Chapter 41: The Perfect World is Merely a Backyard

Realizing that his explanation was only making things worse, Xiao Yan quickly steered the conversation back to the little guy. "According to what you said, Shi Jian, wouldn't this little fellow's Supreme Bone be able to regenerate?"

Shi Jian knew he was changing the subject, but he didn't mind. He followed along and said, "Naturally. Bounding back into vitality out of destruction, a regenerated Supreme Bone will only be stronger than the original!"

Hearing this, Yang Qi thought of himself. Wasn't he, too, someone who had brought forth new life from destruction?

That day, his meridians and sea of Qi had been crippled, and he had been struck by lightning, leaving his life hanging by a thread. He had been a hair's breadth away from total destruction.

Fortunately, that lightning had contained a supreme stroke of fortune, allowing him to regain vitality and undergo a complete rebirth.

He sighed with emotion, "To burst with new life out of destruction—what a magnificent ambition! But to walk such a path must be fraught with countless difficulties!"

His own transformation had been a matter of overnight, but for the little guy to recast his Supreme Bone would be a long and arduous process. The difficulty for the little guy to regenerate from destruction was far greater than his own.

"How can one see a rainbow without weathering the storm? Back then, I endured three years of hitting rock bottom before my willpower was forged as tough as steel. Only then, once I seized my chance, did I soar straight up into the clouds!"

Xiao Yan was also deeply moved. He had spent three years living the life of good-for-nothing trash before Yao Lao's awakening allowed him to rise again. Wasn't this, too, a form of regenerating from destruction?

A regenerated Supreme Bone was stronger than the previous one. And wasn't he himself growing stronger through endless hardships time and time again?

The others all had their own realizations. Although their paths of cultivation had become much smoother after acquiring the chat group, their willpower had already undergone profound transformations.

Xiao Yan had been treated as trash for three years; Fang Han had spent over a decade as a slave enduring endless contempt; Yang Qi had survived a life-or-death tribulation; Lin Dong had carried the resolve to avenge his father since childhood, practicing day after day for decades... Even Meng Qi had walked on thin ice during his time at Shaolin Temple!

Their states of mind had long since become extraordinary. Therefore, they all had a profound say when it came to adversity and hardship. In a sense, they were "old souls in very young bodies!"

Seeing the atmosphere among them suddenly grow a bit quiet, Shi Jian raised his cup of fruit wine, which had been brewed by the people of Shi Village.

"What doesn't kill us... only makes us stronger!"

He uttered a slightly chuunibyo phrase, yet it perfectly voiced what everyone was feeling.

"Haha, exactly! Nalan Yanran, the Soul Hall... these are destined to be nothing more than my defeated foes!" Xiao Yan laughed heartily.

"I will avenge my father! I am going to crush that dog Lin Langtian to death with a single finger!!!" Lin Dong declared boldly.

"Kill Hua Tiandu," Fang Han said, concise and to the point.

"Smash Yun Haiqang!" Yang Qi echoed in the same style.

"Beat the hell out of that stupid Reincarnation Space!" Meng Qi joined in on the fun as well.

The little milk toddler, not quite understanding what was going on, hastily took a gulp of beast milk and said with milky residue at the corners of his mouth, "Become stronger!"

"Hahaha..."

Everyone burst into loud laughter.

After eating and drinking their fill, everyone began to have some free time. Shi Jian thought for a moment and asked the others, "I mentioned before in the group that there is a place in this world called the Heaven-Holding Realm, where people's spiritual willpower can enter to train. Any interest in going in to check it out?"

"The Heaven-Holding Realm is a holy land for cultivation; all the insights you gain there will feed back into your physical body!"

Xiao Yan was excited. "There's a place like that? No wonder you said it's like a virtual network... I'm definitely going to check it out!"

"You can fight monsters and level up inside? If Earth had a Heaven-Holding Realm too, how awesome would that be!" Meng Qi was equally interested. As someone from Earth, his biggest dream back home had been to experience virtual reality gaming. He never expected that dream wouldn't come true on Earth, only to be realized in another world.

The rest of them were also extremely intrigued. To be able to project one's spiritual willpower into a place for training—this was the first time any of them had heard of such a thing. They never imagined Shi Jian's world would possess something so magical!

Seeing that everyone was interested in the Heaven-Holding Realm, Shi Jian led them before Willow Deity.

"Willow Deity, these friends of mine also wish to enter the Heaven-Holding Realm. Can you take them inside?" he asked respectfully.

"These friends of yours are extraordinary... Their cultivation realms are very peculiar!"

"Is it a new Dao?"

Willow Deity's cool and ethereal voice rang out. It had noticed the arrival of Fang Han and the others long ago. However, because it trusted Shi Jian, it had remained silent until now. Only when Shi Jian approached it did it speak up.

"Yes... The Dao they practice differs from that of the Great Wilderness... In fact, even the Dao I practice has undergone some changes."

Shi Jian released his three divine grottoes. Within the grottoes, gigantic divine elephants lay coiled.

Willow Deity was dumbfounded. There were disparities in quality among divine grottoes, but it had never seen grottoes that housed living entities.

"I can still break through the Spirit Transformation realm, but at the same time, I can infinitely condense divine grottoes!" Shi Jian stated the gains he had made from breaking through the Divine Grotto realm.

He could still continue to cultivate and break through according to the Perfect World's cultivation system: the Spirit Transformation realm, the Inscription realm, the Array-Arranging realm... Only, while breaking through these realms, he could also continuously condense divine grottoes. This was the God-Demon Prison-Suppressing Technique tailored specifically for him by the Heavens Library.

The new God-Demon Prison-Suppressing Technique merged the divine grottoes and the particles of the divine elephants into one. Shi Jian could be said to have forged a path of his own.

Upon hearing this, Willow Deity was even more shocked.

"You are an anomaly... Perhaps, you are the final hope..." it murmured in a deep voice.

Shi Jian smiled when he heard this. He was indeed an anomaly, but he was by no means the final hope. There were still so many powerhouses in the chat group. Even without them, there was the desolate Heaven Emperor, Ye Heizi, Chu Loli... The future had long since been determined.

"Willow Deity, it seems you have recovered some memories... But you needn't worry so much. The future is already set; I am merely changing the process."

"Dawn will eventually arrive... and I am just lighting a lamp before it breaks," Shi Jian said softly.

The trilogy was essentially a stack of Russian nesting dolls. To put it bluntly, he was merely inside one of those dolls. The very fact of his existence meant that those three individuals permitted his existence. Otherwise, according to the original setting, he would have been sanctioned the moment he flicked the little guy's little bird.

In theory, when he flicked the little guy's little bird, countless desolate Heaven Emperors were watching from all around. The fact that they allowed him to flick the little bird meant that he was a very important existence to that Heaven-Emperor-above-the-Sacrificial-Dao.

The future was already written. The desolate Heaven Emperor was destined to be the desolate Heaven Emperor. The only thing Shi Jian could change was to make the desolate Heaven Emperor on his particular timeline suffer just a little bit less.

Because of this, Shi Jian had become quite bold in the Perfect World. This was also why he had invited everyone over to have fun in the Perfect World.

The Perfect World? Just a backyard garden!