Chapter 878 - Fourth Year
An Lin felt as if his body had been torn apart, and the crushing pain even caused his soul to tremble uncontrollably.
Everything descended into darkness.
But soon, a light began to appear.
After a rush of dizziness, he opened his eyes to find a big head and a pair of big, round eyes looking down at him.
A huge tongue shot forth before licking his face!
“Big Brother An, you’re finally awake, woof!”
Da Bai yelled with excitement.
An Lin massaged his brows before standing up.
“How… How long was I out for?” An Lin asked.
Dongfang Zhuangshi replied with a smile, “Not long, only about two days.”
Two days?
An Lin was slightly taken aback upon hearing this. He felt like many years had already passed by!
He then turned to the woman beside the medicine cabinets.
The woman’s smile was as gentle as ever under the sunlight, and there were no signs of the passage of time on her face.
An Lin no longer experienced that heart-wrenching pain when he saw Dongfang Mengjie.
An Kirin had also settled down in his sea of vital energy, as if he had released all of his pent up emotions, with the exception of a few traces of melancholy.
“Is this why you brought me here?” An Lin asked.
Dongfang Zhuangshi nodded. “The Kirin Blood Jade is a manifestation of my past body and dao realm. The reason why I have brought you here is so that it can let go of its obsession toward her and transfer it all to me.”
An Lin nodded with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, Uncle Dongfang.”
He had revealed his innermost secrets to him just to clear away the obsessions and hidden flaws within the Kirin Blood Jade, which was now in his body.
This was a gesture of kindness that he would remember forever.
It was also through this that he developed a much better understanding of Dongfang Zhuangshi.
“Also, don’t you dare reveal what you saw to anyone. Otherwise, I’ll make you regret it!” Dongfang Zhuangshi suddenly cautioned in a stern voice.
An Lin immediately nodded with an obedient expression.
Dongfang Zhuangshi turned to look at the woman with an entranced expression.
Da Bai told An Lin on the sly that ever since he had fainted, the middle-aged man had been staring at the woman the entire time.
An Lin didn’t really think much of this. If Dongfang Zhuangshi was left to his own devices, he would probably stand here and stare at her for a few years without fail.
After a short while, they left the Vast Land of Blood.
The middle-aged man set up a protective spell formation around the Vast Land of Blood. He then absorbed some energy before setting off on his journey to reconstruct his body with the groundhog and Gluttony in tow.
An Lin returned to the university to continue his mundane cultivation life.
His return created a massive stir across the entire United University of Cultivation.
In particular, all the new freshman students were full of reverence and curiosity for him, and all of them pretended to “pass by” the fourth-year dorm buildings after their classes.
They all wanted to see what the number one legend of the school looked like.
There were simply too many legends about An Lin.
Just his status as the sect leader of the Four Nine Immortal Sect was enough to attract countless fans.
This was like a university student becoming the CEO of one of the top five hundred companies in the mortal world. How could this not cause a sensation?
It was not accurate to say that there were no idolaters in the cultivating world. If one was outstanding enough, they would have idolaters everywhere they went.
An Lin looked out through his window at the junior students who were just “passing by” but were staring at him with scorching light in their eyes, and he felt no sense of satisfaction or pride. Instead, he let loose a faint, forlorn sigh.
“Sigh… I have a long road ahead of me. I had once thought that Dao Integration Stage True Gods were invincible.
“Who would have thought that there would be a being that could crush Uncle Dongfang with one palm? There truly is no end to the path of dao…
“Speaking of which, if that mighty figure is so bad*ss, why can’t they fix the hole in the sky?”
An Lin was a little perplexed as he thought back to what the Celestial Thearch had told him.
On top of a platform.
Celestial Immortal Ming Yuan was delivering an enthusiastic speech on karma.
“What is karma? To put it in simpler terms, it is the connection between all things in this world. There is karma between all of us. I do something and that results in something; that is the most basic manifestation of karma. And that effect from my actions would also result in the occurrence of another event, which would, in turn, trigger something else and so on and so forth.
“Hence, karma is infinite. Some say that one can achieve ascension by severing all of their karma with this world, but I don’t think that is possible.
“Because no matter what you do, karma will continue to exist. You wave a hand and a flower might blossom because of you in a certain corner of this world. Even after you die, your existence would have impacted the world somehow. Karma will continue into infinity and beyond with no end.
“Thus, never underestimate your connection with this world as the world is constantly changing because of us. This chance is endless and eternal.”
An Lin nodded as he listened to this speech with relish.
It suddenly made him feel like death wasn’t something to be scared of.
Even after his death, karma would continue to exist, and the meaning of his life would not disappear following his death.
“Teacher Ming Yuan’s speech is so awesome.” Tina sat on An Lin’s shoulder with her chin in her hands as she stared up at the man on the platform with reverence.
An Lin nodded in agreement. Ever since Celestial Immortal Ming Yuan progressed to the Return to Void Stage, his understanding of the world seemed to have grown more profound. He no longer taught any sword technique classes. Instead, he was now teaching classes on dao theory.
It had to be said, his speeches were indeed quite rousing.
“Giant An Lin, I do disagree with Teacher Ming Yuan’s opinion that it is impossible for someone to achieve ascension by severing all of their karma with this world,” Tina suddenly said.
“Oh? What is your opinion on this matter then?” An Lin was a little surprised to hear this.
“Think about it, if a mighty figure were to attain the power to reverse time, they could reverse time to a point before they were even born. Wouldn’t they be able to sever all karma with this world then?” Tina proposed in a low voice.
An Lin felt like this made sense.
Was it possible to reverse time? Having witnessed Dongfang Zhuangshi sacrifice a divine tool to reverse time in a small area, he was no longer of the opinion that reversal of time was impossible.
However, after thinking about it for a while longer, he suddenly felt like there was a flaw in this logic.
“Wait!” An Lin suddenly said. “If this mighty figure wants to essentially unborn themselves, they would have to take some sort of action to do so, right? How could they unborn themselves without changing the original course the world was destined to travel in? Even though they are erasing their existence from this world, their actions would still result in consequences, and they would still be unable to escape karma.”
“Er…” Tina had no response to this.
It looked like really was no way to sever one’s karma with this world after all.
Thus, their philosophical discussion drew to a conclusion.
The next day, stuffed buns ignored by Da Bai was on sale again.
There were only a hundred steamers of stuffed buns, but thousands of students arrived at the scene, thereby shattering his previous attendance record. This also served to exemplify just how popular he had become within the school.
An Lin was surrounded by everyone like an endangered panda. He suddenly felt like he wasn’t the legend of the school anymore, but instead, he was the school’s mascot…
In any case, everything was back to normal.
This was his fourth-year cultivating life. It was mundane, leisure, and carefree.