On each altar, the stone statues were slowly awakening. Quinn Shepherd's eyes spun with layers of rune patterns as he stared, puzzled.
Each god-statue had its own features: turtle-backed, leopard-tailed, bird-headed, dragon-headed, and many other forms—twenty-four altars, twenty-four divine forms.
Yet, some of these stone statues looked oddly familiar to Quinn.
"The stone statues in the Great Ruins!"
He finally remembered—the familiar statues came from the ruins in the Great Ruins!
That meant these stone statues very likely all originated from the Great Ruins!
These statues, now awakening, were about to become living gods. Which meant, every stone statue in the Great Ruins could one day awaken and become a living deity—just as he had once suspected!
There were twenty-four statues entering High-Emperor Heaven, meaning twenty-four more gods would join the battle here. These gods were likely friends of the Woodcutter Sage, and their strength would surely be formidable.
Yet even so, the Woodcutter Sage still said the demon race couldn't be stopped—only delayed for a time.
Just what was the origin of the demon race?
How could they possess such terrifying power?
He voiced his doubts. The Woodcutter Sage glanced at the awakening stone statues, fell silent for a moment, and said, "The origins of the demon race are quite mysterious. I don't know much either. There are rumors they came from Youdu, that they were once beings of Youdu. Later they split off from there, but whether that's true, I can't say. The demon race rules many worlds and was already extremely powerful. It's only natural that High-Emperor Heaven can't stop them."
A thought stirred in Quinn's heart: 'Then what is the relationship between the demon race and that so-called true Heavenly Court which destroyed the Pioneer Era? Zechariah Lee comes from there, and his master Logan Cross is the head of the Heavenly Court's Prodigy Legion. Logan sends his disciples to the demon race for training—there must be some connection!'
"There's a connection, but it's not a subordinate relationship."
The Woodcutter Sage knew much about this, but spoke vaguely: "They're more like mutually exploiting each other. That so-called Heavenly Court often uses the demon race to do things they can't do themselves, and the demon race, for the sake of survival, is happy to be used. Over the years, I've sent my Primordial Spirit roaming the void to search for the origin of this Heavenly Court, but haven't found much useful information."
He took a step forward, treading the air, and walked toward the altars. "Since you've come to High-Emperor Heaven, you should stay here and temper yourself. I have other matters to attend to."
Quinn was about to chase after him, but saw the Woodcutter Sage receding farther and farther away. Space itself seemed to shrink a thousand li to a single step under his feet—there was no way to catch up. Quinn hurriedly called out, "Sage, I still have something to ask!"
But the Woodcutter Sage was already far away, and Quinn's cultivation couldn't send his voice that far.
"Little Tiger, stay with him."
The Woodcutter Sage's voice came from the distance: "Don't let him go around causing trouble."
The Black Tiger God immediately answered and moved behind Quinn, his massive shadow enveloping him.
Quinn chuckled, "The Sage misjudges me. I am, after all, the Cult Master of the Heavenly Saint, not a child. Why would I go around causing trouble?"
The Black Tiger God stared down at him, face dark. "Whether you cause trouble or not, you know very well yourself."
Quinn craned his neck—Black Tiger God was simply too tall, making conversation difficult. So he asked, "Senior Brother Tiger, could you shrink a bit?"
"Senior Brother?"
Black Tiger God's expression changed instantly, turning gentle. His two furry ears perked up adorably as he smiled, "Since you call me Senior Brother, I won't look down on you. You can tell—I'm not just a mount, but the master's disciple. By seniority, you really should call me Senior Brother."
His body gradually shrank. After a while, he was the same height as Quinn—a tiger-headed, tiger-eared youth, his fluffy ears twitching from time to time.
Quinn said seriously, "Senior Brother Tiger, the Sage said not to cause disaster, not not to stir things up. There's a big difference between causing disaster and stirring things up—they're not the same at all."
Black Tiger God wasn't buying it. He shook his head. "The master told me to watch you. I won't let you out of my sight."
Quinn could only let him follow. He thought to himself, 'I originally wanted to ask the Sage to help design a World Bridge connecting the Everpeace Empire and High-Emperor Heaven, but since the Sage has things to do, I guess I'll have to do it myself.'
The city was bustling, but Quinn didn't know anyone here. He settled in a tower for now, pulled out stacks of paper and various calculation tools, and continued working on the World Bridge design.
Black Tiger God stood behind him, watching for a long while before suddenly asking, "What are you calculating?"
Without looking up, Quinn replied, "I'm working out the spiritual-energy conversion equation and the spiritual-energy migration equation between two worlds. These equations let me calculate the conversion ratios of 'spirit' and 'energy' for cultivators traveling between worlds, and the migration ratios of energy flow across worlds."
His explanation was abstruse, but Black Tiger God understood instantly and laughed, "The spiritual-energy conversion equation is the key to blood-sacrifice rituals, and the migration equation is the key to teleportation divine arts, right?"
Quinn looked up at him, incredulous.
