportation.

Originally, Lu Yin had not intended to share his plans with the human Immortals, as he wanted to avoid fostering false hope, but Greater Sancte Green Lotus’s help was a necessity, and so the matter needed to be addressed.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus stared at Lu Yin in a daze. “Are you sure?”

Lu Yin nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Understand that, even to me, an Immortal, what you are proposing sounds rather unbelievable,” Greater Sancte Green Lotus stressed.

Lu Yin spread out his hands. “Is it any different from how Nests are able to spawn human-shaped Verdant Sages? ...or a bizarre lifeform like Luo Chan?”

When framed in that light, Greater Sancte Green Lotus had no argument to offer. With the Nest civilization serving as precedent, what really was impossible?

If the Nests could spawn what looked like humans, then why could humans not grow the ability to teleport?

“Yan Ruyu is going to be the key. Only she can make this work,” Lu Yin emphasized.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus sighed. “I never considered the possibility that you would be able to win over one of the Verdant Sages. That is also completely unbelievable.”

Even Lu Yin found the situation unbelievable. It also had not been his doing at all, but rather entirely Tuo Lin.

Still, there was no denying that Yan Ruyu admired Lu Yin. That much was true.

At that thought, he felt a touch of pride.

Who could make a Verdant Sage betray the Immortal Lord? Each Verdant Sage was essentially a fragment split off from the Immortal Lord. Causing a fragment to betray their source and develop true reverence for a human was genuinely astonishing. In some ways, it was an accomplishment no less difficult than growing an innate gift of teleportation.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus agreed. “If you wish, go ahead and try. Even if the chances of success are less than one in a billion, that success would utterly transform humanity. In the Aevum Inch, if distance ceases to be a problem, the cosmos will become an entirely different place for us.

“Many of our former assumptions would also need to be reevaluated.”

Lu Yin gave a wry smile. “Don’t raise your hopes too much, Senior. We can only try.”

Greater Sancte Green Lotus chuckled. “I have no hopes at all, but it can be nice to daydream.”

...

In the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, a ruined city in the East Domain was bustling.

It had once been a mortal city, but the war against the Nest civilization had ruined this place, and all the inhabitants had all fled. After the Nest civilization was defeated, many bugs had been left behind in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, and swarms had lingered around the city. As time passed, countless cultivators had gathered to hunt the insects down, and their gathering had transformed the ruins of a mortal city into a cultivators’ stronghold.

After cultivators from the Tianyuan and the Spirit Nidus poured into the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, the city had grown even livelier.

To the people of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, the Tianyuan cultivators’ understanding and battle methods were quite unique. This led to many cultivators wanting to spar with each other to see if they could trigger a breakthrough.

For cultivators, it was easy to restore a city, but no one made any efforts to repair the cities that had been destroyed in the war against the Nest civilization. Everyone remained vigilant, and they wanted to remind themselves to be wary of foreign civilizations.

Luo Yan entered a tavern beside the city’s gate. He silently climbed to the third floor and took a seat in the corner. He ordered a few dishes and a pot of wine before proceeding to quietly drink.

There were many people doing the same thing, so no one paid him any mind.

Before long, another person arrived, their face hidden under long robes. They entered the tavern, and went directly to sit down across from Luo Yan.

He looked up. “You’re much too careless.”

The robed figure lifted her head, exposing a face of breathtaking beauty. Her features were as flawless as carved crystal. The only flaw was that her eyes lacked pupils. They were completely white.

She was Mo Bai.

She smiled at Luo Yan. “We’ve done nothing, so why should we raise our guard?”

Luo Yan set his cup down. “Our conversations alone are enough to warrant our deaths ten times over.”

Mo Bai retorted, “Hardly! There are plenty who are dissatisfied with Lord Lu, not just us. What is there to fear? Or-” Her eyes focused intently on Luo Yan as she gave him a partial smile. “What is it that you wish to do?”

Luo Yan warily observed Mo Bai as caution, unease, and apprehension flickered in his eyes.

She just chuckled while lifting the flask and refilling his cup. “Relax. We’ve known each other for more than a century. We may not know many details about each other, but our feelings regarding the Heavens Sect and Lord Lu have been made clear. If I intended to sell you out, would you even be sitting here?

“Besides, I came to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse entirely thanks to you.”

Luo Yan exhaled. “The Heavens Sect wasn’t stopping any cultivator from traveling to the Nine Odysseys Megavers. You could have made it even without me.”

“But I would have been investigated.”

Luo Yan’s voice dropped. “I investigated you.”

Mo Bai showed no surprise at all. “And what did you find?”

Luo Yan shook his head. “Nothing. Oddly, even with my level of authority, I still failed to find anything about your past.”

Mo Bai smiled. She and Yu Leng had remained hidden for many years. It was a given that there was no trail to follow or information to find about her. It would take Lord Lu himself taking an interest in her, or one of the very top individuals in the Heavens Sect to look into her affairs. How could someone like Luo Yan possibly hope to uncover her history?

She did not doubt Luo Yan at all. After communicating with him for more than a century, she had watched as he climbed from an insignificant individual to someone with close ties to notable figures within the Heavens Sect. Mo Bai and Yu Leng had observed Luo Yan the entire time. They had maintained contact with him precisely so that they would one day be able to use someone like him.

She had observed Luo Yan for such a long time that, unless he had been lying from the very start, it was impossible for him to deceive her.

No one could have expected Mo Bai to recruit such a person. Luo Yan was merely one of numerous candidates that she had scouted; how could he have been trying to deceive her from their very first encounter? Such a thing was simply impossible.

She had decided to work with Luo Yan because he was exceptional. Not only could he move freely within the Heavens Sect, but he was also acquainted with one of Lord Lu’s disciples. That was a rare connection, and it practically made Luo Yan the ideal candidate that Mo Bai had dreamed of.