Chapter 569: Strange queue

Li Qi's mission on this trip to Outer Void was to rally the worlds around Celestial Dwelling (Xinxiu), to get them to contribute their strength in resisting Dao Orthodoxy, and because of the Spiritual Artifact given by the Shen Yijun, he could also try to communicate with 'Great Fire'. If he could gain even a sliver of inclination from the Star Officials, it would have a crucial impact on the war.

However, Dao Orthodoxy would certainly do the same.

Dao Orthodoxy also had a good relationship with the Star Officials; although they were at loggerheads with the Ziwei Heavenly Court, this did not prevent the Star Officials from often helping Dao Orthodoxy.

Moreover, in the past, there was even a Human Emperor who concurrently served as a Star Official. While the specifics of the situation were unknown, there was definitely something to it, and this had to be guarded against.

The fact that a Human Emperor could concurrently hold the position of a Star Official was something Li Qi wouldn't believe if it weren't for internal records of Shaman God Mountain.

But, let's talk about it later. Since he was already here, he would first go to this world, find the leader of Lingchou Realm, explain his situation, and then gradually expand from Lingchou Realm as the center.

Thinking this, Li Qi flew towards the world barrier and began to queue.

It was indeed a queue; there were countless merchant ships here, all transporting the magical robes produced in this world. So, to enter, one had to queue, undergo individual inspections, and verify qualifications.

There were many queues ahead, mainly divided into three lines: two for vehicle convoys and one for people.

There were two vehicle convoys, which were for large ships, Spiritual Artifact, and similar vessels, divided into commercial and civilian use. Commercial vessels were generally world-class giant ships, heading to another passage tens of millions of miles away.

Civilian vessels were small flying boats, queuing several thousand miles away. From here, one could see various strange and wondrous Spiritual Artifacts floating there, waiting to enter the world.

Then there was the queue for people, which was where Li Qi was.

There were many, many people, perhaps tens of thousands, queuing. Some were with their families, others were alone like Li Qi, floating in the Void Realm. Ahead, the tens of thousands of people were divided into two or three hundred teams, with many local cultivators from Lingchou Realm verifying identity information.

It was quite formal.

This was Li Qi's first time visiting such a 'civilized' world in Outer Void. Previously, he had only been to uncivilized worlds that had never ventured beyond their own boundaries, so he still felt a sense of novelty.

There were people queued both in front and behind him, though the one in front couldn't really be called a person. It was a humanoid creature, but it looked like a cucumber, with green, inelastic skin. Li Qi had never seen such a species.

However, the one behind him was a normal humanoid creature, somewhat resembling the merfolk of the world, but its lower body wasn't a fish tail, but normal legs. Still, one could discern features of an aquatic creature, such as webbed fingers and gills behind its ears.

As for whether gills were useful in the air? Well, naturally, just like Li Qi's nose, although they were indeed present, they weren't actually of much use in the Void Realm.

For cultivators, these organs were more symbols of the Inner World than actually serving a practical purpose.

Moreover, they spoke in the elegant speech of the world, indicating the cultural influence of the world on them.

In fact, Li Qi noticed that these races, when speaking among relatives, used their own languages, but when addressing outsiders, they all uniformly used the elegant speech of the world.

After all, with the influence of the world here, using a common language made communication easier.

Outer Void has no medium in the usual sense, so sound cannot propagate normally. Therefore, everyone's conversations are carried through a specific Qi as a carrier. As long as it can transmit sound, it's fine. Precisely because of this, sound can propagate quite far; if you are willing to collect this Qi, you can even hear sounds from tens of miles away.

Li Qi listened curiously to these people talking, wanting to learn some knowledge and customs of Outer Void that he didn't understand.

However, after listening for a while, these people were basically all talking about business.

They talked about which world cluster had good specialties, where prices had recently risen, where something had recently happened, and where new technologies had been developed and new products emerged.

However, Li Qi was also in this line of work, and he also had a merchant association under him. Some news he listened to with great interest, nodding slightly, but for other news, he could clearly hear loopholes, sounding like fabrications.

Truth and falsehood, falsehood and truth, all sorts of rumors were circulating. When the distance expanded to the concept of light-years, truth and falsehood became almost impossible to judge.

