Chapter 60 – The Saint Who Reached for Heaven
The first thing Lin Xuan felt was weightlessness.
He floated—not through air, but through a strange, warm calm. There was no pain. No crushing pressure. No killing intent clawing at his back. Just a gentle current carrying him upward.
Then gravity settled in again, his feet touching solid ground.
He opened his eyes.
And forgot to breathe.
---
He stood in a world that should not exist.
Above him stretched a sky painted in soft twilight hues, streaked with slow-moving auroras in blues and violets. Floating mountains drifted lazily across the horizon, their undersides dripping streams of liquid light into rivers below. The air was thick—not suffocating, but rich—each inhale filled his lungs with spiritual energy so dense it almost felt like he was drinking it.
In the distance, a waterfall of pure qi cascaded off a cliff into a lake that shone like polished jade. Pillars, platforms, and stone pavilions dotted the landscape, some intact, others worn by time but still carrying traces of formations carved by a master's hand.
Lin Xuan turned slowly.
"A… pocket dimension," he whispered. "So this is what he meant…"
His wounds were still there, but they felt muted—not raw, just… distant. His meridians, though taxed, were bathing in the ambient qi, repairing themselves at a noticeable pace.
He knelt and touched the ground.
The soil hummed back.
If I cultivated here seriously…
His eyes narrowed.
I could advance faster in a month than I would in a year outside.
He had been holding back this entire time—careful not to advance so fast that the sect, the alliance, or the demonic sects would turn him into a target they couldn't ignore.
But here… there were no eyes. No spies. No political weight on his shoulders.
Just him.
And the lingering will of the one who created this place.
A ripple passed through the sky.
A figure coalesced before him, as though stepping out of the twilight itself.
---
The Saint's spiritual projection looked more solid now than it had in the tomb—robe sleeves flowing slightly, his white hair gently stirring in a breeze that didn't exist. His face was lined not by age, but by long years of comprehension and exhaustion. His eyes, however, were clear. Too clear. The eyes of someone who had seen far beyond the mountains Lin knew.
Lin clasped his fists and bowed deeply.
"Junior Lin Xuan greets Senior."
The Saint regarded him calmly.
"You woke quickly," he said. His voice carried a resonance that seemed to vibrate through the air. "Good. Pacing is important."
Lin straightened. "Senior… may I ask… who you are?"
The Saint tilted his head, then gave a soft, almost amused exhale.
"Once," he said, "the world called me Sheng Tianya. One of the few who climbed from mortal mud to Saint Realm without a clan at my back or a sect carving my path."
The name meant nothing to Lin Xuan—but the weight of it did. There was no arrogance in the way he said it. It was just truth.
"Sheng Tianya," Lin repeated quietly. "Senior… died here?"
"Not at first," Tianya corrected. "I thought this tomb would be my monument. A place where later generations would come to watch the path I walked." His eyes drifted upward, gaze distant. "Instead, it became my coffin."
He slowly turned away, hands clasped behind his back, walking toward the edge of a floating platform. Lin followed at a respectful distance.
"Tell me, boy," Sheng Tianya asked, "how far has the world come? Do they still whisper of Saints and Demigods? Or has the path been forgotten?"
Lin hesitated. "Saint… is spoken of only in legends. Demigods… in myths. Most sects consider anything beyond Void Transformation to be unreachable."
"Void Transformation," Sheng Tianya echoed quietly. "I surpassed that long ago. As did my enemies."
A chill passed through Lin.
"Enemies?"
The Saint's lips twisted—not in hatred, but in something like weary amusement.
"Do not romanticize power," he said. "The higher you climb, the narrower the ledge, and the more hands reach upward to drag you down."
He turned, his gaze sharp now.
"I stood at the threshold of the Demigod Realm. Hundreds of years spent refining body, soul, and law. When I was ready to break my shackles, the heavens responded."
Lin could almost see it—the Saint standing beneath tribulation clouds, thunder gathering.
"I prepared for the lightning," Sheng Tianya continued. "For the fire, the wind, the burning of karma. I even prepared for the heavens to question my qualifications." His fingers twitched, as if recalling the feeling of that power. "What I did not prepare for… was treachery."
"Senior was betrayed?" Lin asked quietly.
Sheng Tianya chuckled, but there was no humor. "The world fears what it cannot control. Sects I once aided grew uneasy. Clans I saved wanted my allegiance. I walked alone. Alone, you are easy to admire. Alone, you are also easy to erase."
He looked Lin straight in the eyes.
"Twelve Saint-level cultivators and two half-step Demigods interrupted my tribulation. Not to challenge me honorably. To force my karma to surge, to unbalance my soul while heaven judged me."
Lin's hands clenched unconsciously.
"They attacked during your breakthrough?"
"Yes," Sheng Tianya said simply. "I killed eight of them. The other six survived—barely. But the damage was done. My tribulation warped. Instead of ascension, the heavens offered annihilation." He smiled faintly. "I declined."
"How?" Lin asked, genuinely stunned.
Sheng Tianya lifted a single finger.
