V3C31: The Realm of Potential

‘If this is akin to the shard cane sword that the Great Aberrant had, reflecting a potential future, then could this not be reflecting my potential, or some of it, at the very least? A sort of Realm of Potential, for instance?’ she guessed, trying to recall what she had witnessed during the battle at the same time as looking through potential counters to the Sunlight Ire technique that she had been confronted with, ‘Did the Great Aberrant want to pull me in to this realm and beat me with his potential, or would we both have faced off against one another with the peak of our potential? Maybe it created copies like this, then one of us won and the other was killed as a result?’

She couldn’t understand why she would lose against an otherworldly demon in a contest that he should have been able to cheat in however he wanted, but the exact deduction of what had occurred then could wait until she dealt with what was potentially a matter of life and death.

As her strategy could be altered significantly based on the tools available to her, she tried to access the House of Gold and summon White Echo from within and met with a partial success. The weapon appeared within her hands immediately, but she felt no connection to the spatial storage, which led her to conclude that her body truly was still outside, and that this was a projection of her mind that could conjure whatever she wanted, although her perception of reality would likely stop her from simply creating a million White Echoes and using them to create a killing array to overpower her other self. Instead, she focused on the weakness of the Ire series of techniques – speed. They were painfully slow, even with the improvements from the Truth of the Universe.

Naturally, that was what she decided to exploit, covering her dagger in the energy derived from Storm Blade Wreathing and disappeared from the spot with the derivative of Storm’s Edge Dash, all of which were enhanced by the Ascendant’s Dao and were thus shaded golden despite their origin and principle not having been modified significantly.

First, she dodged away from the direction in which the sunlight beam would come at her, then repeated the dash to appear by her side, stabbing the blade at her replica’s neck.

Rather than evading, the replica just interrupted the charging of the Sunlight Ire, failing to produce a beam but having accumulated enough power to create the wave that erupted across the entirety of the channelling circle. The force from the wave struck her and instantly threw her back, tearing countless wounds into her clothing and body, showing her first-hand exactly how powerful the sunlight condensed through Sunlight Ire was, even against a body such as her own.

However, if this potential replica could only use Sunlight Ire, as she theorised, then this was the point at which it would be most vulnerable to an attack, and even if she was on the brink of death in reality, she wouldn’t abandon a fight just because of some wounds. So long as success was possible, she would have to pursue it, for there would otherwise be no reason to her life.

With another rapid movement, she reappeared beside the replica and plunged the dagger straight towards the replica’s heart.

This time, she thought that there was no possible way for it to use purely Sunlight Ire in order to defend itself, but as if the replica wanted to teach a lesson to a foolish child, it moved its hand towards her and simply opened her hand, a bolt of pure sunlight bursting from her hand and piercing her heart.

She did not die. Instead, the replica vanished, the glowing lines on the ground vanished, the wound in her chest vanished, and everything about her recovered entirely. Wei Yi was able to straighten her back, stand up, and look around without a single trace of either her own demise or any of the injuries, no matter whether she looked upon her mind or body. And yet, it was not as if everything had been undone entirely, for she felt as if she had instinctively comprehended several things.

The first was the function of this Realm of Potential, or, at the very least, what she had been able to access so far. It was to face the potential versions of techniques that could be created within a small timeframe, and with each victory or defeat, she would learn something from them, whether it was just the improvements to the technique itself or even her cultivation technique. Although this was very similar to the Truth of the Universe in the way that it would provide her with a certain variant of a technique based on its own calculations, from what she was able to tell so far, the strengthened potential techniques lacked the fully mechanical nature that the gifts of the otherworldly demons tended to have.

Although she could not be certain, she guessed that this was due to the Realm of Potential using some esoteric method of prying into the future, perhaps deducing it based on the Planar Continents themselves whereas the Truth of the Universe contained its own method of calculation and would not turn to the natural world for answers. Of course, it still wasn’t perfect.

