V3C35: Luo District

Whereas the Ning District was surrounded by great metal walls, built in the days of the Master of Yi City, the Luo District had no such thing. In fact, there was essentially no proper physical boundary – it was all made of talismans.

Countless talismans were stuck to trees, rocks, grass, nests and whatever else was roughly near the position that it needed to be in to provide full coverage over the entire district, meaning that if anyone wanted to enter without the permission of the Luo family, they would be struck by one of the many talismans and the power embedded within, with the specific effects likely not being known even to those that created them, for their number was in the hundreds of thousands, if not beyond.

Of course, trade and discovery of fortunate and talented individuals was necessary for every district to thrive, except for the Fu District and family that seemed to possess an infinite source of materials for whatever they wished to study and practise with, and so there were some places where people could enter without the need to bypass the talismans. Instead, they would face the guards.

It didn’t need to be said that they also wielded talismans, and in their hands were countless spare talismans created by the many Luo family craftsmen that resided within the Luo District, ready to be thrown at, or activated towards any potential intruders with negative intentions. The vast majority of them wore the brown and green robes of the family, and most had so-called blood marks around their robe sleeves, denoting them to be lower family members, above servants but beneath the middle and upper members of the family.

That, too, was only natural, as none in a high position would choose to work as a guard unless they had really good reason to do so, at which point it would not be their main focus for long.

Wei Yi ended up arriving at one of these gates, if they could be called that without a single physical reinforcement, just a day before it would have been a full month since her return to the Planar Continents. Now that she was further to the north, the weather got warmer once more, and the forests also became a little less dense, signalling that she was slowly nearing the savanna region of the continent, although she would still need to advance through a few more districts in order to come across the real thing, and then go even further in order to finally begin encountering the desert and the most peculiar behaviours of the cultures there.

‘I’ll certainly need to study those later, as I wouldn’t want to stand out even more than I automatically will due to my complexion and physique,’ she thought, although that might also not be a concern by the time that she got around to the deserts of the Planar Continents. She was already working on resolving her inability to shift her form, although it would take an immense length of time before it could be complete.

That was one of the issues with having a body or cultivation that was too powerful – certain things would greatly lose their effectiveness and could outright stop working when the difference between the method used and the target became too great.

In her current state, her physique was in the fourth realm, but it might as well have been above that due to the nature of the Yin-Yang Ascendant physique, and with each realm, it was significantly more difficult to manipulate the body. The further she studied her physique, and the more she deciphered her path forward, the more she was forced to conclude that unless she obtained a fragment of the Great Dao, she wouldn’t be changing her form beyond very simple aesthetic alterations until the sixth or seventh realms.

Speaking of which, she had also come up with the names for the rest of the nine realms of physique cultivation after practising for a little while within the Realm of Potential.

After her current realm, Progressive Difference, she would attain Blood Resuscitation, which she derived mostly from the fact that her physique energy made regeneration quicker and more efficient. In theory, so long as the path of physique cultivation didn’t take a strange path, the next realm would permit her to regenerate extreme wounds within very short periods of time, further enhancing her immense regenerative abilities.

Then, the realm of Physical Amplification would concentrate the changes from the previous realms, significantly empowering her body and physique to some extent, although the full degree of changes would depend on something that she decided to call the physique vein, which was something that she would need to develop within the Progressive Difference realm by significantly enhancing one of her meridians until their very nature changed to suit physique energy and empowered it through some process that she did not yet fully comprehend.

With one physique vein, she would be able to ascend into the Blood Resuscitation realm, wherein she could construct an entire physique vein circulation that could push her onward into Mortality Extrication, wherein she believed that the new circulation network would truly integrate with the body, perhaps creating a physique vein heart or something of the sort, but the key would be transcending the common truth of humanity that could, in theory, permit her to modify herself as much as she wanted due to her core physique being the Yin-Yang Ascendant, which had the attribute of freedom and transformation.

