To a mayfly, an insect with the lifespan of less than a day, a year was an unfathomably long amount of time. To a human, a year was just a short period of their life. To a soul-seed cultivator, five hundred years wasn’t too long nor was it too short. It was the perfect amount of time to spend in secluded cultivation. Grandpa Vremya’s eyes shot open after being closed for four hundred seventy years. The ceiling of the underground bunker he was in burst apart. Luckily, the bunker wasn’t located directly below the presidential building; a tribulation was coming.

Grandpa Vremya tilted his head up towards the sky. The sky was as clear as could be, not a single cloud in sight, but that changed quickly enough. A layer of fog appeared overhead, and it darkened as black clouds materialized out of thin air. Lightning snaked through the clouds, illuminating the ground below. Grandpa Vremya stared with an impassive expression, letting the tribulation brew. As someone who hadn’t gained a single ounce of bad karma, what did he have to fear about a simple tribulation? A bolt of lightning shot downwards, striking Grandpa Vremya. However, it encountered a black hole instead and was sucked inside. As if provoked, the tribulation cloud sent down lightning bolt after lightning bolt, but they were all absorbed by the black hole. When the onslaught of lightning ended, Grandpa Vremya harrumphed and waved his hand. The black hole flew into the sky and exploded in a brilliant flash of heat and light, wiping away the tribulation clouds, clearing the sky once more.

Grandpa Vremya’s feet left the floor of the bunker, and his body floated upwards, past the shattered ceiling. He landed on the ground and looked around. The place hadn’t changed much in the past four hundred seventy years. However, how was it possible for nothing to change after so much time had passed. Without warning, four shadows leapt out from the surroundings and tackled Grandpa Vremya, knocking him off his feet. They were the phoegons, and they were still the same size as they were four hundred seventy years ago. Ten thousand years would have to pass before a phoegon reached maturity. Grandpa Vremya grunted and rubbed the phoegons’ heads, pushing them aside to sit up. They licked at his face and rubbed their cheeks against his body, tearing his clothes to shreds due to the roughness of their scales.

A moment later, someone came out of the presidential building nearby: Azalea. She stared at Grandpa Vremya before a smile blossomed on her face. “Your seclusion was a success?” She ran up to him and hugged him, pushing aside the phoegons. Although she was no longer muscular, her strength was still brutish. The phoegons could only whine in protest when they were shoved away. “Congratulations on becoming a false immortal.” She leaned back and stared him in the eyes. “I know you don’t like doing anything, preferring to grow like a tree in isolation, but the Moon Lotus Sect needs your help.”

Grandpa Vremya raised an eyebrow. “What happened?” His eyes scanned Azalea from top to bottom. At long last, he had surpassed her in cultivation base. She was still a soul-seed cultivator, and she wasn’t anywhere near the peak, but her strength was still respectable. If she piloted a BAR, only another soul-seed cultivator piloting a BAR could defeat her—or a freak of nature like Rachel could defeat her too.

“The coalition’s false immortal has been making trouble for us,” Azalea said while standing. One of the phoegons came up to her and rubbed its head against her leg. She patted its head absentmindedly before taking a jade slip out of her interspatial ring. It was easier than explaining the situation with words. She passed the slip to Grandpa Vremya, gesturing for him to press it against his forehead.

Grandpa Vremya absorbed the knowledge inside, and he raised an eyebrow. “The sect has bullied the coalition to the point they had to summon their false immortal?”

Azalea’s gaze shifted to the side. “It sounds bad when you put it that way,” she said. “It all started with Miss Emily’s request. After her corporation swallowed up the majority of the federation, she went after the coalition’s businesses as if her life depended on it. Of course, she’s been helping the sect grow quite immensely, so she has our full support.” A sigh escaped from Azalea’s mouth. “Who could’ve known there was the daughter of an extremely rich oligarch on one of the ships we plundered? We returned her mostly untraumatized, but her father took it personally and pulled some strings.”

Grandpa Vremya nodded. “And the sect wants me to clean up the mess it made,” he said. He stroked his beard, which had gotten longer during his time in seclusion. “Without the sect, I wouldn’t be a false immortal today. It’s only proper for me to help it in its time of need.” He glanced at his bracelet and sent some spiritual energy into it, turning it back on after its long period of disuse. After checking a few things in less than a second, his gaze went back onto Azalea. “Rachel’s still nowhere to be found?” A frown appeared on Grandpa Vremya’s face. “Maybe she died.”

“Don’t say that,” Azalea said with a glare. “What if it actually happens? You can’t spout ominous words like that.”

Grandpa Vremya shrugged. “May she live long and never die.” He shook the phoegons off his torso and stood up. “Do you think those two sentences canceled each other out?”

Azalea sighed. Four hundred seventy years had passed, but Grandpa Vremya hadn’t changed a single bit.

***

Rachel grinded her teeth. She didn’t think it would happen, but she had really been stuck in the stupid bubble for nearly half a millennium now. Although she would’ve had the strength to break out of her confinement if she passed her tribulation of the body, she simply couldn’t attempt it. She just needed a little more spiritual energy to attempt the tribulation, but Jade had changed the function of the barrier. Spiritual energy no longer filtered through. When Rachel was just one step away, she was blocked, and even though she had severed her frustration, she was still immensely dissatisfied.

Jade opened one eye before closing it again. She had originally intended to allow the trapped woman to break free on her own; however, Jade felt a strange sense of foreboding, and as time passed, the feeling grew stronger and stronger. If she let the trapped woman pass the tribulation of the body, perhaps something terrible would happen. Jade’s instincts had never let her down, and as such, she stopped the trapped woman’s chances of escaping. Even though the woman would be freed after Jade obtained the Snow Fire Lightning Fruit, the fallout wouldn’t affect her anymore because she’d either be ascended or dead.

Rachel exhaled and glared at Jade through the barrier. It was such a flimsy one made of water; it couldn’t even stop her vision, but it was impossible to pass through. Was this her fate as the weak? Where was the justice?

At that moment, a line of text appeared in her vision.

[Become an apostle of justice, and I will set you free.]