Ch 164: Ten Years! Netherworld Tribulation! The World-Ending War is About to Begin!
After pondering for a long time, Lishan Laomu looked deeply at Chu Mo and asked, “Emperor… are you planning to become the second Jade Emperor?”
“The Jade Emperor is just a Heavenly Emperor appointed by Emperor Zhenzong of Song.” Chu Mo’s emotions remained unfazed. “I, this Netherworld Emperor, was self-appointed!”
Lishan Laomu was stunned for a moment, and ultimately found it both amusing and exasperating. However, the reverence in her eyes deepened even further. She cupped her fist in salute and said, “Since Your Majesty has a better arrangement, then I shall respectfully obey!”
“That’s wonderful.” Yang Chan’s face lit up with joy. Now, she wouldn’t need to worry about her mother being bullied by the Jade Emperor after ascending to the heavens. Moreover, she could visit her mother whenever she wished in the future.
Lishan Laomu took Yang Chan’s hand with her left hand and Yang Jian’s hand with her right hand, slowly walking into the grotto-heaven.
Chu Mo smiled wryly and also took White Maiden’s hand, walking into the grotto-heaven.
“Although it’s slightly desolate and its area is far smaller than the Heavenly Realm, the quality and concentration of spiritual energy between heaven and earth are no less than that of the Heavenly Realm!” After sensing it for a moment, Lishan Laomu praised it without reservation. Then, she looked at Chu Mo with some confusion. “Emperor… I don’t mean any harm! However, aren’t you too trusting of others?”
“Hmm?” Chu Mo was a little puzzled.
Lishan Laomu’s aura surged. She said helplessly, “…You should have realized my true strength, right? And your strength… Aren’t you worried that I might attack you?”
“Mother!” Yang Chan instantly became anxious.
“…You! I said, I don’t have any malicious intent, just curiosity.” Lishan Laomu rubbed her forehead, feeling rather speechless.
“First, this grotto-heaven was forged using my divinity as its foundation.” Chu Mo rolled his eyes, implying that he could throw Lishan Laomu out with a single thought if he wanted to. “Second…”
Chu Mo directly started allocating points. Hundreds of millions of years of lifespan rapidly flowed away at this moment…
【In the 567th year, you successfully broke through to the Human Immortal Seventh Realm!】
【In the 18,000th year, you successfully broke through to the peak of the Human Immortal Seventh Realm for the tenth time!】
【In the 247,000th year, you successfully broke through to the peak of the Human Immortal Eighth Realm for the tenth time…】
【In the 2,750,000th year, you successfully…】
Lishan Laomu was dumbfounded as she sensed Chu Mo’s cultivation suddenly surge, yet become more solid than ever before. Feeling the terrifying pressure that was difficult to describe in words between the other party’s gestures, and its harmony with this vast world.
At one moment, she even thought she saw her elder brother…
“You, you, you…” Lishan Laomu’s teeth chattered, but she quickly came up with a reasonable explanation. “You have been sealing your true power all along? But that’s not right either… This kind of suppression can only be maintained for a short time. Otherwise, the gods of the Upper Realm would be able to stay in the human world for a long time! And you have been an emperor in the human world for so long…”
How did you do it? The more Lishan Laomu thought about it, the more she couldn’t understand, and her expression became dazed!
Yang Jian’s expression was also dull, but he took a few deep breaths and gradually understood what was happening. After all, he had seen it too many times in the past. He firmly grasped his old mother’s hand, and when his mother looked at him in confusion, he gently shook his head.
Lishan Laomu then woke up with a start, breaking out in a cold sweat. She said apologetically, “I’m sorry, it seems I asked some questions I shouldn’t have asked!”
“It’s nothing.” Chu Mo reached out and gently pointed in the distance. Terrifying divine power intertwined, and the earth began to constantly reorganize, gradually transforming into a magnificent palace.
“You can stay here for now!” Chu Mo paused for a moment, then looked at Yang Jian again. “If you still want to wander around in the human world, then don’t break through for now. If you don’t want to…”
Chu Mo shrugged, his meaning obvious.
“Then let’s postpone it for a while longer.” After thinking for a moment, Yang Jian said with a serious expression, “You can’t stay in the human world for long after completing your breakthrough. If I leave now too… the human world will inevitably become unstable! Please allow me to temporarily serve as your Ocean-Stabilizing Divine Needle in the human dynasty.”
