Rise of Humanity

When the energy seeped into the Heaven Origin Reincarnation Mirror, the unknown innate Qi in Zhong Yue’s body suddenly became agitated and lunged over to swallow the energy.

Although the innate Qi was in Zhong Yue’s body, he knew nothing about it. This surge of innate Qi had been there ever since he converted his cultivation and arcane energy into innate Qi.

However, he did know that it was not part of his cultivation, his celestial cultivation base had turned into the Innate Celestial Qi, the demon cultivation base turned into the Innate Demon Qi, the Great Sun Golden Crow’s Pure Yang Qi into the Innate Tai Yang Qi, and the Star Toad’s Pure Yin Qi into the Innate Tai Yin Qi.

These 4 surges of innate Qi could be traced back to his cultivation, with the addition of the fifth innate Qi which was the Innate Lightning Qi he recently cultivated in the Lei Zhe.

Yet, this surge of unknown innate Qi came out of nowhere, with no clear usage. The only thing he knew was that along with his growth in cultivation, this surge of innate Qi would grow stronger as well.

But now, after the innate Qi has engulfed the energy, it was growing stronger at a tremendous rate, almost as if it would triumph over the other innate Qi and dominate above all of them!

Whereas in one of his realms, the Dao Yi Secret Realms, the sword hilt of the shattered imperial sword suddenly sucked the innate Qi into it.

The imperial sword of the last reign of Fuxi Heavenly Monarch, the imperial sword hilt that signified the supremacy of the Heavenly Monarch!

After the sword hilt absorbed the innate Qi, a saber ray suddenly emerged from the broken sword hilt!

A sword hilt with saber ray.

It would have been one of the most peculiar scenes to look at—what was originally a sword had now turned into a saber.

Zhong Yue was also surprised and inspected the sword hilt curiously. Now it seemed like the Fuxi Heavenly Monarch’s imperial sword had turned into his third divine saber. Its saber ray was clear as crystal and reflected everything with even more clarity than Realm Monarch Bo Luo’s scale.

He looked at himself in the saber ray and saw his own flaws reflected in the saber. In his own reflections, his body, Yuan Shen, blood, totem patterns, and even psyche were broken down to the smallest details.

“So I still have so many flaws.” Zhong Yue looked at the flaws in him, but even so, there was no way for him to fix them right now. He had already cultivated to the best of his ability up to this point, even after knowing there was further room for improvement, he was still unable to do so.

This was the limitation of one’s knowledge, just knowing the flaws weren’t enough, one must still have enough knowledge to know how to fix them.

He glanced around and found himself trapped inside a grand building devoid of life, it was long and narrow like an endless corridor.

He cast the Solar Divine Saber, slashed on the walls but failed to leave even a single impression on it.

It’s that durable? No, no, it doesn’t feel right. Why can’t I understand any of the totem patterns on the walls? What is this place? A world in the mirror?

Zhong Yue remembered that he was sucked into and imprisoned inside a mirror, so he must’ve still been inside of it.

He raised up the sword hilt and shone the saber ray onto the complex totem patterns on the walls. The deeper he goes, the complexity of the totem patterns grew. Although the totem patterns’ nature had been broken down to their simplest form by the saber ray, Zhong Yue still couldn’t understand a single thing!

“How is this even possible? They are in their simplest form already and I still can’t get anything out of them? What level could they possibly be in? Xin Huo, do you know anything about these totem patterns?” Zhong Yue asked.

Just a split second later, his expression changed drastically and he rushed to check on his Yuan Shen secret realms. The shabby copper lamp was still there, untouched; but the little flame was nowhere to be found!

His heart throbbed in fright, Xin Huo was gone!

The little flame that had been with him for over a few hundred years was missing!

His best friend and his mentor, Xin Huo, was gone just like that. Without him by his side, how would Zhong Yue get through this predicament?

Where did Xin Huo go?

Could it be that along with his identity being revealed as a Fuxi, Xin Huo’s presence was also exposed and was taken away?

I mustn’t lose myself, keep calm, stay focus!

Zhong Yue calmed his mind and walked forward, he thought, Whoever it was, he didn’t take Xin Huo away. I ended up here right after I was sucked into the mirror, if Xin Huo was taken away, the copper lamp would’ve disappeared along with him as well. So that means Xin Huo should still be in the mirror just like me.

This mirror looks somewhat familiar, hmm, it must be the Heaven Origin Reincarnation Mirror. I’ve seen it before in the Bo Luo Six Paths World; appearing as a mirror centered by the Six Paths, it is, in truth, a continent created by the late Heavenly Monarch. No wonder I cannot see through the totem patterns on the walls, there is a high chance they are the Heavenly Monarch’s totem patterns.

Zhong Yue thought, I am now in one of the many buildings on this continent, only by leaving this place can I proceed in finding Xin Huo!

He sprinted down the endless corridor, twisting through the corners and soon after, he had reached the junction where the corridor separated into three different routes. Zhong Yue randomly picked one and continued, but faced the same situation not long later.

Simply choosing one of the three routes, he continued sprinting and soon met with another junction with three split routes!

A maze! Zhong Yue’s psyche shuddered as he realized he was trapped inside of a maze. Totem patterns surged out of his body and marked the walls beside him as he traveled. One route after another, it took some time before he saw his own totem patterns that were on the sides of the walls.

He continued without stopping at the same place for even a second, marking the routes he had taken with the totem patterns while he found his way out of the maze.

Mile after mile, route after route, he couldn’t even remember how much time had passed or how far he had gone, or how many routes have he had taken.

Hu—

Countless Yin and Yang lines surged out around him, Zhong Yue sat down in the lotus position and started the divinatory calculation technique to find the path out of the maze.

After a few days, he hopped up from the ground and bolted down the path he found.

