Chapter 276: On the Road

Standing on the Golden Dais, Li Qi sighed at the Tang Nation's immense national power while using his terminal to consume his ticket.

There was no way this thing could be fake, as everything was verified by the terminal.

Shen Shuibi was also visiting for the first time, and she looked around at the scenery from the Golden Dais.

"It's truly amazing... Much stronger than Mount Luofu's Sun and Moon Flowing Light Gate," she murmured.

Li Qi could only see the outer appearance of this thing, but she could see deeper levels.

At Mount Luofu, there was a similar Spiritual Artifact, but it wasn't responsible for transporting ordinary people; one had to visit in person, leave gifts, and only then would the Sun and Moon Flowing Light Gate agree to teleport someone.

However, in Chang'an, everyone could use the Golden Dais, and the price was even low; if the destination wasn't far, ordinary people could even travel to the Outer Universe.

Of course, Dou Su Six was too far; it was already at the edge of the Tang Nation's reach, and the wild world cluster they were heading to was even further, a place ordinary people wouldn't go.

It was similar to traveling from Xi'an to Madagascar specifically to experience primitive customs.

Shen Shuibi stood beside Li Qi, watching him operate the various confirmation procedures.

He seemed to take it for granted that he would help her and Mount Luofu repay their debts, as if he had never considered it a burden.

He was clearly a person with boundless prospects; as the Young Master of Shaman God Mountain, he didn't need to bear anything, and Shaman God Mountain would clear obstacles for his growth, hoping he would become a new Grand Invoker; all he had to do was constantly climb upwards.

Thinking of this, Shen Shuibi leaned slightly to the side, resting her head on his shoulder, watching him swipe across the terminal.

"What's wrong? Impatient? Don't worry, it's being verified," Li Qi smiled at the head that suddenly leaned over, then sped up.

"Mm," Shen Shuibi nodded, straightening up again.

On Li Qi's side, after completing the operation, he reconfirmed the target.

Dou Su Six.

A wild world in the Dou Su Six region of the Southern Heavenly Domain.

Safe, unpolluted, full of primitive customs, and a recently popular tourist destination, very close to some truly wild worlds.

There were still more than ten days until the Imperial Academy started, so a trip to investigate should be more than enough.

"Alright, let's go," Li Qi confirmed all the procedures, then lightly tapped to confirm.

Below the Golden Dais, a flash of light appeared.

Then, the Golden Dais before Li Qi and Shen Shuibi's eyes suddenly transformed!

They saw the Silver River hanging down from the sky!

It was as if someone had stirred the Milky Way in the sky, and a stream of starlight descended from above.

The Silver River was silent, the sky clear and the clouds dispersed, the crashing waves gone.

The Star River hung upside down, their minds and eyes blurring as if ascending to immortality.

A Silver River hung down, and in its vast waves, an unmanned small raft slowly sailed over.

The Silver River seemed like light and also like water, with the vast Star River beneath the raft.

Upon seeing this, Shen Shuibi sighed and recited: "The Bright River can be seen but not approached, I wish to ride a raft and ask for a ford, and further take the Weaver Girl's loom stone, to visit the Diviner of Chengdu... So, the Golden Dais is actually a Star Raft dock, so that's it, so that's it."

Hearing her words, Li Qi also suddenly realized.

He had heard this legend as well.

The "Jingchu Suishiji" records: "The Human Emperor ordered Zhang Qian to go on a mission, to find the source of the river, riding a raft for a month, and arrived at a place, seeing cities and prefectures, inside a woman weaving, and also seeing a man leading an ox to drink from the river. Qian asked: 'Where is this star?' The reply was: 'You can ask Yan Junping.' The Weaver Girl gave the loom stone to Qian and he returned." Only then did he realize he had reached the Altair and Vega stars.

In ancient times, the envoy Zhang Qian, following the Human Emperor's command, rode a Star Raft to search for the source of the Silver River, and finally found the Weaver Girl and Altair.

But that was a very old story; the current Silver River had long been explored, and places many times further than the Silver River could be easily reached, but it seemed the Star Raft had been preserved.

The Golden Dais was the dock for the Star Raft.

He would ride the Star Raft, float on the Silver River, and finally reach his destination.

"It really is quite romantic," Li Qi sighed.

Then, he stepped onto the Star Raft first, then extended his hand to Shen Shuibi, smiling: "I send a message to the traveler on the raft in the vast sea, turn back and ask the Heavenly River here, fair lady, would you like to take advantage of this autumn wind with me, and ride the raft into the sky?"

