Chapter Three: The Edge of the World

In the blink of an eye, the Noah’s Ark had been sailing on the sea for over half a month.

This sacred-grade ship, crafted by Miss Vilyric and a group of friends for cross-continental voyages in the game, was undeniably swift.

At a speed akin to a thousand miles a day, they had navigated a straight-line distance of over twenty thousand nautical miles from the coastline and were gradually approaching the fringe of this world.

As they ventured further away from the Ancient Spirit Realm, a subtle change began to manifest in the surrounding environment.

The fundamental energy structure of the Ancient Spirit Realm was a substance called Spirit Power. This energy resembled magic but was purer, cleaner, and had a strong “spiritual nature,” less prone to morphing into elemental properties like water, fire, ice, or wind.

This was a phenomenon formed by the laws of the world, similar to how the same atoms can combine in different molecular structures; although they were all material energy at heart, Spirit Power was more easily absorbed by living beings, thus nourishing them and fostering life forms like monsters that emerged from non-living materials.

To be precise, most spirit beasts in the Ancient Spirit Realm, including the four holy beasts, were birthed from the nourishment of Spirit Power. This power could even be seen as the origin of all things in that world, a signature product of the realm.

Hence, warriors from there found it easier to reach higher average strengths, and in rare cases, they could break through what was termed the “Four Upper Realms.”

As for the ocean, it was merely a vast depression filled with water. Just beneath the seabed were solid ground and flowing spirit veins, which Vilyric had personally verified during their voyage.

But now, she could clearly feel that the fluctuations of Spirit Power in the surrounding air were gradually weakening. Following this, the quantities of marine creatures lurking beneath the deep sea, which had been eyeing the Noah’s Ark with malicious intent but were too intimidated by its great size to act, began to dwindle rapidly.

It was as if they were gradually sailing into a forbidden zone of life.

“We’re very close to our destination.”

Standing in the central control room of the Noah’s Ark, Vilyric gazed at the real-time navigation map projected by the 01 scanner. The black dot representing them had already moved to the farthest end of the long line.

The boundaries of the Ancient Spirit Realm were not clearly defined. In most cases, ships attempting to develop sea routes would only find themselves returning to the opposite continent after a long journey in a specific direction.

This was quite similar to the concept of planets; thus, many scholars in the Ancient Spirit Realm believed the world was, in fact, a circular closed loop. The area depicted on this sea chart represented the majority of the western seas that people could explore under normal circumstances.

This was merely a boundary built around the Ancient Spirit Realm; therefore, fundamentally, the edges of the western sea connected to the farthest points of the eastern sea. Crossing this line would lead them back across the ocean to the eastern coast of Dongyuanzhi Kingdom from another direction.

Of course, this was under normal circumstances.

If the eastern and western seas of the Ancient Spirit Realm were considered to be a gigantic whole connected together, then the position in which the Noah’s Ark currently resided was likely right at the center of this vast ocean, the most remote location from human habitation, resembling a “Point Nemo.”

Sparsely populated, an absolute desolation and wasteland, it was also the most suitable place to hide the boundary leading to the Outer Realm.

“Uh, but boss, I just came down from the lookout and didn’t see any boundary or entrance around. It’s just sea water everywhere, and even the sea floor is eerily quiet. Do we need some special method to open it?”

Without answering Miss Le Qiao Qiao‘s confusion, Vilyric simply shifted her gaze to a certain young man with fox ears whom she had just called from the cabin, nodding with a smile.

“At times like these, we should certainly ask someone experienced.”

“What do you think, Mr. Water~”

“Spare me… that was just a random alias…”

Ming Lan shook his head in helpless laughter. As the Chief Overseer of External Affairs of Lingyin Fairy Island and a former confidant of Ming Xi, he was currently the only one aboard who knew that Vilyric was indeed the Spiritual Fox Priestess. Although he had been startled at dawn, he took quite a while to accept this fact.

Before others, the Chief Overseer certainly couldn’t directly refer to Vilyric as “Miss,” so he cleared his throat awkwardly, pondering.

“Our world, at its core, is a complete loop. To break through this loop, extraordinary means are certainly required. I remember that Lord Wenqu of the Seven Hidden Stars once mentioned in his book, Tales from the Four Seas, that the boundary of the western sea is…”

“Stop right there!”

Miss Vilyric shot him a fierce glare, interrupting Ming Lan just as he was about to launch into a long-winded discourse.

“Can you please summarize it in ten words or less?!”

“Uh, okay, okay…”

The Chief Overseer scratched his head awkwardly and raised a hand, pointing down at their feet.

“It’s actually quite simple; dive into the sea.”

“?” x3

As soon as those words left his mouth, not only Vilyric, but also Miss Le Qiao Qiao and Hong Yan, who had gathered in the control room, tilted their heads simultaneously, big question marks popping up over their heads.

“Lady Envoy, could you clarify that a bit more?”

“Right! We’re not fish; wouldn’t diving just drown us?!”

However, the priestess’s experience and insight were not comparable to those two girls. After an initial daze, she quickly grasped the situation.

“Do you mean to say… the spaces of these two worlds are not in the same dimension?”

Ming Lan‘s eyes lit up as he quickly nodded in affirmation.

“You’re quite sharp, Miss Vilyric. Precisely, because this is troublesome, we used to directly use space magic to transport ourselves. But ever since the sealing of the Original Land a thousand years ago, if we want to travel from the Ancient Spirit Realm to that side, we can only use such primitive means.”

“Primitive means…”

This coincided with Xiao Kong‘s statement, as well as the contents from the Spiritual Fox Priestess‘s memories.

Long ago, Ming Xi frequently traversed different worlds in various manners; although he slowed that frequency after achieving divinity and only sensed the need to “collect corpses” when a world was on the brink of destruction, he still had a wealth of similar experiences.

The boundaries between worlds had always been peculiar. Some required a leap from a great abyss, while others needed to soar into the sky until the stars flipped, or simply lie down in the flower sea of the poles for a nap, awakening in another world.

However, regardless of the situation, aside from special summoning or teleportation—like through a demon’s portal—forms of crossing worlds generally adhered to a few fixed rules.

1. It could involve either the body or the soul but must undergo an absurd and bizarre movement process.

2. Locations that can achieve crossing are typically found at the outer edges of a world.

3. The number of other worlds that can connect to the same world is generally quite limited, never exceeding the number of fingers on one hand.

   

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