In Xinwang City, above the statues of the three heroes, a spatial gate quietly opened. Not a single ripple of energy leaked out, allowing it to bypass the detection of Fuxi's arrays.
Chen Xu stepped out from the spatial gate and stood atop the head of his own statue.
Since the last time he had left Blue Star and Daxia, over a year had passed.
However, that was the time flow of the Land of the Undead. On Blue Star, nearly seven years had gone by.
The changes in Daxia at this moment were so profound that Chen Xu almost didn't recognize it.
Compared to when he left, the concentration of spirit qi in the air had increased several times over.
What felt most foreign to Chen Xu, however, was the new technology in the city—well, if cultivation technology could even be called technology.
The great roads once built by the skeleton construction crew seemed to have been abandoned for a long time, covered in a thin layer of soil. There wasn't a single car on the streets.
In contrast, the sky was densely packed with cultivators, each possessing a flying dharma treasure.
Flying swords, gourds, and palm-leaf fans seemed to be the most popular models, appearing in the greatest numbers.
The rest were more personalized: some rode lanterns, some stepped on coffins, some sat on alchemy furnaces, and there were even some piloting mechs.
The reason Chen Xu called this cultivation technology was that they all consumed spiritual energy.
Furthermore, they didn't even drain the user's spiritual energy. These flying dharma treasures came equipped with their own spiritual energy conversion arrays, allowing them to automatically draw energy from the air.
Beyond the changes in transportation, the job-holders of Daxia had also undergone a transformation: everyone now possessed cultivation levels.
The lowest were at the Qi Refining stage, while the highest had reached the Foundation Establishment stage.
This wasn't a cultivation-related class provided by the job-holder system, but rather realms achieved purely through personal cultivation.
“Just how much benefit has Daxia gained from dungeons over these years? Everyone has cultivation, and everyone has dharma treasures.”
This wasn't just a single sect; it was an entire nation. With so many people in Daxia all practicing cultivation, the daily consumption of resources alone must be an astronomical figure.
To forge so many dharma treasures—nearly one for every person—Daxia looked like a total nouveau riche. Just what kind of dungeons had they been clearing?
They hadn't turned into space pirates in the Cosmic Sea, had they?
The Heavenly Dao of Blue Star had opened the Outerworld battlefield and granted access through the world membrane.
With Daxia's strength, if a group of mythic-tier individuals like Ye Bufan and Xiang Longwu went out together, ordinary merchant groups like the Wanbao Pavilion truly wouldn't be able to do anything to them.
“Whatever, I shouldn't overthink it. I'll find out once I talk to Old Xia.”
With that, Chen Xu shifted his attention to the area below the statue, which was the primary purpose of his return.
Normally, he should have gone straight to find Xia Qiming, but in his perception, the place on Blue Star where he was mentioned the most was right here.
Xinwang City, beneath his own statue.
At this moment, a steady stream of people was coming to pay their respects in front of Chen Xu's statue.
They held fresh flowers, their eyes brimming with tears, using the statue to express their admiration and nostalgia.
It wasn't just flowers; the base of the statue was piled high with white chrysanthemums.
Furthermore, there were dozens of wreaths surrounding the statue, allowing people from all directions to mourn.
Seeing this, Chen Xu's lips couldn't help but twitch.
Although he was the Lord of the Undead and ruled the Land of the Undead, he was very much a living person—a genuine, living human being.
Seeing a large crowd of people mourning him with his own eyes filled Chen Xu with an indescribable sense of strangeness.
Most importantly, the emotions of these mourners were incredibly sincere. Chen Xu's unique-tier soul perceived them over and over, confirming that this wasn't some kind of prank.
Thus, Chen Xu directly revealed himself and appeared before the crowd.
“Everyone, uh...” Chen Xu looked up toward the sun to check the time. “Good afternoon, everyone.”
As Chen Xu's voice rang out, the plaza, which had been filled with occasional sobbing, instantly fell silent.
