Chapter 1791: Lower Realm (1)

What was the hundredth character?

What was the core of the pen dao?

Su Yu was looking forward to it. He gazed upon the pen in the sky. It was no pen. Rather, it was merely a phenomenon generated by the emergence of the character in the Culture Tomb.

As of that moment, his character technique had transformed into a pen.

All the nodes had been filled.

It only awaited the final fusion.

"What is it?"

His sea of willpower roiled madly. The blinding ball of light was making itself known.

Su Yu stared at it in excitement. Slowly, the appearance of the character became clear. And finally, Su Yu's jaw dropped. What...was this?

"↑"

Yes. That was the character he saw. A ↑ character.

It wasn't even a character. It was a symbol.

This bullshit character was shaped like a pen, but it also resembled an arrow. It depended on how one wished to interpret it.

Could this be considered a character?

𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Su Yu was completely stunned.

Culture King...

How did Culture King step upon the pen dao back then? No way...did he form this character back then? Could anyone even form a character like this? Was this how all geniuses were? Su Yu felt like his understanding of the world was crumbling apart. He couldn't help but start doubting his very life.

If this was something Culture King had formed when he was weak, would it make him a laughing stock of those around him? Would this drive his teachers and friends crazy? Could this still be considered a character?

"The essence and nature of daos and laws are to be comprehended toward the late stage of dao comprehension. One will not know it since the very beginning. Even if Culture King was a super genius, this should still be the case. In that case, this must be something he had formed after comprehending something. So what did he comprehend to form something like this?"

It would be much more understandable for Culture King to form something like this toward the end of his fusion with the pen dao. Otherwise, this would be something he had formed when he was weak.

Just what did he comprehend to form this?

What did he experience to generate a ↑ in his sea of willpower?

Su Yu finally understood why a pen had appeared in the sky after the emergence of this character. Pen? Was this really a pen? It looked more like an arrow!

Suddenly, Su Yu felt like laughing. Yes. He was amused.

Just as Su Yu was resisting the urge to laugh, the ↑ started fusing with the other characters.

Ninety-nine characters and a ↑.

A large amount of power was extracted from the characters.

All the power flowed into the ↑ to further improve it.

Su Yu grimaced. He decided to show Culture King some respect and not call this the arrow character. He would pretend it was the pen character. He had to admit that for a scholar, a pen dao was a lot more fitting than an arrow dao.

He could even call this the umbrella character, but the head of an umbrella would be larger. He also couldn't call it a sharp stick as that sounded too uncultured. Yes. Culture King was indeed cultured. What could this be apart from a pen?

Truly a fitting name.

A fitting dao for scholars.

"Sure enough, Culture King was much better at making things up."

Su Yu was filled with admiration as he observed the fusion process in silence. People who read would indeed have better brains. Pretending an arrow was a pen? And everyone actually bought it? This was an admirable skill that could make a deer out to be a horse!

"Yes. You shall remain the pen dao."

Su Yu did not change anything. Knowing the truth did not mean that he had to do anything about it. Culture King had spent so many years establishing the reputation of the pen dao. It would be rude for him to change it back to the arrow dao, right?

Just imagine the future history books where they would describe how he stabbed numerous opponents to death with his arrow. How...unrefined. But founding an empire with a pen in hand? Yeap. That would most certainly sound a lot more refined.

Boom!

Inside the sea of willpower, the power of the ninety-nine characters was still being extracted. As each character was formed from the power of multiple laws, the pen dao only extracted the portion it needed.

As the process continued, the other characters started weakening at a speed visible to the naked eye. Even the newly formed domain character was weakening. However, this was still not enough for Su Yu to begin his dao fusion. He required more power. He had to supply the pen character with enough power to lead him to the actual dao.

"Continue cultivation. Is anyone else on the verge of facing a tribulation? All of you should do it together."

Su Yu's voice rang out from the sky. He required more power. The current power was insufficient. His strength was growing rapidly, but he was still a Sunmoon. In fact, not even Su Yu himself knew just how strong he could grow as a Sunmoon. This arrow alone was probably enough to kill Great Qin King before his transformation.

Wait, no, it was a pen. Not an arrow. Gradually, the sky of the Five Elemental Realm brightened again.

Topsoil Spirit had yet to fully recover from his shock, but he reacted immediately to Su Yu's request. He shouted, "Ancestors, order all the people who have opened their apertures to circulate the cultivation method and generate the tribulations!"

Su Yu was truly terrifying. He needed even more power. And thus, the five elemental race was mobilized. Even some of their old fossils and those who had been stuck at the Sunmoon Realm for ages joined in. Due to their age, they had opened a large number of apertures prior to this.

And in recent days, these people had all opened their 180 apertures. Their combat strength wasn't too impressive, but they were still capable of generating tribulations. Before long, one crimson cloud after another appeared in the sky.

As for Su Yu, a character technique manifested before him. This was the very first reveal of his completed character technique.

