V3C12: Curiosity of the Ning District

They wore black robes and covered their heads with hoods, with little more than their chins being visible. Nobody that walked past them looked at them longer for a second, since people would dress in all sorts of ways and come from all sorts of places, meaning that those from the extreme south, where everyone was forced to clothe themselves in fifteen layers of fur to keep themselves warm, could end up at the extreme north, where some forgot that clothing even existed, but they caught Wei Yi’s attention. Not due to their clothing, nor their pale skin – one came from the other, and the former would only be natural if they wished to hide their identities for whatever reason – but due to the odd energy within them.

It appeared to be some form of yin, which was odd for two men without physiques but not entirely unusual depending on their hobbies and activities, but what was odd about it was that it was a sort of malevolent energy, which was far less common for anyone.

Perhaps the only person who could be expected to have that kind of aura would be the receptionist, back when she still had her dormant physique energy within her, so for this to appear within two men without physiques and without it appearing to be a temporary effect of ‘sharing one another’s essences’, one of the more roundabout methods of referring to sexual activity that existed within the Planar Continents, was worth quite a significant amount of attention.

Wei Yi quickly launched her spiritual will threads out of the alchemical store to enter their minds while she headed towards her residence. Normally, this kind of thing would not be a challenge for her, considering the fact that most did not practise more than a single low-level mental technique, and mostly did so only to help them focus in times when they may otherwise be easily distracted, and thus had far weaker minds and the ability to detect spiritual will than those of the prison realm, as both of the dominant forms of cultivation focused on mental energies over almost everything else, while those who used physiques also hardened their minds through constant challenge and torment.

However, when her threads attempted to burrow into their necks, they were repulsed by something, forcing her to stop and turn around while retracting them.

‘First time for everything, I suppose… This is yet another curious thing that I must investigate, especially if the unfavourable oddity in the ingredients has any link with these… people,’ she thought, as the items they had beneath their clothing did little to reveal their identity or affiliation, if they even shared one, ‘Their cultivation seems ordinary, and I can see no traces of odd technique practise…’

They headed towards a part of the district that contained many clothing and outfit stores, so while she slowly caught up to them while seeming as inconspicuous as she could be without abusing her stealth techniques to become nigh invisible, she also looked into the prison realm.

Every now and then, the tailor within would produce certain designs that he would then quickly remove, tear and incinerate via the nearest brazier, and although none of the things he ever created appeared to be practical in the slightest, it was still interesting to look upon them, especially when all that this spying required was a moment of her attention. The armour that she had appropriated was one of the surprising attempts to complete one of those designs, but there had been quite the number of other fascinating things emerging from the other world that Fu Zan belonged to.

‘Let’s see, this time he has… hm?’ her mental eyebrow rose as she beheld the latest hidden design.

At first, she nearly thought that she had come across a very different type of imagery, but, despite the rather significant amount of detail put into the female body on that page, she realised that it was instead meant to be depicting some kind of skin-tight suit that covered the entire body, ending at the neck, and potentially allowing for the hands and feet to also be uncovered.

According to the design document, it required the use of something similar to ‘latex’, which was some kind of material from his world, and could be worn by a range of words that she did not understand.

While it sounded like a similarly insane idea to everything else he had created, it actually prompted some serious thought from her. First of all, while the otherworldly demon was unaware of any suitable materials, she could think of several that could make putting the skin-tight suit on incredibly easy, while also making it incredibly flexible and permitting her to sense anything and being just as protective as regular armour via an Armour Forming inscription. Also, if she then also covered herself in her current robes and a set of armour, then infused the three with various durable metals through Armour Forming inscriptions, she could protect herself against almost every attack in existence with only two of the layers being noticeable at most.

Furthermore, it would allow her to practically leave herself open, just as she currently was, without needing to endure the occasional cool breeze passing through the cloth and causing some unneeded reactions.

‘I don’t have anything that could be used to create this at the moment, but I ought to memorise this… Some of the metals could be found in the North, which is quite fortunate…’

As the design was committed to memory, Fu Zan had already decided that he had made a mistake in drawing it and destroyed it before eating a piece of the paper. It did not take him long to realise that this was a mistake, especially when that part of the paper was covered in a large quantity of ink that could upset the stomach even of a cultivator in the third realm of planar cultivation, although he was fortunate to have been living in a realm where proper food was hard to come by.

She brought her attention back to the Planar Continents, where those black-robed men had entered an alleyway casually, forcing her to go past them and travel into a different alleyway before obscuring her presence entirely with stealth techniques and leaping to the top of the buildings around her to continue following the men.

They went through a complex route through the buildings, seemingly using it more to actually be able to travel through the alleys rather than due to any other inherent purpose, and ended up near the edge of the district, near the iron wall. There, they loitered for a while, not making their intentions or purpose particularly clear as they did not look towards any particular direction or at any particular object. They did not even look at one another, instead sitting down and shutting their eyes to cultivate as they waited.

