Star City.
Central Park.
The sky was heavy with dark clouds, and a fine rain fell steadily. The cool autumn wind swept the drizzle into one's face.
Feng Qi, dressed in black, stood silently in the rain, staring up at a hero statue over thirty meters tall.
In front of the statue stood a stone tablet carved with details of his life and the contributions he had made to Star City.
Fresh flowers and bottles of wine were neatly placed at the statue's base. Every day, citizens of Star City came to offer tributes. There were always staff to clean and maintain the site.
Even the statue itself was regularly restored and preserved.
"So big, Boss."
Xiao You stretched out her hand to point at the statue in awe, then turned to Feng Qi with a curious look.
"Boss, why is the statue holding a pointy thing? Shouldn't it be the Demonic Blade?"
As she spoke, Xiao You puffed her cheeks and mimicked some playful sword-thrusting gestures.
"That's not called a pointy thing. It's a sword—one of humanity's most commonly used weapons."
"Then why not the Demonic Blade?"
Xiao You blinked and continued pressing.
"The sword is known as the King of All Weapons in the human race. It symbolizes martial strength. The book in the statue's left hand represents knowledge. Together, they stand for the fusion of wisdom and power—two weapons essential for humanity's path of growth."
"Ohh..." Xiao You nodded like she half understood.
Answering her question, Feng Qi looked up again at the hero statue.
He could guess that this monument, infused with his blood, had already gathered a huge amount of Faith Power for his Main Timeline self.
But even now, Star City had yet to publicly announce a way for others to establish a faith connection with that version of him.
Experiments had shown there were hidden dangers in the path of faith development he once held in high regard.
He and Wei Wei could connect through faith without mental corruption, but ordinary people couldn't. They couldn't perfectly match the Main Timeline's mental frequency, which meant the spiritual force from that timeline kept corroding any believer who tried to borrow a talent ability.
The corruption might be caused by negative emotions from the Main Timeline—or something else entirely.
It was like making a deal with a demon.
Every time someone borrowed a talent ability, there was a price. The result was inevitable: mental contamination.
He had once hoped to make the faith growth path humanity's first alternative if Mu Yan failed.
But now, that no longer seemed viable.
In the end, he could only place his hope on further refining the Rune Enhancement route.
As for the problem with faith connections, he'd discussed it with the Mist Lord while visiting Mist City.
But the Mist Lord knew very little about the faith system. He couldn't analyze the issue and had no useful advice to offer.
Solving the mental erosion problem still depended on Lin Ran.
The good news was that Lin Ran had already made some progress and was working on a solution.
But Feng Qi knew Lin Ran didn't have much time left.
As a human, Lin Ran possessed brilliance that eclipsed an entire era, but he was still bound by a mortal body. His short lifespan was the biggest chain holding him back from solving the problem.
Even with gene agents and other life-extending tools, Wei Wei had made it clear: Lin Ran's max limit was around two hundred years. To go further, he'd need to combine gene therapy with cultivation.
Even so, Lin Ran's lifespan had a cap.
And most importantly, Lin Ran would never choose cultivation to extend his life.
Cultivation required time. If he spent it on cultivation, he wouldn't have time for research. Either way, his life would continue slipping away.
The same dilemma plagued the entire staff of the Crimson Research Institute.
Did they not want to live longer through cultivation?
The truth was, they simply had no time. Their work consumed nearly every moment of their lives.
That's why the Crimson Research Institute required a specialized diet plan to help sustain their bodies.
To truly solve the issue, the cultivation system would have to advance explosively—so that the physical benefits gained from cultivating far outweighed the time it consumed.
For example, one minute of cultivation could grant three minutes of life.
But reaching that level of cultivation efficiency was no small feat.
Across the entire Domain World, only a handful of powers had achieved such breakthroughs. Most domain factions remained unable to escape time's crushing grip on life.
It sounded simple. But if it were really so easy, no one would die of old age anymore.
According to Old Mist, breaking the shackles of life was something only the super-tier domain factions could achieve.
Once they reached that level of development, their lifespan would always outpace time itself—no longer subject to its wear.
Even the Mist Tribe didn't have a cultivation system like that.
Not even the Flesh Sacrifice Ritual could do it.
Not because it wasn't strong enough—it was a divine-level foundational technique. But it wasn't like the main cultivation systems designed specifically for human compatibility.
This wasn't something that could be solved just by traversing more timelines.
