Sage Monarch

The Unknown Temple was filled with the divine likenesses of the patriarchs. They were all extremely powerful individuals who had long since left the Brahman Immortal World. Some had perished, while some had vanished to parts unknown.

The divine likenesses were still powerful, though. In fact, some contained seemingly endless seas of energy.

Yang Qi's heart pounded as he walked in and sensed the mysterious energies and powers. From what he could tell, the divine likenesses were actually spatial nexuses that connected to the past, the future, and other hyperdimensions. And the powerful entities they were linked to could send power and energy through them from those distant locations.

Yang Qi had relied on his own power to pierce through the greyspace of the Titan Emperor Heaven, and that had been an incredible effort. He could only imagine the power required to pierce karma and connect to the present from the future.

'The future world is terrifying,' he thought. 'I remember that buzz cut kid saying that in the present era, the gods are all dead. But he also said that a new civilization would gradually rise up. I wonder if the civilization he was referring to is the future era he came from, or some even more distant time beyond that. Could it be that people from that more distant time have come back here to seize control?'

There were many things that Yang Qi had heard in the past that he had no way to understand. Thankfully, the God Legion Seal—and the things he could see and sense in the Unknown Temple—were giving him deeper enlightenment. At a certain point, they passed a divine likeness that depicted a scaled half-human, half-dragon patriarch.

When Yang Qi stopped to look at it, Hu Latu said, "Milord, this is August Patriarch Proud Dragon, an ancient buddha dragon and another of the founders. He was a subordinate of Proud Heaven, and also a younger brother of his."

The statue was gold, and emanated the aura of buddha dragons. Considering that Yang Qi had mastered the Eight Tribes Godfist, he knew how terrifyingly powerful the eight dragon tribes were. And he also knew that buddha dragons were the most powerful of the dragons.

'So Proud Heaven has a little brother who's actually a buddha dragon. Terrifying.' Yang Qi's heart continued pounding as he looked around for Proud Heaven's divine likeness.

"Milord, Proud Heaven's divine likeness is further inside. You know, considering how strong you are, it's a given that you'll be able to learn something from these things."

Hu Latu didn't feel any particular respect toward the divine likenesses. After spending so much time with Yang Qi, he had been somewhat infected by his attitude and all but looked down on divine likenesses and other such things.

"True. Before we go on, let's see what I can gain from Proud Dragon's likeness. It's only a statue, could it really be that impressive?"

Looking more closely at the divine likeness of Proud Dragon, Yang Qi placed his palms together to make it look like he was offering worship to it. Making sure no one would notice, he drew on the Wheel of Fate and the Glad Tidings of the Lord, as well as the God Legion Seal, and sent it out toward the statue.

He could unleash levels of power that rivaled an Incarnated God, thus no children of Brahma present could possibly detect his activities. Without anyone noticing, he slipped the stream of power into the divine likeness itself.

What he saw shocked him. 'This statue is no ordinary divine likeness, it's a power double! Incredible! It's a convergence of power the likes of which I've never seen in person before. It's created by breaking down magical laws and genetic material, then forming them back together into a manifestation of future science and technology called a photonic computer!'

Thanks to the memories of the young man in yellow, Yang Qi knew a lot about various mechanical and technological products from the future, such as photonic computers. Photonic computers were essentially repositories for information. There were different types, with different specific powers and functions, but the most formidable were the kind made from the magical laws of the future. Such photonic computers could unleash immortal skills and energy arts, and could even create new cultivation techniques for godly-class energy arts. And there were whispers that some of them could even calculate information about true godhood!

Virtual godhood and true godhood were completely different. Some highly advanced photonic computers, if they had the proper power supply, could actually create virtual godhood. In other words, an ordinary person who gained access to a photonic computer like that could acquire virtual godhood and easily reach the Godmyth level.

'Terrifying. Completely terrifying. I can't believe this divine likeness is actually a photonic computer!' There was no way that Yang Qi could ever have guessed that the divine likeness would turn out to be something like this, a device that could analyze anyone standing in front of it and calculate what would benefit them the most.

WHIZZZ!

As he stood in front of the 'divine likeness' of Proud Dragon, it apparently sensed his presence, causing bright red light to shine out from its eyes and cover over him. Many other children of Brahma in the area noticed and looked over in curiosity.

