After learning of the extensive potential of abnormal dangers and lethal horrors of the Void-Blank Space between galaxies, the group was strangely calm and jovial on deck.
Qing Qiumu, Yue Songli, and Wei Si often engaged in conversation and learned quite a bit about each other, especially Qing Qiumu and Yue Songli who shared their artistic depictions of events and the former sought tips on projecting her heart accurately and freely on a blank canvas. Meanwhile, Wei Si was sillily enjoying Qing Qiumu's company as his hulking frame moved around curiously like a child. He wouldn't refuse any request.
Cao Cuifen soon figured out that Su Mei had an invisible command over the Minor Elysium and willingly accepted her position as a companion of Wei Wuyin meant to enjoy her experience. She took to using the telescopic enhancement formation to see far away celestial bodies, including some formations that could peer into various dimensions of space and observe other existences.
The Ennea-Hall Alchemic Saint grew extremely fascinated with these void creatures. She even learned that Kaku Eaters were named such due to the strange 'Ka-ku' sounds they made when opening their giant dried lips with incomparably sharp teeth and chomping down on their targets. They would even consume other smaller void creatures, bringing them into their worlds and draining away their exhausted lifespan and soulspan. They were how they lived.
The Void-Blank Space was like the vast sea of a planet, containing countless smaller and larger lifeforms of abnormal shape and abilities.
Liu Suyin was right alongside her, and while she wasn't as deeply intrigued by every void creature, she did observe them and use this moment as a cultivation opportunity.
Periodically, Tuo Bihan would descend and ascend. Each time he was a smidge older by a few weeks to months and his aura was more reserved than before. He was undergoing a strange form of repeated cultivating that seemed to be displaying great effects.
Yao Houyi and Shui Fengbao remained at the helm to dual-pilot the ship as one directed it while the other provided the necessary Law aura to activate many of the formations to ward off creatures or shatter debris. They had great teamwork and took their task very seriously.
Ming Shufeng would provide timely information allowing the group to change course and avoid dangerous encounters such as creatures that even the Minor Elysium might have issues handling without a Sage at the helm. Her assistance was by far of the utmost importance. Slowly, the entire ship learned of the exceptional importance of possessing a skilled Heavenly Seer in any crew or party.
While she hadn't led them to any treasures or fortuitous encounters of the Dark Void, they traveled safely and that was enough for many of them. At times, she would go to Cao Cuifen and lead her to observe a specific direction or speak to Yue Songli about certain details of her paintings and a bit of information about them. She explained where the Ancient Sealed Regions were located in the Azure-Prime Galactic Zone and described the basic appearance of the Endless Void Mirror.
They hadn't seen it when they were outside the galactic zone, and that was largely due to the Endless Void Mirror melding with fixed space. This was information she had received from the Grand Seer long ago when she learned of the cage that was the Ancient Sealed Regions.
Before long, eight whole days had passed. Despite their lengthy travels, they didn't see a single cultivator or signs of a civilization.
"How far away are we from the nearest galaxy?" Cao Cuifen asked Su Mei. She looked at Shui Fengbao and saw his complexion was sickly pale and his red eyes were dim. The young man seemed on the verge of total exhaustion. Using the aura of laws was not easily done and exhausted one's soul, mental, and spiritual energies at once. The fact Shui Fengbao lasted eight whole days was a testament to his extraordinary foundation.
Yao Houyi was also looking a little mentally spent. Not even he was spared from the difficulties of managing so many formations on the Minor Elysium and remaining constantly vigilant. While he hadn't exhausted his soul while piloting the Minor Elysium, his mental and spiritual energies were drained by the second for doing so.
Cao Cuifen was concerned about those two and even considered taking over for Yao Houyi. She knew Shui Fengbao's job was something only he could do as she hadn't grasped any inkling of Laws.
Su Mei silently inspected the route in her mind. The detours had delayed them considerably. However, what she said left Cao Cuifen speechless. "About three years, seven months, and eighteen days away. If we continue traveling at this speed. We'll reach the external border of the White Abyssal Galaxy then."
"Thre-three years?!" Cao Cuifen was so astonished that her jaw dropped in disbelief.
While it took Young Master Shang four years to travel across four galaxies, they were under the command of a Sage whose grasp of laws was intermixed with their general cultivation base, and could fully utilize the maximum speed of the Stellar Transit Formation while ignoring many dangers that Ming Shufeng was actively seeking to avoid.
"Wait, only the external border? Doesn't that mean we'll still have to traverse the entire White Abyssal Galaxy after? And then three more galaxies? Three more galactic Void-Blank Spaces? How long would that take?!" Cao Cuifen was unable to believe that.
Su Mei answered flatly, "Without delay, about nine decades and six years."
ALMOST A CENTURY?!
"To get to the external border of the Treasured Vale Galaxy," Su Mei clarified. This dreadful clarification once again awoke Cao Cuifen to the vastness of the world beyond theirs. She felt like they were living on a single grain of sand on a beach. It caused her heart to palpitate with an overwhelming feeling of insignificance.
