Chapter 925: Endless past!

The other party frankly admitted to Li Qi's matter.

But Li Qi felt a little uneasy.

Even if the other party admitted it, Yu Zao was an artificial human created by the Eclectic School based on a Third Grade.

No... Can it really be done?

Is Yu Zao really an artificial human based on a Third Grade?

Didn't they say that the Dao of a Third Grade would have a copyright, and if an artificial human were made based on it, the will of the Third Grade would awaken within Yu Zao's body? In essence, this would only mean the Third Grade created a Puppet, which would be quite meaningless.

But clearly, Yu Zao is more than that.

Yu Zao is not a Puppet of a Third Grade; Li Qi can confirm this point.

So, what is the situation with Yu Zao?

As an artificial human, she is obviously related to the Third Grade in front of him, but this relationship is so subtle that although she obtained something similar to a ‘blessing’ and her talent is incredibly absurd, it did not make her a Puppet of the Third Grade.

If such artificial humans could be mass-produced, then the Mortal battlefield would truly no longer need to waste time for Humanity.

The most important role of the Mortal battlefield is to contain the high-grade beings, and the Mortal battlefield is also essential for incubating high-grade beings; there are many who achieve Breakthroughs at any time during war.

Moreover, for high-grade existences, ‘higher intelligence’ itself also has value.

A being that can think, possesses a unique worldview, can self-cognize and objectively cognize, is the greatest wealth of the Universe itself.

Material resources are actually not that important; rather, it is those Mortals who have experienced various different things who are the most precious.

If the Mortal battlefield were abandoned, it would be equivalent to abandoning the foundation of all Dao Orthodoxy.

Resources can be shaped at will, but diversity, the countless worlds interacting, communicating, and colliding, forming a complex rational structural network—those things called: wisdom, soul, reason, spirit, mind, and so on—cannot be shaped.

Even if they are shaped, only existing minds can be shaped, like cloning memories, but unknown minds cannot be shaped.

In fact, even known minds are difficult to shape, because once you create a mind, you cannot control how that mind thinks or what it thinks.

If you forcefully brainwash and control it, then... is that mind still a mind? It becomes the thoughts of the Great Powers themselves, not an unknown existence.

Just like the Heavenly Demon, Heavenly Demon believe that all ‘minds’ are essentially extensions of their own minds; there is no such thing as ‘other people’s minds,’ only themselves.

In Li Qi’s view, this is because he too much loves to tamper with other people’s minds, to the point where ‘other people’s minds’ all become ‘his own minds,’ and what he ultimately obtains is merely a Puppet.

What is the point of a Great Power personally intervening to distort the thoughts of a Mortal? They can certainly easily distort or even destroy the will of a Mortal, but this is like a rag doll that cannot move on its own, devoid of life, becoming something they manipulate rather than something that moves on its own.

Therefore, high-grade existences are actually very clear about what kind of treasure is contained within the spirits of those Mortals.

Higher intelligence is the most common existence in this Universe, but also the most precious wealth of the Universe.

One must know that in the eyes of the World Honored One Tathagata, who is the Buddha, ‘all sentient beings are Buddhas, and one can see the Tathagata in one’s heart upon enlightenment.’

Buddhism directly believes that all people possess the same wisdom as the World Honored One Tathagata; they just need to ‘attain’ and ‘awaken,’ as their wisdom is merely obscured.

As long as they remove their original ignorance through cultivation, let them see their true nature, and behold the Tathagata in their hearts, then all sentient beings are Buddhas.

This is the great undertaking of ‘Tathagata enlightening the world.’

Even the World Honored One Tathagata is like this, and other Dao Orthodoxy have their own views.

Li Qi absolutely does not believe that Humanity would abandon Mortals and then engage in practices like creating artificial humans to replace the spirits of Mortals.

But if it’s not explained this way... how should it be explained?

Li Qi doesn't know; there are not enough clues yet.

Then, let's continue fighting.

The battle continued, but... the opponent seemed to have found a Breakthrough point.

Four days ago, at 7:30 AM, Li Qi had a ‘choice.’

So, this Human Path chose to interfere with this ‘choice.’

——————

The Human Path Third Grade from four days ago had just received a mission directive from The Axis of All Realms, instructing her to choose her mission location.

