The Grand Elder fell into a strange silence.
In his spare time, he enjoyed reading novels—both male and female genres, cultivation stories, revenge tales. They often described characters as plain-looking, unremarkable.
By his standards, these supposedly unremarkable people looked quite impressive compared to a reef rock just a meter above water, without even a foothold.
Five hundred years.
A thousand years.
The deep sea remained unchanged, the sky above void of any drifting clouds.
The sky pressed down low, almost collapsing.
The Grand Elder watched the world in the image while leafing through a tattered ancient book, his white brows furrowed deeply.
After a long moment, he said seriously, “Everyone, have you noticed this world…”
“It doesn’t really resemble the world we live in.”
The Fourth Elder replied gravely, “First, there’s no change of day or night. Nearly a thousand years have passed, and I have yet to see the sun rise once. The only light in the world is a grayish substance in the air, which is why the scene isn’t pitch black.”
“Second, as you’ve been watching, in all these thousands of years, have you seen any creatures?”
“Even under the sea, there should be some fish leaping out.”
“But there’s none at all.”
“Therefore, I boldly speculate this world isn’t where you or I live.”
The image continued to move forward.
Two thousand years.
Three thousand years.
…
Until a terrifying ten thousand years passed.
The reef, worn by countless waves, finally showed subtle changes.
Its color darkened, and a glaze-like layer appeared, making it look smooth and rounded.
It resembled a walnut polished over time in the human world.
The most watched spot was a raised diamond-shaped corner in the front right, which the sea had ground down flat after many years.
At this point, most believed Si Xinyan’s past life was indeed this rock.
Because there was nothing else to see.
Fifty thousand years.
One hundred thousand years.
Three hundred thousand years.
Only a quarter of an hour passed in the real world, yet the image’s world had already spanned a full million years.
The reef still stood firm in the dark ocean depths, seemingly untouched by storms.
The Fourth Elder was the most attentive viewer.
He took out a ruler and roughly measured in the air.
“A million years ago, this reef was three feet tall. Now it’s just over two feet nine inches.”
One foot equaled thirty-three centimeters.
One inch equaled 3.3 centimeters.
The Grand Elder slowly descended the viewing platform, his brows never relaxing.
“I just realized—”
“This rock doesn’t seem like an ordinary object.”
“Have you ever seen a stone erode only a little after a million years in seawater?”
“Moreover, the seawater here must be even more terrifying than in the real world.”
“Because the ocean environment doesn’t allow any living creatures to survive.”
The Fourth Elder bowed his head.
“That makes sense.”
“But for now, we can’t tell what kind of material this reef is made of.”
Though called a reef, it was just a small stone protruding from the sea, not submerged.
What lay beneath was an enormous formation, astonishing to behold.
“What kind of divine object could such a large stone be?”
The Fourth Elder wracked his brain for answers but came up empty.
“Ancient texts only record a few famous stones, like the Heavenly Phoenix Stone and the Chaos Stone. These are extremely rare and require harsh conditions to form—practically world-shattering events just to birth a fist-sized piece.”
“For example, the Heavenly Phoenix Stone is said to be created where the last phoenix fell, stained with its blood. The phoenix’s spirit gradually infused the stone, making it unbreakable and imbued with the searing heat of the sun.”
“Any weapon forged from it could effortlessly kill even strong True Essence cultivators.”
At this, the Fourth Elder scratched his head in frustration.
“But this doesn’t make sense. A stone this large can’t be such a divine relic. Who has a divine stone formed under such rare conditions that’s this huge?!”
The Grand Elder fell silent as well.
But if it wasn’t a divine stone, then—
How could it remain standing in this ocean where no life exists, resisting erosion for a million years, only slightly worn?
In an ordinary sea, this might be believable.
But this ocean brimmed with endless energy.
Every crashing wave could kill countless cultivators of the Unsought Realm.
A reef standing for countless years in such energy, constantly fending off corrosion.
Three million years.
Five million years.
Then ten million years passed.
No one had ever experienced time passing so quickly.
Numbness slowly spread among them, leaving them unable to comment.
It was like a mayfly gazing at the heavens.
A group of cultivators with lifespans barely over two hundred years, facing ten million years of heavy time—any assessment felt feeble.
If time at the start passed slowly, after a hundred years a blink meant nearly ten years gone.
Yet the rock in the image showed no major change.
Even after ten million years, it had only shrunk by three inches.
Fifteen million years.
Twenty million years.
Many were now dazed, no longer staring at the dull screen.
Only a single reef stone remained, with nothing to see.
Repetitive waves crashing, sometimes storms raging, yet the stone stayed the same for tens of millions of years.
Several Su family elders, bored enough to yawn, suddenly perked up at the Fourth Elder’s shout.
The Fourth Elder’s eyes sparkled with excitement, almost dancing.
“Look! Look! The stone is changing!”
“After endless years of wave erosion, the reef has formed a protective glow.”
“Though faint, could this be a sign of intelligence awakening?”
The Grand Elder’s cloudy eyes fixed on the image.
“There is indeed a faint glow. It’s still dim but can resist some waves. You can see fluctuations at the edges, fighting the water.”
“This is truly strange… Could such a simple stone develop a self-protection instinct?”
The Fourth Elder ignored the Grand Elder’s muttering and laughed with delight.
“Who says stones can’t gain intelligence? If this continues, maybe one day it will truly have self-awareness.”
