Genesis Lotus stood on top of Dang Hun Mountain.
"It's not as good as the real thing but close enough,"
Indeed, this was similar to the time when Genesis Lotus created the 'Wisdom' Gu for Star Constellation.
"It took a while to make, and without Star Constellation's deductions it would have been impossible," Genesis Lotus sighed to himself as he dropped the souls of Desolate Beasts onto the mountain.
There were 2 limitations when it came to creating Imaginary Objects [1]
One was that they could only exist in the Painting World, this meant that outside the Painting World they would evaporate.
Hence, why Genesis Lotus instructed the Heavenly Court members to consume the Guts Gu within the Painting World.
The second weakness was that Genesis Lotus had to understand the thing he was copying.
He had incorporated the Rules of Gu into his world, but he didn't know everything regarding Secluded Domains of Heaven and Earth, especially Dang Hun Mountain which was a Soul Path Secluded Domain of Heaven and Earth.
Genesis Lotus knew how to craft Gu and what their core principles were, but Wisdom Gu required the help of Star Constellation.
But any Earth Path Gu would be easy to make for him.
Meanwhile,
Star Constellation was using the imaginary Wisdom Gu, combined with her Star Constellation Chessboard, to monitor and project all the Dream Realms of the Heavenly Court Members.
"So far only 10% have found a suitable Dream Realm, the rest keep encountering Dream Realms that do not help," Star Constellation began calculating: "Given the fact that they can only attempt to find one 4 times a day, even with Genesis Lotus's healing, means that it may take over a year for every Heavenly Court member to find a suitable Dream Realm."
Red Lotus nodded: "It should be fine; the Greatest Era with Grand Dream Realm was supposed to last an eternity anyway."
"But that was because the Greatest Era's Grand Dream Realm had a self-repair function, this doesn't."
"I know but it was still built to hold every living being in the entire 5 Regions, it should at least last a couple of years."
"It would have easily lasted 100 years if it weren't for…" Star Constellation pointed at 2 screens.
One showed a man easily breezing through a Dream Realm stage, and the other was a man purposefully stretching out a Dream Realm.
Of course, they were Fang Yuan and Giant Sun respectively!
Great Dream had given Star Constellation a link between Fang Yuan's and Giant Sun's Dream Realms.
Red Lotus smiled wryly: "There's nothing we can do about that," he shook his head: "If we had left those two unaffected during the Greatest Era, who knows what sort of harm they would do."
"Hell, you know Fang Yuan would have taken advantage of the ability to plunder unhindered, who could stop him? We can't move as freely as him as we don't possess many Dream Path Gu but he has Dream Armor Gu!"
"And besides," Red Lotus reminded Star Constellation: "Great Dream said that as time went on, Fang Yuan would have to begin competing with others, and while at first, he might win a few, even he couldn't win every encounter."
Star Constellation knew Red Lotus was right but she still didn't like Fang Yuan gaining so many attainments.
You see unlike others who would have to pick and choose or fail in Dream Realms whose Paths don't align with theirs, Fang Yuan was someone who could cultivate all Paths!
And he already had attainment is many Paths!
Thus, even when a Path that he wasn't a high level in came out, he could easily get past the Dream Realm, not to mention his use of Dream Butterfly Gu.
Fang Yuan had refined this Gu to its Rank 7 version, but it took all his collective knowledge, Refinement Path experience and the last bits of Dream Path resources he had.
"This seems to be a coalition of Dream Realms rather than just one," he had been through a few different Dream Realms already: "Hmm, after all this time I'm still alive, which means Heavenly Court should also be trapped in this Dream Realm, or unable to get to me."
"The latter seems unlikely as they have Great Dream on their side," Fang Yuan didn't know that Great Dream had exhausted the Dream Realm that formed her physique: "She probably can't act against me as she is running on fumes and doesn't have enough power to kill me."
Fang Yuan was close to the truth but not quite there, although he wasn't worried: "The fact that I'm still alive is proof that they can't do anything to me right now, but what about in the future? I need to clear all these Dream Realms and break free!"
Fang Yuan was not too worried about Great Dream killing him anytime soon: "Anyway she would need a lot of time to accumulate enough strength to overcome the Heavenly Web Protection Veil."
Indeed, Fang Yuan's main insurance of confidence was this Rank 9 Heaven Path Killer Move, which Fang Yuan had updated to its 3rd iteration that included the use of Strong Gu, making it neigh invincible, even amongst Venerables!
And considering that it was Heaven Path, it would not be corroded by Dream Realms, whereas every other Killer Move would.