Chu Mo looked at him deeply. “Thank you for your hard work.”
After chatting for a few more words, Chu Mo left frankly. However, his point allocation still hadn’t stopped.
【In the 176,450,000th year, you successfully broke through to the Earth Immortal First Realm. Your cultivation has reached the limit that this Netherworld grotto-heaven world can tolerate! You can cultivate to the peak of this realm, but you cannot step into the next level. Otherwise, the Netherworld grotto-heaven will start to collapse because it cannot bear your existence!】
Chu Mo sighed faintly, his expression rather complicated. However, he was now wondering if he was at the same realm as the Jade Emperor?
“No, I can’t deny that the Jade Emperor’s strength is higher than mine! After all, the Heavenly Realm he is in may have a greater bearing capacity than the grotto-heaven I created,” Chu Mo pinched his forehead, suddenly realizing, “Wait, should I just ascend to the Heavenly Realm… and then break through after allocating points, directly slaying the Jade Emperor? Why bother creating a small grotto-heaven myself!”
However, Chu Mo quickly thought of another thing. “It’s also possible that the Heavenly Realm is similar to my grotto-heaven… In that case, just like how I can throw out those who are hostile to me, he might be able to do the same! That way, even if my strength is stronger than his, it probably won’t help… Not to mention, my enemies aren’t just the Jade Emperor… If I force them to join forces…”
“Perhaps, I still need to think of a more reliable way to solve him… and the Honored One’s method!”
Chu Mo shook his head, dispelling the chaotic thoughts in his mind. He controlled his One Qi Transformation avatar in the human world.
Human World.
Great Ming, Kyoto.
In the Imperial Court.
“Next, I want to issue a few new policies.” The avatar sitting on the dragon throne suddenly opened his eyes. He glanced at the crown prince standing quietly beside him, and finally looked at the ministers below with various expressions, his tone without the slightest fluctuation.
“First, those who break through to the Transcendent Realm and reach the Human Immortal Realm can ascend to the Immortal Realm under my guidance!”
The Immortal Realm is naturally the grotto-heaven. As for the one in the sky… Anyway, Chu Mo was prepared to intercept all the cultivators in the Divine Province who could ascend.
“Second, further promote the descent of immortal cultivators to the countryside. Extraordinary power is not only for combat, but more for promoting the development of productivity and making people’s lives better… We must combine immortal cultivation with industry perfectly… I know you’re curious about what industry is. I’ll explain that later.”
“Third, under my guidance, develop an industrial system with immortal cultivation characteristics…”
Chu Mo wasn’t prepared to engage in original ecological industry. He was prepared to engage in transcendent industry combined with immortal cultivation. Only if this industry was helpful to immortal cultivation, or rather, to the era of universal transcendent beings in the future… could this new industry be promoted and iteratively upgraded on this land.
◈◈◈
And finally…
“Fourth, the crown prince will officially oversee the state, and I will only assist from the side… In the future, if you have any matters, send your memorials directly to the crown prince’s Eastern Palace.”
There was a brief silence, followed by an uproar below. The people below naturally felt confused about some of the previous edicts… However, after the last sentence was spoken, those confusing points were no longer important.
However, Chu Mo wasn’t disturbed by these dissenting voices and calmly chose to promote it forcefully.
After that…
Time flew by, and the Great Ming began another leap forward.
In the first year, Chu Mo unified and collected all the knowledge in the world. He began to extract useful information from it, which Chu Mo’s main body read one by one. Using point allocation, he forged several transcendent industrial books that were most in line with the current era.
Compared to the previous Confucian and Taoist books, these books were more all-encompassing—
Mathematics, Transcendent Material Science, Transcendent Shipbuilding, Transcendent Heavy Industry…
Chu Mo really didn’t know how to develop, but he had point allocation. Point allocation wasn’t just for cultivation, it could also be used for deduction.
And finally, these transcendent theories were promoted to the entire Great Ming, becoming several major subjects independent of Confucian and Taoist disciplines!
Basically, in the future imperial examinations, more than 50% would depend on Confucian and Taoist cultivation, and the other 50% would depend on understanding of these transcendent theories. And if someone made extra great contributions to these transcendent theories, Chu Mo could use his identity as emperor to specially recruit them into the Science Bureau within the imperial court.
This was a department directly under the emperor, independent of the Three Departments and Six Ministries system!
In the third year, steel behemoths that could sail in the sky were manufactured.
