“That gun technique is complete! But with only a few strokes of characters, it's difficult to discern its purpose.” Xu Jingming carefully observed, feeling somewhat perplexed. The longer he focused on the black character,

the more the black character seemed to magnify in his eyes, even stirring up intense emotions within him, a burgeoning killing intent.

“Hmm?” Xu Jingming suddenly awoke with a start. “I, a half-step third realm expert of the Heart Boundary lineage, am actually losing control, being stirred up by killing intent?”

Xu Jingming reached out and touched the black character, taking it into his palm.

“This black character has only five strokes, extremely simple, yet it inexplicably stirs up my killing intent?” Xu Jingming tried to exert force, but his hand's power couldn't damage the black character even a little.

He tried scorching it with Red Lotus Fire! He tried attacking with his Mind Weapon! The character seemed real, yet also illusory, impossible to harm in the slightest.

“A single character reveals little. If there were more, I could probably glean some information.” Xu Jingming put the character away, glanced around, and continued his super-high-speed journey.

As time flowed, Xu Jingming occasionally faced attacks from the local creatures. These creatures varied in strength; some were so powerful that Xu Jingming could only rely on his many incarnations to escape, while others he could easily kill.

In the blink of an eye, it had been five days since Xu Jingming arrived on this boundless continent.

“In these five days, I've been attacked by local creatures 92 times. I won 87 times, successfully counter-killing 29 times, and obtained 29 characters.” Xu Jingming rested against a tree in the forest.

Inside his personal pocket universe, Xu Jingming's incarnations were also resting. One by one, the characters floated in the universe's starry sky.

Of the 29 characters, 21 were black and 8 were colored. Each character had a completely different structure.

“These 21 black characters should be of the same type. Perhaps they are part of a lengthy text written by an ultimate existence,” Xu Jingming guessed. “Is it possible that this long text's countless characters scattered, and I've collected 21 of them?”

“Are the 8 colored characters different characters from another text?”

“Or perhaps these aren't writing at all, but purely drawings? Or maybe peculiar symbols?” Xu Jingming felt a multitude of uncertainties.

“But one thing is certain—”

“The black characters are of the same type, and the colored characters are of the same type.”

“Every black character can stir up my killing intent.”

“Every colored character can affect my mental state.” Xu Jingming had only collected 29 characters, but he had already summarized and deduced many aspects. “From merely observing these 29 characters, my understanding of killing intent and mental state has already changed.”

“'Eight Directions Chart' divides the mental realm into eight levels, but that's Yu Huo Jun's classification.”

“His classification is basic, but too rigid.”

From the 8 colored characters, Xu Jingming saw more possibilities in the mental realm and understood the limitations of 'Eight Directions Chart'. After all, 'Eight Directions Chart' was merely a basic inheritance created by a third-realm existence. Compared to the characters left behind by a suspected ultimate existence, the gap was still enormous. With just a few scattered characters, Xu Jingming had already glimpsed another world.

“My mental spear technique, 'Golden Halberd', has the core of obliterating the enemy's mind. But if the killing intent isn't strong enough, its power won't be great enough.” Xu Jingming tried to incorporate some of the insights he gained from the black characters into his spear technique.

“My illusory realm, by incorporating some of the methods from the colored characters, can better control the enemy's mental consciousness.”

Xu Jingming was very excited.

He wondered if it was because he had comprehended the silver paper for hundreds of thousands of years that he could grasp the black and colored characters on the first day and begin to gradually integrate his insights into his spear technique and illusion.

Or perhaps his talent in the Heart Boundary lineage was high enough that he was particularly suited to these mysterious characters?

“Here it comes.”

Xu Jingming, leaning against the large tree, looked into the distance. Another Xu Jingming was rapidly approaching from afar, and the two Xu Jingmings merged into one.

“Finally, I've brought the third-realm weapon.” With a flip of his hand, Xu Jingming produced the illusory silver spear, the very weapon that Island Lord Emperor Dragon had painstakingly run back to his hometown to retrieve.

Normally, Xu Jingming was reluctant to risk bringing the weapon. If he made a mistake, the death of an incarnation would be a small matter, but if he lost the weapon, it would be difficult to buy another one.

“This is a treasure land left behind by an ultimate existence. If I don't give it my all now, when will I?” Xu Jingming looked at the illusory silver spear in his hand. With a third-realm weapon in hand, he was practically a tiger with wings.

“Putting aside other treasures, the mysterious characters alone are a great help to my Mind Weapon and Void Abyss Illusion.”

“If I collect more characters, I might be able to directly reach the invincible level of a half-step third realm expert.” Xu Jingming immediately put away his spear and, with a whoosh, transformed into an afterimage and continued on his way.

Over the past few days, Xu Jingming had discovered a pattern.

If he stayed in place, the local creatures would give up completely after one failed attack.

Only by quickly traveling to other distant areas would he be attacked again.

“Come on, attack me more.”

“I've brought a third-realm weapon, and I've brought five hundred more incarnations.” Xu Jingming was full of fighting spirit. Although he had brought some incarnations with him, they were the ones who had been stationed in Yu Huo City for a long time, and their numbers weren't that large.

