Chapter 1 Cracks

——Cracks!

——Great Doors!

——Cracks in the Great Doors!

In an instant, Su Zhou thought of a possibility, which was where the immortals and gods of the past had disappeared to!

"The severing of spiritual energy should have been during the period when something went wrong with the Great Doors. At that time, the cracks in the starry sky were likely to have already appeared. Perhaps, the disappearance of spiritual energy from Earth and even the solar system was a phenomenon caused by the outflow of spiritual energy to other worlds!"

"And now, according to Yala, all the great existences have gradually awakened and are preparing to escape their confinement, so the state of the Great Seal has also begun to reverse. A large amount of spiritual energy is flowing back, surging back into our world from other worlds, causing the spiritual energy revival phenomenon."

There was no need to guess. When Su Zhou heard the phrase 'immortals and gods may have gone to other worlds,' he thought of his own experience traveling to the Divine Tree World... Since the Dragon's spiritual vision could see those worlds, then the immortals and gods, as the most powerful cultivators, certainly could as well.

And their last struggle was probably to follow the path of lost spiritual energy, making a final gamble without the Heavenly God Scale. They had actively gone to the worlds beyond those Great Seals!

"The immortals and gods chased after the spiritual energy and went to other worlds—at least, that's highly likely."

Seeing the solemn expression on Su Zhou's face, Dao Saint thought he was puzzled, so he smiled and explained, "Student Su, there's no need to think about these things now... In short, since the immortals and gods disappeared, there have always been some people trying to summon them, or the power of other powerful beings from other worlds. Or rather, while they were summoning our immortals and gods, they accidentally found the existence of other worlds."

"The organizations formed by these people even received a response from the existence of other worlds. Although we all believe that what they are summoning is not the immortals and gods we are familiar with, there is no doubt that these otherworld existences also possess extremely powerful power."

"Even the various monsters and mutations that appeared on Earth during the spiritual energy revival are related to them... And among those organizations, some want to summon the bloodlines or avatars of these otherworld immortals and gods to descend, while some are even more insane. They want to summon the true bodies of the otherworld immortals and gods, break the existing order, and even open up passages to other worlds."

Speaking of this, Zhang Qingyun's expression became extremely serious: "And this is not impossible."

While Dao Saint was elaborating on this information, Su Zhou asked Yala thoughtfully in his mind: "It seems that both the immortals and gods and the current high-level transcendents of Earth have noticed those cracks in the sky, which may be related to other worlds, and have become vigilant."

"That's not surprising."

Yala replied lazily: "Even if they don't know about the Great Doors and other worlds, who wouldn't be afraid of seeing such huge cracks? Even you were shocked for a few seconds back then, weren't you?"

"To be honest, if the Zheng Nation government really has some relatively powerful immortal and god inheritances, then in the future, they might actually be able to explore a few easier-to-explore sealed worlds."

Back in reality, Zhang Qingyun took a sip of tea and his expression returned to normal. He glanced at Su Zhou's expression and, after finding that Su Zhou was not surprised by this information, he nodded slightly with satisfaction. The young man had a strong understanding, which was why he was willing to share this information. At least he wouldn't reject reality and be unwilling to accept it.

Then, he continued to reiterate: "Before the immortals and gods left Earth in the past, they didn't leave nothing behind—whether it's the Order Formation or the many relics that exist in various regions around the world, these are all their legacies. The cultivation methods are still most completely inherited by the Zheng Nation cultivators."

"But the most important thing is those immortal and god relics—there, there may be paths and methods to other worlds, or other rare resources that may now be extinct, or long-lost magical treasures and cultivation techniques."

Speaking of this, even Zhang Qingyun's expression became solemn, but also slightly longing. He sighed softly and stroked his beard: "Who knows how long the spiritual energy revival will last? Who knows when the spiritual energy era will end? Where exactly did the immortals and gods go? Are there clues to finding the answers to these questions in the relics?"

"Around these relics left by the immortals and gods, the long-peaceful world may usher in disputes between major forces, and those crazy mysterious organizations undoubtedly want to use those relics to summon the new immortals and gods they have found, to break our current existing order on Earth."

