I didn’t remember much about my childhood. Our family had eight children before me and another four after me - all from the same two parents. My only memories of my family are from when I returned from my sect as an adult to visit them before leaving for good. I never thought I would get the chance to see them for a second time.

Right, I was seeing the family I had abandoned in my childhood. I had thought this was impossible, but the power of rank-five Laws of Time were unfathomable. Before I was killed at the hands of the Cosmic Gravity Sect, I used all of my energy to activate an Art with the most powerful Laws of Time I could muster, somehow sending myself back in time by several billion years. This was unprecedented.

What was I? Before I used the Art of Reversed Time which sent me back to my childhood, my physical body was nothing more than a container made from Arcane Energy to hold my Arcane Core and soul. I no longer had flesh and blood like mortals. This was the defining trait of a practitioner who had passed the Mortality Ascension stage.

Now, my body was gone. I could still use my soul to probe my surroundings, but I was unable to use any Arcane Energy. Threads of my soul spread out, allowing me to visualize everything around me in my mind. I saw the people around me and the body where my soul threads originated from. My soul was being housed inside an infant, and the people around me were younger versions of my family members.

I recognized one family member quicker than the rest: Chen Wei Ling. He was our family ancestor who had reached the Mortality Ascension stage. He looked exactly the same as I remembered him. After recognizing him, I recognized my parents. They were a bit younger than what I remembered them as, but their use of Spirit Energy allowed them to maintain their youth for longer. My siblings were unrecognizable, but there were eight of them.

I’ll admit that I became a bit excited when I saw that my Art had returned my soul to my infant body, but I never lost my rationality. Chen Wei Ling approached me to check on the condition of my body, and I quickly reeled in my soul threads. At Chen Wei Ling’s stage, it was unlikely for him to be able to detect my soul, but I needed to be careful. I immediately understood that it would be bad if someone found my incredibly powerful soul inside this newborn body, and I made moves to hide it. Unless I allowed it, a mere Mortality Ascension stage practitioner wouldn’t be able to find my soul.

“Healthy!”

Chen Wei Ling declared my condition, allowing everyone to feel comfortable. If there was anything wrong with my infant body, he would be able to use his Spirit Energy to correct it. If it was his desire, he could even strengthen my infant body, but he didn’t. I only knew a few things about this ancestor, but this was in line with his way of doing things. He would leave soon, and then I would be able to freely search my surroundings with my soul threads.

My parents - Chen Li and Chen Meng - were happy to have another son, but I was already the ninth. There wasn’t very much excitement. A few hours later, while everyone was asleep, I resumed my exploration.

Our family lived in a close collection of three houses. Our parents lived in one house, the boys lived in another house, and the girls lived in their own house. Right now, only my two oldest brothers and two oldest sisters were living in their houses.

Beyond the houses, there were fields of various plants. These plants were supposed to be grown here and sent to either the clan or the local sect. Our family was only supposed to watch them grow. In exchange, nobody could take our land or our lives. Some of the plants had to be grown for hundreds of years, making this a generational effort. Just looking at the fields was enough to remind me of how much I hated doing alchemy.

Past our fields were more fields, but these fields were managed by another family of the Chen Clan. Altogether, our Chen Clan controlled thousands of miles of territory, with only a few miles being given to each child-bearing family. My soul was strong enough to send soul threads across the entire Chen Clan’s territory, but I didn’t want to risk anyone detecting me. After searching my family’s fields and the few fields adjacent to us, I drew my soul threads back.

The situation seemed manageable. I had used my Art to reverse time and arrive in an absolutely safe area. For the time being, there would be no threats against my life. I could focus on developing a plan of action.

First, I needed to set a goal. Obviously, my goal was to destroy the Cosmic Gravity Sect! Those mangely dogs attacked my Infinite Cosmos Sect, but I now had a chance to prevent all of it from ever happening. This was the past, and I had knowledge of the future. My knowledge of the future would also help me strengthen the Infinite Cosmos Sect. I knew of many geniuses who would appear throughout the ages, and it wouldn’t be hard to steal them from the galaxy’s other sects.

Second, I needed to increase my personal power. I was currently at the Energy Gathering stage, all the way at the beginning of any practitioner’s journey to the Elemental Heart stage. Even though I knew so many Laws, I didn’t have the Arcane Energy to use them. The most important stage to reach was the Mortality Ascension stage, which would dramatically increase my survivability and the amount of Laws I could use.

Third, I needed to collect treasures. When I was at the Cosmic Core stage, my greatest obstacle to entering the Celestial Devouring stage was gathering enough Arcane Energy. My Cosmic Arcane Core did passively generate Arcane Energy, but it took hundreds of millions of years for me to gather enough. I was never lucky enough to stumble upon a treasure that could help me advance my stage quickly, but I had researched treasures that other practitioners found. In this timeline, those treasures were fated to be mine.

Creating one or two goals was not the end of it. Besides destroying the Cosmic Gravity Sect, I could also destroy their sub-sects. Each sect had numerous sects that were subordinate to it, and the Cosmic Gravity Sect was no exception. There were no sects loyal to the Cosmic Gravity Sect in my Infinite Cosmos Sect’s territory, and it would be a long time until I was able to travel to one.

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My first goal would be to join the Emerald Mountain Sect, a sub-sect of the Infinite Cosmos Sect. In the previous timeline, I joined the Emerald Mountain Sect when I was nine years old. In this timeline, I wanted to join when I turned six years old. This would place me into the sect a year before the war with the Star Splitting Sect. During that war, the sect suffered severe losses, forcing them to accept a wider range of disciples during the next recruitment period. With my knowledge, I could prevent the severe losses and use my achievements to gain entry into the Infinite Cosmos Sect.

