“Buzz.” When the immortal rays congregated in his palms, they looked to be sentient. The individual strands and particles looked lively just like a little spirit.

The strands melted in his palms, slowly becoming liquified and flowed down the gaps between his fingers. These streams of light looked gentle and clear, resulting in a wonderful spectacle. People believed that could hear the splas.h.i.+ng of water.

It also resembled the sands of time. Each stream of water looked like years and years moving away from his fingers; all added up to a long period of time.

A spectator even thought that Li Qiye was no longer an ordinary man. He started glowing and became a time controller.

All temporal affinities currently in motion needed to travel through his hands, whether it be one thousand years or a billion years. He just needed to move his fingertips and he could steal that much time.

“He’s searching.” The hidden master from the Li sighed, aware of Li Qiye’s intention. He could see the mysteries behind this, unlike the rest of the crowd. 

Once the streams of light touched the ground, bright spots appeared in the mud. They eventually spread into lines weaving together to form a supreme formation.

“What is he looking for?” Jade-break True Emperor asked.

“The hidden traces of the past in Stone Harmony.” The hidden master said with emotion: “This system back in its golden days had three emperors at the same time and numerous Eternals, plenty of lower-level True G.o.ds too, too many to count. But it fell in just one night. Future generations can’t explain why, but one progenitor verified that something ominous happened during that night. An evil thing fell from the sky. According to him, it took roots deep in the system. Though the masters of Stone Harmony managed to defeat it, they couldn’t eradicate it completely despite paying a heavy price. After the end of this battle, these great beings, heavily injured, decided to seal everything including themselves. They wanted to hide something from their system from both outsiders and this evil ent.i.ty. That’s why the whole thing became a mystery.”

“What is this immortal stone, warranting such a great sacrifice from these sages?” The emperor became curious.

What’s more important to a system than continuing its legacy? However, Stone Harmony chose to seal their entire system.

“It’s not clear.” The hidden master said: “Some records state that this immortal stone doesn’t belong to this world. Its effects are unknown as well. However, one says that it was taken by the progenitor of Stone Harmony using a heaven-defying method. It is priceless and should have something to do with immortality. It is still here right now, sealed.”

He paused for a bit before continuing: “If this progenitor didn’t leave behind the stone, perhaps Stone Harmony would still be here today.”

The emperor turned towards Mingluo, extremely curious about this so-called immortal stone.

At this moment, a bright formation has taken over the city with lines dividing the ground into tiny pieces.

The supreme formation was resplendent with flas.h.i.+ng pulses. People felt as if they were crossing through time from one era to another.

It was akin to an archaeologist unveiling the top layers of a fossil, eventually finding clues of the past.

“Creak…” Numerous stone slabs on the streets started to rise.

The streets of the old city were paved with pebbles and rocks. They have been trampled on by numerous citizens and carriages so they looked quite old. A few had numerous cracks as well.

There was no order to the rising of these slabs. No one could figure out a particular pattern.

“Boom!” They started flying closer and eventually a.s.sembled a platform, around the height of a fire beacon platform or a military command post.

“What is that?” Wu Youzheng and the others had no clue despite being disciples of the system. 

“It’s the old command post of Stone Harmony.” The hidden master revealed: “Its progenitor used to give orders to the rest of the world here.”

“Buzz.” The immortal rays gathered on this newly-formed platform after a spatial ripple.

An extremely old gate slowly emerged at the top of the platform. It had numerous powerful and archaic runes. All the lights were flowing towards this place.

“Buzz.” s.p.a.ce opened after the acc.u.mulation of light. The gate then turned into a portal.

“A dao portal…” The emperor’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes, there are rumors about an independent dimension under Stone Harmony, unavailable to anyone after its decline. Its entrance has been sealed all this time, it looks like the immortal stone is in there.” The hidden master added.

Numerous other experts felt the same way but no one dared to come closer. They could only stare at the flas.h.i.+ng portal, waiting for Li Qiye to enter.

“So much trouble over one stone.” Li Qiye shook his head and walked inside.

“Pop!” The entire portal disappeared after his entry.

“Creak…” The stone slabs disa.s.sembled themselves and returned to their original positions.

The great platform was nowhere to be found. Mingluo looked the same as before as if nothing has happened.

The crowd exchanged glances after seeing this.

“Sigh, forget about this stone. It’s time to leave.” One Eternal gave up and said.

“It’s fine to watch.” A young expert didn’t want to leave because they have traveled so far to get here. Just taking a look at the stone was fine too.

“You think you can take a look just because you want to? Okay, go ask Fiercest to see if he’ll show you.” His senior Eternal gave him the side-eye.

The expert’s neck shrunk from a cold chill. He realized he wouldn’t dare to ask Li Qiye for a look even if he was a hundred times more courageous.