CHAPTER 261: PATRIARCH’S ORDER

Xiang Yu also assigned the light clone a crucial side mission of researching the time domain. This wasn’t something he’d decided on randomly or as an afterthought. When the empress had been demonstrating the time domain to them earlier, Xiang Yu had witnessed two distinctly different phenomena that fascinated him beyond measure.

First was witnessing the zone where time still flowed naturally, unaffected by the domain’s influence. The second was witnessing the zone where time didn’t flow at all, completely frozen in an eternal moment. When the empress had activated the time stop ability, his clone hadn’t been positioned within the range of the naturally flowing time and had become part of the stopped time instead.

Since his clones were all essentially him existing simultaneously across multiple bodies, he had experienced what felt like eternity during that brief moment when time was frozen. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever encountered—his consciousness trapped in a single instant that stretched on infinitely while his body remained completely motionless.

During this seemingly endless eternity, he had tried desperately to grasp the underlying workings of the domain, partly to cure the overwhelming boredom of being trapped in frozen time, but mostly out of genuine curiosity about how such power functioned. Through his careful observation and analysis during those timeless moments, he had managed to gain a small understanding—just a tiny fragment of insight into the mechanics of temporal manipulation.

Still, this was merely a small piece of an impossibly complex puzzle, and he remained infinitely far from grasping anything truly tangible or useful. The domain’s workings were so sophisticated and intricate that his brief exposure had only scratched the surface of its mysteries.

But this didn’t discourage him in the slightest. Due to his level ten mind, he retained all the knowledge and sensory memories from that experience, storing every detail in his mind. He wanted the light clone to dedicate significant time to decrypting and studying all this accumulated information, hoping to see if he could gradually piece together how the time domain actually worked.

If he could somehow figure out how to manipulate and control time. "Kekeke, let’s just say..."

He had now assigned roles to all the clones, so it was time to determine his own responsibilities. For himself, he would focus entirely on cultivation and running battle simulations throughout the day. He had initially considered assigning the wind clone to run simulations endlessly, but surprisingly, despite all the clones being extensions of himself, he couldn’t access the system interface through any of the other clones.

It was probably another built-in safety mechanism of the system so he didn’t bother questioning it too deeply, he was just grateful that he had finally achieved his long-held dream. Except for the time he would spend cooking meals or entertaining his junior sister during her visits, he could dedicate his entire day to pure cultivation.

He had finally, truly built the ultimate experience farm he had always envisioned.

He decided to begin with a battle simulation to test his improved abilities. As usual, he selected the Nascent Soul realm version of Li Yao as his opponent. He quickly destroyed the first few combat forms with ease—even the limit break form that he had been equally matched with before was now easily defeated, probably thanks to his recent breakthrough in body refining caused by his bloodline transformations.

Now he could finally face the true challenge, that mysterious new form.

As he stood ready for battle, he saw the world around him suddenly freeze completely, and he quickly turned around. His gaze met the mysterious form for the first time. She looked somewhat like the limit break Li Yao, but her body seemed transformed into pure ice. This ice had countless cracks spreading across its surface, revealing dark miasma seeping through the fractures underneath. She wore an indifferent expression as she stretched out her hand toward him.

He could see her hand moving in slow motion, but he couldn’t move his own body at all. She then clenched her outstretched arm into a fist. Glass-like shards began breaking away from her body, and with that motion, the space around Xiang Yu shattered along with him.

His eyes opened in the physical world, returning to reality.

He thought to himself that even after this improvement, it didn’t make much difference against her. But now he could confirm that she wasn’t actually as strong as he had expected, in fact, her body was even falling apart, it was just that she wielded some sort of space-related domain ability. As long as he had a domain of his own to negate the effect...

He smiled, realizing another positive development—his future sight had actually improved to five seconds now. It seemed to have increased after his mind level had advanced.

...

Wang Jian and Liu Feng wore serious expressions as Elder Huang escorted them through the corridors towards the sect master’s office.

As they walked, they suddenly noticed something happening directly in front of them...

Li Yao was making her way towards her office with a pouting expression as the empress was preventing her from staying with her senior brother longer and watching him work.

[Do you even hear yourself? How is that productive?] the empress tried to reason with her, but Li Yao just let out an indignant "humph," clearly unwilling to see reason.

The empress let out a long sigh. [Sigh... there’s this 10/10 sigma approved guaranteed to work charm technique that I discovered in my younger days...] she began.

As soon as those words left her mouth, Li Yao’s attention was immediately captured. Even the little Li Yao floating in the spiritual sea stopped playfully waving Xiang Yu around like a toy to listen intently to this conversation.

[I was hoping to find a truly hard-working person to pass this technique on to, so it doesn’t rot away unused. But it seems that’ll never happen in this lifetime. Such a pity—it was such an incredibly valuable technique too. I had to beat up the love goddess to obtain it, but... sigh.] She sighed even more dramatically, her voice dripping with disappointment.

"I’m hard working... teach me..." the small Li Yao tried to speak up eagerly, but Xiang Yu quickly sealed her mouth with his hand.

"No, that’s for adults only. I’ll teach you a different technique instead," Xiang Yu spoke.

"But I want that one! Yao Yao isn’t a kid anymore!" she protested, struggling against his grip, but Xiang Yu didn’t budge and simply dragged her away.

Hearing this exchange, the other Li Yao’s expression immediately hardened with determination. "As the sect master, it’s my solemn duty to serve the sect properly. How could I be so lazy and irresponsible? I’m truly ashamed of myself," she declared as she quickened her pace toward her office.

The empress smiled knowingly upon hearing this response. She thought to herself that although the charm technique was indeed 10/10 guaranteed effective, those particular statistics came from the previous owner who had killed anyone it didn’t work on. So technically, she wasn’t...

As Li Yao was walking briskly toward her office, someone suddenly stepped before her, blocking her path. Li Yao looked up, it was Li Mei. The girl looked at Li Yao with obvious nervousness, clearly still traumatized from their previous encounter, but she nevertheless gathered her courage and spoke.

"Li Yao, by order of the patriarch, you must return to the main branch within one week. This is not a request."