As he listened, the aquatic creature behind him suddenly spoke to Li Qi, saying, “Brother, why are you just listening and not speaking? Which world are you from? You look so orthodox.”

“So orthodox” – this standard of judgment was actually based on the 'world'.

Many humanoid races, or less humanoid races, generally regarded creatures closer to the world as 'orthodox'.

Of course, they also had their own sense of belonging, but... after all, the world was indeed too unattainable for them. Except for those worlds of the third rank or higher, most others still recognized this difference.

But this 'orthodox' was not such a serious statement; it didn't really distinguish between high and low. It was roughly similar to an adjective like 'fashionable'.

You look so fashionable, your clothes and grooming are so fashionable, not like a local, but more like a heavenly kingdom across the ocean, or a beacon of the Universe. Naturally, you look a bit more high-class.

Actually, what's high-class isn't you as a person, but your clothes, grooming, skin color, and the collective advantage brought by your race. Essentially, it's a kind of colonized mentality.

But there's no way around it; the disparity is indeed too great, and it's an all-encompassing disparity, not just in productivity, but also a complete overwhelming in terms of spiritual civilization and technological advancement.

“Oh, I'm from the world.” Li Qi cupped his hands, not planning to lie, and honestly admitted it.

This was Li Qi's character; back in Baiyue, he didn't even change his name when he was wanted by the government. Now, in Outer Void, with no danger, he naturally wouldn't conceal anything.

As soon as he said this, the surroundings quieted down.

“Wow, really?” another voice came, asking proactively and breaking the silence.

“Why would I lie about this? I am indeed from the world, but I am not some important figure, just an unknown nobody, no need to mind me.” Li Qi waved his hand.

However, the reactions of these people were not what Li Qi had expected—fear, panic, or restraint.

In fact, they instantly surrounded him!

“Wow, buddy, are you interested in seeing this thing?!”

“Look at mine, look at mine!”

In an instant, they displayed many items in front of Li Qi, vying to quote prices.

And the prices were surprisingly cheap.

It was like buying things in Southeast Asia with red banknotes.

It seemed that to these people, people from the world were not objects to be feared, but rather... easy marks?

Anyway, Li Qi felt like they were treating him as an easy mark.

And... he thought, it seemed, indeed... he could buy them.

So cheap! Compared to the prices in the world, many things here were incredibly cheap. Li Qi could see that although the overall strength of these items wasn't high, they all had their own clever designs.

For example, the aquatic creature closest to him had a set of illusionary pearls as its merchandise. Of course, they couldn't compare to the mirage pearls of the world, but the price was ridiculously low. Most importantly, the technique these pearls used to create illusions was very novel.

In the world, illusions are created using 'Qi'. For instance, the mirage pearls' illusions are formed by their mirage Qi, and the Demonic Prince's illusions are manifested by his Demonic Qi affecting the senses.

The principle behind this set of illusionary pearls, however, was completely different. It used another special technique, like tying a cloth into a rabbit or weaving grass into a horse—things without substance, yet existing due to delusion. Like stars, shadows, and lamp illusions, all are metaphors for impermanence, thus the body is like an illusion.

In simpler terms, this was a set of items that achieved illusionary effects by deceiving 'Dao principles'. Through a technique Li Qi didn't quite understand, the world itself was deceived, thus producing corresponding 'reality'. However, this deception wasn't stable and would break upon touch, but before being touched, it was real and almost indistinguishable!

Of course, this technique wouldn't work in the world. The Great Dao of the world was simply too solid and rigorous; deceiving its Dao principles was almost impossible.

But in Outer Void, it was really effective.

Completely different ecologies and environments created different techniques, many of which were quite creative. Besides this set of world-deceiving pearls, there were also Anomolus Spirits similar to those in martial arts, capable of refining Qi pearls through eating, and pets made of exquisite pure mechanical structures.

Truly, the moment he saw it, Li Qi felt his masculine heart stirred.

So cool! A truly pure mechanical automatic mechanism, without any electronic technology, any magic, or any Spirit Soul sealed within. It relied entirely on intricate mechanical parts—those gears, knobs, threads, and a small, semi-permanent energy core—to achieve functions like following, flying, and recording.