He sat down on the ground and pulled out a notebook, jotting and sketching.
“Better record this.”
“This discovery fills a gap in the cultivation world’s knowledge.”
While writing, the Fourth Elder suddenly remembered something.
“My grandfather left me a box of old documents. There might be something like this inside. I’ll have to check it out.”
Stone gaining intelligence…
Walking away, the Fourth Elder kept muttering to himself, laughing loudly whenever the thought excited him.
The Grand Elder watched him leave and shook his head helplessly.
That was how he was—once immersed in research, he ignored everything else.
The timeline reached 25 million years later.
The stone’s glow grew stronger.
Against the relentless sea, it could now push away some water, claiming a territory deep in the ocean.
This caused a chain reaction—more of the reef beneath emerged.
As everyone suspected, there was a much larger stone formation beneath.
They just didn’t know how far it extended.
Could it possibly stretch all the way to the ocean floor’s deepest parts?
This thought startled the Grand Elder.
This deep-sea realm was unlike the one he came from.
In his world, a depth of a thousand meters was normal.
This ocean, where no life was allowed, was even more terrifying and unfathomably deep.
Could it be thousands of meters deep?
A stone thousands of meters tall—
That wasn’t a reef anymore.
It was a towering mountain hidden beneath the sea.
Another ten million years passed.
Thirty-five million years in total.
During its battle with the waves, the unremarkable stone gradually displayed its own divine nature.
From afar, the reef was shrouded in a large, hazy white mist.
This mist looked more like celestial aura than anything deep-sea related.
It was completely different from the surrounding scenery.
The Grand Elder stared at the changing image and thought, If this keeps evolving, won’t this rock become a true immortal mountain?
An immortal mountain with intelligence.
At that moment, a terrifying thought struck the Grand Elder.
If this enormous reef was to gain intelligence, that would be inevitable.
Even if it failed to fully form self-awareness, it would no longer be like an ordinary dead object.
If so,
then how did such a terrifying divine mountain meet its destruction?
Put another way, who shattered this divine mountain completely?
A shiver ran through the Grand Elder’s body, like an electric shock.
The Heavenly Dao trial continued.
My vision grew hazy, as if I was no longer myself.
My perspective shifted with the grand scene to that very reef.
When my viewpoint was fully drawn there, a strong intuition blossomed in my heart—this gray reef was my past self.
I seemed to sense the reef’s emotions.
Though these feelings were faint, the constant erosion of seawater had given birth to a sentiment called anger.
Hence,
the reef had been absorbing nearby energy, eventually forming a protective barrier.
This consciousness was so weak it seemed ready to vanish with a single breeze.
It took a full three thousand years to gather enough energy to create the shield.
Outside, the crowd continued observing the unfolding scene.
Suddenly, an unusually excited voice rang out from further away, shattering the calm atmosphere on the viewing platform.
“I found it! I found it!!!”
The Fourth Elder waved an ancient scroll made of sheepskin.
The yellowed pages bore the marks of time.
Though only three or four pages remained, half of them were missing entirely.
“The first life of humans is called the Innate Spirit.”
“If a dead object gains intelligence, its first life is called the Acquired Spirit.”
“Records say that whether Innate or Acquired, barring extraordinary circumstances, the first life is destined for unparalleled glory, unmatched by any.”
“3.5 billion years ago was the peak period of Innate Spirits. Without specific cultivation methods, most Innate Spirits naturally died. Over time, Innate Spirits became rarer.”
“Until millions of years ago, with cultivation methods emerging, only eight known Innate Spirits appeared, namely the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.”
“Acquired Spirits differ from Innate Spirits. Their birth conditions are extremely harsh, almost impossible to fulfill.”
“Because whatever the conditions, the host must be a divine artifact beyond imagination.”
“Therefore, Acquired Spirits are even more terrifying than Innate Spirits.”
“Whatever divine object forms an Acquired Spirit, the book doesn’t specify, but it emphasizes that a mere Heavenly Phoenix Stone is unqualified—unable even to reach the threshold for intelligence, and would eventually fade away with time.”
“The famous Heavenly Phoenix Stone is only a pseudo-divine artifact.”
“Given this, I can hardly imagine what else could be called a true divine object.”
“And once such an object gains intelligence…”
The Fourth Elder’s fingers trembled as he spoke.
“I even believe that the material of such a divine object would remain unscathed even by the destruction of the great world space.”
“You should be able to imagine it yourself—an almost indestructible divine object gaining consciousness would be terrifying.”
“With near-endless lifespan and an immortal body, given enough cultivation time, it could live as long as heaven and earth.”
“This defies the basic laws of the Heavenly Dao, and the moment intelligence is fully born, divine retribution would surely descend.”
What they had just witnessed was too bizarre to accept, shaking their worldviews to the core.
Whether Innate or Acquired Spirit,
both had terrifying backgrounds.
After hearing the Fourth Elder’s explanation, some gasped.
Others were already numb, their wrinkled faces emotionless.
Only subtle pupil changes betrayed their true thoughts.
The Grand Elder’s gaze paused.
The question that had shaken him before surfaced again.
If this little girl’s past life was so powerful—even an indestructible Acquired Spirit—then how had she fallen?
An Acquired Spirit.
Once it gains its own consciousness, how could it die completely?
Even if half its body was lost, it shouldn’t simply reincarnate.
Unless its body had been forcibly destroyed—
A ruin so absolute it couldn’t recover.