After a moment, someone squeezed out from the crowd, pointed at Chen Xu, and shouted sternly.
“Who are you? How dare you dress up as the hero of our Xinwang City? This joke isn't funny at all!”
“Me? I am Chen Xu! Is there anyone else in Daxia as dashing, handsome, and elegant as I am?”
“Hmph!” A voice came from the crowd. “You say you're the great Chen the Eternal, but how can you prove it?”
“Yeah, how can you prove it?!”
“Huh?” Chen Xu was speechless. He hadn't expected the day would come when he'd have to prove he was himself.
At the same time, he couldn't accept it. What kind of nickname was 'Chen the Eternal'? 'Mythic Chen' was already bad enough, and now there was this.
Seeing the surrounding crowd grow increasingly agitated, Chen Xu simply snapped his fingers.
“Wooo~~~~”
A massive spatial gate instantly appeared in the sky, and Sindragosa flew out from it, its draconic roar echoing throughout Xinwang.
“This should be enough to prove I am who I say I am, right?”
The crowd fell into silence once more. Everyone stood with their mouths agape, looking up at Sindragosa circling in the sky.
“That... that really seems to be the Dragon God.”
Someone even opened the Job-Holder Forum and pulled up photos of Sindragosa for repeated comparison.
“That trembling aura is undoubtedly mythic-tier. In today's Blue Star, there shouldn't be any other mythic-tier bone dragon besides the Dragon God, Sindragosa.”
Seeing that the crowd had confirmed Sindragosa's identity, Chen Xu withdrew it back into the Undead Dao Court.
“Well? Do you believe I'm Chen Xu now?”
The person who had stepped out to accuse him earlier was now incredibly excited, his lips trembling as he finally managed to choke out a sentence.
“Big Boss Chen, you're not dead!”
“What kind of talk is that?” Chen Xu was amused. “I'm a Necromancer, not a 'dead man' man. Where did you hear the rumor that I died?”
In an instant, Chen Xu's imagination ran wild, dreaming up a drama of power struggles within the high-ranking leadership of Daxia.
The pillar of the nation goes far away, and undercurrents surge as people plot to seize power.
Before Chen Xu could continue his train of thought, the man's next words ended his fantasy.
“The Heavenly Dao said so!”
“The Heavenly Dao?”
This answer was beyond Chen Xu's expectations. How was this related to the Heavenly Dao? Had that big-eyed, bushy-browed entity defected too?
“Yeah, not long ago, your name disappeared from the strength rankings, Big Boss Chen.
The Heavenly Dao didn't give any special explanation, and according to past precedent, only the dead are removed from the rankings.
So, we all thought you had passed away.”
Fine, Chen Xu finally understood what had happened.
Although he had left Blue Star, his strength—which far exceeded the Blue Star version—had kept him at the top of the rankings for years.
However, after breaking through to the unique-tier and becoming the Lord of the Undead, his unique-tier nature gave him an absurd level of perception regarding anything that mentioned him.
That cowardly Heavenly Dao likely suddenly realized that Chen Xu's name would draw the gaze of terrifying entities. To follow its instincts for self-preservation, it had simply removed Chen Xu's name.
This had led the people of Daxia to believe that something had happened to him.
Although the Daxia government hadn't released an official announcement, the public—especially the people of Xinwang City—had already begun spontaneous mourning activities.
This was the source of those frequent perceptions Chen Xu had felt.
It seemed the simplest way to clear up the misunderstanding was to find the Heavenly Dao of Blue Star and have it put his name back on.
Thus, Chen Xu released his soul's restraints, letting it cover the entire Blue Star to lock onto the Heavenly Dao's location.
“Huh? An unexpected discovery?”
To his surprise, before he could find the Heavenly Dao, he detected several auras of corruption.
Their location was actually within the campus of the Daxia Military Academy.
Rate on N.U.