Making Fang Yuan very confident in his safety.
"Still it's never a good thing to be a sitting duck, even if I am a duck sitting in a fortress," Fang Yuan began to increase his speed in solving Dream Realms, raking in a ton of attainment.
Meanwhile,
"Dream Realm, eh?" Giant Sun was taking his time through the Dream Realm.
Unlike Fang Yuan who was ambushed into the Dream Realm, Giant Sun saw the whole thing go down.
"At the rate the Dream Realm was expanding, I doubt I'm anywhere near the edge," he did some calculations: "It seems that, at the very least, the entire Southern Border is covered in this Dream Realm, but I don't see any other beings in this Dream Realm, which means its not one Dream but multiple Dreams!"
Giant Sun had a lot more info to work with.
"But Dream Realms aren't advantageous to me,"
Giant Sun, Genesis Lotus and Red Lotus did not need to gain other Paths that weren't beneficial to their Daos, especially since they did not know what Paths would be beneficial to their Daos.
"If there are multiple Dream Realms, there might be a Path that is suitable for me, maybe Heaven or Human Path." Giant Sun thought.
The Dream Realm he was currently in was an Ice Path Dream Realm.
"Nah, Heaven Path had no cultivators in history, only 2 have ever existed and one of them is dead and the other is a pain,"
Giant Sun stroked his chin, "Still though, my intuition is telling me that Human Path is of great benefit for my Dao of Karma, it may even help me condense a Dao Fruit!"
"I can't waste time in these unimportant Dream Realms, and since I don't have any excess to my Gus…" Giant Sun immediately inspected his aperture and found some offensive Ice Path Gus which he used to kill himself!
The pain caused him to close his eyes, and when he reopened them, he was in a new scene.
Cold sweat was still dripping from his head, and he was panting, "Even though it's a Dream, there is still some pain, and even despite knowing it's fake it still felt so real."
Giant Sun wasted no time in regaining his composure, after all, suicide was a new experience for anyone.
He checked his aperture, "Rank 3 Fire Path?"
Giant Sun sighed: "It seems that I have to rely on my natural Luck and Responsive defensive Killer Move."
Just as he was about to kill himself again, a group of people ran up and prostrated themselves before him.
"Ying Xiong please save our village!" they begged.
"Hmm?" Only then did Giant Sun survey his surroundings, he was in a run-down village with dilapidated buildings and everywhere he looked the aura of dread and death seemed to loom over the townsfolk.
Strangely, he did not detect any Gu Masters.
"Strange. In the Mortal World Rank 3 is not a super big deal, but even with my cultivation I can't sense even a Rank 1 Cultivator."
The village was truly filled with Mortals, only the leader of the group prostrating before him had the aura of a Rank 1 Gu Master.
"Stand up," Giant Sun commanded, his Luck Path intuition told him that this Dream Realm was not as useless as it seemed: "What's your name?"
"Chen Long."
??? Giant Sun was quite shocked at first, "How can such an overbearing name have such a weak-willed man?"
Chen Long immediately cried out to Giant Sun: "Please sir Ying Xiong, you're our only hope to push back the wicked Variants."
!!!
"Variants, who exactly do you mean,"
"The Rockmen."
Giant Sun looked at the surroundings and drew many clues but he still wasn't exactly sure of his hypothesis yet: "Why are the Rockmen after you?"
Chen Long gave a wry smile: "Of course, it's because we escaped from their enslavement why else?"
"I see," Giant Sun had almost all the clues he needed: "I'm in the Remote Antiquity Era but am I in the time of Primordial or Star Constellation." Giant Sun decided to test it out.
"So why didn't you seek refuge with Heavenly Court?"
"What's that?" Chen Long looked confused.
…
"You don't know?"
Chen Long shook his head.
Giant Sun was even more puzzled: "It can't be…I am in an era predating Primordial? That explains why they hold me in such reverence and why there doesn't seem to be any Gu Masters."
Giant Sun looked up from his thinking and asked: "Who's the strongest Humanin the world right now?"
"I heard there's a Rank 5 Gu Master somewhere in this Central Continent, but it is only a rumour…"
Rank 5!?
"H-how far back is this Dream Realm…" Giant Sun contemplated: "Are there any even advanced Paths in this Era?"
Giant Sun began to wonder: "What Path is this Dream Realm?"
[1] It's what I'm calling his 'fake' Gu and Mountain, but it's not the same thing as actual Fake Gus. 1 can exist perpetually, but only within the Painting World, and the other can exist in the real world but only for a limited time. They have the same philosophy but not discipline, one is Creation and the other is Refinement.