In another stratum of space unreachable to ordinary people, Luo Fei smiled brightly in a white dress, shoulder to shoulder with the faint phantom of Chen Chu.

Chen Chu's return made Luo Fei a little happy. Though it was merely a projection of will, at Chen Chu's current realm, a will projection scarcely differed from his true form.

In her human temperament, Luo Fei behaved like a normal curious girl as she asked, "Chen Chu, you all went to the ancient divine regions for several years. How were things there?"

Since she was stationed in the Sun Divine Region and remained in a detached state while refining the Primordial Azure Sky, Luo Fei cared about nothing except matters concerning Chen Chu and her family.

That included news about the divine regions. As for why she was asking now, it was naturally to find a topic to talk about.

Chen Chu smiled slightly. "Things there are a bit complicated. Peak civilizations stand like forests, and as a newly risen race, humanity has made quite a few enemies..."

Chen Chu gave Luo Fei a simple overview of the situation across the six divine regions.

The 2057 freshman entrance ceremony at Nantian Martial Arts High School then officially began. A tall, pretty girl in an off-shoulder red dress walked onto the stage.

"Hello everyone, I am Li Yiyi from third year, Class 1, one of the hosts of this opening ceremony. First of all, welcome to all juniors joining the Federation's cultivation hall, Nantian Martial Arts High School. A modern school is not only a temple of knowledge, but also a cradle for nurturing peak powerhouses, a place to temper the will, and to guard together the future and glory of humanity.

"Next, please welcome Principal Hong Zetian to the stage to deliver his remarks."

The girl in the red dress turned with a smile, looking toward the faculty and principal seated on the other side of the rostrum. Her eyes were bright, and her manner poised and generous.

When the former school director Hong Zetian stepped onto the stage, Luo Fei, who did not "exist" within the crowd, glanced at the girl in the dress with a little surprise. "That should be Li Meng's younger sister, right?"

"Yes, that's her." Chen Chu nodded.

Luo Fei sighed. "I remember she and your younger brother Chen Hu are at the same school. It seem like a blink of an eye, but they have both grown so much."

Even Chen Chu, who had been in seclusion for over two centuries, felt a touch of emotion. "Indeed, time passes very quickly."

Just then, Luo Fei said suddenly, "Chen Chu, you must have a reason for coming back this time. Otherwise you wouldn't suddenly descend as a will projection."

Chen Chu did not hide anything and nodded. "This time, besides checking in on you all, I need to erase certain things. Certain traces of my having once existed."

"...Erase the traces of your own existence!?" Luo Fei exclaimed, momentarily stunned.

Chen Chu continued, "After the primordial level, when breaking from the Fourth Primordial Heaven to the Fifth, one needs to take possession of the past and gather the traces once branded upon time and space. This is where I first stepped onto the transcendent path. So gathering the past will begin here."

This was why Chen Chu had appeared at the opening ceremony. Everything had started at Nantian Martial Arts High School. After that opening day ended, he had formally set foot on cultivation.

As for the time before transcendence, ordinary people had no right to leave traces of their existence between heaven and earth, so there was nothing to gather.

"I see," Luo Fei nodded.

While the two stood in the crowd, a formless time power spread out from Chen Chu's projection, and many places began to change.

In the old Teaching Building B, a cleaner on the fifth floor was putting away some activity equipment. With the school's expansion and the development of science-transcendent civilization, the ordinary teaching building had become a student activities center, with a warehouse for storing equipment.

Just then, a few fragmented impressions flashed through the classroom, startling the cleaner.

Haunted!

But when the frightened cleaner rubbed her eyes and looked around again, she found nothing at all. The afterimages she had seen a moment ago felt like an illusion.

The same scene did not just occur there. In the top-floor library of the former Teaching Building C, faint silhouettes appeared and vanished at the window seats...

***

"Too bad Li Meng didn't come back this time. He missed seeing his sister as a host," Liu Feng said as he mingled among the guests. Now hard-featured and much more mature, he looked at the girl in the dress standing beside the principal and felt a little wistful.

Beside him, Bai Mu shook his head. "He wanted to return, but he discovered some ruins that could help him break through to the mythical level, so he didn't."

"What? Ruins that help break through to the mythical level!" Liu Feng's eyes widened. "Damn, the guy is going to beat us to it and become a king."

Bai Mu shrugged. "No need to be so dramatic. It's just breaking through to the mythical level. He isn't the first anyway. It doesn't matter."