From this single bout, she had not learnt much, but the simple possibility of using the Ire series of techniques in such a manner was an intriguing one, and she suspected that if she repeated this a few dozen or hundred times, she would be able to grasp that improved version. However, the replica would likely grow more powerful each time, unless there was a method of controlling exactly how powerful it would be that she had yet to discover.

It was also likely that a victory against the replica would be far more bountiful, as it would allow her to benefit from the victory itself while the Realm of Potential would be likely to grant her more knowledge as a reward.

She could not be sure how the current state of this otherworldly gift compared to itself when it was in the possession of the Great Aberrant and connected with an azure spark, but it did seem a safer method of growing her arsenal rather than the more costly and dangerous Truth of the Universe, especially since most of the true improvement to the techniques would be through her comprehension of the possibilities of it and incorporation of them into the technique, rather than some mechanical process done through a soulless mind of the characters.

Furthermore, she was still not certain that there was no remnant influence of the azure lights within all of these items, so to use something that relied more on her mind was naturally safer.

Before proceeding with training any particular technique through this method, she went through a series of checks. The first was to confirm that she was able to leave and enter as she wanted, which she was able to do with a little effort, then to see what the exact rate at which time passed within the Realm of Potential was, which turned out to be identical to that of the prison realm, and finally, she returned into it and tried thinking up a very specific opponent for herself.

When the light that shone upon the formation of a replica faded, she witnessed a very similar figure, except it now possessed the exact same energy as she did. It began to attempt a technique, but the very instant that it moved at all, the entire figure crumbled into the darkness, and disappeared.

‘I guess that it cannot accurately replicate everything that allows me to wield the kinds of energy that I currently use. That’s fine, since fighting against my exact copy would definitely be troublesome,’ she thought, and, prompted by the consideration regarding the actual intelligence of these replicas, she decided to think of a figure that could only use some incredibly basic weapon technique with the lowest cultivation that the Realm of Potential would allow.

As it turned out, it would allow her to create a replica without any planar energy at all, although she distinctly felt her own strength being reduced as the replica came to be, presumably in order to allow her to face off against the foe without being at too great of an advantage, so that their battle could be more focused on technique rather than her simply overpowering the replica with her cultivation.

The technique that she chose to bestow upon this replica was the very first that she had learnt – the Gentle Breeze Strike.

From what she knew of that technique, it had little potential and even with the aid of such powerful factors as the Yin-Yang Ascendant physique or her mental energies it was significantly weaker than almost every single technique she had at her disposal, beside those that were not intended to have any use in combat to begin with. In her opinion, making the replica use it specifically would allow it to best showcase its intelligence rather than some great potential of the technique that she had not considered before then.

Her expectations were neither met nor subverted, for the figure did not showcase any kind of incredible feats the moment that it began to move, but it did instead display an immense mastery of the Gentle Breeze Strike that even Wei Yi herself wasn’t sure she could demonstrate.

Every punch was extremely deceptive, no matter what they looked like. Whether the replica appeared to be targeting her or swinging wide, the direction of her strike could change at any time, shifting far more than she thought it possible, and then changing back the moment that she thought to block at the place where the strike would end up.

Nonetheless, it was still of limited usefulness, barely managing to withstand a consistent assault from far superior techniques, forcing the replica to act consistently more effectively until it reached its limit. That turned out to not be as high as she had hoped, as it appeared incapable of deviating from the technique by any significant margin regardless of the effectiveness that such a move would deliver, and even when such things were not necessary, it did not always succeed in capitalising on certain faults within her attacks, although she could not be certain of the exact reason for it.

Perhaps it was not able to perceive the faults that she permitted herself to display, or possibly it was actually clever enough to realise that they were something that Wei Yi had intentionally revealed and didn’t act on them, or maybe it foresaw that even the flaws that were unintentional would not benefit it, although she suspected that she was beginning to overthink it once again.

To spare herself the effort, she instead defeated this replica, processed what she could from the brief battle, then willed another into existence and repeated the experiment with a different technique.