"Can't we just develop them peacefully?" Hearing this, Su Zhou couldn't help but ask: "I don't know how strong the immortals and gods are, but there is no doubt that even before the spiritual energy was cut off, they were the most powerful cultivators. No matter how I think about it, the relics they left behind are not so easy to excavate."

"Everyone may not even be able to fully explore a single relic, so why can't we develop them peacefully instead of starting disputes? After successfully excavating the relics, if we find a way to other worlds, it certainly won't be a project that a single country can carry out alone... What I mean is, there is no need to be at each other's throats when nothing has even started yet, right?"

"What you said is indeed correct, Student Su." Dao Saint agreed with Su Zhou's view, but he shook his head and said: "It's just, is it that simple? Indeed, the most powerful forces in the world are calling for peaceful development, and we all really want peace, but will peace really come? Are the mysterious relics left by the immortals and gods, or the other worlds that can make the immortals and gods never return, really something we can explore rashly right now? Indeed not, but some things, if you don't do them, others will."

"Even the relationship between transcendents and ordinary people, this sudden change in class, the utilization rate of resources, is a huge problem... Our Zheng Nation now has more than a billion people, how can it be applied with the ancient classical rule mode where the total population of the world was less than 50 million?"

"To cause chaos, war is not needed, what is needed is a constantly changing era—unfortunately, the spiritual energy revival era is such an era."

Seeing that Su Zhou still had some difficulty understanding, Dao Saint Zhang Qingyun smiled: "I know, perhaps you young people don't think this is a big deal... But think about it carefully, Student Su, you hold dragon blood, so naturally others will awaken other bloodlines and become geniuses."

"You have no intention of doing evil, but if those awakened geniuses have evil thoughts in their hearts, or if they awaken the bloodlines of evil beasts, and they have to kill people and devour souls to grow... Will this cause chaos?"

"And if hundreds or thousands of such people appear, will it affect the stability of a country, or even cause the world to be turbulent?"

Speaking of this, Zhang Qingyun just made a simple summary: "Even now, we haven't found the best solution. We can only hope that you, the younger generation, can grow up quickly, so that we, who are already overwhelmed, can catch our breath."

"...I understand."

At this time, Su Zhou also nodded seriously.

He did feel that under the peaceful surface, there were surging undercurrents...

And he... even felt excited about it, as well as a kind of inexplicable sense of self-reproach for being 'excited by the troubled times.'

After the topic ended, Dao Saint also left.

Before leaving, he praised Su Zhou's talent and courage as extraordinary, and encouraged Su Zhou to also amaze everyone at the Holy Examination Selection.

"Although I am very clear that your spiritual energy test will undoubtedly be the best in the country, don't be arrogant and complacent. Don't neglect the normal Holy Examination Selection either."

The old man smiled and patted Su Zhou on the shoulder, then frowned slightly—Su Zhou's shoulder had a natural recoil force, which was a bit hard—in short, Zhang Qingyun was like a kind old man, reiterating the importance of learning to students: "To understand transcendent inheritance, you also need a deep knowledge base. If you don't study other subjects well, you will always suffer losses and encounter thresholds."

When Su Zhou returned to the team, he was greeted by praise and cheers from the leading professor and his classmates—to be honest, the gap was so big that there was no jealousy at all. It was like no one would be jealous that a boxing king's punch could kill a cow. Everyone would only exclaim, 'Damn, that's awesome!'

Su Zhou had now become an object of praise for the students of No. 1 High School, like bragging rights such as 'Our school produced a genius!' It was quite magical.

Su Zhou didn't reject or oppose this. This was exactly what he wanted. He needed everyone to know that he was a genius. Only in this way, when he wanted to do something in the future, the opposition he encountered and the support he could get would be much better than being unknown.

Time passed, and it gradually became late at night. Although the test had ended, the test results still needed to be recorded. It wasn't until tomorrow afternoon that the students who had taken the physical test could return home one after another.

