“Thank goodness we left earlier, otherwise...” Director General Zhao’s heart was still in his mouth. That had been too dangerous!

He was also surprised at how quickly the queen had reacted. She really had understood Li Hao’s intentions! Clearly, that’d been a warning from the young man. But he hadn’t transmitted it through the star of time. Instead, he signaled impending danger through outright removing the dao star. That’d been... very subtle.

I didn’t get it at all! How come you understood him?

The queen snorted, like she’d read the director general’s mind. “Li Hao is so supremely confident that he dares leave the star of time here. How can anyone else take it from him? Since no one else can, then he’s the only possibility.

“However, he wouldn’t do so without any forewarning and also expose us in the process. The Great Li king and I don’t matter, but he would never let Silver Moon martial masters go to their deaths!”

If only the queen and the Great Li king were present, she would simply think that that jerk was going to be the death of them, again. It was another story entirely when Director General Zhao was here. Clearly, danger had found them.

Permitting the power of faith to leak was also a sign that they needed to leave as soon as possible. It was an easy conclusion to come to so long as they thought a little about it.

Director General Zhao burst out laughing, then patted his chest with some fright. “Thank goodness for Fellow Daoist Ling Yue’s reminder... Ah, is everything fine after you’ve verified your dao?”

The queen was what everyone called her in private, and Li Hao was the only one to do so. Since she’d changed her name to Ling Yue, that was what everyone used.

“Everything’s fine, I just feel... like a swelling sensation,” responded the queen.

“You are indeed swollen,” frowned the Great Li king next to them. “Did you make your divine nation too big? Why do I feel like you keep expanding and look to be on the verge of popping?”

She’d verified her dao, but he hadn’t. The queen had also drained all of the power of faith in a split second, what was he supposed to do after that?

That selfish chit!

The queen returned to human form, but she was indeed growing larger at a very fast pace. Was she on the verge of... exploding??

The queen ducked her head, taking in the changes for the first time. Her eyes widened with surprise. She really was ballooning at a furious rate! The hell??

She immediately extracted some tendrils of faith from the divine nation to suppress her body, but it wasn’t wholly effective. A couple billion humans produced faith for all they were worth, yet it was still hard for the queen to maintain her body.

She didn’t understand it and looked at the other two, confused.

“Forget it.” The Director General Zhao found the situation equally odd. “Let’s get out of here first and find the marquis. Perhaps you’re unable to keep your cultivation level in check since you’ve just verified your dao. Maybe your cultivation level isn’t that stable yet...”

The trio didn’t have much experience in this field, so they could only go to Li Hao.

......

Li Hao was currently staring off into space as he stared at a dao stare. He gazed upon it for a very long time before turning to Number Two.

“If, and I say if, someone in the past takes away my star of time... will that mean I am no longer able to control it?”

“What do you mean by that?” The cat gave him a long look.

“You know what I mean,” Li Hao answered after a beat.

“He’s dead,” sighed the cat. “No one can take it, apart from him.”

Li Hao nodded. Indeed, he was referring to the War Sovereign.

“I’m just borrowing it for a bit to study,” Li Hao said when his thoughts traveled here. “I’ll return it, sooner or later. I don’t care if he’s truly or fake dead, or if he can come back to life, or whatever. Can he just tell me before he takes it again? I’ve used it for so long that I’ve gotten attached to it!”

“Why are you so obsessed with creating it yourself...” the cat said in a muffled voice.

“Because only then does it really belong to me! You’re right, I’m getting completely consumed by the notion!” Li Hao breathed out. “The more magical time is, the more afraid of it I am! When you get used to it and someone suddenly takes it from you...

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to take that! That’s why I’m thinking I’d rather create one myself. It’s best if I can do it and I’ll at least be mentally prepared if I can’t. That will ensure that I don’t suffer a mental breakdown when it’s gone!

“Do you think they made it out?” He changed the subject.

“You know that better than me. Director General Zhao’s dao star is still there, so that means they made it out...”

Li Hao nodded. He was in the dao universe as they spoke and could see all of the dao stars. Director General Zhao should still be alive. That meant he’d escaped, or that the Dragon master’s goal was not Rat World. He’d worked himself into a frenzy for nothing.

But it was best that all was well.

“Listen to this, Number Two.” Li Hao was more at ease, which gave his curiosity room to bloom. “Ascending to eighth rank probably has something to do with devouring a dao universe and also something with the great dao. Given the Skyward master’s combination of 9,999 daos, it likely has to do with the strength of the dao net.

“I’ve observed the dao nets of seventh ranks and found that the Sword Sovereign and his peers have roughly three to four thousand daos in theirs. Does an eighth rank have more? Or are their daos simply stronger and it has nothing to do with the number of daos they wield?”

The cat stared wordlessly at him.