This time, his hometown incarnation brought a full five hundred incarnations and several third-realm treasures to allow himself to reach his strongest combat state.

For Heart Boundary lineage experts, incarnations were the least valuable, but because the 'mental consciousness' controlling the incarnations was the same, the strength that could be unleashed was also limited.

…

“Tear—”

An afterimage flashed past Xu Jingming, and three black rays of light shot out of Xu Jingming's body, also piercing through the afterimage.

The exchange between the two sides was extremely fast.

The afterimage landed there, revealing a strangely shaped gray creature. Its single eye was now completely dim, obviously having its mental consciousness destroyed in an instant by the simultaneous attacks of Xu Jingming's three incarnations.

Whoosh.

Silently, the corpse disintegrated, eventually leaving behind only a colored character.

“A colored character.” Xu Jingming immediately used the power of his Heart Boundary to collect it. “In all my collecting so far, I haven't found two characters that are exactly the same.”

As he comprehended the characters, Xu Jingming's strength was also slowly increasing. Coupled with the third-realm Mind Spear in hand! Xu Jingming's strength had obviously greatly increased, and the success rate of counter-killing in the face of attacks from local creatures had exceeded eighty percent.

“Whoosh.” After collecting the character, Xu Jingming continued on his way.

“How big is this land, exactly? I've been here for half a month, and I haven't encountered a single other half-step third realm expert.” Xu Jingming thought. Suddenly, he paused, looking into the distance.

In the distance, there was another half-step third realm expert traveling. He resembled a small mountain, advancing with huge steps. Suddenly, he also stopped and looked at Xu Jingming from afar.

The two faced each other from a distance.

“Who is he?”

“Who is he?”

The human 'Xu Jingming' and the small mountain-like half-step third realm expert watched each other warily.

Neither of them recognized the other!

Xu Jingming was from the area influenced by Yu Huo Jun.

And this small mountain-like half-step third realm expert was from the area influenced by Zui Weng.

That half-step third realm expert glanced at Xu Jingming and then turned and sped away, fleeing in a panic. “Zui Weng is kind to allow us to come here. He said there were many 'invincible half-step third realm experts' and 'Abyss Monarchs' from other territories who have entered. I need to be careful here.”

“That running speed is even faster than mine.” Xu Jingming thought. He was a half-step third realm expert of the Heart Boundary lineage. Without being able to use Heart Boundary teleportation, he couldn't keep up with those physical half-step third realm experts by running alone.

The first half-step third realm expert he had encountered on this vast land, glanced at him from afar, and then ran away in fright.

“Fortunately, there are many local creatures. There are quite a few attacks every day.” Xu Jingming continued his journey.

…

Life on this boundless land was lonely, just constantly moving to attract the local creatures to attack him.

In the blink of an eye, a month had passed since he arrived here.

“In this month, I've obtained a total of 396 characters, including 212 types of black characters, 128 types of colored characters, and 56 types of transparent characters.” Within Xu Jingming's personal pocket universe, the 396 characters floated in the starry sky.

Black characters stirred up killing intent, colored characters affected the mind, but the transparent characters were the most peculiar.

“These transparent characters actually show combat scenes?” Xu Jingming exclaimed in amazement.

Each transparent character, when carefully observed, eventually revealed the residual image of a weapon technique.

In addition to weapons such as swords, spears, and staffs, which Xu Jingming was more familiar with, there were also various strange weapons. For example, there was a 'real universe' being held in someone's hand and thrown out as a weapon! For example, an endless high-dimensional mountain was being held in the palm of someone's hand and used as a dagger!

Each transparent character was a residual image of a combat technique.

These combat residual images weren't too strong. Xu Jingming judged that they should all be combat scenes at the third-realm level.

Because he had seen the spear technique on the silver paper! If an ultimate existence were to use that spear technique, its power would be far greater than these residual images could compare to.

“To this day, I've only collected three types of characters. Although I'm still not sure of their origins or uses, at least they're helpful to my Mind Spear Technique and Void Abyss Illusion.” Xu Jingming could feel his own improvement over the past month.

As Xu Jingming was studying the characters, he suddenly sensed something. He raised his head and looked into the distance.

On the other side of a wide, gray river, stood an alien half-step third realm expert. His slender tail swayed slowly, and his cold eyes observed Xu Jingming.

Xu Jingming also looked at him.

“Invincible half-step third realm experts and Abyss Monarchs all have third-realm guidance and should have reached the inner regions.” The alien half-step third realm expert observed Xu Jingming and guessed, “He's still in the outer region after so long. He must be a relatively weak half-step third realm expert.”

He had entered the inner region five days ago, sensed the horror of the inner region, and fled back to the outer region in fright.

Whoosh.

The alien half-step third realm expert took a step and instantly crossed the wide river, arriving on the riverbank on this side, much closer to Xu Jingming.

Xu Jingming was shocked to see this.

So fast! His speed was far above his own!

“You've been here for a while, right? How many runes have you accumulated? Three hundred, or a thousand?” the alien half-step third realm expert asked.