V3C3: In Search of a Home

‘This is the Yi District… In less than a year, the only thing that’s changed is that the many burnt buildings and streets have been repaired…’ Wei Yi thought, her eyes welling up with tears against her will as she felt a calm breeze pass through the trees and slightly shift her robe and hair, easily penetrating the thin cloth of the robes and causing her to shiver out of reflex more so than out of feeling cold, ‘I think I’ve seen this place once, though I never paid much attention to it…’

She took several deep breaths of the forest air, noting the difference in smell and taste between it and the stagnant air of the Kong Prison Realm, and appreciated the sensation of the wind brushing past her skin, including those places that she had never bother to cover while in that white and crimson realm.

‘Despite this, I don’t even feel like some kind of pervert… I’m sure Yi Kun would have something to say, but whatever. I don’t care. For now, just for this brief moment, I am free. I have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, nothing to brutally slaughter and murder and tear apart and burn… I like this feeling, actually – not the near nakedness, of course – but the soft breeze and the sight of the district below me. Most of the important people there can go fuck themselves, of course, but one day, if I am successful, I will need to ensure that the rest of the population can live safely and not suffer the injustices of the Greats,’ she thought, freezing this image in the Ascendant’s Library before looking around herself.

For a moment, she thought that Yi Shi Ming had lied to her about her ability to speak to her after she left the prison realm, but then the space behind her shimmered and the figure of the red-haired woman appeared, albeit faded and translucent. She was clearly unable to fully project herself into reality for the moment, although Wei Yi had already suspected that this would be the case.

Yi Shi Ming stood still for a moment, doing something, then opened her eyes and looked at her.

“Wei Yi. Thou hath left somewhat unexpectedly. I had only barely prepared the exit array circle for thee,” she said.

“Sorry, I just wanted to have a nice exit. You said something about me being able to influence the prison realm from outside of it, but that it would only be possible for you to show me once I am outside of the realm? Depending on what this is, I am incredibly curious as to this method.”

“It is quite simple. What is thine understanding of personal realms?”

Wei Yi’s complete silence as she looked for and then failed to find a single mention of the matter within any reliable documents stored inside of the Ascendant’s Library was a sufficient answer.

“With how obscured my son’s identity has become, it is no surprise. Personal realms were an invention of his, and it involves utilising one’s spiritual will to condense a similarity of a spatial realm, then integrate it into their dantian, mental landscape and stabilise it with their anchor. Thou art already benefitting from an array that was based on the structure of the Kong Prison Realm, and so thou might even improve the structure of the realm itself.”

“It’s that easy? Why hasn’t… I’m guessing that this cannot be done without the full permission of a spatial spirit, can it?” Wei Yi guessed quickly, as she had previously experienced what it had cost someone to attempt to conquer a spatial realm without the permission of its will, “Still, how come something that simple will improve a creation of the seventh realm or above?”

“Thou must be misunderstanding thine own capabilities, as thine observation talents are certainly beyond that of most cultivators, to my knowledge. Furthermore, thee took something by said seventh realm expert and then brought it to a greater point without the assistance of the Truth of the Universe,” Yi Shi Ming disagreed, “In the worst case, thine luck surpasses almost anyone else’s in the past, and in the best, thine mind does exactly the same. If thou art to pursue the reconstruction of Yi City, then thou ought to acknowledge thine abilities.”

She frowned, but ultimately nodded, “I suppose you’re right. So, how would this work?”

“Just stand still and permit me to do my work. Thou shalt know what to do when it comes to this, and I could not instruct thee without damaging thine work. My apologies.”

The figure faded, and Wei Yi felt the force of space itself fall upon her dantian, with an infinitely complex yet simplistic land appear within it, centring on her planar anchor, with it towering far over the rest of the lands, including the tallest mountains that she had been able to find within the prison realm.

This land of white and crimson nudged the Truth of the Universe upwards, where it would not interact with it, and began to slowly merge with the illusory crystalline walls of her dantian, phasing right through the pure white dantian bone as if it did not even exist.

