CHAPTER 514

High above, the flowing light of the Void Flying Boat streaked through the skies, soaring ever upward under Lu Qing’s command.

Before long, it entered the layer of Astral Winds.

In an instant, countless raging winds and bolts of astral lightning surged toward the Void Flying Boat, seeking to destroy the foreign object.

The terrifying force was so great that even a cultivator of the Golden Core Realm would struggle to withstand it.

Without a protective artifact, one would likely be reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, the Void Flying Boat was made of an extremely rare material, and the formation arrays embedded within were of extraordinary intricacy.

No matter how many astral winds and lightning bolts rained down upon it, they caused no harm.

Instead, they were swiftly absorbed by the flying boat as if sinking into a vast ocean, converted by the formations into power to fuel its flight.

Thus, not only did the Void Flying Boat not slow down, but its speed actually increased, piercing through the astral winds and arriving before a membrane of chaotic color—plunging straight into it.

At once, Lu Qing’s vision blurred, and he found himself in a vast, empty space.

All around him was emptiness, while ahead lay the dazzling starry sky.

“So that was the World Membrane just now?”

Lu Qing turned to look behind him.

There, behind him, was a boundless world, completely encased in a membrane of chaotic light.

It shimmered faintly in the emptiness of the starry void.

“The pressure of just a Small World is already so immense. Then how unfathomable must the Middle Worlds and Great Worlds be?”

Lu Qing marveled at the power radiating from that vast world, deeply shaken.

On his shoulders, Xiaoli and Wuxing wore similar expressions of awe.

To observe a complete world from such close proximity in the starry sky had stirred them to their core.

Even their Golden Core Dao hearts trembled under the sheer impact.

After observing for a long while, Lu Qing felt that even his own Dao heart had become more resolute.

He turned his gaze toward the starry expanse ahead. “Let’s go. I hope even greater sights await us.”

With that thought, he once more channeled his will, and the Void Flying Boat transformed into flowing light, soaring toward the brilliant stars in the distance. ŕÁ𝐍ȯ𝐛Ê𝒮

“Hm? The flying boat’s speed has increased even more after entering the starry sky. Is it because there are no longer the restraints of world laws?”

As he pushed it forward, Lu Qing immediately noticed the drastic acceleration.

In mere moments, the speed had surpassed anything achievable back in his home world.

And the amount of spiritual power consumed was significantly reduced.

After a brief moment of thought, Lu Qing understood why.

Within his home world, the speed of any artifact or cultivator was restricted by the laws of heaven and earth, capped by a certain limit.

Approaching that limit would trigger warnings from the Heavenly Dao.

Should one persist in ignoring those warnings and continue to accelerate, the will of the Heavenly Dao might respond with punishment, directly ejecting them from the world.

But in the vastness of the starry sky, there was no such suppression by the will of heaven, nor was there atmospheric resistance.

Naturally, the speed of the Void Flying Boat could soar beyond previous limits.

“Good. In that case, the time I spend on the journey may end up being far shorter than I anticipated.”

Delighted, Lu Qing continued to increase the speed of the flying boat.

However, once the speed reached a hundred times that of the maximum he could attain in his home world, a sudden sense of dread surged within him.

The rate at which his spiritual power was consumed began to spike drastically.

In the blink of an eye, a tenth of it had been drained, startling Lu Qing into immediately slowing down the flying boat.

Once the consumption of spiritual power returned to normal, Lu Qing finally sighed in relief.

For someone of his strength—a cultivator with a Perfect Golden Core—losing a tenth of his power was no small matter.

Even a Superior Golden Core cultivator of the third refinement would fall far short of that.

“So even in the starry sky, one can’t recklessly pursue speed without limit.

A hundredfold of my home world’s limit seems to be a critical threshold.

Surpassing that point means every small increase in speed will result in exponentially greater consumption of power.”

An understanding dawned in Lu Qing’s heart.

With that realization, he ceased increasing speed further.

Instead, he kept the Void Flying Boat hovering right near the hundredfold limit, then inserted a spirit stone into the boat’s formation array.

The Void Flying Boat could be powered purely by spiritual power, but also through the use of spirit stones.

Given the unknown dangers of the starry sky, Lu Qing naturally didn’t want to expend too much of his own power needlessly. He opted to rely mainly on spirit stones.