So... Li Qi, the easy mark, eventually paid up.

Actually, it was quite cheap, wasn't it? Much cheaper than in the world.

It seemed these people all thought that people from the world were foolish and rich, but isn't it good to spend a little money for some happiness?

Li Qi acquired a pile of useless little toys. These people seemed to know themselves that their Sharp Weapons for killing and Spiritual Artifacts for offense and defense would not attract Li Qi at all, so what they brought out were mostly toys, all very ingenious.

It was clear that these people had some tricks up their sleeves when dealing with people from the world.

However, Li Qi noticed that these toys also seemed to be luxuries for them; their prices were actually not low, it was just that they seemed cheap to him.

Similar to... a two-thousand-yuan jade in Southeast Asia.

For Li Qi, two thousand yuan was nothing; he bought it for fun.

But for them, it might be a year's income.

The disparities of the world were revealed in these places.

As he admired the many ingenious creations and paid, the queue moved smoothly forward. Before long, Li Qi reached the front of the line and arrived at the checkpoint.

Here, the flow of people was divided into several hundred, meaning there were several hundred diversion checkpoints. And here, he saw the same inspection equipment as in East Isle.

“Dao principle reader, hmm... Spirit Dao?” Li Qi asked the inspector with some surprise.

“Hmm? From the world?” The inspector looked up, also astonished.

However, what truly surprised the inspector was that Li Qi also scanned him in the same way.

“A fellow Daoist?” The inspector's expression looked surprised and pleased.

Li Qi understood the meaning of the other party's expression.

Pure Spirit Dao practitioners rarely appeared in the outside world. They had almost no need for 'cultivating the mind' or 'experiencing trials', believing it to be a waste of time.

True Spirit Dao cultivators could even achieve complete ignorance of the outside world while simultaneously mastering all its rules.

This was related to their philosophy: in their view, extensive learning and understanding in the outside world was merely clumsy effort, something only the foolish were forced to do.

So-called 'trials' were essentially nothing more than observing and recording various phenomena that had already occurred, then compiling these phenomena to deduce the underlying principles that might exist. When such examples accumulated, it made their Dao Orthodoxy seem profound.

But all of this was merely superficial effort.

However, Spirit Dao practitioners, without leaving their homes, only needed to exercise their wisdom to deduce a set of a priori rules. Then, all things and their movements could be derived from these a priori rules. This was the true 'Dao', the most supreme Dao Orthodoxy.

Shaman and Dao of Reason would cite ten thousand examples to explain all things, using these ten thousand examples to indirectly prove the Great Dao. But Spirit Dao practitioners, to explain all things, only needed a single piece of paper with that set of a priori rules written on it. With this paper, they could deduce all things in the world.

They liked to deduce a set of 'a priori rules' in their minds. This set of rules was an objective, universal, universally applicable rule, the true 'Dao', not empirical rules summarized by other clumsy methods.

A priori rules and empirical rules, in their eyes, were clever methods and clumsy methods.

Therefore, Spirit Dao cultivators rarely liked to travel outside. Even if they had to travel in the outside world, it was mostly to verify whether the a priori rules they had conceived aligned with objective reality.

But there are always exceptions. Spirit Dao also divides into two factions. Some Spirit Dao cultivators, perhaps being rather dull, could never summarize such rules, and thus could only resort to clumsy methods in the outside world.

Others, who were clever, recognized that there was a set of a priori rules, but believed it couldn't be derived solely from the mind; it had to be combined with practice to be useful. These people were the rare Spirit Dao cultivators who traveled in the outside world.

And the Spirit Dao practitioners appearing in the outside world were all of this type, all of whom could be called 'fellow Daoists', which is why this inspector was so happy.

Although he didn't know how he ended up in Outer Void, he must be very happy to meet a fellow Daoist, right?

Unfortunately, he was not a practitioner of the Spirit Dao.

But his luck was still good; being from the world, he should be easier to communicate with, and there would be no need to waste time explaining the matter of the tally.

So, Li Qi said, “Little brother, you've mistaken me. I am not a Spirit Dao practitioner. By the way, please inform the Realm Lord that an envoy from Shaman God Mountain is visiting.”

Saying this, he took out his tally.