With the Kong family’s Crushing Dagger technique, the Realm of Potential was given far more room for attacking rather than just ensuring that the replica was able to withstand far superior techniques. Still, in comparison to most of her arsenal, this was a rather lacking technique created a long time ago by someone that wasn’t satisfied with the cutting potential of a dagger and instead decided to smash things with it, which was hardly the most reasonable response considering what a dagger is like.

Nevertheless, with an ethereal dagger composed of the realm’s darkness and a technique that was just slightly more advanced than her own understanding of it, this replica was still able to put up a challenging fight before it was defeated, and with a lesser limitation on the replica’s strength and cultivation, the gains that she received were also greater the moment that it perished. It was able to roughly equal the gains from a loss with a far more powerful foe, and beside the knowledge on how to best crush things with a knife or dagger, she could feel her understanding of the Ascendant’s Path deepen with greater clarity than before.

To test whether she would be able to focus the gains from the Realm of Potential onto her cultivation, she tried to summon a replica that would only possess one of the branches of her Ascendant’s Path so that it wouldn’t immediately collapse once again.

With such criteria, she did succeed, a replica manifesting before her with the distinct aura of the Mysterious Fire energy, its entire form illuminated brightly by the flames burning within it, and when it attacked, it used nothing but the planar energy within its control, throwing out simple bursts of flame and empowering its own body in order to roughly match the techniques that Wei Yi was able to direct at it.

She found this fight easier than the other, however. The primary power of a cultivator was their techniques, and even the simplest techniques would multiply the power of any individual attack and strike by a significant degree, and the likes of the Elysian Palm would triple her power whereas the Elysian Storm Palm could even triple that in the best conditions, meaning that the raw cultivation of an individual would never be worth as much as a weaker cultivation supported by refined, practised and perfected techniques.

When this replica was defeated, she confirmed that the exact benefits she earned from the Realm of Potential was based on what she fought, how powerful they were, and which techniques she decided to use against her foe. The most that she understood from the battle was on the topic of fire-type energy, and a little less on the element of water due to using it the most during the battle.

‘Now that I think about it, the reason that it wasn’t able to copy my full ability is likely that is has been deprived of the power of the azure lights, and, as such, it cannot copy the ability of a different otherworldly gift without more power than I currently possess,’ she thought, switching her focus on the best way to use the realm for now before moving on and progressing towards her current destination, browsing through her mental list of techniques and eventually deciding on the persona that she would present within the next district.

She had spent some time as an expert in pill refining, one of the Great Arts, so it seemed like a good idea to next experience the lifestyle of a combat-focused cultivator, especially since that would ensure that she didn’t infringe on the primary field of the Luo family, which was talisman creation and research.

Much like the Ning, they were rather fond of keeping dominance over the talisman market within their own district, so challenging them in that regard would not be helpful to keeping the peace, and things like array arrangement and inscriptions would both be looked down upon due to the reliance on talismans being so extreme that the Luo District also had the name of the Land of Flaming Paper, called that due to the flaming embers released by the activation of a talisman.

As a result, it was a perfect time for her to hone her skills of combat, made even easier by the existence of the Realm of Potential, which, if she was to enter some kind of lengthy tournament with many battles soon after one another, then she could refine any flaws detected within her techniques by briefly pretending to meditate while actually using this otherworldly gift and the slow passage of time within the prison realm to her advantage. In order to still maintain some closeness to the Luo District, and to benefit the most from what was usually studied there, she decided that she should practise some form of fire-type techniques for combat and movement, and while she could transform most of her attacks into any element thanks to their inclusion in the Ascendant’s Dao, she wanted to focus on something that was innately focused on fire.

Naturally, her mental gaze turned to the Scorching Blade techniques, and the idea for another quick experiment appeared within her mind.

So far, she had only attempted to fight against a single replica, but surely the rate at which she absorbed insight, even from failures, would be greater the more techniques and innovations she was able to witness within a single brief period of time. If not, that would expose a little more of the functions of the Realm of Potential, and if she wasn’t even able to have multiple foes, then that entire moment of consideration would have been entirely worthless.

Luckily for her, multiple opponents were indeed an option, and they were all able to showcase the same prowess with great coordination and fluid movements at all times, likely due to sharing a single mind that was as powerful as it would have been if all independent replicas were put together.