Upon seeing this, Shen Shuibi lightly covered her mouth and chuckled: "On the mandarin duck loom, sparse fireflies pass, by the magpie bridge, a lone goose flies, Young Master invites, how can I refuse?"

The two held hands and boarded the Star Raft.

Only to see the Golden Dais radiating brilliantly, the bright deities shining with splendor.

The city gates of Chang'an were in the sky, spanning the long river night after night.

However, in the eyes of others, it was just an inconspicuous stream of light leaping into the Star River in the sky.

The Star Raft's speed was extremely fast; it was said to reach Dou Su Six in only half an hour.

Li Qi felt that the speed of light was a joke in front of this thing.

But even so, crossing such an enormous distance should consume endless time, perhaps hundreds of millions of years.

This was somewhat beyond Li Qi's imagination.

So, Li Qi brought out his special skill.

That was asking questions.

He decisively asked Shen Shuibi, who knew more: "This is too fast, how is it done? If it's truly moving at such a speed, even the entire Universe could be reached in the blink of an eye, right? Then why are there still places difficult to travel to?"

It's not embarrassing to ask if you don't understand.

Shen Shuibi heard this question, thought for a moment, and replied: "Hmm, although I don't understand the specific principle, I heard that to travel like this, it actually requires consuming the power of First Grade grand cultivators."

Then, Shen Shuibi began to explain the principle.

To travel in the Outer Universe, one must utilize the characteristic that the Heavenly Dao's suppressive force is not strong there.

Travelers can increase and reset the Heavenly Dao's limit by modifying the Dao, the more they can modify and the longer it lasts, the faster their speed in the Outer Universe will be, but long-term modification of the Dao also consumes a lot of power, so normally, maintaining a speed of one or two hundred times the Heavenly Dao limit is already very impressive.

So Li Qi's idea was correct; even if one could Breakthrough the Heavenly Dao limit, the speed was still limited; for the Outer Universe, which is almost infinite, crossing the Silver River would still take hundreds of millions of years.

This situation was extremely disadvantageous for developing the Outer Universe, as a single trip would take at least tens of thousands of years, or even millions or billions of years, which was simply too long.

Therefore, to solve this problem, the First Grade grand cultivators established a corresponding world where mass is an imaginary number and the square of mass is negative; here, speed can easily reach unimaginable levels.

Shen Shuibi said: "You can imagine it as... we have arrived in another world with different rules. Here, the natural speed of matter already surpasses the Heavenly Dao limit. Moving here, we can quickly reach any known realm."

"However, such realms are limited. The star map you saw on the Golden Dais earlier were the plates of these fast-reachable realms. These fast-reachable areas only account for a very small part of the entire Outer Universe, and there are still a large number of wild worlds in the Outer Universe that have been explored but not developed."

Li Qi listened, dumbfounded.

It wasn't because he was surprised by the size of the Outer Universe, but by Shen Shuibi's sentence:

Mass is an imaginary number, the square of mass is negative...

Tachyons? Tachyon Universe?

Holy cow, the First Grade cultivators created a tachyon Universe by hand!? Artificially creating a faster-than-light travel mechanism?

"This... won't it cause Karma confusion?" Li Qi asked.

Surpassing the Heavenly Dao limit should cause Karma confusion, leading to the result of an event appearing before its cause, directly messing up the Karma chain.

"That's why we need to modify the Dao. In reality, no one has surpassed the Heavenly Dao limit; we merely raised the Heavenly Dao limit. No one has ever broken through the limit; it's just that the position of the limit is changing," Shen Shuibi explained.

"I see," Li Qi said, impressed.

This was indeed a method.

Shen Shuibi continued: "However, establishing such a symmetrical world should not be easy for the First Grade cultivators, so only some specific existences can open the door to that world. For example, Mount Luofu has the Sun and Moon Flowing Light Gate, and Chang'an has the Golden Dais. Without such things, one can only travel slowly."

"How are the qualifications for such things obtained?" Li Qi asked curiously.

If only a few existences could obtain the key to enter the Tachyon Universe, how were these qualifications distributed?

"I don't know; I can't access that," Shen Shuibi shook her head, indicating she didn't know either.

"Since that's the case, then can we do this?" Li Qi became interested, took out a piece of paper, and gestured to Shen Shuibi: "Look, to go from point A to point B on the paper, you need to travel ten li, but if you fold the paper like this... bringing points A and B together, you see, you can arrive instantly."

