Within the spiritual sea.
More precisely, within the big-eye Poke Ball inside the spiritual sea. Looking at the pitch-black wormhole before him, Su Wen felt a bit rattled. He tilted his head at Big Eye. "Is this reliable?"
"Nonsense!" Big Eye glared at Su Wen. "I can now evolve into the Eye of the Void. My control over time and space has faint traces of Authority-level. And in a sense, once we formed a contract, I am you. Don't you trust yourself?"
"After time-traveling, do I start from zero?" Su Wen raised a skeptical brow.
"No. You'll have your current strength," Big Eye said confidently. "Temporal traversal won't seal your abilities—might even bring unexpected benefits."
"And you're in a hurry to go back?"
"I want to tell my past self that the big white worm was just trash—no need to fight Di Tian. It only needed a few hundred years to recuperate. I, on the other hand, took ten thousand years to recover." Big Eye nagged.
"Won't that tug on the timeline and cause a butterfly effect in the present?" Su Wen frowned.
"No," Big Eye chuckled. "You underestimate time's corrective power. Traveling to ten thousand years ago—so long as you don't kill Tang San or overturn the God Realm—then even if you exhaust yourself, it's hard to leverage the past timeline to pry at the present."
"What if I try to promote soul tools on the original continent?" Su Wen asked with interest. "Expose them to advanced soul tool tech, let it develop for ten thousand years. Wouldn't that…"
"It wouldn't," Big Eye shook its head.
"Even if you popularize soul tools and spur the entire original continent's development, over ten thousand years it would self-correct. Through a series of coincidences, the original continent's soul tools would regress to the current state.
"For example, the original continent gets flooded; civilization is wiped out and rebuilt. Or nobles seize power and, out of self-interest, suppress soul tool development, even destroying it to force a rollback…"
"In short, temporal correction is mysterious, but there are patterns. Say you want to kill Tang San ten thousand years ago—that's no easier than killing the current God-King Tang San. Things that seem simple carry huge hidden costs."
Big Eye explained patiently.
"Got it."
Su Wen nodded.
He took a deep breath.
Mainly, this time traverse wasn't going to another continent; it would freeze the present time, then send him to ten thousand years ago. After three months, when he returned, only a second would have passed here…
So there wasn't much to arrange.
"Go!"
He stepped forward.
Su Wen was sucked into the black wormhole.
Then his vision soared sharply, as if he had become the planet Douluo's main consciousness, overlooking the world's day-by-day… reversal—life and death cycles, the evolution of mountains and rivers—like watching a documentary of man and Earth.
After an unknown time, his view plummeted.
…
He looked at the bustling marketplace around him.
Dressed plainly, Su Wen glanced around. This seemed to be a lively market street in a large city. The people around mostly had bronzed skin, a healthy wheat tone from years in the sun.
"Sun Moon Empire?"
Su Wen was stunned.
Looks like the ten-thousand-year anchor point's location mapped to the same spot in the future.
What shocked him even more—
A new ten-year Poke Ball had appeared…
"Big Eye—wait, huh?!" Su Wen was dumbfounded. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Temporal reset. You can understand it as another timeline's you, but still you overlapping—hence a reset of your martial soul. Roughly equivalent to… twin martial souls," Big Eye said breezily. "But because of the reset, the second martial soul's soul power has to be cultivated from scratch. Of course, this doesn't affect your first martial soul—your strength stays the same."
"…Badass."
Su Wen was stunned for a long while, then slowly gave a thumbs-up.
Disguised as a commoner, he strolled through Mingdu to take in the local customs. Soul tools here were already taking shape—some low-grade flying soul tools, basic melee soul tools, storage belts, etc.—but compared to ten thousand years later, they were crude beyond words.
Cumbersome, even.
"Forget it, the Sun Moon Empire is boring. Let's visit the original continent first."
Su Wen grinned.
A breeze rose beneath his feet, and he shot into the sky like a flowing cloud. After a quick course correction, he sped away at full tilt.
…
Sunset Forest.
Dugu Bo sat cross-legged in a lush green valley. The air was fresh and mild, but his mood was far from pleasant. He had just heard that his most beloved granddaughter—the third generation of their single line—had been beaten by a brat named Tang San.
He'd planned to look for him yesterday, but the long-dormant poison in his body suddenly flared up, forcing him to spend time suppressing it and enter a temporary closed-door cultivation.
His old toxins had soaked into his marrow, his meridians, even his blood. Calling him a walking pathogen would be no exaggeration.
In such a state, he could only suppress poison with poison, relying on his formidable strength to press the toxins down temporarily.
"Hoo—"
Dugu Bo softly exhaled a plume of green mist; the bone-piercing pain finally eased a little.
"Sigh… My son is dead, and my granddaughter will suffer the same in the future."
But soon, he sighed again.
Just as he gathered himself to rise and leave, his body suddenly froze. His voice sank. "Who goes there? Do you not know this valley is my turf?"
"Oh? Old monster, you say this is your turf—how do you prove it?"
A clear, cheerful voice sounded behind him.
It seemed amiable, yet it made Dugu Bo break out in a cold sweat.
When did he get here?!!
Even if he had been focused on repairing his injuries and not paying attention, with a Title Douluo's perception he shouldn't have been so oblivious—only realizing it after the other party stood before him.
That was because the other wanted to be noticed. If he hadn't—
To slip into this valley without a sound, and who knows how long he'd been here—this strength was likely far beyond Dugu Bo's…
"I found this valley first," Dugu Bo's heart sank. He turned to see a youth with a face so young it felt uncanny. He froze for a moment, confusion flooding him, but instinctively argued.
Disguise?
Or some weird martial soul that reverses aging?
Dugu Bo's mind raced, his eyes narrowing.
Or… was this really just a brat, relying on some strange trick to put on airs and scare him?
Quite possible!
After scraping through every notable powerhouse in his mind and finding no match, he grew more convinced.
Either the opponent stood far above him—but such a powerhouse wouldn't resort to petty tricks like disguises.
Hm, very possible!
Test him.
His sleeve fluttered as if brushed by a breeze, but in truth a small emerald-green snake shot out like a loosed arrow, striking toward Su Wen.