After that, since she had even less idea of what the next realm would achieve, she called it Superior Transcendence, as she knew that it would permit her to become even more powerful, even more than before, but all she could determine was that it was similar to the eighth realm of planar cultivation, wherein a great step was made towards the final achievement of the ninth realm.

The ninth realm deserved a grand name, so she called it the Perfect Paragon realm, at which point the entire process of physical development would be complete. It would require the process of the eighth realm to be complete, and would hopefully bestow similar power to the Eternal Gate, Endless Battlefield, Everlasting Heaven or Timeless Reality realms, of planar, killing intent, spiritual will and killing will cultivation, effectively granting her unending energy that could be drawn upon endlessly while her cultivation remained intact.

She wasn’t sure whether these were entirely accurate, nor whether anyone would accept the names that she had decided to utilise, but she hadn’t made any particularly extreme assumptions when naming and assigning significant elements to these realms, so most of them should be close enough.

Fortunately, whether one was in the Daoist or the Planar Continent, the path of cultivation was straightforward in nature. The first to the ninth realms would always be identical, although there were some differences in the way that the two continents approached them and their names. This applied to all forms of cultivation, so far as she was able to tell, and although there were some ways to circumvent or otherwise acquire certain abilities at different times – like in the case of perfected realms – there would be no entirely unique cultivation routes.

So long as she understood the vague route she had to go down, she would not make any significant mistakes and ruin her chances of successful advancement to the peak.

‘Well, there is the matter of the planar anchor actively trying to burst, but as I had concluded before, there must be some reason for this that I have not yet deciphered. In theory, if it does explode, so long as I survive, I should be able to reach the third realm once more within a month or two, more if I find some suitable materials for cultivation,’ Wei Yi thought, approaching the so-called gate of the Luo District.

With her claw-like gauntlets, vibrant crimson hair, dark robe emphasised by a few protective metal plates and the powerful aura of her third-realm cultivation, she naturally stood out amongst the otherwise dull woods, as the area around the district was unoccupied due to the planar flora and fauna understanding that it was not a wise idea to remain around the talismans.

Thus, after it became clear that she was approaching them, the guards at the gate prepared a few talismans just in case they needed to confront her.

“Stop right there… you!” one of them exclaimed, turning to the other immediately after, “Luo Bing, which family do you think she’s from?”

“Yi family?”

“Why in the heavens would she have skin and robes like that? No, that’s silly…”

“I can hear you. Do you want to be beaten up?” Wei Yi asked, putting on her most aggressive, least refined tone possible. For this particular role, she intentionally let her hair down and avoided anything that might even resemble makeup, not that she would usually use it without having a very good reason to do so, and thus she needed to make herself seem as straightforward and hostile as possible, since that would make most of her social interactions far, far easier.

This was proven almost immediately when the two guards stopped their random chatter and returned to the original subject of her intentions, with Luo Bing asking, “What are you doing here?”

“I wanna enter the district and get paid for beating the shit out of things. That a problem?”

She had limited experience in acting like some sort of barbarian, mostly due to the fact that her personality was rather set in stone and tended to return whenever she spent too long pretending to be someone else, but what she couldn’t achieve due to lacking knowledge she supplemented readily with killing intent that only seemed appropriate for someone whose only thoughts should be about violence.

“No… There are several places that can support that… We might even need to let you through, if that is the case…”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

The first guard also appeared somewhat perplexed, their deliberation certainly not being helped by the way in which the slight crimson haze around her appeared to be growing visibly with every moment, but he eventually said, “Alright, we have the ability to do so, to let you in. Catch.”

He reached into one of his pockets and threw over a talisman, causing it to fly at such a great speed that Wei Yi was reminded of the failed talismans that Luo Xiuying used to throw out of his home whenever he created them. Due to it, she paid even greater attention to the flying piece of yellow paper and caught it deftly in her left hand, the metal claws atop her fingers striking the other with a vibrant metallic sound, not a single one piercing the talisman paper as a direct result of the careful placement of her fingers.