If she did the same thing, she would instantly catch their attention due to how much planar energy would be devoured the moment that she attempted it, so she instead sat down on the roof and went through the designs of clothing and armour that she had accumulated so far.

Out of everything she had come up with on her own and borrowed from Fu Zan, she had already been forced to select the outer armour and the robes – mostly because she could not yet replicate the Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival and did not want to switch them to something that would require repair after every single minor combat encounter – and the skin-tight clothing was the only one of its kind so far, and little could be done to it nonetheless due to the nature of the outfit, perhaps adjusting it for the transformations of the killing will form, meaning that she effectively had little more to do than to perfect the designs and to unite them together into a single cohesive appearance that she could present to her forces and the warriors of the Greats when they inevitably fought.

This wasn’t a necessity by any metric, but as she couldn’t focus on something more important and thus time consuming, this was the next best thing.

‘Furthermore, I cannot go to Fu Zan for help, as he will create something incredibly odd, regardless of the nature of the oddity. In that way, he is actually similar to the odd herbs of this district, as his behaviours can also result in a whole host of random things,’ she commented mentally, conjuring a mental desk on which to work.

Eleven minutes later, or roughly two decades within her mental domain, she had made some progress on a design for a uniform for her forces as well as her own equipment when the two men below her finally acted.

They rose and looked at one of the buildings near them, the back wall of which suddenly broke into two sections, with a small rectangle near the floor, the height of half the average man, separating from the rest and receding into the building, perhaps being carried by a person on the other side, or perhaps being moved by some mechanism. Wei Yi would not typically need to guess, but this building somehow had the same obfuscating barrier as the Kong Ancestral Hall and the items of the otherworldly demons, meaning that nothing seemed to be amiss until this movement began.

‘There better be an otherworldly demon out there that is able to sense past such things, or else I will ensure that no records of how to create this effect are ever passed down,’ she thought, looking a little closer while the two robed men climbed through the hole in the wall and were then sealed away by the door, which blended in with the wall and made it seem as if nothing had been there at all.

So that she wouldn’t miss anything, she leapt down and snuck around the front of the structure, where she found that both the window and door were blocked and entirely obscured. However, while the wall at the back seemed to reunite into one, there were still a few gaps between the door and the frame around it that remained uncovered by the planks of wood that were used to block them. A gap this slight and small would have been too insignificant for most, but it gave her just enough space to worm her spiritual will into the building without needing to break down the door and expose herself to the strange figures.

As she had originally guessed, there was another person within, who looked mostly ordinary beside a small patch of greater malevolent yin on his neck.

The two robed men raised their right hands and placed their index and middle finger on their foreheads, exclaiming, “Aberrant’s praise! Our mission to Him has been complete, and another step of our preparation is complete.”

‘Did I… stumble across some kind of cult? That’s exciting and concerning. I wonder what kinds of things they have done, and whether I should be concerned with them,’ Wei Yi thought, covering herself entirely with the technique of the Binder of the Dark to ensure that none of the random travellers going past this building decided to bother her and potentially alert the others, ‘The next time I end up in a district, I wonder if I will find something similar. Perhaps my occasional fortune is counteracted with finding everything from otherworldly demons to strange assassin organisations…’

“The Aberrant’s eye has been on you, and He knows of your achievements,” the man with a spot on his neck replied, “He is satisfied with your work, and does not require sacrifice.”

“Aberrant’s praise!”

“However, He has decreed that we must hurry. The Fractured Mirrors have been moving more in the past few days and may have observed our actions in awakening the Mirror Plane. We must ensure that His work, His gift for all humanity, is not affected by them!”

‘Fractured Mirrors? Is that a separate organisation of some kind, or some force that finds these people to be intrusive or otherwise inconvenient to their own purposes?’

“We shall never betray the Aberrant’s trust in us. The Mirror Plane shall be awoken!”

‘And this Mirror Plane could refer to a number of things as well, none of which are in the many documents that I have previously read and studied. Potentially, they speak of some kind of spatial realm, which had somehow been shut or become dormant after excessive waste of the internal energy, and they might now be seeking to open it once more. Alternatively, perhaps it refers to a set of conditions or a state, wherein it will be achieved once a certain quantity of energy gathers in the city, or something of the sort,’ she continued her consideration, ‘Either way, with the malevolent yin and their general appearances, I would suspect that neither I or the citizens of the Ning District would benefit from this plan of theirs.’

“What ought to be our next duty?”

The man with a spot on his neck answered immediately, “The infusion of the Mirror Plane must be accelerated for His glory. End anyone that opposes it and convert those who do not. His majesty must spread!”

“Aberrant’s will be done!” the two hooded and cloaked men exclaimed, performing the same gesture as before while the other man removed the rectangular portion of the wall and permitted them to leave. She did not follow them immediately, as her spiritual perception could trail them for quite some time before she needed to accompany them on foot, so she instead remained in place and observed what the third man was going to do next.

For a little while, he sat still, then suddenly turned to the side.