Allocating a sliver of his focus to control the flying boat’s trajectory, Lu Qing pulled out the Celestial Map to verify his course and avoid losing his way.

In the dark void, the Void Flying Boat continued on its journey.

Ten days passed, and still, the starry sky ahead showed no signs of change.

The surroundings remained a sea of darkness, with only the occasional drifting starry meteorite for company.

The glow of his home world had long since disappeared.

“No wonder the home world isn’t marked on the Celestial Map. This dark and empty region is simply too vast.”

Lu Qing was quietly astounded.

After all, he had traveled at a speed a hundred times that of his home world’s limit for ten consecutive days.

That distance would take even a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator months of nonstop travel to cross.

More importantly, even now, Lu Qing saw no sign of nearing the edge of this dark, void region.

Still, this had been within his expectations.

If it were truly that easy to cross this region, then the Nascent Soul experts who had gone out to explore in the previous Immortal Era wouldn’t have returned empty-handed—or vanished altogether.

Thus, Lu Qing wasn’t discouraged. He patiently continued piloting the Void Flying Boat forward.

In this way, another month passed, yet the flying boat had still not exited the void region.

Then, one day, the flying boat suddenly began to tremble and spin in place, almost slipping from his control.

At the same time, a powerful spatial force took hold of the boat, pulling it forward as if to drag it in.

“Chaotic spatial currents? And such powerful ones?!” Lu Qing was startled.

Ahead of him lay a vast expanse of spatial turbulence.

Its range was so immense that even with the strength of his divine soul, he could not sense its borders.

“Ah Qing, that’s chaotic spatial flow. We can’t go any further—if we get caught in it, we may never come out again!”

At that moment, Xiaoli called out in warning.

As a spirit beast with innate spatial powers, it could feel the wild and twisted spatial forces ahead.

Once caught in them, they would be in grave danger.

“I know!”

Lu Qing understood the seriousness of the situation and immediately began maneuvering the flying boat to retreat.

Fortunately, they had only brushed the edge of the spatial turbulence and managed to break free from its pull with relative ease.

But once out of danger and sensing the chaotic currents ahead, Lu Qing found himself in a dilemma.

From his perception, he couldn’t detect the end of the spatial storm.

Pushing forward was clearly not an option—once caught deep inside, who knew what might happen?

They could very well end up sealed within a spatial vortex, lost forever.

“In that case, we can only try the sides.”

After some consideration, Lu Qing decided to steer the Void Flying Boat to the right.

He would see whether it was possible to skirt around the chaotic spatial currents from the flanks.

However, after Lu Qing piloted the Void Flying Boat at full speed toward the right for another two days, his expression grew grim once more.

The band of chaotic spatial currents ahead still remained, with no sign of reaching its edge.

“Could it be… this spatial turbulence stretches across the entire starry sky?”

Lu Qing found it hard to believe.

He knew that was unlikely.

But these two days of flight had made one thing abundantly clear—

This region of spatial turbulence spanned a distance far greater than he had imagined.

Even if it didn’t extend across the entire sky, it still covered an unfathomable area.

“Ah Qing, what do we do now?”

Xiaoli looked at the expanse of chaotic spatial currents ahead and was similarly dumbfounded.

Lu Qing composed himself and said, “We can’t keep going like this. If this turbulent zone is larger than we anticipated, we might veer off course from the Celestial Map’s guidance.”

“Then what are you planning, Ah Qing?” Xiaoli asked.

“We’ll have to take a gamble.”

Lu Qing took out a mid-grade spirit stone and flicked it into the flying boat’s formation array.

Then, flooding it with his spiritual sense, he activated the formation in full. Layer after layer of glowing light surged forth as a powerful spatial force surged around the boat.

In the next moment, a spatial vortex appeared before them, and the Void Flying Boat plunged into it and vanished.

Not long after, in another region of radiant starry sky, a new spatial vortex swirled open—and from within emerged a somewhat battered, ancient-looking silver flying boat.

“Ah Qing, we made it out!”

Xiaoli immediately cried out upon seeing the radiant stars all around.

“Did we succeed?”

Feeling the calm atmosphere around them, Lu Qing finally let out a breath of relief.

Just as he had hoped, the Void Flying Boat’s ability to traverse space was enough to bypass the chaotic spatial zone.

After all, the two foreign cultivators who had discovered his home world had done so because they had triggered an ancient teleportation array and, with the flying boat’s spatial traversal capabilities, had crossed most of the Immortal Domain to reach the world.