There were several sensations and events that Wei Yi couldn’t and didn’t want to imagine experiencing, but it could be said that this fight was rather similar to one such event.

One replica with techniques that were superior to her already put up a serious fight, but with five of them – for some reason, she felt that five instances of her practising the Scorching Blade techniques would be the most suitable number, even though that was highly unnecessary and overly extreme – she lasted far less than against the Sunlight Ire replica, but her original guess was accurate.

Despite the shorter battle, less opportunity for either her or the replicas to display their full potential, and yet another loss, she felt as if she understood significantly more about their actions this time, and thus she progressed significantly more.

It should be clarified that ‘significantly’, in this context, was still not particularly great, perhaps bringing her one percent closer to the next step of cultivating the Scorching Blade techniques, but she estimated that if she spent an hour inside of the Realm of Potential, she would be able to attain one tenth of the way towards the next stage, and this was just through the random defeats and the input of knowledge obtained from it. So long as she managed to attain some personal enlightenment, much like she did with the alternate method of using Sunlight Ire, then that could be increased to twice or thrice as much, if not more.

After all, all that most people needed to advance one of their techniques was a lot of effort and a single revelation to advance their technique onto the next stage, so if she could gain the latter through one of these fights, previous hard work could then be invested fully or otherwise substituted with the Truth of the Universe.

Before focusing on this task, she stepped out of the Realm of Potential and took a look at the night’s sky, finding that the moon was still high in the sky and that the sun wouldn’t rise for another few hours, so she made sure that her hiding spot was sufficient to obscure her any random passer-by that might travel towards or away from the Ning District before making herself look like she was asleep prior to entering the prison realm with her spiritual perception. She asked Yi Shi Ming to pay attention and attempt to free her from the Realm of Potential if anything of note occurred.

Once within the darkness, she decided to focus upon two goals to achieve before the sun rose, with the first naturally being to raise her prowess in any of the Scorching Blade techniques until any one of them rose to the First Stage, at which point she would be able to accurately display the prowess that someone who had spent her entire life to practise combat techniques ought to have. The second goal was a purely emotional one, and it was to get used to loss.

She had experienced some rather significant losses, mainly the one against the Greats upon their first meeting, but the majority of the time before and after that, she had been on a consistent streak of victories that did a lot to erase her past failures, like those from before the Truth of the Universe had awakened, and now that she had the opportunity to fight against enemies on a similar level to her that were able to consistently beat her, she could bring her confidence down to a more reasonable level, where it needed to be at in order to act more reasonably in the face of significantly more powerful opponents.

More precisely than that, she needed to understand her own abilities with greater clarity, to understand exactly how she compares to those with superior skill or knowledge, regardless of whether such people existed.

If she was to be asked on this matter, she would be able to confidently state that there had to be at least a few people that had a sufficient talent to reach a high realm and enough understanding of battle and of a particular technique to bring it into the realm of stages, and in theory, if one person focused on a single move of a single technique for the entire lifespan of someone in the fifth realm, for example, they could have reached such a high stage that they would be able to instantly defeat anyone who isn’t using an element and a series of technique that oppose them entirely.

Given the seeming consistency between the techniques of the Great Families, she could theoretically follow a similar path, but it did not appear to be a wise idea.

Besides the Greats, she also needed to deal with the otherworldly demons, abnormally powerful individuals from this world that had decided to abuse their power to impede the progression of Yi City as a whole, and large organisations, assassin or otherwise, who have agendas that Wei Yi is significantly opposed to in order to force conflict.

Having a technique that was perfect to combat the Greats but not to deal with any of the other forces would just work against her and would waste time and energy that she could otherwise invest in increasing her power as a whole. So long as she can defeat one opponent confidently with a variety of methods and techniques, then she will be able to defeat others with the same amount of effort and difficulty, which was far preferable to defeating one kind of foe with ease and barely surviving against anybody else.

Thus, she summoned five replicas of herself, and prepared for a long night.