Chapter 559: Seeds of Legacy

Song Chi nodded, not denying anything. With both people in front of him being family, there was nothing to hide.

Seeing his nod, Song Wujian didn’t reply right away. Instead, he thought for a moment before slowly shaking his head.

“Xiaochi, the Clan Elder appreciates your goodwill. I know you have special transplantation techniques that can ensure a high success rate, but you understand the saying—you can’t put all your eggs in one basket, right?”

Hearing that, Song Chi instantly understood what the Clan Elder meant.

It wasn’t that Song Wujian didn’t trust him. The real issue was that the Cultivation Sanctuary was already stocked with high-grade spirit plants. If they kept transferring more without limit, they’d just be creating hidden dangers.

“Sanctuary Accelerator” was an extraordinary feature that could greatly speed up the production of rare resources, but it was still a mobile sanctuary entirely dependent on the Heavenly Ruin. Song Chi couldn’t possibly stay with the family forever or give up his adventures.

If, by chance, something were to happen to the Heavenly Ruin one day, all the transplanted high-grade resources inside the Cultivation Sanctuary would fall right into the hands of outsiders. For a noble house that’s survived thousands of years, that would be unacceptable.

Let alone the newly-promoted Dreadnought Heavenly Ruin—even the Star-Annihilator-class Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang was at risk. As long as it kept exploring the Outer Domain, the danger of perishing among the stars was always there.

A mature force simply couldn’t put all their hopes on a battleship like this—one that could be lost any moment in the Outer Domain. Doing so could mean the end of their legacy.

Song Chi understood, so he didn’t dwell on it. He followed the other two out of the sanctuary.

Just as they were about to leave the Dragon-Spine Secret Domain, Song Wujian gave him a final reminder.

“Xiaochi, break through to Sixth Tier in Guiding Technique as soon as you can. After that, we’ve got a trip to the Outer Domain ahead!”

Song Chi: ???

That sudden statement left Song Chi full of questions.

But this time Song Wujian was in no hurry to explain, just giving Song Yan at his side a brief, meaningful glance.

Noticing Song Chi’s gaze, Song Yan smiled, but kept things mysterious.

“It’s related to the advanced civilization legacy I acquired.”

It’s about that civilization legacy?

Now Song Chi was truly interested. He knew full well that the legacy his eldest brother obtained came from a very unusual advanced civilization.

Rumor had it that eons ago, this civilization was on par with the current Torch Human Civilization. Compared to ordinary ruins, one from such a powerful force would be many times richer in treasures.

So when he heard it was related to that, Song Chi couldn’t help but react.

Since neither of them seemed keen to say more, Song Chi let it go.

Once they left the Dragon-Spine Secret Domain, the three prepared to head off for solitary cultivation. Before parting, though, Song Chi pulled out two impressively large Deepwater Pearls.

“These are high-aged Deepwater Pearls—one is thirty thousand years old, the other sixty thousand. If you use them together with a Superior Body-Tempering Elixir and a Nirvana Tempering Fruit, the effects should be even better!”

He tossed the sixty-thousand-year-old pearl to the Clan Elder and gave the thirty-thousand-year-old one to Song Yan. With that, the three went their separate ways.

Back at Azure Moon Estate, Song Chi headed straight for the Market.

Now that he’d heard about the advanced civilization legacy from Song Yan, he was even more eager to break through to the Sixth Tier in Guiding Technique.

Inside the level 61 Full-Attribute Cultivation Chamber, Song Chi sat down in the standard cultivation pose for Guiding Technique.

He held a Nirvana Tempering Fruit in his right hand and a hefty Deepwater Pearl in his left.

Judging by its size, this pearl was clearly bigger than the one he’d given Song Yan, but just a bit smaller than the sixty-thousand-year-old one he handed to Song Wujian. Its age was likely somewhere in between.

And that was exactly right—it was fifty thousand years old.

The origins of these high-grade Deepwater Pearls, of course, were tied to the Cultivation Sanctuary and Azure Spirit Spring.

Back when his Guiding Technique hit the peak of level 59, with nowhere left to advance, Song Chi didn’t immediately harvest the water mollusks in the Azure Spirit Spring. He simply cleared out the dead ones and kept introducing new batches, year after year, and over the decades managed to cultivate a few truly high-aged pearls.

Unfortunately, time had been short and survival rates were low. The oldest was sixty thousand years, followed by fifty thousand and thirty thousand. There were five at twenty thousand years, but after reaching the Sixth Tier in Guiding Technique, pearls of that age would hardly have any effect—it’d take at least thirty to fifty thousand years for a real impact.

He shook his head and didn’t dwell on such things.