Just at this moment, a force from the Void Realm fell upon her.

Almost instantly, she received information from the ‘future.’

She immediately responded.

Thus, something that happened four days ago suddenly changed; the Human Path Third Grade, who was originally sitting quietly at that time, chose to strike from a distance.

Her target was Li Qi from four days ago.

The past of four days ago was interfered with; now, four days ago, as Li Qi was preparing to set off, a sudden attack struck, heading towards Li Qi.

The next instant, ‘now’ four days later, just before that Human Path Fourth Grade made her move, a force emerged, breaking through the opponent’s defense.

That was Li Qi’s interference with the opponent.

So, the previous interference, which went back four days, failed.

This is a difficult battle to understand.

The opponent wanted to interfere with Li Qi’s choice from four days ago, because at that time, Li Qi was preparing to set off, and she tried to make Li Qi choose ‘don’t come here’ by interfering with events from four days ago.

But before she made her move, Li Qi’s attack had already arrived first, from four days later, Li Qi attacked the Human Path Third Grade just before she made her move four days later.

Before the opponent interfered with Li Qi from four days ago, Li Qi interfered with the opponent’s action of making a move, which caused all ‘events’ after the opponent’s move to be canceled.

But the next moment, the opponent struck again, this time she wanted to interfere with the moment just before Li Qi interfered with her.

Four days ago, in the time where Mortals were, Li Qi had not yet been hit.

Because he hadn’t experienced being hit, he only had the memory of being hit, but in reality, that event hadn’t happened yet.

So this is why Li Qi launched attacks randomly.

In this war involving time and space, if he could hit the person trying to attack him before he was hit, the problem would be solved.

That person should be in his future direction, so he just needs to attack towards the future.

Just by casting a spell towards the future, it will hit and prevent past events from happening.

Their powers constantly travel through the past and future.

But in reality, all these battles occur in the ‘present,’ only it’s the ‘present’ of a basic unit like a Third Grade; Mortals can only see the constantly modified reality.

However, Li Qi was largely in a state of passive defense, basically only able to defend, because his ‘Dao’ did not allow him to perform such complex and flashy acts of interfering with the past.

Those are also real.

He can only interfere with things related to himself, and cannot rewind others.

But, correspondingly, he also gained extremely strong resistance to such interference; since those were events that had happened, they should not be changed, so Li Qi could perform many ‘later-start, first-arrive’ operations.

Layer upon layer of interference, the past and future constantly transform in the present.

They shoot at the past, and the bullets fly into the future, finally hitting the opponent in the present.

Soon, this interference changed from attack to more subtle actions.

For example, if the act of taking keys when leaving the house was interfered with, then the opponent’s actions would have several options reduced, because forgetting the keys means not being able to go home, and not being able to go home means actions would be forced to change.

And to interfere with such a thing, it’s very simple; it doesn’t require very complex methods, just make a crack in the opponent’s keychain so the key drops off as they walk.

Through this more subtle interference, events became perplexing.

Events always have some ‘key points.’

It’s like whether one got into university; this is a key point in a person’s life.

Commonly known as the ‘crossroads of life.’

If you get in, the outcome will lead in one direction.

If you don’t get in, the outcome will lead in another direction.

Such crossroads are not always so obvious; sometimes, you might pass a homeless person, and whether you are willing to lend a hand, or there’s a piece of trash on the ground, and whether you are willing to pick it up.

The homeless person might actually become your benefactor in the future, and picking up trash might lead to you getting herpes, making you lose your handsome face.

Such choices will bring about changes in the future.

So, changing such key nodes, for example... driving away that homeless person, or, a gust of wind blowing the trash away, keeping you away from the virus.

Such nodes are subtle and hard to discern; if one is not particularly familiar, it will be very difficult to find them.

But for a Third Grade, all can be attempted.

The past was constantly retried.

Before the nineteenth Universe Reboot—

In Guangyang, when Li Qi was setting up the Grand Ritual, a silent demonic wind blew.

On the altar, Li Qi, who only had Ninth Grade cultivation, lightly glanced down; the rabbit and Le Ya, Bo Yue’s guardian at the time, were both there.

The demonic wind stopped silently.