To join the war with the Star Splitting Sect, I needed to reach the Core Formation stage. Reaching the Core Formation stage in less than seven years wasn’t impossible, but it would put me on a tight schedule. I needed to start as soon as possible.

In the dead of night, I began to repeatedly expand my soul outside my body and pull it back in. This process was different from using soul threads to explore my surroundings. Each time I pulled in my soul, I also captured small amounts of Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy. With each expansion and retraction of my soul, I became slightly closer to having the required amount of energy to reach the Pathway Establishment stage. At my speed, it would only take me a few days to leave the Energy Gathering stage.

However, I wasn’t only drawing in Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy. What amazed me was that something else was being absorbed by my soul, and it wasn’t being deposited inside my body. This third type of energy was actually being directly absorbed by my soul. I had done this exercise - expanding and retracting my soul - too many times to count during the previous timeline, but I had never experienced this. I could not think of any reasonable explanation for this third type of energy. Without any alternative, I decided to call it Soul Energy, due to it being absorbed by my soul.

Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy; these were the two energies found throughout the galaxy and everything within it. If a practitioner gathered Arcane Energy and formed their immortal body with it, they were considered a magician. If a practitioner gathered Spirit Energy and formed their immortal body with it, they were considered a cultivator. Each energy had its own benefits, but us disciples of the Infinite Cosmos Sect generally chose the route of the magician - also named the Arcane Way. For dogs from the Cosmic Gravity Sect, they typically chose to be cultivators - crawling along the Spirit Way.

It was possible to walk the Arcane Way and the Spirit Way at the same time, but it was difficult. For one, the energies had to be in balance inside the body. If a practitioner wanted to advance a stage, they needed to advance with both energies. Secondly, to prevent the energies from conflicting, the practitioner needed to have a powerful enough soul. There were some cases of practitioners simultaneously advancing with Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy to the Mortality Ascension stage, but few ever reached the Crystal Core stage, and even fewer reached the Cosmic Core stage. I could not recall any dual-energy practitioners who reached the Celestial Devouring stage. If one had ever reached the Elemental Heart stage, everyone in the galaxy would know about it.

For me, it wouldn’t be a problem to reach the Mortality Ascension stage with both Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy. I had returned to the past with the soul of a Celestial Devouring stage magician, so I was more than powerful enough to handle a meager amount of conflicting Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy. Until I reached the Crystal Core stage, I had no doubt in being able to use both energies at the same time.

I spent the night gathering Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy. At the same time, I also gathered Soul Energy, although I wasn’t sure what it could be used for. When morning came, I felt much closer to reaching the Pathway Establishment stage.

And so, for the next few days, I continued to gather energy. On the fourth day after I activated my Art of Reversed Time, I had gathered enough Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy to form a pathway of each energy type. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to maintain this kind of speed for the rest of the pathways I needed to make. When a child of a practitioner was born, they would have some energy inside their body that they received from their mother. I received almost all the energy I needed to make my first pathways from my mother, and I only gathered a tiny amount.

I circulated the Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy within my body and created two spiraling pathways along my right arm. I had my knowledge and the techniques of the Infinite Cosmos Sect to assist me, making my advancement to the Pathway Establishment stage peerlessly smooth. My body now only contained Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy in the pathways I had created, allowing the rest of my body to passively store more of the energies.

My first two pathways were successfully established, but I still needed to make another eighty-two. Each type of energy needed forty-two pathways, making for a total of eighty-four. Once I had the full eighty-four, I would be able to form an Arcane Core and a Spirit Core. If I made too many pathways with either Arcane Energy or Spirit Energy, it would become difficult to make more pathways with the other energy. If I really needed to, I could rush to build an Arcane Core and use external help to later build my Spirit Core, but there wasn’t such a need.

After establishing my first two pathways, I worked on establishing the next two. It took me about two months to establish my third and fourth pathways. I knew I would probably continue at that pace until I could enter the Emerald Mountain and have access to more resources. This was quick enough for the timeline I wanted to set, even allowing some time to spare.

I focused on gathering energy while I was awake, and the number of established pathways within my body rapidly grew. There wasn’t anything for an infant to do on a rural farm, so I could spend all day gathering energy. I only needed to stop when a practitioner above the Mortality Ascension stage came nearby. I could hide my soul from anyone while it was inside my body, but it was difficult to hide my soul while it was in its expanded form. Luckily, Chen Wei Ling only visited a few times each year, and there were rarely other visitors.

While expanding and retracting my soul, I was still fully conscious of my surroundings. I could walk and hold conversations, but it was more efficient to gather energy while stationary and focused.

There wasn’t anything worth putting my attention to at home. The strongest practitioner in the clan was only at the Crystal Core stage, and nobody in the clan had reached higher than that during the previous timeline. Our clan didn’t have any inheritance or treasures I could use, either. The plants we farmed were slightly valuable, but they were only useful to me if they were made into potions or pills.

My family members were of limited help to me. My knowledge of Laws, Arts, energy, resources, beasts, enchanting, and alchemy far surpassed anything anyone in my clan had obtained. My parents tried to teach me how to gather Arcane Energy and Spirit Energy using the Chen clan’s meditation technique, but I didn’t need it. They also tried to teach me the Laws of Fire and the Laws of Stone, and I had to pretend that I didn’t know either of them.

While growing up, I had to do a lot of pretending. I had to pretend that I hadn’t established any pathways for a long time. I had to pretend that I didn’t understand any Laws or Arts. I had to pretend that I didn’t know the future. However, it wouldn’t always be like this.