Panel Forty-Two: Years of Arduous Cultivation, Uncounted

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[Important message comes first, sisters, don't forget to vote.]

Sangsang entered the Stone Pearl Space, but as she landed, she discovered the surroundings were actually the castle square of Heavenly Dao Star. It was night; bonfires blazed, and the air brimmed with the rich aroma of barbecue. People mingled and laughed, children played and chased each other, a white wolf lay by the flowerbed bench, a blue luan flapped its wings and spat fireballs while chirping noisily, a chubby child with a dragon tail dashed about recklessly, a sword cultivator hid in the shadows of the flowers, a youth on the balcony waved a book in greeting, and a chef in a ruffled floral apron scolded a food thief. The thief dashed over, brandishing a handful of skewers, his smile brighter than the sun.

"Sangsang, why are you standing here like that? Tom's skills have really improved; the meat of the Thundercloud Star Beast is incredibly tasty—eat up!"

Sangsang took the skewered meat and smiled at the Heavenly Emperor. "Where's Little Gold? Did you forget about Little Gold somewhere?"

The Heavenly Emperor was momentarily stunned, then his face took on a look as if the sky were about to fall. "Sangsang, what's wrong with you? Little Gold is right above your head—why are you asking me where he is? Little Gold, hurry up, check if something's wrong with Sangsang!"

"Scanning in progress. Scan complete. Host is entirely normal." Little Gold's mechanical electronic voice was cold and rigid.

Sangsang glanced around, sighed, and said, "Heavenly Emperor, go roast me a big squid. I want you to do it yourself."

"Craving grilled squid? Alright, just wait here!" The Heavenly Emperor dashed off toward the barbecue rack.

Watching his receding figure, Sangsang plucked Little Gold from atop her head and set him on the white wolf's head, then sat cross-legged on the garden bench and closed her eyes.

She shut out the sights and sounds, calming her heart. The lively sounds faded away, leaving the space in tranquil silence. Thin threads of light appeared in the darkness—glimmering lines, growing in number and interweaving into a complex web. The world expanded endlessly, and she saw the symbols making up the rays of light. Sangsang drew these sigil clusters one by one into her spiritual sea, categorizing and integrating them into the various principle stars.

No wonder the Master of the Bitter Realm was the target guided by the Star Sand. Though her main path of True Illusion had little to do with time and space, in her virtual reality, the laws of time and space acted as auxiliaries. It wasn't simply time plus space, but a true fusion of the two, far surpassing the sum of its parts.

When only a few strands of light remained before her, Sangsang stopped.

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There were only three opportunities for enlightenment in the Divine Tomb; once used up, one would be expelled, and such disproportionate time dilation was not easily come by. Thus, Sangsang left the last wisp untouched.

She took out brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. She had comprehended too many laws this time; though she had barely absorbed them all, achieving true mastery would require much practical tempering. Yet, the greatest problem—time—was not an issue here.

The Time and Space of Master Yuanmo, the World Creation of the King of the Myriad Realms, the True Illusion and Virtual Reality of the Master of the Bitter Realm—these seemed unrelated, but in her paintings, they complemented each other.

Sangsang spread out the paper, sitting upon the stone heart beneath her, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. After a moment, she suddenly opened her eyes, seized her brush, and began to paint with bold strokes. The ink on the paper seemed to flow.

On the battlefield of the gods, on a plain piled with white bones and corpses, many deities lay fallen. Limbs of octopus men were scattered, a tentacle still clenched in the jaws of a black dragon. The black dragon’s horn was broken, scales scattered, its head and tail severed, a broken claw thrust into the head of a fire phoenix, the phoenix’s chest caved in, feathers fallen, its beak biting a human leg...

One god after another appeared, each dying a more tragic death—some dismembered, some reduced to pulp, some pierced by weapons, some nothing but bare bones...

When the scene was filled with deities in every manner of death, Sangsang put down her brush and rubbed her eyes. Suddenly, she seized the painting and tossed it aside, dispersing the embedded laws and breaking it down to basic energy.

The feeling was entirely wrong. The painting did contain spatial illusions, and the flow of time could be sensed, but it was not what she sought.

Sangsang took out another sheet of paper. This time, she split her attention: half her mind hovered above her spiritual sea in cool observation, the other half immersed in the brush, activating her innate gifts as she painted on. From expressive landscapes to meticulous birds and flowers, to realistic figures, the spirit of each painting mattered more than the form. The contained laws varied: some exuded an evil aura as if to devour the soul, some were serene and quiet as a sip of iced sugar water on a hot summer day, some were ethereal and boundless, stirring the heart, some so stunning they bewitched the soul...

When her ink ran out, the area was filled with paintings, and Sangsang had uncovered some secrets about innate abilities supplementing rune arrays.

Indeed, soul gifts were the closest to the source. When she did not lock the law stars in her spiritual sea, her abilities would actively draw suitable laws from various stars into her psychic power. When she sealed her spiritual sea, her abilities could not draw on the law stars, but would directly cause her psychic power to generate the needed law fluctuations, automatically forming rune arrays.

Sangsang made her decision and continued to examine her works. In terms of array utilization, she had become far more adept; though her use of the laws was still a bit rough, she had made notable progress.

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"Arrays supplemented by innate ability are more perfect than those formed by laws alone, but the ability must be attached to psychic or internal energy. Such works must not be allowed to fall into others' hands," Sangsang mused. "First, enhance with my ability, then record the array, and later copy the recorded array. Practice makes perfect, and perfection becomes divine. With so much time, there’s no need to rush."

She opened her domain, enveloping all her works. Her right hand lay flat, palm down, as a wondrous aura emanated from her.

"Time Reversal."

A powerful temporal fluctuation surged within the domain. Sheets of paper fluttered; starting from the last work, images faded away, ink streamed back into its container, the laws within the paintings dissipated, and soon each sheet returned to blankness.

One painting after another regressed, until, aside from the memories in her mind, brush, ink, paper, and inkstone had all returned to their state before she began.

Sangsang checked the state of her paper and ink and nodded in satisfaction. "Excellent, I can reuse them—saves the time of gathering materials."

She spread the paper again and resumed painting, first using her innate ability, then memorizing the completed array, then copying the previous one to deepen her memory of the arrays.

One painting after another flowed from her hand—from flowers, grass, trees, birds, beasts, insects, and fish, to any random scene recalled from memory—rendered in brush and ink upon white paper. When her materials ran short, she used the secret art "Time Reversal" to return all works to their pre-painted state.

When tired of painting, she cultivated; whether psychic power or inner energy, both advanced steadily with rest and adjustment. When cultivation grew tedious, she returned to her artwork, designing countless healing and evil effect diagrams—common ones like healing and purification, restoring health and energy, resisting spells and boosting defense, holy light support, and so on; sinister ones like stealing life, manipulating minds, disturbing emotions, crippling cultivation... Any effect she could imagine, she painted. When she grew weary of one law, she switched to another, or simply entered deep sleep for a good rest.

When truly lonely, she used the law of True Illusion to conjure people and things from her memory, pretending friends were by her side—chatting, talking, sparring; or she summoned the painting masters and spiritual mentors she admired and confided her doubts to them. Even if she did not receive answers, it eased her heart. If that failed, she would bring forth the enemies of her past life and repeatedly vent her anger by killing them over and over.