Everything proceeded as usual, and the Guangyang Grand Ritual was held as scheduled.

Only, Zhu Fengdan’s power appeared for a moment, but did not interfere.

Then, it was when Li Qi encountered the young Dragon soul.

When Li Qi went to Chang’an.

However, during the time Li Qi was inside Shaman God Mountain, there was no interference; it was obvious that entering would result in a beating.

And after the Seventh Grade Li Qi arrived in Chang’an, the number of interferers clearly increased.

Li Qi could feel that the local existences in Chang’an began to make more moves.

However, Li Qi felt assistance.

That day, shortly after Li Qi first arrived in Chang’an, the four Young Masters were sitting together, and after Great Shaman Mi Xin left, he returned with blood-stained clothes (details in Chapter 262).

When Great Shaman Mi Xin walked into the room where the four Young Masters were, his clothes stained with blood, the Young Masters all looked up.

“Shh...” Great Shaman Mi Xin quietly made a gesture that no one but Li Qi could see.

Li Qi nodded in thanks.

With the help of Great Shaman Mi Xin, Li Qi endured his time in Chang’an.

Li Qi researching the Shamanic Silkworm Artifact.

Li Qi researching the Earth Dragon.

Li Qi preparing to Breakthrough to Sixth Grade.

However, just as Humanity was preparing to exert more effort...

At the moment of Li Qi’s Breakthrough to Seventh Grade, power from the Heavenly Demon descended.

Many Third Grades of Humanity chose to retreat, and at the same time, the Grand Tutor of Humanity also descended at that time, leading to the event of ‘Heavenly Demon confronting the Grand Tutor’ (details in Chapter 330).

“Tsk...” Li Qi made a clicking sound with his tongue.

The event continued to progress.

Past, future, mixed in the present.

This was Li Qi’s first time in a retrospective battle, and it was indeed... interesting.

In this kind of war, all existences of Third Grade and above, whose Karma are intertwined, are all interweaving.

Every First Grade, Second Grade, and Third Grade that ever appeared would become aware of the emergence of power at such a time, it just depended on whether they were willing to intervene at that point in time.

Countless forces intertwined, countless possibilities mixed within.

Fortunately, Li Qi was relatively ‘stable’; although his Dao could not change these things, it also made him more difficult to change, so the result was not bad.

Such a battle continued.

In the time-space circle of the ‘present,’ changes also began to occur due to the butterfly effect.

However, the power of other Third Grades appeared in the Void Realm.

They collided, canceling each other out, and the ‘possibilities’ emanating from Li Qi and that Human Path Third Grade were negated, so the butterfly effect would not affect their combat zone, and thus would not affect their ‘present.’

But in places without Third Grade protection, the butterfly effect began to appear; the collision between Li Qi and this Human Path Third Grade in the ‘past’ caused an impact on the present.

Unknown influences began to emerge.

Some people suddenly disappeared, some people suddenly appeared.

The world line was modified, and possibilities changed accordingly.

In front of a Third Grade, all sentient beings appeared particularly illusory.

To maintain oneself in the face of such ‘collisions,’ there is only one way: to possess ‘substantiality.’

In such battles, through repeated experiences, those lives without substantiality were affected; some were erased from existence, while others were born out of thin air.

Others were temporarily pulled away by Li Qi because their existence would become ‘key nodes.’

Quickly pull them away, don’t stay here and become a weak point.

Thus, these people would become the former Li Qi.

In the past, when Li Qi was a Fifth Grade, as a battle zone commander, he once became such a ‘key node,’ leading to his recall by Shaman God Mountain (details in Chapter 631).

Now, Li Qi did the same thing; he used his Third Grade authority to order these battle zone commanders to leave, to avoid the negative consequences they would cause in the ‘future.’

The battle continued.

As Karma gradually increased, the computational load also began to increase exponentially.

Whoever understands the opponent more, whoever can explore more secrets, whoever can find more key nodes, whoever can control more nodes, whoever can change the past, will ultimately lead the ‘present’ to victory.

The battle continued to spread in this manner.

Invading the past, changing the present, distorting the future.

There is no past, no future, only the present.

Only the battle itself, which seems to extend endlessly.

The temporal order was broken, leaving only individual events existing in the Universe, no longer connected to each other.