Chapter 826: Master-disciple relationship

In short, after a simple exchange of pleasantries, Li Qi was accepted by Chongnian Great Shaman and was not driven away.

Moreover, after a brief conversation, he more or less understood what kind of person Chongnian Great Shaman was.

How to put it…

This was a terrifying, indifferent observer to outsiders.

Li Qi had already noticed that the worlds Chongnian Great Shaman had previously waved away were his ‘pastures’.

Before those worlds were dismissed, Li Qi had already passively learned about their situations through True Knowledge; many ‘higher intelligences’ within them had been granted talents.

Or rather… granted curses.

With this curse, Chongnian Great Shaman could observe these people in real-time.

Yes, ‘observe’.

Just like Zhong Minglou's Innate Dao Resonance, although these Master and Disciple had completely different personalities, in this regard, they were quite similar; as Diviner, they were both happy to be ‘observers’.

They would just watch from the side and then draw their own conclusions.

The only difference was that the Grand Diviner seemed even more indifferent, to the point of not showing a good face to Li Qi, who was also of the Shaman Dao, while Zhong Minglou, though a bit dull, was quite friendly.

However, correspondingly, this Grand Diviner seemed a bit… obsessed with his Disciple.

The difference was obvious: the indifferent and calm demeanor when facing Li Qi, but when facing Zhong Minglou, he immediately became gentle and smiled, his eyes filled with doting affection.

Heh, if Zhong Minglou were a spoiled and arrogant person, he would surely be doted on to the heavens.

Li Qi seemed able to imagine that scene.

A spoiled Young Master of Shaman God Mountain, enslaving countless worlds, acting recklessly, demanding whatever he wanted from these worlds, with many righteous individuals emerging from these worlds, using everything to resist this enslavement.

This resistance would inevitably be incredibly cruel, bought with countless sacrifices and blood.

Finally, the spoiled Zhong Minglou would be flattened by the sacrifices of countless heroes, one after another, his arrogance crushed, beaten to a pulp, and the heroes emerging from countless worlds would drown him in their surging fury.

This was revenge for their civilization.

This was revenge for the hundreds of millions who died or were injured due to enslavement.

But at this moment, the Grand Diviner would suddenly descend, mercilessly blasting everyone, demonstrating power that would drive all beings to despair.

Then he would coldly say, “My Disciple, are you people worthy of touching him?”

After speaking, he would crush everyone, letting these worlds forever sink into darkness, living a miserable life like worlds of death, while he would not care, only knowing to eliminate all those who made Zhong Minglou suffer.

Li Qi could even write out this kind of plot directly.

It would probably be like this: the protagonist, after dozens of near-death experiences and upgrades, defeats a terrifying existence that threatened his world, only to find that the opponent was merely a small ‘minion’, a servant of a certain ‘captain’, just an insignificant pawn, and his world-breaking battle attracted the attention of the opponent, who then waved his hand and directly obliterated the entire world…

Then, the protagonist is rescued by a mysterious person, discovering that they are all ‘Immortal’ who have attained longevity, and they have formed a resistance organization, wanting to resist these terrifying enemies who enslave worlds.

Many years later, after countless adventures, he finally upgraded to a level where he could single-handedly defeat the ‘captain’, but he discovered that the ‘captain’ was just a small leader within a certain mysterious organization, and there were as many like him as there were stars (literally).

At this point, the true face of the organization that enslaved countless worlds was revealed; it turned out that their true Sovereign was the ‘Young Master’, who waved his hand, turning tens of thousands of Universe into Chaos, and used the beings within them to create an endless supply of ‘minions’ and tens of thousands of ‘captains’, forming a terrifying tide even larger than the scale of the Universe.

Even though this hero had now grown to the point where he could instantly kill hundreds of millions of enemies with one blow, he was only evenly matched with one of the ‘Young Master’s’ ‘cadres’, and it took many more years of effort and fortuitous encounters to upgrade to a level where he could only exchange a few moves with the ‘Young Master’; ultimately, it was only by joining forces with the Heavenly God and Buddhas and the will of all living beings in the Great Thousand Universe that the ‘Young Master’ was repelled.

Then, this protagonist continued to upgrade, and after countless more years, he finally defeated the ‘Young Master’.

Only to discover that the ‘Young Master’ was actually just a minion; behind him was the organization ‘Shaman Dao’, and although the ‘Young Master’ held a high position, in reality, the combat power at the ‘Young Master’s’ Rank was basically as numerous as the sands of the Ganges on their side.