This action brought the attention of the two guards to the clawed gauntlets, which then also caused one to look down at her feet after she had stepped forward in order to be able to catch the talisman.

“Eh, what’re those gauntlets?” the first guard muttered to his partner.

Luo Bing glanced at the first guard as if he was looking at someone without the ability of coherent thought, nearly slapping him on the back on his head as he pointed to her boots, “What in the heavens are those supposed to be? You claim to be a fighter, but there’s no way you’re going to be able to-”

‘Normally, I would be patient, explain his faults to him, showcase my ability to fight just fine… Well, I will still do that last thing, of course, just less nicely…’

As she already had the entry talisman, she stuck it to her left shoulder and immediately charged forward, targeting the guard that had brought up her boots. Without the usage of any of her movement techniques, she appeared beside him in mere moments, the tip of her boot heading right for his ribs without a semblance of mercy.

He reacted just before it occurred, his hand reaching towards one of the other talismans within his pockets, but while his mind appeared rather swift yet again, his body was not.

Before he had the opportunity to activate whatever talisman he wished to use to resolve this danger, he found himself falling to the ground far too quickly to act, many of his paper slips flying out of his hands and scattering across the grass, before he was suddenly pinned to the ground by the thin point of the boot’s heel. It seemed light, as if she was naught but a feather atop his chest, but he realised immediately that if he tried to move even a little, she could completely crush his lungs and heart within a single instant.

“You were saying something?”

“I… I am able to arrest you if do me any harm!”

“I’m guessing that only includes physical harm, right?” she replied, pressing down just a little more with her boot, “I doubt that a hurt pride counts, and they might even commend me for showing that one of the guard can’t keep their mouth shut.”

“But… How can you fight in this?”

“How can you be a guard when you’re weaker than a child?”

He did not reply, but his friend’s guffaw made it obvious that this line of argumentation would not work.

“Can I go?”

“S-Sure…” he muttered as he glanced up, hoping to benefit from this at least slightly by seeing something that would otherwise be concealed from most perspectives, but just as his eyes and head shifted, so did her foot, pinning his head onto the ground and craning it as far up as she could without causing injury, leaving him with naught but the view of the sky and grass.

After leaving him here for a moment, Wei Yi let him go and departed quickly, heading towards the edge of the structures within the district that were easily within her range of spiritual perception.

For some time, the first guard remained still, taking a few deep and shallow breaths to recover.

“Luo Bing, you ass…”

“What did I do? She was clearly unstable, and yet you had to confront her. Your fault, Luo Qing.”

“Hey, you know what the family’s been saying! If we let weird people in, we will be punished and won’t be allowed to observe the Artistic Comprehension Elaboration trial, and our talisman attainment will fall behind everyone else!” Luo Qing exclaimed, “I swear, this family cares too much about them…”

“Don’t they call behaviour like yours ‘seeking death’? You seem very adept at it,” Luo Bing grinned, tossing a one-star talisman onto his fellow guard’s face.

At that point, Wei Yi stopped listening in to their conversation, as they appeared to move onto insignificant matters that she had no interest in, instead discussing what kind of food they wished to try out as part of their privilege to eat for free at a long list of establishments due to acting as a guard. Since she did not expect to ever regain the sense of taste for food, she wouldn’t bother memorising such useless information, as even if she wished to bring someone else to experience the food of the Luo District, she could justifiably tell them that she was unaware of much information on the subject and then seek a reliable source of information.

Furthermore, a place that would be accessible for free to guards wouldn’t be focused on taste even if it was of high quality, instead trying to provide as much energy to them as possible within a short span of time. Very few would appreciate something like that specifically for the taste, and she was not personally aware of anyone of the sort.