Li Qi demonstrated the basic concept of spatial Transmigration.

"If the Shaman God and Sages can create a Tachyon Universe and overlap it with the Reality Universe, can they bend the space between two points to achieve instantaneous movement?" Li Qi said.

Shen Shuibi looked, pondered for a moment, and said: "That's a pretty good idea, but... it's a bit unrealistic. Look, Li Qi, you can draw the distance between two points on paper and fold it because this paper only has two directions."

"You are folding it from a third direction, but on this paper, there is no third direction, meaning your folding action occurs outside of this paper."

Then, she also began to gesture.

"So, to fold our current space, which has three directions, you need to fold it from a fourth direction."

Li Qi certainly understood her meaning.

To fold a two-dimensional world, one must start from a three-dimensional world.

To fold a three-dimensional world, one must start from a four-dimensional approach.

"But, you see, if we could fold our current space from a fourth direction, that would mean this person has already 'transcended'; he has already detached from our current space. From his perspective, we lack a direction, so he can knead us as he pleases, just as we knead this paper. We can revert to the state of this paper, reverse the Karma on the paper, invert the time on the paper, everything that happens on the paper happens simultaneously for us, their time is merely one of our directions."

"Does such an existence have any need to still pay attention to our world?"

Shen Shuibi tilted her head and asked.

"Even the First Grade cultivators can't do it?" Li Qi asked.

"How would I know about First Grade matters..." Shen Shuibi sighed.

Li Qi suddenly came back to his senses.

Even for Shen Shuibi, those existences were unimaginable.

Let alone First Grade, even Fourth Grade was already difficult to approach.

"Yes, even you don't know," Li Qi looked up at the flowing light around them and the Star Raft beneath their feet.

Then, he said: "However, I... want to see."

Shen Shuibi leaned against him, saying nothing.

But Li Qi understood her meaning.

Fellow Daoists were like this.

Companions on the Dao path were more steadfast than any other relationship.

The two stopped talking, instead leaning against each other, watching the Silver River flow from atop the Star Raft.

The Silver River flowed widely, and the celestial wind rustled.

The Milky Way was hazy, and stars were like flowing fireflies.

The shadows of the constellations swayed, vast and indistinct.

It was truly in the sky, yet seemed to be in the water.

This golden light lasted for a little over half an hour.

As the flowing starlight around them gradually became more concrete.

The two also stood up, only to see the surrounding light gradually receding, and then, the Star Raft naturally disappeared, leaving the two standing together.

Beneath their feet was the familiar Golden Dais.

But this Golden Dais was much smaller in scale; the one in Chang'an was thousands of feet high and immeasurably wide.

This Golden Dais was only thirty feet high, and its area was less than half of Chang'an's.

There were a few guards nearby, as well as some other tourists.

It was natural for there to be other tourists; as a newly launched tourist destination, it was impossible for only two people to visit.

The few guards were not living beings, but Golden Armored Divine Generals crafted with artisan mechanisms; they looked majestic but had little intelligence, likely only for daily patrols, as there were other people in charge here.

"We've arrived, let's go out and take a look," Li Qi pulled Shen Shuibi and walked out first.

As soon as they stepped out of the Golden Dais, they saw outside...

Uh... outside was no different from Chang'an.

Did they go to the wrong place?

It wasn't as prosperous as Chang'an, but the decoration style and street types were almost identical.

There weren't as many people, and many tour guides were using loudspeakers to guide passersby, but everything that should be there was.

Beverage shops, hotels, even chain fast food, and the terminal could be used normally.

"Uh... I should have guessed... This place is a scenic area," Li Qi covered his forehead.

Scenic areas all over the world are the same...

How could they really throw tourists into a primeval forest?

It was clear that this was a true scenic area.

Everyone was there for the scenery, not to suffer.

Shen Shuibi pointed to the sky: "Hmm, it's fine. Look at the sky here, the Four Symbols are still there, but the scattered stars around are different, indicating that we are indeed in Dou Su Six."

Li Qi looked up at the sky and found that it was indeed so.

So, Li Qi said: "Since that's the case, let's leave the scenic area and head directly to the wild world. With Tang Nation tickets, the terminal, and the Grand Invoker token, few people would dare to provoke us in the wild world."

"We'll check out the situation in this world, then go to the Outer Universe, and look at other world clusters to investigate how to proceed."

After changing the update time, the big subscription dropped; subscriptions plummeted by 30%. I'll try to resume midnight updates today for a comparative experiment to see if it's due to the update time.