The ‘Grand Diviner’ behind the ‘Young Master’ even had the ability to destroy trillions of ‘Young Master’ with a single wave of his hand.

How to put it… it sounds like that kind of idiotic upgrade-flow novel, where you gain hundreds of Ranks, only to find that you’re still fighting minions, with countless more monsters above you.

But reality is like this: those ordinary, not-so-special lives, perhaps in their own worlds, they are great existences who can summon wind and rain, but once they arrive in Boundless Outer Domain, they will find that they are actually very ordinary.

In terms of power levels, it’s simply a brainless map change, tens of millions of words written, with the main plot not even changing, just the names of people changing, like an upgrade-flow web novel.

After rising hundreds of Realm, you find you’re still an ant, and there are tens of millions of words of upgrade plot in the future, and who knows, you might die halfway through.

Thinking about it this way, wanting to make a name for oneself in Boundless Outer Domain is truly…

Li Qi was thinking these random thoughts, while also observing Zhong Minglou and Chongnian Great Shaman during their pleasantries.

The previous thoughts were, after all, just fantasies; Zhong Minglou would not actually do such a thing, and in fact, few Young Master would do so; perhaps their personalities differed, but their overall perspective would not be too bad.

However… it is said that many Demonic King on the Demonic Dao side do this; they indeed enslaved many worlds.

And the higher-ups of the Demonic Dao generally adopt a permissive or even protective attitude towards this.

Chongnian Great Shaman exudes the aura of ‘I will definitely protect my Disciple’.

After all, it was said before that among the Shaman, there are both good and bad; this is a very complex group, and the current Chongnian Great Shaman gives off a sense of unreasonableness.

Thinking about this, Li Qi couldn't help but glance at the place where he was currently.

The exchange of pleasantries with the Grand Diviner had gone on for some time, and at the invitation of the other party, they had left the thatched hut and were now sitting in another part of the sky.

This might be where Chongnian Great Shaman usually entertained guests.

Here was a crystal-like pavilion, with all the surrounding buildings being translucent.

From here, one could directly see the ‘Heavenly River’ outside.

The water of the Heavenly River was clear and serene, its bright light diffused.

In the daytime, it flowed serenely; in late autumn, with the coming of frost, it was diffused.

Within it, the Star-Mansion Array were obscured by their splendor, the long river concealed its reflections, the soft earth was congealed with snow, and the round spirit was a water mirror; the connecting views were like frost-white, and the surrounding areas were clean as ice.

This was the Heavenly River.

And his current location was the Grand Diviner’s small boat.

He was like a traveler floating on the vast sea, yet he saw the Heavenly River turn at night, drifting back into the starry sky, vast and boundless.

Li Qi sighed, “The Hetu Guadi Xiang says: The essence of the river ascends to become the Heavenly Han, its water Qi and essence light circulate in the heavens, the essence of Origin Qi, the essence of water, its Qi manifesting and becoming visible, its essence floating upwards, winding with the flow, named the Heavenly River.”

“It’s truly beautiful; this is the first time I’ve seen the true form of the Heavenly River.”

Li Qi spoke, observing the expressions of Zhong Minglou and Chongnian.

But Zhong Minglou and Chongnian both had deadpan expressions, showing no intention of engaging in Li Qi’s conversation.

This made Li Qi a bit awkward, and he stopped, unsure how to continue.

They had actually been exchanging pleasantries for some time, but it had mostly been Li Qi speaking unilaterally, using it to gauge Chongnian Great Shaman’s attitude.

Of course, Chongnian Great Shaman’s attitude was now very clear, and it was precisely because of this that Li Qi was thinking those random thoughts.

But then again…

After talking so much, the other party had maintained that deadpan expression the whole time, making it difficult to continue the conversation.

Even with Li Qi’s emotional intelligence, he didn’t know what to do at this point, so he cast a pleading look at Zhong Minglou.

Seeing this, Zhong Minglou cleared his throat: “Master.”

“What is it, Minglou?” The deadpan expression immediately melted, and Chongnian smiled as he looked at his beloved Disciple.

Zhong Minglou did not speak, but extended his hand.

The next moment, Chongnian showed a surprised expression.

Because he saw that in Zhong Minglou’s hand, the speed of light was suppressed, and an ‘Observable Universe’ appeared.

What is an Observable Universe?

An Observable Universe is, in essence, everything you can observe within the Heavenly Dao limit.

This is because after the Universe began to expand, light and other signals must travel for a long time to be received by an observer. The Universe is isotropic, meaning that the Universe is roughly the same in all directions – implying that the Observable Universe is a sphere with the observer at its center.