"The artifact you now wear. My Divinity Vessel. It was forged from the core of a fallen star and the remains of an ancient Beast Emperor. It could evolve, grow, and shield its master. At the last moment, I used it to pull my core soul out of reach of heaven's final strike."
He gestured to the world around them.
"This pocket dimension is a fragment of my foundation—a sanctuary I carved into the fabric of space. My body died in that tomb. My soul lodged itself here, attached to the Vessel. Waiting."
Lin inhaled slowly. "Waiting… for a successor?"
Sheng Tianya's smile softened, just a little. "Waiting for anyone who could awaken the artifact properly. It slumbered after saving me. Without a worthy resonance, it would never show its true nature."
Lin thought of the first time he'd found it. The way it had seemed… more than a simple spatial treasure once he upgraded it.
"So," Lin said low, realization dawning, "when I upgraded it…"
"…you stirred its sleeping will," Sheng Tianya finished. "Your talent is not something this world sees often. Even in my time, I would have called you… interesting."
Coming from a man who had fought Demigod candidates, that was no small praise.
Lin bowed again. "Then this junior thanks Senior for saving my life."
Sheng Tianya waved dismissively. "You wear my artifact. Letting you die while holding it would be… embarrassing."
A small, almost boyish part of Lin wanted to laugh at that. He held it back.
"Besides," Sheng Tianya went on, his tone growing more serious, "the world outside is changing. I could feel it in the tremors of qi. Too many demonic signatures. Too much slaughter. You have drawn their attention."
"Yes," Lin admitted. "They think I produced a Celestial Grade Pill. The demonic sects can't risk an orthodox power gaining such an advantage."
"Then you have little time," the Saint said. "Once they confirm your survival, they will escalate. You are already walking a path where your strength lags behind the weight chasing you."
Lin's expression firmed. "I know."
"Up until now," Sheng Tianya continued, "you have done well hiding your true rate of progress. Keeping your head just below the line where the heavens and men draw their bows."
His gaze sharpened.
"But what if that is no longer enough?"
A beat of silence.
Lin understood what he was really asking.
Are you willing to break that balance? To risk the world looking straight at you?
Lin's answer came without hesitating.
"If I stay weak," he said, "everyone around me dies."
His mind flashed: Bai. Mu. Wen. The Sect Master. Danfeng. Even the allies of Red Phoenix and Flower Pavilion.
"If the price of surviving," Lin went on quietly, "is to never stand out, then I'll pay with their lives instead of mine. I'm not willing to do that."
Sheng Tianya watched him, then nodded slowly.
"Good. You have the right temperament."
He lifted his hand.
A small sphere of light appeared between them, then unfolded into a scroll of pure spiritual intent, each character shimmering like a star.
"This," the Saint said, "is my self-made cultivation technique. I forged it when I realized the paths of the world were too shallow for where I wished to go."
Lin's eyes widened, breath catching. A Saint's personal technique…
"What does it do?" he asked.
Sheng Tianya's eyes glinted.
"It changes the way you think about your dantian," he said. "And about the world."
He stepped closer, voice low, each word pressing into Lin's mind with weight.
"Most cultivators treat their dantian as a cup, or a pool. They fill it, refine it, expand it a little with each breakthrough. They never question the shape—only the volume."
He pointed at Lin's chest.
"But the world is not a cup. It is not a pool."
His hand rose, indicating the sky, the drifting mountains, the shimmering rivers.
"The world is structure. Pattern. Systems. Forces balanced against forces. I asked myself: if the heavens created all this with rules, why can't I design rules for my own foundation?"
He tapped his own forehead.
"My method demands this:
Go into your sea of consciousness.
Visualize the most powerful thing you truly, intrinsically understand.
Not what you've heard stories about. Not what you've read.
Something that lives in your bones."
"Then," he continued, "you build that thing in your mind, piece by piece. You anchor it, complete it, understand how it moves. How it breathes. How it changes over time."
Lin listened, every syllable etching itself into his being.
"And then?" he asked.
"Then," Sheng Tianya said softly, "you place your dantian inside it. Not as a visitor. As its core. You change your dantian from a cup…" he smiled faintly, "…into a cosmos."
Lin's breath hitched.
"A cosmos…"
Sheng Tianya nodded.
"Once you do, your previous level of cultivation cannot sustain the new foundation. Your cultivation will—temporarily—collapse. Most would panic and try to reclaim their former comfort."
He shook his head.
"Those people are not my successors."
Lin swallowed.
"What is the benefit?" he asked quietly, though he already sensed the answer.
Tianya's next words were simple.
"Your new dantian will be able to hold energy not in multiples of your previous capacity… but in orders of magnitude. Ten times. A hundred times."
He locked eyes with Lin.
"A thousand times."
The number stirred something deep in Lin's chest.
A thousand times the energy. A thousand times the potential output, the reserve, the endurance, the depth of foundation.
"And your cultivation speed?" Lin asked. "Will it slow?"