In the fourth year, countless cultivators controlled the flying iron ships, crossed the Hundred Thousand Mountains in the south, the endless dense forests, and landed in South Asia for the first time according to the map given by Chu Mo.
And here, the tribulation qi had only ended less than half a year ago…
On this land, whose population capacity was not inferior to that of the Divine Province, the population had fallen to only a few million. Although Chu Mo promoted immigration, the final effect was not ideal…
After all, the Divine Province was too large. In this era, if it weren’t for encountering tribulation qi or unimaginable natural disasters, it would be difficult to imagine people starving… This wasn’t referring to the present, but to the time before Chu Mo promoted the cultivation method.
Because individuals owned too much land…
However, in the industrial era, new lands also had new ways to play. Instead of directly immigrating, they could also colonize.
In the fifth year, Yang Jian and Fa Hai finally couldn’t suppress their cultivation and entered the Netherworld grotto-heaven, breaking through to become existences in the Human Immortal Seventh Realm.
Yang Jian also officially unsealed his position as the Erlang Manifesting Truth Lord!
In the sixth year, an old fossil who had lived for 17,000 years walked out of an ancient mountain.
He called himself Yan Chixia and was unwilling to ascend to the heavens. However, he had personally witnessed the changes in the world under Chu Mo’s rule. He believed that Chu Mo was a good person, a good emperor, and was willing to serve him! After being guided into the Netherworld grotto-heaven, he also broke through.
In the seventh year, the study of battle formation diagrams suddenly rose up, becoming a prominent subject on this land. Chu Mo was inspired and re-edited the study of battle formation diagrams, vigorously promoting battle formations… Chu Mo was thinking about a problem: those who fought against battle formations would be suppressed by heaven and earth. Even Yang Jian and Fa Hai were unwilling to confront an army composed of top experts of this era!
Then, what if he could form all the people of the entire country into a brand new battle formation? Most of the people in the Great Ming were now cultivators… meeting the conditions for constructing a battle formation diagram!
And if this feat was achieved… what terrifying power would a huge battle formation formed by a population calculated in the hundreds of millions have? Would it be able to confront the Jade Emperor in his prime?!
In the tenth year, more than 80% of the people in the entire Great Ming had broken through to the Innate Realm or above. Moreover, the knowledge and literacy of these Innate cultivators were so high that they were almost outrageous! Almost 90% of them had all broken through relying on Confucianism…
The Great Ming was unprecedentedly prosperous!
Yue Fei only led the Yue Family Army composed of 10,000 people, and traveled to Europe via flying iron ships, actually completing a sweep.
It was simply like an industrialized country thousands of years later beating an agricultural country… easily conquering it.
Of course, there was also a very important reason for this: the Western gods didn’t take action!
And on this day.
Chu Mo, who had completed his studies, once again allocated points to deduce, and he fell into a long silence as he looked at the prompt that appeared before his eyes.
【In the 107,000th year, you combined all the Western books entrusted in the Journey to the West supernatural powers, as well as the many books given to you by Lishan Laomu, and successfully comprehended the method of melting grotto-heavens!
When your strength is strong enough, you can forcibly sever the foundation of one or even several grotto-heavens, causing them to collapse and finally merge with the main world.】
【In the 1,372,500th year, you completely merged with the Netherworld Emperor divinity. You obtained the Netherworld Emperor position. The complete position allowed you to naturally control all the knowledge that the Netherworld Emperor should control.
You understood that the world between heaven and earth looked prosperous on the surface, but a brand new tribulation was constantly brewing. And this tribulation was related to the Netherworld… because there was no Six Paths of Reincarnation between heaven and earth!
Even if you forcibly suppressed it with your own strength and techniques, this suppression would ultimately have a certain limit! Perhaps, it would be in the next ten years.
However, you vaguely thought of a way to solve the problem at this moment…】
【In the 476,620,000th year, you cultivated to the peak of the Earth Immortal First Realm for the eighth time.】
Chu Mo looked at his lifespan balance.
【Lifespan】: 990,000+ years
The lifespan at the peak of the Earth Immortal First Realm was as high as one million years. However, Chu Mo had more or less consumed some… so there were only 990,000+ years left…
As for the divine lifespan and demon lifespan, they were basically all spent!
“Two more times.” Chu Mo murmured. He glanced indifferently in the direction of the sky. “The Jade Emperor and the Honored One… it should be enough if I add them up!”