These equations required massive computation and drew on many fields: soul and flesh mass-energy conversion, spatial transmission, jump calculations. Most cultivators in High-Emperor Heaven would be completely lost, but Black Tiger God nailed the core in one sentence!
Of course—he was the Sage's mount, and the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra included advanced mathematical methods. Being around the Sage, he'd surely learned a great deal.
Quinn tested him: "Senior Brother Tiger, how deep is your skill in numerology?"
Black Tiger God picked up a sheet of paper. "I just noticed an error in your calculations—right here, you got it wrong."
Quinn checked the paper, hurriedly recalculated with his tools, and found the mistake.
Quinn was deeply impressed. "Senior Brother Tiger, your numerology is profound—faster and more accurate than mine. I truly admire you. These equations are hard to solve and involve too many variables. Would you be willing to help?"
Black Tiger God grinned, "As long as you don't go stirring up trouble, why not help? What's your calculation approach? What are the equations for—what's their purpose in your design?"
Quinn explained his plan for the World Bridge, then showed his altar design and Transmission Flag. "I used this method to swap places with a demon general and arrived in High-Emperor Heaven. But this time, I want to build a stable World Bridge linking the Everpeace Empire and High-Emperor Heaven—so people can freely travel between worlds, not just use an altar for one-off teleportation."
Black Tiger God pondered for a moment. "Then it's a spatial spiritual-energy migration bridge. It can be designed like a funnel—once space is pierced, energy flows between worlds. If someone from High-Emperor Heaven crosses to Everpeace, Everpeace loses some energy that flows back to High-Emperor Heaven, and vice versa. You're really creative, Junior Brother!"
He slapped Quinn hard on the shoulder. Quinn's face changed, silently reset his dislocated arm, and was thoroughly convinced of Black Tiger God's strength.
Suddenly inspired, Black Tiger God clapped his hands and laughed, "I've got it! No need to design new altars—the master already has a giant altar in High-Emperor Heaven, and there's a similar one in the Great Ruins as his backup escape route. If High-Emperor Heaven falls, he can return to the Great Ruins through that altar. Both altars are built for sacrifices to summon true gods and can anchor the World Bridge without collapsing from energy congestion. The only hard part left is solving the two equations!"
Quinn grew excited. Black Tiger God was not only fast but terrifyingly skilled at numerology, even deeper than Quinn himself. With his help, a cross-world energy migration bridge could be built much faster, linking High-Emperor Heaven and Everpeace!
Suddenly, he thought of the Dragon-Qilin and felt a pang of irrational heartache: 'Both are mounts, but compared to Tiger Bro... Tiger Bro is faster, higher realm, not picky with food, and far better at numerology...'
He quickly pushed aside the sour feeling and threw himself wholeheartedly into the calculations with Black Tiger God.
Black Tiger God's skill in numerology was truly astonishing. Quinn needed to use all sorts of numerology spirit-tools—Taiji disks, Eight Trigram plates, and more—assembled into a massive, heteromorphic computational device just to keep up with his pace.
Quinn simply handed over all his numerology tools and let Black Tiger God handle the calculations, while he focused on providing the problem-solving approach.
"You don't have enough calculation tools. I'll forge some more!"
With that, Black Tiger God rapidly forged a heap of numerology spirit-tools and managed to operate six massive computational devices at once.
'Bruno doesn't know how to forge spirit-tools at all...' Quinn felt another pang of sourness.
Quinn would propose a solution, and Black Tiger God would instantly work out the answer—their speed was incredible.
The two worked tirelessly, day and night, in the east city gate tower of Departure City. After eight days, the tower was piled high with thick stacks of manuscripts.
Suddenly, Sabrina's voice called out: "Hey, grain-thresher brother, what are you two doing in here?"
Quinn lifted his head from the piles of paper, his eyes bloodshot. He saw Sabrina, Rain He, Shu Yao, and several other young cultivators peering curiously into the tower.
Everyone was startled—the manuscripts were stacked taller than a person, row after row, all perfectly neat. In the middle, Quinn and a tiger-headed youth both had huge dark circles, bloodshot eyes, and scruffy beards, looking utterly disheveled.
"So it's you guys."
Quinn looked away and kept scribbling on the paper. "Wait a moment, you all. Tiger Bro and I have finished the two equations and are now using them to calculate the spatial spiritual-energy conversion runes for the World Bridge."
Rain He, Shu Yao, and the others were dazed. After a pause, Shu Yao asked awkwardly, "Sabrina, did you understand any of that?"
Sabrina shook her head blankly.
Quinn and Black Tiger God each used their vital energy to draw extremely fine scales and marks on the paper for a long time, carefully annotating every measurement before finally standing up.
Black Tiger God exclaimed excitedly, "Let's go build the World Bridge right now and see if we can connect the two realms!"
Quinn hesitated. "The Sage said not to cause disaster. The World Bridge hasn't been tested yet—if we build it now, it might..."
Black Tiger God was even more excited, pounding his chest heroically: "This isn't causing disaster, at most it's stirring things up! Don't worry—if anything goes wrong, I'll take the blame!"
———— Hmm, there will be another update after midnight tonight!