It was a pen. Topsoil Spirit had a nagging feeling that it was an arrow, but he heard Su Yu's voice, "With the dao of pen, I shall decide the fate of the world."

"..."

Fine, fine. Since Su Yu was calling it a pen, a pen it shall be. He was considerate enough to actually name it out loud. And he wasn't the type to explain or talk much. Since he had taken the effort to explain his dao, everyone naturally knew what to do. Since he was claiming that it was a pen, it would naturally be a pen.

"The dao of pen! Impressive!"

Topsoil Spirit even went the extra mile and gasped in amazement. The five ancestors did not think as much as him.

Instead, they seemed to have recalled something. One of them said, "Truly amazing. The dao of pen...I recall reading about it in some ancient records. This was what Culture King had established his fame with. Emperor Yu...has actually inherited his dao!"

There had long been rumors that Su Yu was a successor of Culture King.

There were also rumors claiming that he had inherited the legacy of Time Sage. But many also suspected that Culture King and Time Sage were the same person. Thus, they considered it all the same.

The pen swept across the sky.

With one stab, a cloud was dispersed, its power devoured.

The ↑ continued growing in strength.

***

At the same time.

Waves of power of laws surged into the Five Elemental Realm.

Fate Realm.

Those in the other realms couldn't sense this as vividly, but those in the Fate Realm was different. With a frown, the Fate Pseudo Emperor appeared atop a mountain with a frown. This place was known as the Land of Fate. He stared at the boundless void before him.

The boundless void was supposed to be empty, but with a large amount of power drained, a corridor slowly took form. Yes. This was the corridor connected to the Upper Realm. Only a gate and a corridor connected the Upper Realm and the Myriad Realms. Most of the time, the corridor would be filled with tribulations.

As for the origin of that gate? Everyone knew it.

The Upper Realm was a realm that had come into existence after the Allheaven Battlefield was created. It wasn't meant to be a place just anyone could enter.

Anyone attempting to cross it before the time was up would be punished, just like what Soldier King and Talisman King had experienced previously. And the more people attempted to cross it, the stronger the tribulations would be.

But now, the gathered tribulations were slowly waning in power.

"Hu!"

The Fate Pseudo Emperor exhaled lightly. Who was extracting the power of the tribulations?

Su Yu?

It might be. Fate Pseudo Emperor had sensed some changes with the heavens earlier. If it was Su Yu...that guy didn't know enough to understand that this would weaken the tribulations within the Heavenly Fate Gate and restore the connection to the Upper Realm in advance.

Initially, the connection would only be restored in about ten years. But after Su Yu's meddling, that period had shortened by a few years. Perhaps it would only take seven or eight years now.

Or even shorter.

"Is he completely unaware of this?"

Then again, Fate Pseudo Emperor couldn't be sure if this was really Su Yu. If it were really him, it would be the same as causing trouble for himself.

On the other side of the gate, someone seemed to have noticed the changes as well. A voice rang out, "Huh? The power of laws has weakened. Is the connection going to be restored soon?"

"It's not like the time isn't already short, right?"

"No, the time seems shorter now."

Several people were there. They had all sensed the changes. The power of laws had waned. Fate Pseudo Emperor frowned. This would prove troublesome. Prior to this, the third person to attempt descending in advance would most likely die. But the power of laws there had weakened. Thus, more people might be able to descend before the time was up.

Prior to this, death was practically guaranteed for the fourth person to ascend. But now, even the fifth person could ascend without dying. Perhaps only the sixth would die.

"Su Yu...has courted disaster."

Fate Pseudo Emperor muttered to himself. This was quite idiotic. Unless doing this would grant him a massive gain, it wouldn't be worth it. The situation of the Upper Realm might change, and one or two more Daofuses would descend from above.

A voice rang out from the other side, "Report this to the marquis. The power of tribulations inside the corridor has weakened. Perhaps we can send one or two more people down."

"Okay."

Fate Pseudo Emperor frowned. Sure enough, nobody was a fool. The people in the Upper Realm had noticed it. Perhaps the Myriad Realms would welcome one or two new Daofuses before long. This was a period where just one Daofuse could make a big difference. It might even overturn the current status quo.

Previously, the myriad races had lost several Daofuses. Talisman King had arrived to make up for the numbers, but that wasn't enough. But with one or two more of them... At that thought, Fate Pseudo Emperor's frown deepened. A short moment later, he made up his mind.

It still wasn't the right time to make a choice. He wanted to wait longer. However, it wouldn't hurt to inform the human race of this possibility as a third party unaligned to either side. He could inform Su Yu of the consequences for extracting too much of power from the laws.

With a flash, a beam of light shot outside the realm. The beam of light traveled alongside the power that was being extracted from the heavens in search for Su Yu.

"I'll first place a small bet as insurance."

The stake of this bet wouldn't be enough to cause him massive losses. Even if the myriad races were to find out about this, he could always deny it. In any case, the arrival of someone from the Upper Realm wasn't something that could remain hidden for long.