"Look. That child of Brahma provoked a reaction from the divine likeness of August Patriarch Proud Dragon. For some reason, the divine likeness took a liking to him, but the question is will he get a reward?"

"This is unusual. I can't believe he got August Patriarch Proud Dragon's statue to react. Usually, August Patriarch Proud Dragon only responds to people who have acquired Dragonfolk blood, and are incredibly loyal to the Brahman Institute. A while back, there was one child of Brahma who killed a true dragon and brought the blood here to August Patriarch Proud Dragon. He was rewarded with a god item, the Dragon-Subduing Whip. Later, that child of Brahma reached the Godmyth level, and is one of the current patriarchs."

"August Patriarch Proud Dragon is analyzing that guy's blood right now."

"Hmph! I bet he's going to get punished. Anybody who isn't absolutely, completely loyal to the Brahman Institute will get discovered by the divine likenesses. If you have rebellious thoughts, you'll be found out in the Unknown Temple and treated accordingly."

"There's no possible way! No student would ever betray the Brahman Institute!"

There were all sorts of discussions, with reactions varying from envy, to excitement, to indifference.

Meanwhile, Yang Qi quickly got his thoughts under control and drew on the virtual godhood he had access to. He focused his mind on how amazing and perfect the Brahman Institute was, and at the same time, let some of the true energy of the Eight Tribes Godfist seep out.

All of a sudden, the divine likeness of August Patriarch Proud Dragon spoke.

"Wonderful." It was a voice devoid of all emotion, almost as if it had been produced by a machine.

A dragon egg appeared in the statue's hand, covered with dense, complicated designs that indicated it came from some mysterious and enigmatic species of dragon. As it floated toward Yang Qi, the voice continued, "Thou dost cultivate the divine abilities of the Dragonfolk, and are loyal to the Brahman Institute. I hereby reward you with this dragon egg from the ancient buddha dragons. It contains Buddha Dragon True Energy that can push your cultivation base to a higher level and improve your Dragonfolk divine abilities."

The dragon egg sank into Yang Qi's body and a burst of quintessence energy filled him, improving his Eight Tribes Godfist.

'Not bad at all!' Yang Qi thought. Now he knew for sure that the divine likenesses here were indeed from the future world. Apparently, the future world had left power and treasures in the statues to be distributed to students in the Brahman Institute.

It really was a heaven-defying arrangement.

Obviously, it was a tool to make the Brahman Immortal World more powerful, and push it toward being a tenth ranked immortal world.

After a moment, the divine likeness of August Patriarch Proud Dragon went dark, and Yang Qi knew the moment of testing had passed. And now, none of the other divine likenesses would react to him. Obviously, all of them were connected to some immense supercomputer in the future that controlled all of them.

Perhaps if he changed identities and returned, he could get a reward from another divine likeness. But he didn't want to do anything to attract the wrong attention from Godmyth patriarchs.

With that, he continued deeper into the temple.

Along the way, Hu Latu continued to make introductions. "That's August Patriarch Proud Ninestates. And that's August Patriarch Proud Deathcrier. Over there are August Patriarch Proud Truestar and August Patriarch Proud Mystery…." There were over a hundred of them, all of whom had worked with Proud Heaven in the ancient past.

"Look, there's Proud Heaven right up ahead." An expression of fear flitted across Hu Latu's face as they looked up at Proud Heaven's divine likeness.

"Very good," Yang Qi murmured, looking at the enormous divine likeness that occupied the main position within the Unknown Temple.

The statue wore an azure garment that corresponded perfectly to the color of the great dao. The great dao was like the azure heaven, a godpower that controlled reincarnation, the past, the present, and the future.

There were already several children of Brahma in front of Proud Heaven's divine likeness, all of them on their knees praying.

Among them was the beautiful young Brahma Echo-Silk. And apparently, her prayer was working: all of a sudden, a stream of power descended toward her.

'Virtual godhood!' Yang Qi thought, a bit surprised. 'She was actually blessed with virtual godhood!'

1. In Chinese, an ordinary, generic computer is literally an "electric brain" and a photonic computer is a "light brain" or "brain of light".