The cover of the book bore the five characters: Zhouji Mingshi Shu!

Zong Shou touched it with his hand. This body was merely a construct shaped by his will, possessing no true substance. Yet, the moment of contact sent a chill through him, emanating from the book.

Innumerable streams of information flooded his mind, causing Zong Shou a wave of dizziness. The sensation was profound and mysterious, much like the time he stood on the Observation Platform, witnessing the birth of a realm.

It was impossible to tell how long passed before Zong Shou adjusted, his eyes now alight with astonishment and elation.

He was astonished by the book’s interpretation of time, which was utterly and comprehensively meticulous.

Even though he was currently engaging only with its most rudimentary section, the detail was breathtaking, encompassing all laws.

The universe operated in four dimensions, and this temporal dimension was like a single thread, stretching from the dawn of the Primal Beginning to the absolute end. It intertwined with every Great Dao and every natural law.

Even the information currently imprinted upon his soul-sea was enough for him to spend several years, perhaps decades, just in digestion.

Reflecting carefully, his memory banks were already overloaded with too much knowledge: the Core of the Great Beginning, the Black and White Duality Holes, and now this Zhou Book. His spirit was verging on indigestion—

The truths contained within some of its principles might remain incomprehensible even after a hundred years.

Yet, his heart was unwilling to stop here; he yearned to see what came next. This was the pure joy of a scholar encountering the profound, an innate drive to pursue the Great Dao.

He reached out, intending to turn the next page, but Zong Shou felt a fierce resistance pressing back from the ‘fingertips’ of his constructed body.

Frowning slightly, Zong Shou exerted immense force. This page, he was determined, he would turn!

More information surged in, constantly shifting. The pages of the Zhouji Mingshi Shu seemed bound by a lock, or perhaps protected by an intricate spiritual array.

It contained countless interwoven temporal laws. Only after Zong Shou meticulously unraveled and dismantled each restriction did the page finally yield.

What he saw within was a sheet of pure white paper, bearing not a single character.

But Zong Shou’s consciousness immediately swam again, and more seal scripts, talismans, inscribed writings, and spirit patterns were forcefully branded into his Sea of Consciousness.

Regardless of his will, they were imprinted there with brute force.

Time flowed—a quarter-hour, two quarters, three quarters, one hour, two hours.

Until a sudden, thunderous explosion echoed within Zong Shou’s mind, and his consciousness snapped back to full awareness. Looking again at the ‘Zhou Book’ before him, a measure of reverence bloomed in his heart.

The Zhouji Mingshi Shu contained nine pages in total. These should correspond precisely to the nine cultivation realms: Body, Earth, Heaven, Spirit, Immortal, Divine, Saint, Ultimate, and True.

Given his current cultivation, he should have been able to view the third page, the one pertaining to the Heaven Realm.

However, Zong Shou dared not turn any further. At its core, this supreme scripture was fundamentally the same artifact as the Observation Platform.

Opening just this first page had already consumed at least twenty years of his lifespan.

His remaining lifespan was already meager; opening this second page might instantly signal the day of his demise.

But even this first page was more than enough for him.

The thought arose, and a ripple instantly passed through his soul-sea. The character ‘Zhou’ situated between the Black and White Duality Holes suddenly blazed with golden light, its structure beginning to shift.

It radiated spiritual light continuously, ascending in stature. A massive ‘ZHOU’ character ultimately settled above all other runes.

Simultaneously, the character ‘Yun’ also underwent a transformation, flashing with threads of golden light.

Fate and Destiny—Destiny and Fortune—are inextricably linked. Within the Zhouji Mingshi Shu, besides the mysteries of Time, there was also the character ‘Ming’ (Fate). Though distinct from ‘Yun’ (Fortune), it was sufficient for Zong Shou to elevate the rune of ‘Yun’.

As these two Heavenly Runes stabilized, Zong Shou’s soul energy expanded rapidly, causing his Primordial Soul to continuously swell.

His soul perception also underwent sublimation. Already refined to the extreme, it now became even more condensed and purified.

This step propelled him into the Ninth Tier! He had reached the Realm of True Form, the peak of the Cloud Steps, the apex of the Heaven Realm—

Zong Shou permitted himself a faint smile. This advancement granted him an additional two hundred years of lifespan. At least now he wouldn't have to worry about dying within the next decade or two.

Only then did he dare to continue turning to the second and third pages.

He approached them with the same intensity as when viewing the first page, though the process took significantly longer.

Zong Shou made no pretense of understanding the content; he merely forced his memory to retain every detail.

When Zong Shou finally regained consciousness, the deserted mountain peak had cycled through an entire ten days.

Looking at the sapphire-blue Zhouji Mingshi Shu before him, Zong Shou truly couldn't fathom how Zong Weiran had managed to grasp everything contained within and push through to the Immortal Realm in just two years—

“Hmm?”

A sudden intuition stirred, and Zong Shou probed the book again with his intent. He sensed within it a faint yet overwhelmingly dense spiritual energy of time.

If this energy were released outward, it would be magnificent, capable of suffusing at least a tenth of the East Lin Cloud Continent. But concentrated within the book, it was compressed into a near-imperceptible point.