‘She’s either very experienced, or incredibly… Spiritual will and the array, right? That means that I can fuse my current mental landscape with the Kong Prison Realm and change either one to greater resemble the other, correct? Perhaps I will even be able to summon my cultivating combatants into the real world to participate in my battles!’ a sudden epiphany struck her, much like Yi Shi Ming had originally suggested would happen, and prompted her to do exactly that, ‘Now, if I move the array and use it to nudge the mental domain, then attach the Ascendant’s Library to the anchor and combine the two into a united anchor…’

For a little while, the integration of the prison realm and the dantian stagnated, whether due to Wei Yi’s plan or some other factor within the process, but it provided her with enough time to fully shift the enormous mental domain that she had built up over the years and then adjust its size so that it could smoothly overlap with the Kong Prison Realm.

As one provided direct inspiration for the other, she was able to do so with ease, concluding her work by controlling her planar anchor and combined mental domain and spatial realm and forcing the two of them to collide with one another and unite, although neither truly moved due to the limitations of her control over either entity. Even then, when the five-sided pillar came into contact with the mental domain, it sent a pulse throughout it, unifying the mental and physical and bonding the two, before rising just slightly to reside above the Ascendant’s Library that now existed within the centre.

In the Kong Prison Realm – where time flowed at the normal speed once more, due to Yi Shi Ming’s control – there was only enough time for the spiritual will side of the realm to begin approaching the centre when they suddenly saw an enormous structure take shape before them, decorated with opulent gold and dark stone. It rose from nothing, and was overshadowed only by a titanic pillar composed of five sides and circled by forty-seven distinct shards that suddenly descended onto the world from the empty astral sky. On one side, flames mixed with sparks of golden lightning, on the second, a stone-like face sat still and yet imposing, on the third and fourth, metal and water mixed together as blood, and on the fifth was a layer of bark. Above this wondrous thing, a sphere of pure violet shone brightly, and arcs of violet lightning occasionally connected the anchor to the shards around it.

To say that planar anchors were an uncommon sight in the prison realm would be an understatement to an extreme degree and would imply that they were ever seen within living memory of anyone living there. While some of the hatred automatons had longer lives that others, even they had few opportunities to witness such a thing outside of the collapse of the anchor upon one’s arrival to the realm.

And yet, here was the thing described in legends, overlooking all of them without any explanation whatsoever. It was a miracle for the optimistic, and a sign of the end for others.

Neither had the opportunity to share their vision with the other as the ground suddenly quaked, a single circular pulse expanding from the mysterious library and anchor and coursing through the dirt, stone and sand of the realm, reshaping it in some slight ways and in some major ones. Most noticeably for those at the border between crimson and white, a set of short mountains rose from the ground, obscuring their path, but those further away also noticed that the ground beneath their feet gained a certain shade of colour that was rarely seen in the realm.

Some also observed faint shadows and echoes of figures that engaged in combat, but they were not only intangible but also appeared very briefly, making some wonder whether they had completely imagined the situation.

One thing was clear to everyone, however: the prison realm was truly changing.

What many of those could not see was how the structure of the world itself changed to better match the mental domain of Wei Yi, with the very ground transforming itself into something more complex. In place of the previous eternal night that descended due to her absorption of the storm walls, the great pillar that was the planar anchor lit one fifth of the prison realm bright, that being the southern wall between the two sides of the world, while the rest had to make do with the faint sparking violet that formed between the anchor shards and the anchor itself until she was able to add sunlight to the astral sky of the realm.

Furthermore, as her killing will merged with the land, it slowly increased the concentration of both killing intent and spiritual will that was present within it.

She was able to merge it with the pockets of land that she had already encased in her own mental energies and thus assume dominion over the cultivation of every single individual that used either force, partially including the physique cultivators that had moved from the Great Bone Lake as they ultimately utilised killing intent in their practise.

