Chapter 100: The Rise of a Nation Through Misaligned Technology, Part 15

Mu Yin always felt that there was something here that repelled her, yet despite looking left and right, she could find nothing. It was a strange sensation, as if something she loathed was present, but remained persistently out of reach.

Staying vigilant, Mu Yin entered the secret realm alongside the members of her sect. Initially, they remained together, but after only a few steps, Mu Yin found herself separated from the rest. In that very instant, she had undergone a spatial shift.

As a traveler through time and space, her sensitivity to spatial fluctuations was profound. Although the disturbance was faint, she sensed it immediately and felt speechless. Was this truly a secret realm saturated with spatial energy? Teleportation seemed to occur at any given moment.

Mu Yin surveyed her surroundings. The environment was quite pleasant, home to a variety of plants. Upon closer inspection, however, she realized that every one of them was a treasure—either plants with spatial attributes, earth attributes, or a third, unknown type capable of resisting spatial energy. The cultivators of this world could not identify this third type, nor did they know how to utilize it.

Mu Yin, however, recognized them at a glance as having time attributes. Time and space have always been mutually reinforcing yet contradictory; only time can contend with space.

She suspected that no one here knew how to handle these, as time is far more elusive than space. She collected a few, intending to study them later. While others could not perceive time—knowing only that it had passed without understanding the specifics—Mu Yin possessed a faint intuition for it. This was likely due to her long history of traversing the river of time. She attempted to place these specimens into the space within her Chrono-Key, and to her surprise, it succeeded.

Having confirmed they could be transported, Mu Yin harvested a dozen or so plants with spatial and time attributes. Before long, she was shifted to another location. Though plants were still present, they were far fewer than before.

It seemed that constant teleportation was the nature of this place. Ignoring the mystery, Mu Yin looked around and spotted some Void Stones. Why were they exposed on the surface? There were other space-attuned ores as well. She collected them, noting that they could be stored in her internal space, whereas earth-attuned materials could not. She wondered if this was due to the nature of the Chrono-Key.

Upon her third shift, she finally encountered others, though they were strangers. They appeared to be from a different sect, two Foundation Establishment cultivators locked in a standoff. Mu Yin felt a surge of bad luck.

"My apologies, please, carry on," Mu Yin said, waving her hand to indicate she had no intention of interfering.

"Stop right there," they said in unison, one of them stepping forward to block her path. Mu Yin instantly tensed.

"Is there something you need, seniors?" She was not worried about facing them. Although Foundation Establishment cultivators could move freely, any intense combat would trigger spatial rifts or storms. To ensure their own safety, they would be forced to limit their strength to the Qi Refining stage; thus, she had nothing to fear.

"Which sect are you from?" asked the cultivator in black.

"I am from the Phantom Immortal Sect," Mu Yin replied.

"How many times have you shifted?" asked the other.

"This is my third," Mu Yin said, wondering why they cared.

"Hand over your storage bag," the one behind her demanded.

"No. I haven't collected anything anyway," Mu Yin shook her head immediately.

"Don't force us to act," the two, previously at odds, now stood in united front. Mu Yin, however, remained unfazed.

"Then by all means, do it. Let’s see who really has the advantage." In this realm, Mu Yin was truly fearless.

Surprised by her defiance, the two paused. Mu Yin skillfully dodged a sneak attack from behind while kicking away a lethal strike from the front. Did they think she would let her guard down?

Perhaps they hadn't expected such rapid reflexes, but as seasoned fighters, they didn't hesitate, launching a coordinated assault. Knowing that spells would cause the spatial energy to riot, they relied solely on physical combat.

Mu Yin did not fear them in hand-to-hand combat. As a body cultivator, she was far from disadvantaged. After a few dozen moves, she exerted sudden force, driving one of them back with a punch before vanishing from her spot. A second later, the other was sent flying by a kick, disappearing from sight as well.

With both gone, Mu Yin dusted off her hands. "Hmph, thinking Foundation Establishment makes you special? Don't you know about the level restrictions here?" She walked to the spot where they had been arguing, curious about what they were fighting over.

She discovered it was merely a single Void Stone. Why fight over that? Weren't they plentiful? Yet, she soon realized that Void Stones did not appear easily; they typically surfaced only during the second shift, and were rarely encountered afterward.

In short, this was a miraculous realm. It seemed each person could only encounter one Void Stone, and if multiple people were in the same location, they had to compete for that single prize.

By chance, Mu Yin had secured a second one. She had also gathered many other spatial ores suitable for crafting storage rings, though the Void Stone remained the most precious due to its rarity.

Later, Mu Yin encountered others several times. With her heightened sensitivity to space, she gradually grasped the pattern of the shifts and began to initiate them herself, collecting a few more Void Stones in the process.

Eventually, she ran into members of her own sect—specifically the Foundation Establishment group with Shui Yueran, along with cultivators from other sects. A remarkably handsome man stood beside her.

"Ah, you are that..." Seeing Mu Yin, Shui Yueran felt a sense of familiarity but couldn't quite place her, despite Mu Yin’s now striking appearance.

"Senior Sister Shui, it has been a long time," Mu Yin said, not pretending otherwise. "I arrived in the same batch and the same location as you."