"You can say that, but it's still a bit annoying," Liu Feng's lip curled. "Among our group, Li Hao and the others have the best talent, followed by that lucky guy Xia Youhui, and then the rest of us.

"Li Hao and the others go without saying. After a few years in the divine regions, they should have long since become kings, maybe even have a shot at becoming heavenly kings. But Li Meng's talent and cultivation progress have been about the same as ours. We all reached the peak of the Ninth Heavenly Realm half a year ago. Now you're telling me he is about to break through to the mythical level. How is that acceptable?"

Bai Mu paused, then reacted. "Damn it, when you put it that way, it really is a bit irritating. Getting left behind by Li Hao and the others is one thing, but now even Li Meng is surpassing us. If I knew that, I wouldn't have come back with you for some opening ceremony nonsense. Waste of time. I am better off staying in the mythical world to look for a breakthrough opportunity."

"Right, now this is my fault. As if you don't want to come back and show off," Liu Feng said, flipping him the finger.

The two spoke and moved in a way that was completely unbefitting peak Ninth-Heavenly-Realm experts. Lu Haitao and the others were utterly speechless and more than a little exasperated.

"Can you two stop already? We have long known you're both at the peak of the Ninth Heavenly Realm. For all we know, you might break through to the king level any day," someone said.

"Eh, you already know?" Liu Feng and Bai Mu said together, surprised.

Yi Rui, once the cultivation committee member, shook his head. "You two are in the fifties on the school's Distinguished Figures ranking. Your realms are listed right after your names."

"Hahaha... so that's how it is," Bai Mu and Liu Feng both laughed awkwardly.

Then they changed the subject. "Right, it's been a while, Yi Rui. What realm are you at now?"

Yi Rui said calmly, "Worse than you two. I just broke through to the Ninth Heavenly Realm a month ago."

"Not bad, not bad. To have reached the Ninth Heavenly Realm at your age is already very strong. You have hope of reaching the mythical level within ten years," Bai Mu said, patting his shoulder in encouragement.

Now, the mythical level is no longer out of reach. No one knew when it began, but cultivators of the Federation had found cultivation increasingly effortless. Many bottlenecks that had trapped them for ten or twenty years had suddenly started shattering. With sufficient resources added to the mix, mythical-level powerhouses in the Federation had sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain over the past few years.

"Right, is the first place on the Distinguished Figures ranking... huh?" As he reached this point, Bai Mu suddenly paused, forgetting what he had meant to say. "Strange, I feel like I forgot something."

He frowned. "I was just about to ask whether the top of the Distinguished Figures ranking is someone I know, but I can't recall his name. No, it isn't just the name. Who he is, what he looks like, I don't remember those either."

The more he spoke, the more solemn Bai Mu's expression became. He could not help looking at Yi Rui and the others. "Yi Rui, do you know who is number one on that list?"

Yi Rui nodded. "I do. I read through the hundred names and notes on the Distinguished Figures list. The first is... huh, who is it again?"

At this point, Yi Rui also realized in astonishment that he could not clearly remember who topped the list, even though he had checked it that very morning upon arriving at school.

Eidetic memory was a basic skill, given the physique of Ninth Heavenly Realm cultivators. Forgetting should have been impossible.

Yi Rui's brows knit tightly.

Beside them, Lu Haitao shrugged. "Stop messing around, you two. The ranking is on public display right there. Number one is Li Hao, who already broke through to the beginning stage of the heavenly king level over in the divine regions.

"Number two is Xia Youhui. He's been accepted as a personal disciple by an ancient powerhouse in the divine regions and is in seclusion to break through to the heavenly king level. He's also sent back plenty of key intel for the Federation over the last two years.

"Third and fourth are Lin Xue and Lin Yu. They have also been taken as disciples by an ancient powerhouse called the Ghostflame Heavenly Consort, and their cultivation stands at the peak of the mythical level.

"As for you, Liu Feng, there's no need to say more. Yi Rui is at eighty-two as well, one of this ceremony's distinguished representatives."

Lu Haitao looked a little exasperated. "Come on, you guys really make me read your names out loud again. What's the point of putting on this act?"

He had clearly misunderstood Bai Mu and Liu Feng, who truly had not checked the notices and did not know.

After Lu Haitao finished, Liu Feng sounded a little awed. "Li Hao really is a freak. He's already stepped into the heavenly king level. And Xia Youhui too."