That proved it was indeed possible to cross spatial turbulence by means of void travel.

Crack!

At that moment, a crisp cracking sound snapped Lu Qing from his thoughts.

Looking up, he saw that the mid-grade spirit stone placed within the array had developed a fracture.

It was a sign that the stone’s spiritual energy had been exhausted. Lu Qing quickly replaced it with a low-grade spirit stone.

“I can’t believe that burned through a whole mid-grade spirit stone…” he said with a pained expression.

The reason he hadn’t used spatial traversal earlier was because he couldn’t gauge the full size of the turbulence ahead.

He had feared that the range might exceed the distance the flying boat could cover in one jump—leaving them trapped mid-way in the currents.

To avoid that, he had used a mid-grade spirit stone to push the flying boat’s spatial traversal to its maximum potential.

In the end, the result had been well worth it.

At least they had successfully crossed the chaotic spatial region.

Still, losing a mid-grade spirit stone stung.

They were precious, and Lu Qing didn’t have many to begin with.

On this journey, he had been using low-grade spirit stones to power the boat all along.

Losing one so suddenly—of course it hurt.

That said, Lu Qing now finally understood something—

The reason why the Nascent Soul cultivators of the previous Immortal Era had failed to find a way forward in the starry sky was very likely because of this very spatial turbulence.

After all, the ability to perform spatial shifts was an incredibly profound divine ability.

Only those who had reached great heights and endured many tribulations in the Nascent Soul Realm might grasp such a power.

And according to the old dragon tortoise, most of the Nascent Soul cultivators from his home world during that era had only just stepped into that realm.

At best, Lu Qing guessed, the strongest among them might have reached the First or Second Tribulation.

At such levels, even if they had some insight into the Dao of Space, without a special spatial treasure, they likely couldn’t cross such a region.

“Perhaps that’s why none of those Nascent Soul cultivators from back then ever returned to the home world.

Did they all perish in the spatial currents?

Or… did some of them make it through, successfully overcoming this trial?”

Lu Qing wondered silently.

Of course, it was all just speculation for now.

To know the truth, he would have to someday meet a cultivator—or perhaps a descendant—from that bygone era.

Putting away his thoughts, Lu Qing retrieved the Celestial Map and began surveying his current position.

Earlier, in order to ensure he could traverse the turbulent zone, he had pushed the flying boat’s spatial traversal to the utmost.

He had no idea where he’d ended up.

“I’ve actually entered the region of the Great Yuan Immortal Domain?”

After a round of probing and calculations using the Celestial Map, a faint smile appeared on Lu Qing’s face.

He was now within the boundaries of the Great Yuan Immortal Domain.

Though still quite far from its central regions, at least he was no longer in a barren void.

“The Void Flying Boat truly is extraordinary. That spatial jump just now probably crossed a distance that even a Nascent Soul cultivator would need years of nonstop flight to traverse.”

With that in mind, Lu Qing didn’t feel quite so bad about the cost of that mid-grade spirit stone.

Still, even so, he had no intention of using another mid-grade spirit stone for travel unless absolutely necessary.

“From here on, I’ll travel by conventional means. It’ll give me a chance to appreciate the starry scenery of the Great Yuan Immortal Domain.”

Having made his decision, Lu Qing resumed his journey, steering the flying boat toward his destination as marked on the Celestial Map.

In the days that followed, Lu Qing, Xiaoli, and Wuxing continued traveling while admiring the starry sights along the way.

At first, it was all fresh and fascinating—but after a few days, the novelty wore off.

Aside from Lu Qing, who still needed to guide the boat, Xiaoli and Wuxing simply entered seclusion to cultivate.

Naturally, Lu Qing didn’t dedicate all his focus to piloting either.

Having trained in the Art of Soul Division, he only needed to spare a sliver of his consciousness to control the boat.

He spent most of his time cultivating and refining his Dao techniques.

In this way, several more months passed.

Along the way, Lu Qing encountered several worlds.

However, they were all Small Worlds, far from the kind he sought.

So he didn’t approach them, merely passing by in silence.

Then, one day, as the flying boat once again passed by a world—

Suddenly, the entire vessel trembled violently, as if it had struck something.

At the same moment, a chilling voice echoed out of nowhere.

“How fortunate for me. A few fledglings traveling through the stars? Get down here—now!”