What he needed was to boost the overall growth potential of the human race—to lay a solid foundation for its development.
Only with a strong foundation could the tower of humanity rise.
Back then, he had believed that just by repeatedly traversing timelines, human cultivation techniques would keep evolving endlessly.
Looking back now, he realized how naïve that idea had been.
The foundation was the real key to determining the future ceiling of progress. That was a conclusion drawn from experience.
Given the early state of Star City's development when he first gained his timeline-traversing ability, even if he restarted the timeline one hundred times, the strength of cultivation techniques would hit a bottleneck and struggle to break through any further.
A race's development had never been about steadily marching forward.
Thinking that humans could develop over multiple spans of one thousand five hundred years was pure wishful thinking.
History served as a mirror.
It took humanity millions of years to move from the Stone Age to the Agricultural Age.
But transitioning from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age took only a few hundred years, followed by the rapid invention of planes, ships, and even spacefaring vessels.
Trying to keep advancing cultivation techniques through simple timeline resets was unrealistic.
What humanity needed was a foundational breakthrough—a catalyst for explosive growth.
His current plan for Star City's development, and even the construction of a new cultivation-oriented city, was aimed at creating that catalyst.
It would serve as the spark that ignited the explosion.
If he wanted to obtain that pass allowing humans to break free of time's shackles and stand among the strong races, he and humanity still had a long road ahead.
In fact, some humans had already surpassed the normal human lifespan.
But none of them were ordinary.
Take Wei Wei, for example. She was the "miracle" mentioned by Mu Yan. Based on available clues, she appeared to be a special human who had activated part of a Pillar God's life extension power.
They were outliers among humanity, exceptions that couldn't represent the whole.
And now, even Feng Qi himself could be classified as a special human.
After merging with the Demonic Blade, his life form had undergone a transformation. He now had a vastly extended lifespan.
How long exactly, he couldn't say, but judging from his body's aging rate, he figured living for over a thousand years, maybe even longer, wouldn't be a problem.
But these unique cases couldn't be replicated—much less scaled up for widespread use.
His thoughts returned to the present as he stared at the hero statue standing in the center of the park. Feng Qi felt a heavy sense of responsibility.
This glory didn't belong to him alone.
Coming closer to the statue, Feng Qi placed the bouquet of flowers he was holding at its base.
"You humans are really strange. Why do you offer flowers to your own hero statues? Isn't that kinda... narcissistic?"
Lei Ting, watching this, asked in confusion. He clearly didn't understand the gesture.
Feng Qi didn't answer. He just smiled, shook his head, and turned away.
Lei Ting didn't know his past, so of course it seemed odd to him.
But those flowers weren't for himself—they were for the past.
For those who, in pursuit of their ideal era of peace and prosperity, had endured the darkness and walked the paths of sacrifice.
Many of them were later nailed to the pillar of shame and scorned by future generations, even after their deaths.
But this hero's glory in the current timeline always belonged to them too.
Most people in Star City had no idea what they had given.
But Feng Qi remembered.
Behind the Star City of today stood countless versions of himself in sacrifice timelines, burdened and struggling, pushing forward through the mud to bring Star City to where it was now.
Cleansing corruption, reforming systems, innovating paths... In the eyes of Star City's people, he was like a god who had descended from the heavens, working miracles.
But miracles didn't happen overnight. They had long taken root in unseen darkness.
Leaving Central Park, he returned to the Tiger Soul Research Institute.
Feng Qi had originally planned to head out for the Winterfell Northern Territory in the next few days.
But after speaking with Old Mist, things changed. Some arrangements had to be made in advance.
Old Mist suggested not killing Jian Ji, but instead sealing his heavily injured body and waiting for the Main Timeline one thousand five hundred years later to finish him off.
But achieving that wouldn't be easy.
He had to contact the Crimson Research Institute ahead of time to set up the sealing plan for Jian Ji.
If this wasn't arranged in advance, suddenly delivering Jian Ji to the Crimson Institute's secret base would disrupt their long-term resource allocations.
After cutting off all external communication, the Crimson Research Institute ran on an internal resource circulation model.
Every bit of resource usage had to be meticulously calculated.
Introducing Jian Ji would drastically increase consumption at the secret base and become a huge burden.
Because sealing Jian Ji wasn't as simple as just freezing him in ice.
He had discussed this matter with Old Mist and identified three main concerns.
First, Jian Ji had to be kept in a state of severe injury-induced stasis—weak enough to stay unconscious, but not dead.