Su Mei saw her on the verge of hyperventilating and faintly sighed in her heart. "When Lord Wei leaves his seclusion, it'll take us considerably less time. He'll spare some time for you to observe the beauties of the galaxies and their profound mysteries on the way." She paused for a second and added, "To him, for you, the vastness of the world is within his palms."
Her attempt at consoling was oddly effective. Cao Cuifen's gaze shifted to the door leading below deck and the feeling of existentially insignificant dread slowly receded. She had nearly forgotten that Wei Wuyin could conjure Void Portals and that the entire world was in his view. Moreover, he had said they would reach the Blessed Yri Empire in a year.
A flicker of desire emerged in her heart when she thought of Wei Wuyin and Su Mei's earlier words. What woman didn't want a man who could make the vastness of the world seem within her limits? To trivialize sizes that could send minds into a spiraling descent of madness?
Su Mei could see the glint in her eyes. "You can go down," she said through spiritual transmission.
"What?" Cao Cuifen was taken aback. "Go down?"
Su Mei nodded. She gestured down below the deck. She didn't elaborate and only went on to inspect Shui Fengbao and Yao Houyi's conditions. "Take a break," she instructed. The two nodded and Shui Fengbao slowly retracted his Law of Fire aura. Then, slowly, an encroaching shadowy darkness took over the ship, becoming as black as the chasm of eternal night.
Su Mei took the helm, and her shadow moved imperceptibly, while the two went below deck ready to enter a vortex-zone and recover their spent energies and cultivate a little.
Cao Cuifen was still a little baffled, but after glancing at the door and seeing everyone occupied with one thing or another, she went downstairs. As she did, she found herself before Wei Wuyin's room as if she had stepped through a Void Gate. The sensation was natural and indistinguishable from entering a door.
"Oh..." Her eyes shone and her cheeks blushed. When the door opened slightly welcoming her, everything made sense. Her body heated up and she went inside.
A few hours later, she returned to the upper deck of the vessel with a shadow of a smile on her lips. The receded feelings of dread were abolished entirely, no longer existing in her heart. The expanse of the void was more beautiful than before.
"Has it only been a few hours?" She was fascinated by the time acceleration of Wei Wuyin's new product.
Unlike mortals or Liu Suyin who grasped the concept of the vastness of space and time intimately with her cultivation base, thereby influencing her mental and spiritual emotions toward all this, Cao Cuifen was quite vulnerable to the feelings of insignificance and existential dread due to her cultivation base and ignorance. The others seemed to be in great spirits, and she joined them once again.
"Did you find any new creatures?" She asked Liu Suyin.
"We did! There was a square-shaped, scaly..."
Su Mei observed this and nodded to herself. Wei Wuyin knew how to handle matters of the psyche incredibly well and had long since told her to send Cao Cuifen down after a few days when she would inevitably grasp the sheer vastness of the world and feel its crushing weight on her sense of existence.
Now, she just needed to be on the lookout for any extraordinary events or phenomena for them to enjoy and remain distracted. In truth, their route wasn't planned to arrive at the White Vessel Galaxy but to find strange oddities of the Void-Blank Space. For example, the region filled with Kaku Eaters was planned.
They had circled around for a whole day until the time was right and there were no mature ones nearby that would instantly consume them. She was careful in her planning and considerations. If not, lowering the shields was a surefire way to die an instant and inexplicable death.
Cao Cuifen and the rest were also observing the regions of other strange and beautiful void creatures. Su Mei couldn't help but feel like this was parallel to those areas where animals were on display, like a zoo or aquarium, and this was a beautiful distraction for the group of ladies.
Wei Wuyin stood before the Neo-Dawn Ascension Cauldron, his Alchemical Eden Starforce poured into the cauldron miraculously as Utmost Purity Mist loomed throughout the entire room in an abnormal thickness that was suffocating. Fortunately, Wei Wuyin didn't need to breathe.
More than a year had passed, and Wei Wuyin had concocted a series of successful Mystic-Earth and Mystic-World products.
Suddenly, the inside of the cauldron flashed with the extraordinary color of fusion, the last concoction process of Alchemy. With a soft shudder, a geyser of Utmost Purity Mist shot out of the cauldron and thickened the mist. The single gush of mist exceeded the majority of Wei Wuyin's efforts while concocting only ninth-grade products. Moreover, there was a mystifying aura within as faint alchemical runes flickered in and out of existence from time to time exuding a worldly aura.
"Not a single failure," a voice of indescribable disbelief resounded within Wei Wuyin's Sea of Consciousness. After sixteen months of concoction with a single break with Cao Cuifen, Wei Wuyin hadn't failed a single time.
Not a single time! Moreover, this was the Mystic-World graded Neo-Dawn World-Eclipsing Pill! MYSTIC-WORLD!
