In the game, there was a very obvious jump in strength every time a player’s Tier 3 core skills leveled up.
A Level 1 core skill was nothing more than an ultimate attack—it was gone after a single use. But from Level 2 onwards, players were given room for finer manipulation, so the skill’s upper limit was much higher.
For example, if Gu Nan’s skill was only at Level 1, then he’d only be able to wrap the enemy in shadows, but at Level 2, he could do outrageous things like “parting the water.”
Therefore, it made sense for this world to describe this stage as the Infinitesimal Stage[1].
Gu Nan dived into the pool like this. The pond wasn’t vast; he could see the edge with a glance.
A faint light shone from the deepest region. Gu Nan entered along the light and found that there really was a cave at the bottom of the pool.
From a distance, he saw a bizarrely-shaped altar with some strange patterns at the top.
A black-robed figure was also standing on the altar.
“Teacher!?” A cry of surprise came from the altar.
The person trapped here really was Yan Xiaoxiao.
Although Gu Nan used a different body to reincarnate this time, the power surrounding him had yet to disperse. As the person who had the most contact with Gu Nan twenty years ago, it was impossible for Yan Xiaoxiao not to recognize him.
She quickly took off the mask on her face and ran off the altar. “Teacher, you mustn’t enter! This altar has an extremely strong barrier. Once you come in, you will… Eh?”
She saw Gu Nan standing in front of the barrier. The Dragon Heart Pendant on his chest shone faintly. With a single punch infused with the dragon’s power, the barrier was smashed.
Yan Xiaoxiao didn’t expect for the barrier that had trapped her for nearly two months to disappear just like that… ‘As expected, I still can’t catch up with Teacher, huh?’
Compared to her, Gu Nan’s thoughts weren’t as complicated. Just like back then, he reached out and rubbed Yan Xiaoxiao’s hair, showing a small smile on his face.
Twenty years had passed, but her appearance didn’t change much. She simply changed from a youthful girl to a workplace woman. She grew a little taller, and her temperament also became calmer.
After all, the life expectancy of Prodigious cultivators was often hundreds of years. A mere twenty years really was nothing.
“Did Teacher come back this time… in another body?” When the joy of meeting Gu Nan dissipated, Yan Xiaoxiao thought of this and asked with her head lowered.
“Oh? You guessed it?”
Yan Xiaoxiao nodded slightly. After all, she was someone who had experienced the war between reincarnators, and Gu Nan didn’t specially hide anything in front of her, so it wasn’t strange for her to guess the origin of those reincarnators from twenty years ago.
Gu Nan explained, “Indeed, we come from another world. We traveled here to complete some missions and will use different bodies every time.”
Hearing this, Yan Xiaoxiao’s eyes lit up. “Then… Can I also go to Teacher’s world?”
Gu Nan stared blankly. He really hadn’t considered taking Yan Xiaoxiao with him. On the one hand, he didn’t need it. On the other hand, he didn’t know how to take her away.
Unlike the original Langya World, Immortal Demon World had yet to be colonized and developed, so there was nothing like an “Ascension Center” here.
But he could consider it now. Yan Xiaoxiao had already advanced to Prodigious Realm, and he also needed manpower for the Martial Arts Competition.
‘But how?’
It seemed that she read Gu Nan’s thoughts. Yan Xiaoxiao pointed to the altar and said, “Teacher, look at this…”
……
A moment later, Gu Nan returned above ground to bring Lu Zhanyu down as well.
“T-This is a plane teleportation array?” Lu Zhanyu stood in front of the altar with round eyes and studied the inscriptions on it.
“If she didn’t translate wrong, it should be,” Gu Nan answered as he pointed to Yan Xiaoxiao next to him.
It wasn’t like Yan Xiaoxiao did nothing while she was trapped here for two months. While chipping away at the barrier’s power, she was also studying this altar.
The altar seemed to have existed for quite a long time. Those inscriptions were actually unknown characters. Fortunately, the owner of the altar left the corresponding means of translation.
With the inscription’s foreign language placed side-by-side with this world’s ancient characters, Yan Xiaoxiao studied these for two months and finally decoded some of the content.
The key part was the name and purpose of this altar.
“Plane teleportation arrays were used only in ancient times, when reincarnation had yet to be discovered,” Lu Zhanyu frowned and said thoughtfully.
To think there were actually ancient relics in this world. This shocked her so much that she even said the word “reincarnation” in Yan Xiaoxiao’s presence.
“At that time, people had just discovered the existence of different planes and used teleportation arrays to travel to those planes so that they could collect resources and sell them.”
“Later, there were more and more methods of traveling between planes, and it even became possible to reincarnate directly with one’s soul, so teleportation arrays were gradually abandoned,” Lu Zhanyu said with some emotion, as if she was witnessing the vicissitudes of history.
Gu Nan didn’t care about history. He only cared about whether this thing could be used. “Is it possible to activate it now?”
“It’s definitely possible, but I don’t know how.” Lu Zhanyu shrugged helplessly. “Besides people in the major ascension centers, who would study such things now?”
Gu Nan also scratched his head a little.
Yan Xiaoxiao couldn’t help interrupting, “The inscriptions here also recorded the method to activate the altar. It just needs some materials…”
“Out of the question,” Lu Zhanyu interrupted her without hesitation. “Who knows what era this kind of altar is from? I’m afraid the teleportation success rate can’t even reach 50%.”
Faced with Teacher’s companion, a senior from the “higher world,” Yan Xiaoxiao didn’t dare to refute for a moment, so she could only shut up.
“Can you improve the success rate by finding people from Star Realm?” Gu Nan asked with a frown.
“If they are professionals, then there’s certainly no problem,” Lu Zhanyu gave an affirmative answer, “but are you willing to reveal this plane’s coordinates? This is an undeveloped plane…”
“Just find the Gu family.” Gu Nan looked indifferent.
“Do you really trust the Gu family so much? They can’t possibly remain unmoved after seeing all the resources here…” Lu Zhanyu was puzzled. Based on her understanding of Gu Nan, this person wasn’t naive.
“Who said anything about letting the Gu family enter?” Gu Nan glanced at her. “I meant we can find an expert in arrays to come in and have the Gu family silence them after the job’s done.”
Lu Zhanyu: “……”
……
The process of saving Yan Xiaoxiao was nothing special. Instead, the plane teleportation array gave Gu Nan a pleasant surprise. But when they returned to the outside world, there was an even bigger surprise.
As soon as the three appeared, a longsword stabbed towards them. The target was Yan Xiaoxiao’s chest.
“Die!”
The sword came so suddenly that not even Yan Xiaoxiao could react in time. After all, she had been trapped for two months, and her power was extremely weak. She was also by Gu Nan’s side, so she inadvertently let her guard down slightly.
More importantly, the sword came from an unexpected person.
It was actually Zhang Yueying!
Notes: [1] Infinitesimal Stage: Called that because it allows for finer/more detailed manipulation of one’s power