He crushed the Deepwater Pearl, then took out a Superior Body-Tempering Elixir. Once the two had fully blended, he downed the mix in one gulp.

After swallowing that special elixir, Song Chi’s cultivation of the Guiding Technique truly began.

He didn’t rush to use the Nirvana Tempering Fruit; instead, he waited for just the right moment to break past the barrier between Fifth and Sixth Tier.

Heat surged up from his stomach, carried by the circulation of ether through his body, spreading energy everywhere.

Within just a dozen minutes, Song Chi felt his entire body, bones and all, overflowing with rolling waves of heat. He was like a blazing furnace, his skin flushing red, waves of heat rising off him in visible shimmers. Clearly, the fifty-thousand-year-old Deepwater Pearl was working its magic.

Yet, despite all this, his Guiding Technique had already reached the peak of Fifth Tier, with nowhere else to go. That left him no choice but to let this torrent of energy spill outward through his skin.

Song Chi wasn’t worried. He gathered his focus into every part of his body. The instant a breakthrough chance arose, he’d use the Nirvana Tempering Fruit to charge straight through the threshold of the Sixth Tier.

Of course, breaking through to the Fifth or Sixth Tier was never so easy.

Even with help from a Superior Body-Tempering Elixir and pearls of such age, it was still a real challenge.

Time drifted by in this state.

In the blink of an eye, ten years passed.

……

Calamity Star Continent. Public Zone. Dragon Spine City.

Top floor of the Song Family’s Dragon Spine Commercial Tower.

Two Song clan members, each exuding Fourth Tier vitality, spoke in hushed voices. Around them was a special ether-isolation barrier, but that was only part of their security. At each corner of the top-floor room stood a hi-tech pillar; together the four created a miniature illusion space inside the room.

With this double protection, the two finally dared to speak quietly.

“Ze, any news?”

“Relax. Our people have already delivered the latest batch of war supplies from all the marketplace cities.”

But Song Ze’s eyes betrayed some hesitation.

Not missing this, Song Bei asked directly:

“What’s wrong? Did something go bad?”

Song Ze shook his head.

“No, everyone we assigned to procurement was extra careful thanks to repeated instructions. No outsiders noticed a thing. I’m worried about something else.”

“Since the family’s order, we’ve been quietly buying up war materials on the Calamity Star Floating-Land for nearly forty years. Even without drawing suspicion, this much buying has started pushing up prices in city markets. If we keep going, the other powers in the Kingdom will notice something’s off even if we stay hidden.”

When Song Bei heard this, his brows furrowed. It was definitely a tough problem.

And it probably wasn’t only Calamity Star Floating-Land. This was likely happening in Yaohan Kingdom and Silverplate Floating-land, too. Only the Red Star Continent would be immune; with such a huge territory, even the Song Family couldn’t move the market by buying everything up.

Just then, an ancient voice sounded in Song Bei’s mind, only audible to him.

“Don’t worry about it. Keep buying. You’ve done this forty years already. The Four Great Empires should be sending out official news within the next ten years, so don’t waste energy fretting. Push all-out now; buy as much as you can before war goods spike even higher.

Anyway, since this is a big deal, better report back to the Dragon-Spine Continent—just in case!”

Hearing this, Song Bei exchanged a look with Song Ze. The next second, they left the room and headed straight for the depths below the commercial tower.

Deep under Dragon Spine City, past the main battleship summoning chamber, a vast stone chamber had been dug out. At its center hovered a wide dimensional wormhole.

This spatial wormhole pulsed with powerful ripples at all times. The only reason it went unnoticed above, with all the city’s traffic, was because the chamber had a medium-scale illusion set up—without that, they’d never keep it hidden.

That’s right—the wormhole was created by the High-Dimensional Wormhole Generator just a few years ago.

After the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang was promoted to Star-Annihilator-class, the family joined the Immortal Houses. With Song Wujian in closed-door training for Seventh Tier in Guiding Technique, they used the Tri-Eye Spirit-Lock Ring to unmount the wormhole generator, carving out portals on several key floating-lands.

Travel between the family’s floating-lands became vastly easier, and acquiring war supplies sped up as well.

The two quickly stepped through the wormhole, returning to Dragon-Spine Continent.

Inside Dragon Whale Hall, the air swirled with Chaotic Mist.

After hearing Song Ze and Song Bei’s report, Song Shiyuan gave them the same answer as that ancient voice in Song Bei’s head.

Once the two left the hall, Song Shiyuan turned his attention to Song Chi, who had just finished closed-door cultivation.

Sensing the powerful Sixth Tier aura radiating from Song Chi, Song Shiyuan’s face broke into a proud smile.