Late at night, Su Zhou, who couldn't sleep, walked out of the No. 1 High School's rest camp, which resembled a motel, and came to the bottom of the small building, looking up at the sky.

Because the camp was located in the mountains, without the overly bright lights of the city, the starlight in the sky seemed much brighter.

Above the high sky, silver-white flashing stars twinkled and flowed in the nocturnal clouds, vaguely forming a galaxy.

"How beautiful and vast..."

Su Zhou stared at these bright stars, as well as those dark and deep cracks that ran alongside the stars and spread across the entire sky, and silently sighed for a moment.

Just then, footsteps came from behind Su Zhou, and Shao Qiming, who was also unable to sleep, appeared behind him with a hint of drowsiness.

"What's wrong, A-Zhou."

He thought that Su Zhou was a little too excited to control himself after winning first place in the physical test today, so he smiled and said, "What, you became famous during the day, and you're so happy that you can't sleep?"

"Well... not really."

Su Zhou turned his head to look at his friend, smiled softly, and then continued to look up at the starry sky.

He said slowly: "It's mainly after chatting with Dao Saint for a while, I suddenly realized that the real situation may be different from what I thought."

When Shao Qiming also stood beside him and looked up at the starry sky with him, Su Zhou said softly: "Qiming, I like a constantly changing era, I like a life full of thrills and excitement."

"Yeah." Although he didn't know why Su Zhou was talking about this, Shao Qiming nodded in agreement: "Since you were a child, you've been eager to encounter some strange things, and you always wanted to find real paranormal phenomena—most people would run as far as possible when they encounter this kind of thing, but when you hear similar news, you're like a bear smelling honey."

"I still remember that summer vacation, you took me to 28 haunted houses in a row, and every time we went there excitedly and came back disappointed."

"Yeah."

Su Zhou recalled his haunted house adventure with Shao Qiming during his middle school summer vacation, and couldn't help but smile: "I've always liked urban legends, the danger and mystery in paranormal stories, and I also like the magnificence of narrowly saving something and rescuing something in games... I like these things."

But speaking of this, his expression returned to seriousness: "But, can this also be said that my instinct is actually to look forward to 'chaos,' to look forward to 'troubled times'?"

"Of course not." Beside him, Shao Qiming raised his eyebrows strangely, turned his head to look at Su Zhou, who was unexpectedly thinking wildly today, but he didn't say much, just said calmly: "Or rather, isn't what you're looking forward to 'calming the chaos'? Why do you say it as if you're going to stir up chaos—and even if you are looking forward to it, so what?"

"We've been friends for so many years, how could I not know what you're thinking? A-Zhou, you just want to find a channel to use your extraordinary power that doesn't affect others and can be used reasonably—just like someone who is good at swimming wants to save a drowning beauty, someone who works out wants to find an opportunity to show off their muscles, in your case, you just want to help people solve problems that others can't solve, and deal with those strange problems..."

"Don't think too highly of yourself, and don't think too badly of yourself. Overall, you're a good person, but you're not a saint yet." Finally, Shao Qiming clapped his hands and defined it this way. Then, he patted Su Zhou on the shoulder, and this time Su Zhou finally learned how to turn off his body's instinctive recoil: "And your current situation is obviously that you were too cool after showing off during the day, and you entered a sage mode at night—otherwise, you would never think about these things."

"...I also know very well that I'm not deliberately moaning without illness."

Shao Qiming really understood Su Zhou. His words did allow Su Zhou, who seemed to have entered a sage mode, to return to a more normal mode of thinking. The demon hunter nodded, and then exhaled a long breath: "It's just Qiming, I suddenly realized that compared to simply killing bad people, what I really want is a world without bad people."

Speaking of this, Su Zhou's eyes were bright, and he said earnestly, word by word: "So, I instinctively want to show my talent, to get the right to speak in this world, to get the 'ticket' to make decisions about the world's direction."

"Change myself, change my relatives and friends, change my surroundings, and then change the country—change this world."

Affirming his heart in this way, Su Zhou lowered his head, looked at his hand, and then clenched his fist firmly, smiling and said: "And this is the first step."