"A fair question," Sheng Tianya said. "No. If anything, it will improve. Because your foundation will no longer leak, warp, or strain under growth. It will be built to bear it."
He gestured around.
"This pocket dimension exists because I built my foundation like that. It is not perfect. I did not reach Demigod. But I got far enough that killing me required a dozen Saints and half-step gods betraying their honor."
He fell quiet a moment.
When he spoke again, his voice was lighter.
"I offer you this path, Lin Xuan. Not because you remind me of myself. You don't. I was far more arrogant." He smiled faintly. "But because my Divinity Vessel chose to awaken in your hands. That means something."
Lin stared at the glowing scroll of intent between them.
A thousand times more capacity.
The ability to grow without his foundation breaking.
A path that might draw even more enemies.
He didn't hesitate.
"I accept," he said.
Sheng Tianya nodded once.
"Good. Sit."
Lin sat cross-legged on the smooth stone, the ambient qi of the pocket world swirling around him like a gentle storm. He closed his eyes. The Saint's spiritual technique flowed into his sea of consciousness, each character dissolving into luminous sigils that settled around his soul.
"Now," Sheng Tianya said quietly, his voice resonating from everywhere at once, "go within. Seek the thing you know."
The world fell away.
Lin sank into his mind.
---
Darkness spread out before him—not oppressive, but infinite.
His sea of consciousness was vast, but for the first time, he was truly looking at it, not just passing through.
The Saint's voice echoed, distant and clear.
"Visualize the most powerful thing you understand from the inside out."
Lin thought of blades, of lightning, of tides of qi and battles and sects and heavens.
None of them fit.
They were powerful, yes. But he did not understand them in his bones.
Then his thoughts turned to something else.
Memory.
Of nights on his original world, lying under a sky of stars. Of learning, as a child, about a world orbiting a star, with other planets whirling alongside. Gravity, mass, motion—forces unseen but felt.
Something clicked.
His sea of consciousness shivered.
A point of light appeared.
Then another. And another.
A sun ignited in the void before him—golden, blazing, radiating warmth. Around it, invisible lines formed arcs, and along those arcs, planets began to coalesce. Smaller ones, larger ones, some with faint rings, some with swirls of clouds.
He knew their movement. Their distance. Their silent agreement to dance around the burning heart.
The solar system.
Something he understood not as myth, but as structure.
As truth.
"That's it," Lin whispered in his mind, awe spreading through him.
He didn't need Sheng Tianya to confirm it.
He knew.
The Saint's voice came anyway, satisfied.
"Good choice."
The solar system stabilized, spinning slowly in his sea of consciousness. The orbits felt right. Balanced. Every revolution predictable yet full of endless variation.
Now came the terrifying part.
"Place your dantian in the center," Sheng Tianya's voice instructed. "Let it become the sun."
Lin looked down at his "old" dantian—a familiar sphere of condensed qi, floating like a small moon near his consciousness.
"…If I do this," he thought, "there's no going back."
But his path had never allowed for half measures.
He guided his dantian with a thought.
It drifted into the heart of the solar system.
The instant it touched the sun's position—
The entire construct collapsed inward like a star imploding.
Pain lanced through Lin's core.
His cultivation plummeted.
Every layer of qi he'd accumulated over the years shattered, scattered, stretched.
He felt like he'd been flung off a cliff with no body to land in.
But instead of breaking apart, his dantian expanded.
The "walls" of it shot outward, passing his old limit in an instant.
Then again.
And again.
Every time it expanded, the structure of the solar system reformed around it, supporting it, distributing the stress, stabilizing the spin.
What had been a small, dense sphere became an entire star, with rivers of power ready to pour into orbiting paths.
Lin couldn't even tell what "realm" he was in for a moment.
He just felt… empty.
Completely, utterly empty.
And yet—
Never more capable of being filled.
---
In the pocket dimension, Lin's body trembled, cold sweat pouring down his back. If someone had scanned his cultivation, they would have thought he'd crippled himself. His qi was almost zero, just a thin film clinging to the walls of his new, enormous dantian.
Then the world around him responded.
The ambient qi surged.
It rushed toward him like air screaming into a vacuum.
Sheng Tianya watched in silence as the pocket dimension's rivers, clouds, and stones began feeding energy into the boy by instinctive resonance. The solar dantian drank it in, and for the first time Lin realized what a "thousand times" capacity felt like.
It felt like standing at the bottom of a bottomless ocean, and realizing the ocean was yours.
His cultivation began to climb again.
Slow at first.
Then faster.
Faster.
Without struggle, without instability, without wasted motion. It simply rose, like water filling a basin designed to hold the flood.
In mere breaths, he reclaimed what he'd "lost." Foundation Establishment level four. Then its peak. Then further—not a breakthrough yet, but a density beyond what that level should hold.
Sheng Tianya closed his eyes briefly, satisfaction and a quiet sorrow mingling in his expression.
"Good," he murmured. "You've done what most would never dare."
His gaze turned toward the unseen sky.
"Now, little sun," he said softly, "let's see how bright you can burn before the heavens notice you."
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