Jiang Huan and Jiang Chen resumed their journey after resupplying on the lesser plane.
They traveled uneventfully day after day, stop after stop, before finally reaching a more affluent lesser world several years later.
A lesser world was essentially a miniature greater world. Identical in structure, it simply lacked the presence of a celestial emperor or a creation token. Most of them were home to planar portals.
This form of transportation didn’t come cheap, but thankfully, Jiang Chen wasn’t short on money.
“Here’s where we’ll proceed with our first planar jump. There will be eight more to follow,” Jiang Huan imparted.
“Will we have to trek this long every single time?” wondered Jiang Chen.
“Heh, it all depends. There’s no saying if the route will remain entirely the same as I remember. If not, we might have to make a detour. It’ll be a miracle if we can reach our destination in less than a hundred years. Three to five centuries is a more realistic figure.”
Jiang Chen’s cheeks spasmed at this revelation.
He’d promised Huang’er he’d hopefully return in a few decades. He’d mentioned a few millennia as a worst case scenario, but deep down, he’d prefer to go back sooner rather than later.
Five centuries merely to reach the Taiyuan Plane?
It was fortunate he was a man who could adapt on the fly. Since he couldn’t shorten the trip, he might as well consider it a form of tempering. Perhaps it was yet another trial on his long road of cultivation.
To become a godking, one had to slowly accumulate cultivation for a long, long time. It was a bridge most cultivators couldn’t cross their entire lives.
The young lord was confident in his capabilities, but there was no telling how many hurdles he’d have to surmount to achieve his goal. His one certainty was that his seal’s last link wouldn’t be undone before he reached the godking realm.
Judging from his father’s hints, Taiyuan’s creation token was stored inside. The moment it returned to the world, its existence would be exposed, painting a giant bull’s eye on his back. Many on Taiyuan would set their sights on him, but on the flipside, the token might be invaluable in securing the celestial emperor’s throne and reclaiming Taiyuan Plane.
Everything hinged on the opposition he’d face from Taiyuan’s godkings. Exactly how many of them had been party to his father’s ousting?
In the end, Jiang Huan’s guess proved to be spot on.
The path he’d once taken from Taiyuan to Divine Abyss didn’t stay eternally unchanging for several hundred thousand years.
A deviation occurred at the fourth transit point. The original portal been destroyed, forcing them to find another path that lengthened their travels by a considerable margin.
But Jiang Huan took it all in stride. The road to happiness was strewn with roadblocks, so what was a little more time spent on the way?
Furthermore, the more winding and arduous their meandering, the more Jiang Chen’s character was put to the test.
Journeying for decades had honed the young man’s mental fortitude. The sanguine and perhaps somewhat overweening nature of the master of Divine Abyss had given way to a certain steadiness. Many experiences along the way were worthy lessons that remoulded his psyche from the bottom up.
He didn’t let the divine beasts loose, afraid they might stir up trouble on their long journey, but he sometimes allowed the Goldbiter Rats outside for fresh air, especially when they ran into into planar brigands or reckless thugs. Those ended up as food for the rats, altruistically abetting the tribe’s growth.
Five hundred years quietly elapsed by the time they finally reached the last transit world.
“Jiang Chen, as a lesser world affiliated with the Taiyuan Plane, you can find out a lot of information here concerning Taiyuan.”
His heart suddenly stirring, the young lord immediately decided on a brief stopover to make some inquiries.
As he’d expected, a ninth level god was a rare commodity even on a greater world.
Hence, in order to ward off unwarranted attention, both he and his companion concealed their true strength and passed themselves off as seventh level gods. Even so, they received interest aplenty within a few short days, as well as many calling cards.
Some came from planar adventurer bands. Bluntly put, these consisted of troublemakers who ventured into the farthest reaches of the universe.
In fact, the demons who’d invaded Divine Abyss could also be included in the lot. Like dogs to a bone, they flocked to fertile lands yet to be explored, or material planes without an owner.
These bands were often made up of the most abhorred and ill-famed existences in the planes, so Jiang Chen naturally wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.
Of course, he also received love calls from powerful local factions. Well entrenched on the lesser world, these sects were always keen to ally themselves with strong experts.
Powerhouses like Jiang Chen and his companion were choice targets for their scouts. No sect worth its salt would let an advanced god slip away.
But Jiang Chen’s indifference soon became manifest. Every invitation was met with tactful rejection. His interpersonal skills greatly pleased Jiang Huan.
With these kinds of achievements at his age, the usual young genius would be parading like a peacock, but he’s nothing but poise.
It was proof of the young man’s maturity, if there ever was one.
“Young lord, most of the time, these sects are related to factions on the greater world, or they’re straight subordinates. Even if you don’t want to join, you still should treat them with courtesy.”
The young man followed his advice. At the very least, he refrained from making snide remarks, and never tried to demean or find fault with the locals.
Thanks to the experience of two lives, he knew better than to make enemies for no good reason.