While it was only low-tier, the results left the Heavenly War Spirit feeling as if this wasn't real. Just like how teachers would always tell outstanding children that seeking further education at higher levels would be difficult and they wouldn't skirt by as they were now, the Heavenly War Spirit assumed that Wei Wuyin's extraordinary feats in the Alchemic Dao would slowly lessen with time.
But it hadn't! IT HADN'T! In fact, it's gotten more obscene and unreasonable!!!
Wei Wuyin slowly waved his hand to create a small personal region where the Utmost Purity Mist was absent and pulled his hand upwards from the mouth of the cauldron.
Thirty-three pills slowly floated upwards. Thirty-three Neo-Dawn World-Eclipsing Pills!
Moreover, there wasn't a single low-quality or high-quality at all!
The four Astral Souls were like ravenous wolves as they slurped eight each, leaving a single one behind within the blink of an Ascended's eye. Wei Wuyin's Alchemic Stars of Transcendent Purity glinted mystically as he brought out a jade bottle covered in gorgeous runes, keeping the single leftover pill within. His expression grew contemplative while the Astral Souls did their thing, refining the pills at speeds that would shock all of heaven and earth.
Each pill was of peak-quality!
"Master, is there something wrong?" Bai Xiu asked as she tried to contain her wild excitement. The Utmost Purity Mist produced by the successful concoction of thirty-three peak-quality, low-tier, Mystic-World graded pills was enough to exceed Wei Wuyin's entire lifetime of successful concocting before.
Wei Wuyin looked at the cauldron that was subtly releasing the chewing sounds of a hungry beast. There was so much Utmost Purity Mist that Bai Xiu couldn't contain it all. After all, this was his third batch.
Wei Wuyin was unable to accurately process his feelings recently. The memories of his alternative version and the current him didn't just illustrate a difference as vast as heaven and earth, it felt more like there was no comparison.
"The Stellar-Paragon Physique..." Wei Wuyin felt a type of unity with the Mystic Dao that was unprecedented as he grasped finer details of mystic-graded materials and could extrapolate and refine them at levels unfathomable to his Earthly Saint alternative version. Additionally, the Alchemic Stars of Transcendent Purity assisted subtly as well.
"The Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity's Gaze of the Celestial and Eye of Creation is the greatest difference," Wei Wuyin could generate top-tier materials using his Spiritual Energy and correct any imperfections they may have, only increasing the potential quality and success of each concoction.
All of his advantages were piling on explosively. While jumping beyond the Earthly Saint Alchemist level in a single step was unbelievable, in many ways, thanks to his memories, he had already spent decades at that level. But all of the things that gave him these advantages, his other self hadn't had.
The Stellar-Paragon Physique, the heaven-defying foundation, the Alchemic Stars of Transcendent Purity, the Eye of Creation and his Gaze of the Celestial, Little Defiant providing a seemingly endless amount of energy, including Bai Xiu's Neo-Dawn Ascension Cauldron who was assisting him at every step of the way in concoction while he was using various alchemic methods that far exceeded his other self, such as the Eighth Source Transcendence Spell, and all the other little things such as his Second Mind and the Library of Eden that could improve spells, methods, and the circulation of alchemical energies through theory.
After a long, long moment, he released a soft, heart-born sigh.
"Is it right to be shaken to the core by how outstanding all the fruits of your efforts manifested in reality?" Wei Wuyin chuckled.
"..." Bai Xiu was unable to respond to that. She didn't know how to begin to answer.
"Forget it. As this path of ours continues, so will our cultivation, and each step must be made firmly without slacking off in the slightest." Wei Wuyin's heart of cultivation was incomparably firm, and being too extraordinary was not an issue he should be considering. Even with all these advantages, as a mortal, he could still die.
He wasn't invincible. He had to constantly remind himself of that. The munching and mumbling sounds of the four Astral Souls resounded as they agreed. Even King's 'tch' resembled a child with their mouth stuffed.
"I could be considered a full-fledged Worldly Saint Alchemist," only after using the Thirty-Three Heavenly Concoction Method did Wei Wuyin ever consider himself a genuine alchemist of any level. After succeeding multiple times already, there was no doubt in his mind about his status.
While most alchemists set their standard at a low success rate of twenty percent or so, Wei Wuyin's standard had always been unreasonable at thirty-three simultaneous successes, and never relied on any success rate.n A truly absurd standard. If the world's alchemists knew that an ignorant little Eden Earth Sect's Sect Master had used such a standard to determine a 'true' alchemist, they would be outraged.
Yet a single young mortal man who was currently in his ninety-ninth year had long since used that as his standard of success, and that pursuit of a baseline had assisted him in looking far, far beyond the norm.
Suddenly, Wei Wuyin received two messages simultaneously. One was from Su Mei.
The other was from Xue Yifei.
"Happy Birthday."
"Happy 100th Birthday, my love."
The first was in real-time while the second was a timed message linked to his life aura, something she had left in his Saint Ring for him long ago.
A feeling of indescribable warmth suffused his heart, mind, soul, and True Soul.

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