When he slightly brushed this concentration with his spiritual intent, the flow of time around the book became violently erratic.

“This is? So that’s how it is?”

Zong Shou contemplated for only a moment before realization dawned. He finally understood why Zong Weiran could ascend to the Immortal Realm in only two years!

It wasn't two years, but several hundred, perhaps even a thousand years compressed into that timeframe.

Given sufficient spiritual energy, this object could drastically warp time. Truly worthy of being called a Divine Artifact.

And the accumulation of ten thousand years had brought the temporal energy contained within this book to its absolute zenith.

This allowed Zong Weiran to advance to the Immortal Realm in two years, and perhaps, in a few years more, leap straight to the Divine or Saint Realms—.

Compressing millennia into two years—the Zhouji Mingshi Shu was not merely a Dao scripture recording time. It was a Divine Artifact. Otherwise, how could it possibly reverse the destiny of him, Zong Shou?

However, though the artifact was wondrous, in his hands, it seemed destined to function only as a slightly specialized spiritual technique codex.

This was because the spiritual energy stored within the book had been almost entirely depleted, leaving only a minuscule residue to sustain its most basic functions.

Crossing over to this era, carrying his soul through time, was clearly no small feat.

And the fusion that had just occurred had completely exhausted the Zhou Book of 'the present' that Zong Weiran had once possessed.

In short, the book in his hands was now an empty shell.

Zong Shou couldn't help but let out a slight sigh. This immediate ascension to higher realms was clearly out of the question.

Then, a thought flickered, and he reached into the void, grasping ten spirit stones.

They were pure blue, Ninth Tier spirit stones imbued with the attribute of time.

Creatures of Spirit Beasts rarely mastered temporal divine abilities, and even the Divine Beasts of the Cloud Barren Era were scarce. Such beast cores were naturally exceedingly rare. They only appeared sporadically in spirit stone mines.

But the probability was extremely low. Their usual price was ten times that of ordinary spirit stones of the same tier.

The few stones in his hand, just two of them, could be exchanged for one Profound Grade First Tier spirit stone.

The material things of Heaven and Earth were classified into four grades: Heaven, Earth, Black, and Yellow. In the Cloud Realm, all spirit stone mines were of the most common Yellow Grade. To cultivators in the Spirit or Immortal Realms, they were mere dregs.

Only special spirit stones, like those of time and space, were truly precious.

At this moment, Zong Shou did not hesitate; he completely crushed them. Instantly, a stream of pure temporal spirit energy gushed forth.

And just as expected, the Zhou Book absorbed it unceremoniously.

Zong Shou clearly felt the spiritual energy within the tome strengthen slightly.

He activated the book’s power to slow the flow of time around him, entering a state of meditative stillness, utterly detached from thought, waiting quietly.

It might be an instant, or it might be several days. Only when Zong Shou sensed that the Zhouji Mingshi Shu could absorb no more did he open his eyes.

He glanced at the sky, judging the time by the position of the stars, and then his pupils filled with bitterness.

Only three days had passed externally. Three days’ worth of time, condensed into a single moment. The spiritual energy provided by the ten Ninth Tier spirit stones was entirely spent.

This meant that even if he invested his entire fortune, he could only slow time by fifty days at most.

—Fifty days. How much real utility could that offer him at this juncture?

Unless he had more of the sapphire-blue spirit stones—.

A faint gleam flickered in Zong Shou’s eyes. Near Mount Qiantian, two large spirit stone mines were about to mature. He knew of several other spirit stone deposits that would surface across the East Lin Cloud Continent, one of which was top-tier.

But this was still far from enough!

It seemed impossible to snatch resources from the Great Shang and the various Sects in the Central Continent. The other Cloud Continents were too far away, and their controllers were also Sacred Land Sects. The only remaining option was the Outer Regions—did he truly have to conquer other worlds?

If he possessed sufficient spirit stones, he could use this Zhou Book to accelerate his quest toward the zenith of the Martial Path—

The thought struck him, and Zong Shou recoiled in shock. How could he conceive such an idea?

Conquering the Outer Regions? Such ambition was staggering—

He immediately broke into a self-deprecating laugh. He was a man who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Previously, he viewed Mount Qiantian as a burden, something to be shed. Now that he felt the power structure he controlled could aid him in reaching the peak of the Sword Dao, he was already scheming how to exploit it.

Too weary to dwell on the contradiction, Zong Shou stood tall. He summoned his will, and a faint dragon’s roar echoed in the void nearby.

Six massive spirit veins, each thousands of feet long, were violently drawn toward him.

Divided into Yin and Yang natures, subtly gathering thunder, these were six Heavenly Veins.

Almost simultaneously, they surged into his body, forcefully drawn into his meridians to begin circulation. In mere moments, they were tamed, refined, and imprinted with Zong Shou’s mark.

Zong Shou’s Martial Dao Intent had already reached the Spirit Realm; the barrier between the Seventh and Eighth Tiers posed no obstacle for him.

Absorbing the refined essence of the Divine Firmament to cleanse his marrow had stabilized his progress over the past ten-plus days, strengthening his physical body immensely.

His internal Martial Breath stepping into the Eighth Tier realm was a natural consequence, as simple as that—