An eerie air breached the walls of the building, gathering near the focus of his sight. It had no physical appearance, radiating only yin to give either one of them any impression of where it was. Nevertheless, the man with a spot on his neck immediately bowed to the cold air, smashing his head against the ground without any care for his health.

“Great Aberrant, what can this pitiful servant do for you? How can I fulfil your will after the disappointment that is my very existence?”

‘That mist is their Aberrant? Really?’

Despite her confusion, the voice that appeared as suddenly as the mist sounded like it would belong to someone powerful enough to lead a large cult and would deserve that degree of reverence, “Your progress on my task is lacking, worm. How long will you persist in failing to give me even a glimpse of the Mirror Plane? Tell me, weakling, how is twenty years not enough for you to go past basic poisoning of the herbs?”

“I’m sorry, Great Aberrant! The Fractured Ones greatly slowed my progress!”

“What a pathetic excuse. I have granted you my strength, bestowed upon you my will, gave you my direct and precise bidding – and yet you still fail?”

“The Fractured Ones hold too much power! Please, Great Aberrant, understand that I would never lie to the true ruler of this world! I could never do something so blasphemous without my very soul collapsing upon itself!” the man repeatedly struck his head against the wooden floor, begging again and again, “Please understand, and permit me to continue serving you as I have done so far!”

“Enough of that, you unclean insect. I have had enough of your crying, so shut your mouth and listen. I have felt something touch my mark upon the rest of you. Did you come across the Fractured Ones?”

“I was unaware of any such encounters, Great Aberrant, and the others said nothing of it.”

“Then pay more attention, worm. Tell the others to do the same on your next meeting. I have greater matters to pursue than any of you can even comprehend, beyond any of your insignificant realms, so I shall be distracted for some time. Contact me only in dire situations,” the voice stated, the mist that it emerged from quickly scattering and falling apart, forcing Wei Yi’s spiritual perception to rush towards it and analyse as much as she could before it collapsed entirely.

However, she was yet again stopped from doing so when the mist appeared to lack any semblance of a reaction to her mental energy, meaning that all she was able to identify was the rough structure of the mist. It did not seem to be particularly unusual nor interesting to behold, but when it had almost completely dispersed, she finally realised what it had reminded her of since the first time she noticed it. Despite all of the immense differences, the significant oddity of it, the fact that it seemed to be condensed more of yin than anything else, and that it appeared to be entirely separate from anybody that it should have belonged to…

‘This seems to be spiritual will that is even more different from normal than the twin energy of the Eternal Dark assassins… Well, fuck. That’s somewhat terrifying. My spiritual will, as insignificant as it appears to anyone that detects it, still has to be bound to me without the stabilisation of the planar anchor, which is unfortunately weaker out here than in the prison realm,’ she thought, ‘This, on the other hand, does not appear to have a limit on range nor quantity, seeing as this Great Aberrant has freely thrown away his precious mental energy…’

Then, there were all of those other things said by him. For one, the ability to detect her mental intrusion was rare even amongst the experts of the Kong Prison Realm – or non-existent, as the only person to have any likelihood of noticing it was the otherworldly demon that she had killed in Sanctuary – so the fact that he had perceived her contact with his subordinate’s minds proved that he possessed a powerful intuition, even if nothing else.

As he also claimed to have influenced something about the herbs of the district, it meant that he could be the one responsible for the eerily similar yin in the vast majority of the herbs on the market, infusing them with the same mark as his followers through those aforementioned followers.

With how difficult it was to observe both him and his energies, it meant that he would prove to be a difficult opponent if they ever had to combat one another. Her strength was her power, ultimately, and whenever she could not use her spiritual perception her ability to actually affect her opponent would be reduced significantly.

Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be impossible for her to defeat this curious Great Aberrant so long as she could find his body and if he was beneath the fourth realm, as his anchor would be open to destruction and his form would not be able to regenerate from most of her attacks before she could do further damage, but if she did not understand how he attacked nor how he defended, she would waste so much more of her energy that she otherwise wouldn’t need to expend.

‘Then again, I have no idea what the Mirror Plane is, nor what this Great Aberrant actually wants. Perhaps it is only his – for all I know, he isn’t even a man, or not even human – methods that seem suspicious, and the outcomes will be positive…’

She shook her head quickly, stepping away from the building and rushing towards the pair of robed men. Although the possibility was certainly incredibly tempting to believe in, she knew that things could and would never be this simple. The energy one used meant nothing, but to mark so much of the world in power that would cause it to deteriorate and decay would make it very difficult to make the case for the positivity of his cause. With a sufficiently high concentration of malevolent yin within the closed-off district, the average lifespan would decrease, the overall yang would decay – as was already happening due to it becoming more difficult to produce pills that enhance it – and eventually, the population would die out entirely.

Regardless of the cause, such an act would be unlikely to be committed by someone seeking positive change.

‘For this reason, I must keep an eye on this. Either I get an easy opportunity to raise my renown, or a potential ally, but even if something that I do not expect occurs, I must be ready. Never can Yi City be destroyed, regardless of who the destroyer it. It must survive and be reborn.’