After saying that, he changed the subject and said, “But have you two thought about it? Sun Wukong’s somersault only covers a mere 108,000 li, which is about 60,000 kilometers ording to the Chinese li of that time. Even if he did one somersault per second, covering 60,000 kilometers each time, it would only be about one-fifth of the speed of light. In other words, even if Sun Wukong, who had already be a god, did one somersault per second and kept doing it, it would still take him forty or fifty years toplete the journey. Even cultivators who ascend to immortality on Earth are not considered to have reached the ranks of immortals, so no matter how strong they are, they can’t be stronger than Sun Wukong, who has be a god or a Buddha, right? Their speed is definitely not as fast as Sun Wukong’s. They might even spend hundreds of years on the road to ascension. So tell me, is spending hundreds of years on the road a blessing or a torment?”


    The two men’s heads were buzzing from what he said. Wu Bowen rubbed his temples and said, “Senior Brother, you’re going too far off. It’s all baseless stuff. How are we supposed to figure out if it’s right or wrong? And to be honest, I’ve never thought about ascending to immortality in my life. I’d be content if I could eat an elixir of eternal life like the wise ruler and live for another five hundred years. Who cares how far Sun Wukong can somersault in one go?”


    “Yes,” Wu Bozhong (Dorwin) said with a smile, “Even wise rulers don’t dare to dream of ascension, so we shouldn’t even think about it. Didn’t you yourself say that there’s no ce near Earth where anyone can live? Maybe ascension is a hoax from the beginning.”


    As he spoke, he suddenly realized something and eximed excitedly, “I think the stories about ascension are just like those about Sun Wukong—they’re all made up byter generations! As for the so-called ‘Dharma-ending Age,’ I think that’s pure nonsense! It’s very likely that Earth has been like this since its birth. For thousands of years, cultivators have been hoping to ascend, but no one has been able to fly away. Everyone thought about it and realized, ‘This doesn’t make sense. Everyone says they can ascend, but why hasn’t anyone flown away?’ So, tofort themselves, they fabricated the ‘Dharma-ending Age,’ saying that things are different now than before. They said it’s the Dharma-ending Age, and in the past, even dogs could ascend. It’s like in thete Qing Dynasty, when the old folks always said that the world was going downhill and that people weren’t as good as they used to be. I think that’s just something to fool children. Maybe things weren’t much better before, maybe even worse than now. It’s just that we weren’t born in that era, so whether something is good or bad is all based on what they say.”


    Wu Bowen’s eyes lit up, and he eximed, “Junior Brother is right! The highest realm of cultivation is probably just to live for a thousand or eight hundred years, like the master of the wise ruler. As for ascension, it’s all just the conjectures and wishes of cultivators. Look at scientists nowadays, they keep talking about interster travel and interster migration, right? But as Senior Brother just said, even light takes several years to travel to the nearest star. Humans might not be able to live to get there even in ten thousand years. Ascension might be the same, just a theoretical height that can never be reached in reality.”


    Wu Bolin chuckled self-deprecatingly and said, “What you say makes sense. It’s very possible that ascension was just a pie in the sky that cultivators painted for future generations years ago, a pie that can never be eaten.”


    While saying this, Wu Bolin had his own calctions in mind.


    He knew that ascension could not be interster travel.


    Before the Dharma-ending Age, it was impossible for cultivators who had sessfully transcended tribtions to act like idiots every now and then, flying all the way from Earth to outer space, flying through the universe for tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years just to go to another world. Wouldn’t that be just in crazy?


    He prefers to believe that ascension is actually a teleportation mechanism.


    In his theory, ascension was more like an invisible imperial examination.