"Wait, why is Li Hao first?" Liu Feng looked puzzled as he realized. "An Fuqing's talent eclipsed an entire generation back then. She counts among the very best even across the whole Human Federation. How is she not number one?"

Lu Haitao explained, "An Fuqing has been missing for years now. She disappeared on the battlefield during the decisive support for the Heavenly Feathered Race. There has been no news since. She has most likely fallen, but you all have been training deep in the mythical world these past years, so you aren't clear on this."

"I see. If you don't say so, we really don't know," Bai Mu said with a nod, his tone tinged with regret. "What a pity. An Fuqing's talent was even stronger than Li Hao's. If she hadn't fallen, she might already be at the late stage of the heavenly king level by now, perhaps even at the peak."

"Yeah." Liu Feng nodded in agreement, sighing. "An Fuqing's comprehension was heaven-defying, and her cultivation talent was terrifying. Only one other person could stand shoulder to shoulder with her at the time..."

"The other person!" Liu Feng's expression grew solemn again, as did Yi Rui's, because they realized they truly had forgotten something. The few of them exchanged glances at once.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Their figures blurred and vanished from the guests' platform, leaving one afterimage after another.

"I'll head to the archive room."

"I'll go to the school think-tank core."

"I'll find Professor Pang..."

Their sudden departure stirred a commotion among the guests, who had no idea what had happened to make those peak transcendent experts take things so seriously.

In the crowd below, Luo Fei also noticed the strangeness with Liu Feng and the others and could not help showing a smile.

"Their reaction isn't too slow. Pity, everything has already disappeared."

Her smile gradually faded and she fell silent. When the ancient civilization's powerhouses had appeared a few years earlier, one round of erasure had already wiped away Chen Chu's traces.

Written records, online information, images, videos, everything had been erased by a formless power. When Chen Chu left, a mighty force had covered the entire Federation and the solar system. Many people's memories related to Chen Chu had been altered.

But it had only been altered at the time. Some traces in documents had still remained in the school and the Federation's most core think tanks.

This time, however, Chen Chu's appearance had truly erased everything that had ever existed. Chen Chu's past was vanishing through the power of time that had already touched the Fifth Primordial Heaven. The change it brought meant Liu Feng and the others' memories of that part of him were not being altered, but erased.

This was an irreversible change, because Chen Chu's past was now being occupied by a stronger power.

Luo Fei murmured softly, "Chen Chu, tell me, will I forget you?" She keenly sensed something in her memory dissipating as she voiced the question.

Her understanding of the black-haired youth before her grew increasingly indistinct and faint. A groundless panic welled up in Luo Fei's heart. She did not want to forget Chen Chu.

Facing the girl's anxious, intensely expectant gaze, Chen Chu's voice grew gentle. "Don't worry. This is only temporary. As long as you want to remember, you will never forget. One day, you will recall it all."

As he spoke, Chen Chu lightly pressed his hand on Luo Fei's brow. It passed through, and his entire figure dissolved like a bubble, leaving the girl in white standing there in a daze.

After a long while, Luo Fei came back to herself. She glanced around at the fresh faces brimming with vitality and sighed a little. "Another year of new students. Pity, I can no longer find the feeling from back then."

She turned, and her figure slowly faded from that subspace layer. Her departing back carried an inexplicable sense of loss.

Strange phenomena began to occur throughout the Federation as the new term at Nantian Martial Arts High School began.

In Wujiang City and Tiannan City, on the southern battlefield that had long since become a mutated-beast farm, fleeting afterimages occasionally appeared on streets and in mountain forests and then vanished. Similar sights occurred as well in places like the Kyrola, where civilization had been rebuilt, and in the Baihu nation.

Following the roads once taken, the will projection that Chen Chu had summoned occupied, one by one, the traces he once left behind.

The past affected the present. Everyone's memories of him began to dissipate, including records. This was the power of the space-time origin from above the principles, covering innumerable worlds and the endless Sea of Chaos, and it could not be defied.

Even Lin Xue and the others far away in the divine regions had their memories of Chen Chu vanish without noticing.

However, this influence targeted only those below the primordial level. The primordial level already belonged to chaotic beings and was unaffected by time.

In that instant, someone else was startled by the change.

Deep in the Imperial City, within a universe burning with flames, the True Radiant Sky Emperor suddenly opened her eyes, shock and disbelief flashing within them. "Impossible. Ten Directions without Images, Six Paths without Traces[1]. He is actually already occupying the past!"

1. This is a line from a poem. It is recited when one goes to pay respects to the Buddha. ☜

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