As long as it is constrained by the speed of light, this ‘observed range’ will always be smaller than the ‘horizon’. Beyond the horizon, the Universe’s expansion speed continuously increases, so there will be a ‘future visibility limit’. Objects beyond this limit will never be observable to us, because the light emitted by these objects is beyond this limit.

This is the ‘Heavenly Dao limit’, and also the limit of the speed of light.

This limit depends only on the speed of light and the surrounding spacetime curvature.

The event horizon of the Guixu is also a type of ‘Observable Universe’; you cannot observe the inside of the Guixu, nor can the inside of the Guixu observe the outside.

If this limit is broken through, matter itself will cease to exist, the law of Karma will be broken, and everything without substantiality will be destroyed.

And now, in Zhong Minglou’s hand, what he held was just such a ‘limit sphere’.

And his hand penetrated the ‘observable’ range.

His hand broke through the law of Karma!

This made Chongnian look at his beloved Disciple in astonishment.

This was a preliminary sign of gaining substantiality!

That is—a Breakthrough beyond the Heavenly Dao limit!

“You found the path to Rank Four?” Chongnian was overjoyed.

“Yes, Li Qi helped me. He demonstrated the Dao for me in a way I could accept, which gave me very important inspiration,” Zhong Minglou told Chongnian.

“Then I really must thank you. I’ve been troubled about how to guide you, and I didn’t expect a fellow student to achieve it first. How did he do it? This is quite a dangerous thing,” Chongnian immediately thanked Li Qi, then asked curiously.

“Grand Diviner, you flatter me. It was just my Junior’s foolishness; the Grand Diviner might not be willing to do it, that’s all. They were all very simple things,” Li Qi began to explain how he did it when he heard the question.

Yes, guiding someone on their Dao path is a very dangerous thing; if he pointed the wrong way, Chongnian would probably kill Li Qi.

But it wouldn’t go that far; Zhong Minglou wasn’t a fool, and he wouldn’t be swayed by just any random person. Li Qi’s attempt to inspire him, as a greeting gift, actually took a lot of thought.

Letting Zhong Minglou see the insignificance of the ‘Observable Universe’ with his own eyes might inspire him. This was the method Li Qi devised based on his understanding of Zhong Minglou.

Clearly, it worked. Zhong Minglou was very smart; he quickly realized Li Qi’s approach and indeed found an answer that belonged only to him from it.

This method was actually quite clever.

No one could guarantee that this method would work, nor did anyone know what Zhong Minglou would think. To be honest, Li Qi just thought, “Given Zhong Minglou’s personality, this should work.”

But thankfully, it succeeded.

It was roughly similar to how parents and teachers might explain a math problem for a long time without success, but a classmate accidentally explained it clearly.

After listening to Li Qi’s narration, Chongnian nodded slightly: “Oh… so that’s how it is? Minglou’s mind has this side to it, too. Indeed, compared to elders, friends can see from a different perspective. This can also be considered a type of cognitive bias.”

The Grand Diviner casually spoke of cognitive bias, then looked at Li Qi: “So, Li Qi, it’s clear that your method wasn’t just thought up casually; you put a lot of thought into it, didn’t you?”

“No, no,” Li Qi quickly waved his hand.

“Oh, so you didn’t. I was going to reciprocate, but since you didn’t, then never mind,” Chongnian said casually.

Li Qi was choked by a single sentence.

Zhong Minglou, however, sighed: “Alright, Master, the reason I brought Li Qi here this time is to repay this favor. Don’t make it difficult for him.”

“I’m making it difficult for him? He’s making it difficult for me! If there’s something, just say it directly, why be so secretive and bring up a favor? What, do I owe him? Do I have to chase him to repay it?” Chongnian said.

Li Qi became even more awkward. Sure enough… Chongnian Great Shaman saw through it at a glance.

Since that was the case, Li Qi stopped pretending and decisively lowered his head, saying, “Grand Diviner, please forgive me… I just didn’t know how to speak.”

“There’s no need to deliberate so much. Just as I said, you can just speak directly,” Chongnian replied. “Since you helped Minglou, there’s no need to be so secretive. Moreover, you even brought him along to intercede for you; I most likely won’t refuse. Just state your purpose.”

Li Qi took out several items, then bowed and said, “Yes, then I won’t be polite, Grand Diviner. This is the fresh blood of my young daughter, her hair, and her true name. The items should be complete. I want you to calculate her current situation, and… what I need to do to bring her back.”

“Ah, such a strong Demonic Qi,” Chongnian frowned slightly.