This required constant monitoring of Jian Ji's life signs to prevent him from dying during stasis. They might also need to occasionally inject energy into his body, ensuring his vital signs stayed active.
Second, Jian Ji's self-recovery ability had to be suppressed.
At his level, his body had already developed a self-healing function.
For example, when the Crimson Secret Base injected energy into Jian Ji to keep him in a near-death state, that energy could be instantly devoured and used for recovery.
There was no guarantee he wouldn't wake up and leave his near-death state.
And once he woke up, there would be no one in the Crimson Secret Base capable of stopping him, even in his heavily injured condition.
Third, they had to find a way to keep Jian Ji in long-term slumber.
Cryogenic freezing, immersion in a chamber filled with sedatives, sealing with shackles forged by Tian Shu... He and Old Mist had brainstormed many approaches.
But none of them were completely reliable.
The most dependable one seemed to be the sealing shackles crafted by Tian Shu.
However, even that special metal might not hold Jian Ji if he woke up. After all, even Tian Shu could break free from his own seal whenever he wanted.
Jian Ji had once fought Mu Qing and Mu Yan and won—that alone proved his combat power surpassed Tian Shu's.
So whether those sealing chains would work was still uncertain.
Of course, they could use all the methods at once.
But that would drastically increase the required resources. Stretching the timeline to one thousand five hundred years meant the Crimson Secret Base simply couldn't afford the cost.
Just freezing Suction Cup had already put a huge strain on the Crimson Research Institute.
Wei Wei had described how, during Suction Cup's freezing, the low-temperature state had to be maintained at all times. If it was ever deactivated, Suction Cup's body temperature would rapidly rise, melting the ice, and he'd soon awaken.
During the freeze, energy also had to be replenished constantly to keep his life signals active.
Jian Ji's case would be far more complex than Suction Cup's.
Sealing Jian Ji for one thousand five hundred years was much harder than simply killing him.
These issues had to be discussed with the Crimson Research Institute in advance so that Wei Wei and the upper-level researchers could design a feasible plan.
He had already contacted the leadership at the Tiger Soul Research Institute, and outreach to the Crimson Institute's external task force was underway.
Aside from this reason, there was another reason he hadn't left Star City yet.
In just three days, Zhang Daowen would be retiring from the front lines and formally joining the military department.
In this sacrifice timeline, Zhang Daowen had once again chosen the path of martial growth, not scientific research.
Just like in the previous sacrifice line, Zhang Daowen would step down from his position as regiment commander, withdraw from the front lines, and devote himself to building Star City's military department.
Zhang Daowen's talent had already been proven by history.
Compared to the front-line battle regiments, the military department was a much bigger stage.
Star City's true core strength had never been the battle regiments, but rather the military department itself—the foundation of Star City's survival and development.
Future wars would only grow more brutal.
The frontline battle regiment model would become increasingly obsolete as time went on.
In large-scale conflicts between races, the military department would stand as Star City's strongest external force.
Now that the western supply system of Star City was running smoothly, transferring Zhang Daowen to the military department was clearly a better move.
Three days later would be the day Zhang Daowen officially joined the military department.
At that time, he would start from the grassroots level and gradually familiarize himself with the inner workings of the department.
But everyone in Star City knew that Zhang Daowen starting from the bottom was just his way of gaining a more thorough understanding—it wasn't because his abilities were suited to entry-level roles.
The consensus was clear: Zhang Daowen was destined to be one of the top leaders in the military department's future.
And no one questioned it.
Zhang Daowen had already proven himself on the front lines. His battle record had earned him a spot among the ten contemporary War Gods. He was hailed as the Ice War God.
In terms of qualifications, contributions, and personal ability, Zhang Daowen was fully capable of taking on the heaviest responsibilities.
What really surprised people across the five major cities was that he voluntarily chose to start from the bottom, sparking wide discussions. Many believed his talents were wasted on low-level positions.
But Feng Qi understood.
Zhang Daowen's decision to begin from the grassroots was all about preparing for future reform in the military department—by learning the structure inside and out.
It would be a step-by-step process.
Because of Zhang Daowen's special status, the military department would hold a welcoming ceremony for his induction.
Feng Qi had also been invited to attend.
He didn't turn it down.
When the day came, he would personally go to the military department to witness Zhang Daowen's important moment. In the end, he would also be the one to award him the Medal of Honor.
Once all of that was taken care of...
He would leave Star City.
And walk the path of the final battle.