There were a total of three layers of talismans around the Luo District, and all three could be bypassed using the talisman that she was given, but due to the way in which a talisman – particularly a cheap one intended for only a single use – worked, it would only last a single trip into the district, after which point she would need to obtain a new one, or a permanent one, in order to be able to safely traverse the talisman barrier without needing to confront the three layers and survive them first.

The first layer consisted of various three-star talismans, typically contributed by those learning the great art and not by any particular master of it. Most of them were rather easy to bypass for Wei Yi, due to having no particular power that could stand up to the defence that her cultivation provided.

After that, four-star talismans littered the various trees, rocks and foliage, these ones being spare items that the true masters of the district had created without much effort and freely gave away due to them not being particularly valuable in the current market of the district. As with the other layer, all of them were primarily offensive in nature and without any particular unusual factors, although there were a few talismans that were significantly more difficult to deal with than any of the rest, due to them being experimental designs of the talisman masters.

Finally, the third layer contained talismans with five or six stars, and not a single one of them was simple. Entrapment, obstruction, destruction, offensive and all kinds of other talismans were placed there due to being so potentially dangerous and difficult to deal with that they were also difficult to sell, mostly because any customer would risk doing far more damage to themselves than intended.

Whereas she had the possibility of handling the previous layer, this one was far too risky, as the level of the energy embedded within them alone would be enough to finish her off regardless of how much she prepared to handle them, whereas the unpredictability of many of these talismans, and her unfamiliarity with them would not allow her to estimate their effects and then do something to mitigate or outright prevent them, which she might not be able to do even if she did have this understanding, mostly due to nature of talismans themselves. Whereas arrays and inscriptions were complicated structures that could be disturbed so long as the flow of energy within them was damaged in an appropriate way, talismans were made and then set in stone – or paper, as it were – and couldn’t then be altered without some incredible circumstances.

In fact, she wasn’t even aware of any previous cases of an existing talisman being altered by anyone, whether it was in legends or clearly fictional tales, and even the ancient primordial gods that could manipulate much of the world to their will were unable to influence the talismans that humanity had used against them, which indicated that this might have been something that was outside of the reach of any of the species of the Planar Continents, or that it required the ninth realm, which the primordial gods were apparently unable to reach.

For now, every single one of these things did not concern her, for she was able to bypass all of these to approach the district itself.

The Yi District was dense but left plenty of space in the streets and between buildings for most to be able to traverse them without particular difficulty. The particularly unfortunate or poor would have a large amount of space to themselves, but it would typically be useless or otherwise unused by others. The moderately wealthy would have little space, but all of it would be used by a building or something useful, whereas the most powerful would once more have more space to themselves, with large residences and plenty of space for a garden or something else of the sort around them, although the largest residence and plot of land naturally belonged to the patriarch of the Yi family.

The Ning District didn't have the advantage of expanding or occupying more space whenever they wanted, so every single plot of land was significant, and the poor and weak could not be given the same kinds of land. Those who couldn’t afford abnormal homes would have the smallest residence possible, and then only the above-average in terms of ability – wealth or otherwise – would get more than that.

Meanwhile, the Luo District had space. It had far, far too much space, to the point that the segment of the district to the south, where Senior Yi Yi had hidden away, could be thrown away without much concern. As a result, even at the edge of the district, she could see plenty of grass, trees and whatever else that typically existed within the forest, and only a few dozen of structures and buildings anywhere near her.

Only one of the residences in sight had a fence, and from the way that everyone had glanced towards it with disgust in their eyes, it was very unlikely that this was commonly accepted so far out from the centre, although that was likely to change nearer to it due to the tendency of most to like their own privacy and to have control over the land that they owned. Presumably, such fences would appear more and more the closer she got to the centre of wealthy or powerful activity, and at that point few would have any reason to complain, so long as they wanted to remain there.

‘From here, I need to locate some kind of mercenary group, or anywhere where I can invest my own strength and be rewarded for it, as I had claimed I wanted,’ she thought, extending her spiritual perception to its peak to find any clue of what she sought, ‘From there… I’ll need to get to work.’