Chapter 36
Ling Xu stared at Huan Zheng with widened eyes.
Not out of shock, but because he had just realized that for the past several weeks, amidst the chaos of battles, political intrigue, and journeys from one city to another, the lazy man beside him had been patiently waiting—never rushing, never forcing him to move faster than he could—simply waiting until he was ready, until he reached the peak of Supernatural Star, until he truly understood what he was about to step into.
"You… you've been planning this from the very beginning, haven't you?" he asked, his voice caught between admiration and slight annoyance.
Admiration, because Huan Zheng always thought ten steps ahead without ever looking like he was thinking, and annoyance, because the man never shared his plans beforehand, preferring to surprise him at moments like this.
Huan Zheng smiled faintly—a smile no longer bitter, no longer heavy, but calm, like a man letting his lover discover a birthday surprise he had hidden behind a cabinet for weeks.
"Not from the very beginning. But since you reached Supernatural Star, I started counting the time. And now—"
He pointed into the small town hall, where the wooden floor was still clean from dust and the walls still stood firm.
"… Now is the right time. No enemies. Nothing to interfere. Just the two of us, this dead city, and two days to break through the gate toward Bright Sky."
Ling Xu let out a long breath—a breath that felt like swallowing an ocean, like preparing to dive into depths he had never imagined before—then nodded.
"Alright. We begin tomorrow morning."
And so, the two of them sat cross-legged on the silent wooden floor of the town hall, facing each other with a distance of three steps between them, like two mirrors confronting one another in a dark room—Ling Xu with his white, streaked hair flowing freely, Huan Zheng with his usual messy black hair, but in their eyes lay a seriousness that never appeared when they were fighting, infiltrating, or poisoning enemies.
"One day and one night, Liu Xin," Huan Zheng said, his voice soft yet firm, like a commander giving final orders before a great battle.
"You will calm your mind, purify your soul, and sink into your subconscious to search for the Heavenly Longitude wrapped between the Three Outer Star and the One Core Star. The Three Outer Star—Lower, Common, Singular—that have formed an isosceles triangle within your cultivation axis. The One Core Star—Supernatural Star, your current realm—lies precisely at the center of that triangle, becoming the heart that pumps Qi to every corner of your body."
He raised his hand, and in the air between them, he began forming an isosceles triangle pattern with a point at its center—the same pattern he had shown on previous nights, but this time it felt more real, closer, more… threatening, like a beast lying in the forest that would only reveal its fangs once you were too close to escape.
"In the gaps between the three corners of that triangle, in the spaces between the connections of the Latitudes you have gathered over the years, in the places you have never touched because you were too busy looking outward—there lies your Heavenly Longitude. Find it. Gather all 9,999 of its traces. And when dawn rises on the second day, awaken as a First-Level Bright Sky cultivator."
On the other side of the silent hall, Huan Zheng sat cross-legged with a posture that was never truly straight.
He leaned slightly against the worn wooden wall, his shoulders slouched, his closed eyes making him look more like he was taking a sunday afternoon nap than meditating to break into the Heavenly Longitude realm.
Yet within his cultivation axis, in depths unseen by the naked eye, the process unfolding was the complete opposite.
Casually, without haste, like a homeowner walking through hallways he had memorized since childhood, Huan Zheng traced every root of the Heavenly Longitude hidden behind his Three Outer Star and One Core Star—left leg, right leg, chest, abdomen, head—all of which he had already stabilized since that night in the seaside city, since he nearly blew himself apart because of his ego, since he learned that true power did not always mean destruction.
"Trace number 4,732," he murmured inwardly, his inner voice as lazy as ever, yet beneath that laziness lay an unquestionable certainty.
"Still 5,267 left. Take it easy. No need to rush. This city isn't going anywhere."
Outside his awareness, his physical body even let out a yawn—a wide yawn in the middle of meditation, an act that would make elders across the universe scream hysterically if they saw it, but Huan Zheng had never cared about what sect elders thought, because he had been lazy for far too long to start caring now.
Meanwhile, just three steps in front of him, Ling Xu was struggling.
Not against an external enemy, but against himself, against the darkness that suddenly emerged from corners of his consciousness he had never touched, against voices whispering that he would never succeed, that he was merely a lowly goddess born of a disgraced lineage, that he did not deserve to stand at the same gate as Huan Zheng, who had solidified his foundation from the Feet to the Head of Humanity.
"The first trace…" he whispered inwardly, his voice trembling like a lute string plucked too hard, and before him, within the dimly pulsing triangle of Latitudes, he saw a faint glimmer of pale blue light—tiny, fragile, like a dying firefly at the end of autumn—and when he reached for it, the light nearly vanished, nearly slipped from his grasp, nearly made him cry from how difficult it was to catch something he had never seen before.
"The first trace is obtained," he said, his breath ragged even though physically he sat still, "but it feels like lifting a mountain with a single pinky finger."
Kraaak!!
Amid the darkness that nearly swallowed him whole, among the cracks of the Latitude triangle that spread like roots searching for water in dry soil, Ling Xu heard a voice.
Not Huan Zheng's steady and warm voice from the outside, but one that came from within his own chest, from the place where 9,999,999,999,999,999 fragments of Humanity Latitude pulsed like a boundless ocean, from where the Cancer plague resided and sometimes whispered within his nightmares.
"Is there something on your mind right now, Ling Xu?" the voice asked—the voice of his Humanity Star Consciousness, which rarely spoke but was always present in the most critical moments, like a shadow that never truly leaves even when forgotten.
"If there is, set it aside for now. Or—"
The voice paused briefly, as if choosing its words carefully so as not to offend its owner, yet not too gentle to be ineffective.
"… Turn whatever disrupts your meditation into a trigger, into fuel, into a whip that will force you to keep moving forward even when your legs feel like they are made of molten lead."
To be continued…