Since she now had much more space to work with, and the ability to restrict anyone and anything from touching the Ascendant’s Library – although that wasn’t even a necessity as the mental and physical realms appeared to match and yet be separate, much like spiritual will and one’s mental capacity paralleled one another and yet did not match up exactly, meaning that unless she permitted certain changes from the physical realm to carry over into the mental one, nothing would be able to harm her, and none of the inhabitants of the prison realm would have even the slightest opportunity to touch any of the books in her library – she threw Bai Hao out of his tower and into Sanctuary without any explanation. Whether he was sufficiently clever to figure out what happened didn’t matter to her too much, as he was still reliant on her to exist, and was now far, far weaker than her in every way.

The last change of note appeared to be her connection to the spatial spirit, that being Yi Shi Ming.

‘I can now speak to you whenever I want, correct?’ she asked, communicating with the presence of the mother of the Master of Yi City that covered the prison realm.

‘Indeed. If thou art in need of assistance, or if I believe thee to require some additional information, I can always speak to thee in this manner,’ Yi Shi Ming replied, ‘Furthermore, if thou art wishing for a moment of silence, thou art in control of our communication, so to hear my words is at thine discretion.’

‘Understood…’ Wei Yi said, looking back towards the Yi District once more for a few seconds, ‘So, how does this match up with your memories of the district? It has obviously declined alongside the rest of the city, losing much of its land, but I would like to know exactly what I would need to be working towards in my reconstruction of Yi City.’

For a moment, the spatial spirit viewed the world through her eyes while deep in thought, then said, ‘The Ancestral Hall has lost much of its immortal gold, it seems.’

Wei Yi looked into the distance, enhancing her sight with two wisps of killing will, and found that apart from one small decorative piece of immortal gold being removed from the walls of the hall yet again, perhaps by the same person as last time, little had changed, suggesting that the original structure was somehow even more opulent and overly decorative than ever before. She could guess some of the details that had been lost, but not sufficiently to include ‘much’ immortal gold.

‘Originally, the Ancestral Hall was a simple structure, but the craftsmen overreacted when Ah Shi Meng threw away some of his immortal gold once he decided that it was unsuitable for his own projects, and decided that he wished for them to decorate the structure in it. They worked and toiled for many days, and only worked harder when my son ignored them and said nothing about their work, just not for the reasons they likely expected,’ Yi Shi Ming recalled after a moment of silence, ‘Eventually, he was forced to approach them, after they had created a structure so extreme and decorative that it nearly drew the ire of some ancient dragons.

‘He asked them what they were doing, and after clearing up that he wasn’t disappointed with their work, he couldn’t bring himself to chastise them. Instead, he told them that their work was finally complete and that he was satisfied with it, before sneaking away and ensuring that no great quantities of immortal gold ever made it into the hands of the other district builders.’

‘That’s… not at all what I had expected, though I can see that happening. Was your son a kind man?’

‘Indeed. He was a child that any parent could be proud of, as thee would be…’ she did not continue, as with the information that she already possessed about Wei Yi, it was not difficult to tell that her closest family was either absent or deceased.

As a result, they looked into the distance for a little while longer.

It was only when the sun slowly began to set that they finally decided to take action, although both had done a number of things on their own within the prison realm while they contemplated how to proceed. Yi Shi Ming gathered an impression of the sunlight that shone down upon them, slowly weaving it into the prison realm, while Wei Yi scanned around them and considered geographical features that the Kong Prison Realm would benefit from before implementing them into her mental domain. This method would no longer yield immediate results, but with Yi Shi Ming’s assistance, the two realms would match once more within a week.

‘So, Yi Shi Ming, are there any locations that you would recommend for us to use as our base against the Greats?’

‘I know of a few places,’ the red-haired spatial spirit replied, ‘but I do not know of what interests thee. Resources, people, terrain or something else? Also, I likely do not have to say this, but my memories are of the past, and are likely inaccurate.’