You’re asking me? How would I know?

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Didn’t I just say that??

Number Two was quite unamused by the young man by this stage of their acquaintance. The cat liked Li Hao asking questions before, finding him to be similar to it when the cat was a kitten. It, too, had been very curious about everything.

The one who taught could answer all of my questions, but this cat is not him. I don’t know the answers to most of the questions you ask now, but you keep asking them!

Stop asking!

Does it make you feel superior to ask questions that I can’t answer?

The cat impatiently pawed the ground.

“I think there’s two available paths,” Li Hao had to speculate in the absence of an answer from Number Two. “For example, there might be three thousand daos in the dao net. For a seventh rank to become an eighth rank, they can either choose to strengthen all three thousand or increase the numbers of daos in the dao net!

“They’ll have to reweave the dao net then and might be able to set foot into eighth rank once they reach four to five thousand daos...”

So you obviously know all the answers. Why are you asking me??

“What I’m curious now is how eighth ranks ascend to ninth rank,” continued Li Hao. “Do they imitate the Skyward master and combine all 9,999 daos? Does the Skyward master count as a strong ninth rank?

“If so, does that mean we don’t need that many daos to complete the breakthrough? Would combining 9,000 daos or even fewer do the trick?”

“......” The cat didn’t make a sound. I don’t know, don’t ask me, figure it out yourself. You’re just a fifth rank, but turn over these questions from day to night. Don’t you get tired of the constant chatter in your brain?

“I don’t know the answers to any of this, but I know that the path of an exalted emperor boils down to the number and strength of their daos!” Li Hao answered his own question. “Comprehending dao is the proper way! I think someone will never make it to ninth rank if they rely on devouring other worlds!

“I now have a small speculation when it comes to chaos beasts verifying seventh rank...” Li Hao paused to assemble his thoughts. “Based off the methods of a wandering cultivator or world master, one has to build a dao net to reach seventh rank. But are chaos beasts that smart? I don’t think so.

“Therefore, I think that the chaos and its myriad of daos is a dao net to begin with. The chaos beasts root their dao in the chaos, which means that chaos dao—or chaos world—can be considered a massive dao universe!

“But this idea is useful only for chaos beasts,” Li Hao added. “Humans should refrain from giving it a try!”

“Why is that?” asked Number Two.

“Because human bodies are not as powerful as chaos beasts, chaos beasts can swallow worlds!” Li Hao laughed. “I suspect that chaos beasts can verify their dao because the resulting explosion of chaos strength will not pop them!

“If humans follow suit, however, then they might explode from the pressure even if they train body dao! The two sides are not of the same system, so their physical constitution will be different...

“If regular humans dare imitate the chaos beasts, I think their ultimate ending will be death by detonation! If someone’s completely established their dao in the chaos, then that idiot won’t have much longer to live.

“They’ll be completely eroded by the chaos—and not in terms of being melted. Endless chaos strength would assimilate them. They wouldn’t be able to withstand it and eventually, that cultivator will become part of the chaos!

“Chaos beasts are able to withstand that, however. They were born in the chaos, so they’re used to it and have adapted to the chaos. But the same does not go for humans...”

“Even human wandering cultivators will not fully base their dao on the chaos.” Number Two nodded; the young man made a lot of sense. “They would only integrate their dao into the chaos. not fully root it. There... shouldn’t be any of the idiots you speak of.”

Li Hao nodded. That was true. Even unknown exalted emperors usually verified their dao within a world; the chaos wasn’t anyone’s first choice. In that case, there was no need to rely on the chaos.

When they left the world, they understood more and were less likely to place their faith in the chaos as they knew what they entailed.

“But if anyone does so and succeeds, they’ll probably be very strong,” Li Hao smiled. “So I think that chaos beasts are stronger than their human peers. Of course, humans have their own advantages.

“Our dao methods are mature. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they’re definitively stronger, I do envy the sturdiness of their bodies. No wonder they can encompass worlds. When I trained my body, I really hoped that my cells could become a world barrier. Chaos beasts can do that naturally!”

I envy them!

“How do they do it?” The cat shook its head. The idea didn’t compute “Chaos strength washes over us every second when we’re in the chaos. It wouldn’t do us any good to imitate wandering cultivators and integrate only part of our dao. That would just make our great dao a mess.

“But if we meld all of our dao into it, that would be accepting the entire strength of the chaos. We’d have to find a completely isolated area and refuse to further take in chaos strength. But that prevents us from growing stronger!

“We need to be part of the chaos and accept its strength if we want to get stronger. Even an isolated world is absorbing energy from the chaos...”

That would make it impossible to defend from the chaos onslaught! It was just a matter of when one would die.

The cat wanted to roll its eyes. Why was Li Hao always contemplating how to die?