Along the way, he had traveled longer and further than he could remember. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at the walls beside him, and on it, he wrote a sentence:

“Wrong, only death stands ahead.”

Zhong Yue startled, the words were left by someone unknown, indicating that the path ahead would only bring death them if they proceeded further.

“These words… they look familiar. Maybe they are from someone from the 3,000 Six Paths World grand competition who had also fallen into the mirror.”

He couldn’t afford wasting time to think anymore and sat down and cast the divinatory calculation technique again to find out what went wrong. After a long time, Zhong Yue finally found the mistake in his calculations. His face stiffened up and thought, This maze is so much bigger than I thought. I only took it as a near-million miles big maze, but now that it seems like it is more than tens of millions large. It is only natural that my calculations were wrong because I underestimated its size.

He immediately went back into the divinatory calculation technique. A few days later, he stood up repeated the arduous process again, only to be met with another warning left by someone.

“Wrong, only death stands ahead.”

Zhong Yue started another round of divinatory calculation technique, calculating another exit and rushed toward it. Then again, at a new place, a new wall, he again saw another warning with the same words written on it: “Wrong, only death stands ahead.”

He repeated the same process again and again until he began to lose track of how many times he reached a dead-end.

After half a year, Zhong Yue had finally reached the end of the maze. His heart pounded with excitement he took the final step out of the maze.

The exit doors were wide opened, when he walked through it, what came into his view was a grand palace shimmering with a golden luster and shrouded by colored rays that formed six light wheels around it.

The six light wheels were none other than the Six Paths Reincarnation!

The huge Six Paths Wheels seemed to hold the abstrusities of the power of Six Paths and Reincarnation.

Zhong Yue looked up and stared with his mouth agape as he found the light wheels were composed of many profound Dao totem patterns. They were the fundamental elements that formed the Six Paths Wheel. The Dao totem patterns seemed to undergo limitless transformations with each revolution of the wheels.

Is this the Six Paths Reincarnation created by a Heavenly Monarch?

He was dumbfounded, although it was a created Six Paths Reincarnation, he could not understand a single bit of it, even with the help of the saber ray.

At the center of the Six Paths Reincarnation hovered a mirror, smooth like a pond of still water and clear as crystal.

Where is the exit? I’ve calculated and successfully found it already, but why am I still unable to leave?

Zhong Yue looked further up and saw a galactic art above the ceiling where stars were orbiting the suns, and the suns were brightening the endless void. These were the creations of an expert, not real astronomical bodies in the universe.

It was impossible to leave this place as he would just end up lost in the boundless space created by Heavenly Monarch Tian Yuan.

Zhong Yue glanced around, other than the palace walls themselves, there was nothing left.

Hmm? Another galactic art on the ground? Is the path to exit related to the astronomical bodies?

He exclaimed and inspected the floor cautiously; someone has drawn the stars and suns with the totem patterns on the ground. Zhong Yue examined the orbits of the astronomical bodies and was puzzled, he mumbled softly, “No, this isn’t right. This is the galactic art of 3,000 years ago, they are different to the one on the ceiling, something is slightly off between the two… Wait, the totem patterns, I…”

Suddenly, his face changed drastically, fear crawled onto it and he shuddered in cold—those were his totem patterns!

The totem patterns that drew the galactic art on the floor, those were totem patterns unique to him and only him!

“My own totem patterns? I was the one who drew the galactic art? When did I draw it? When was I here?”

Zhong Yue couldn’t believe his findings, his eyes glared wide and his face changed again when he suddenly recalled, The warnings on the walls, they are only familiar because they belonged to me! Those words were left by me, but when did I write them?

His scalps tingled and beads of cold sweat rolled down his forehead.

Somehow, he had been here before, leaving one warning after another on the wrong paths to warm himself that those routes were not the exit he was looking for.

One wrong route, one warning, and one life! If it takes one life to explore on the wrong route and leave a warning behind, then don’t over 80 warnings means I’ve died over 80 times too? No, it can’t possibly be. I was here trapped in the mirror just half a year ago, how could I have died 80 times in the maze? Moreover, if I’m dead already, why am I still here, at the place where I first appeared in the maze?

His clothes were fully soaked by his own cold sweat as he thought. Zhong Yue tardily turned his head at the Six Paths Reincarnation in the center of the palace as a sudden realization dawned on him.

“It’s this Six Paths Reincarnation, resurrecting me after every death and throwing me back to the same spot one time after another…”

He stood there numbly for a long time. He explored the maze, had unknowingly died, and was revived with no memory of what happened and started exploring the maze again; and this has happened for more than 80 times.

If the galactic art on the floor belonged to 3,000 years ago, that would mean that after over 80 attempts of exiting the maze, he finally arrived here and left the galactic art on the ground, 3,000 years ago.

And heaven knows how long has passed over the course of that 80-odd times of death!

But it was strange he didn’t feel any loss of life essence in his atman. He came up with two possible explanations for this.

One, Heavenly Monarch Tian Yuan’s Heaven Origin Reincarnation Mirror had a flaw where there was no flow of time inside of the mirror but that the mirror had attached itself to the flow of time of reality, giving an illusion that time still flows inside of the mirror. Thus, although the evidence may suggest that 3,000 years have passed, it had only been a few days in reality.

The second explanation was that the Heaven Origin Reincarnation Mirror created an illusionary world and trapped him inside of it. Meaning everything that had happened was nothing more an illusion.

In comparison, Zhong Yue was more inclined to believe the first explanation; he had seen totem patterns that he could not decipher not even a tiny part of it, totem patterns like those couldn’t possibly be illusions.

There must be a flaw in this mirror, a loophole that I can leave from! Xin Huo, wait for me, I will find the exit and come find you!