‘Obviously, I am aware of that. However, I certainly require every single one of those things, as although any of my abilities could be used to make up for flaws, if I begin with nothing, I will need to invest far more into maintaining a semblance of a suitable base than I ever should,’ Wei Yi stated, ‘The easiest to circumvent for me would be troops and forces, as my mental realm already has a semblance of combatants that could be used in the place of living people. Terrain can be manipulated with techniques and cosmic energy, and with your support, I should be able to minimize the instability of my creations. Resources, on the other hand, I cannot provide, unless my hair is as useful for defensive purposes as it seemed to be in the prison realm.’

‘Your hair?’

‘Have you seen how tough it is? It’s like it benefitted ten-fold from every single improvement to any part of my body, and I hadn’t even used all that much of my cosmic energy on it to improve it. The only way to get rid of it now is to tear it out of my head, as my skin is weaker than hair,’ she explained, displaying how it easily ignored a powerful attack from the Ascendant’s Slash, ‘It’s also one of the only things to not change with my killing will form.’

‘Indeed… Thine path is incredibly odd, I have to say. In another’s hands, I do not think that they would have gotten quite as far as thee did… Coulds’t thee infuse thine hair into thine clothing?

‘I had already considered it, but my hair isn’t quite the right length for this, and I’m not sure whether it would be best to work on these robes, or if I should create a new piece of equipment and include my hair in it from the very beginning… Not something of relevance right now, and I realise that I shouldn’t have mentioned it then,’ Wei Yi shifted the topic of conversation back to the matter of bases and strongholds, ‘Anyway, options. You said you have a few, so list them, then I will make the decision about the first places to investigate.’

‘Very well. I can share with thee three places that are likely to still be usable in the modern times, and they are far enough away from one another for thee to explore the world and find potential allies. The first is the southern outpost used by my son in part of his conquests, and then hidden entirely from sight with many arrays and inscriptions. It should remain hidden to this day, especially as the southern folk that were entrusted with fragments of information about it appeared to be trustworthy,’ Yi Shi Ming said, granting her the vision of an abandoned structure that boasted great defensive capability and a great quantity of space for use in any areas necessary, then switching that image to a large swath of the desert.

It looked almost barren at first, making Wei Yi wonder whether she had somehow received the wrong mental image through their exchange.

‘This land is in the north, and although it appears poorly defended, various reasons cause it to be incredibly effective as a fortress. Beneath the land are countless deposits of materials, and there are several tribes that treat it as a sacred land, protecting it from most invaders. Circumstances may hath driven away the tribes since last I gazed upon that place, however.

‘Finally, there is a third location that thou might be aware of, considering its proximity to the Yi District and thine usage of my son’s work: the Kong District.’

‘That place… Are you aware of the Kong Holy Grounds?’

‘Art thou aware of them as well? How goes their fate? Having a secondary, stationary realm of simple experiments by the Kong ought to be greatly beneficial to thee in the long term, as it could grant thee great insight into the matter of spatial arts.’

‘Yeah… I sure gained some insight from them before they collapsed.’

‘Ah…’

‘Still, I need to go past them, so I shall be heading to the north first… I wonder what happened to Yi Bai…’ Wei Yi remembered the unfortunate assassin and frowned.

Yi Shi Ming had no disagreements with her plan, so after she offered a few pieces of advice about navigating towards the north and about the potential dangers and Great Family lands that she might need to watch out for – so long as they had not been moved or hidden from all viewers entirely – she cloaked herself in stealth methods and hastened to leave her position, just in case.

While leaping through the trees and rushing past the occasional clearings, she thought of a question she wanted to ask while she was doing her best to avoid any kind of sentries outside of the Yi District, just in case one of them happened to see past through her abilities.

‘By the way, have you ever heard words like ‘train’ or ‘rails’ or anything of the sort?’

‘Indeed, it was not too uncommon to hear Ah Shi Meng speak of such things, although is attempts to recreate them never came to fruition, to my knowledge.’

‘Oh, so that’s where these phrases came from…’