V3C58: A Trial, The Lockbox

In the interest of being careful, she took as much time as she needed to complete this journey, which turned out to be roughly half an hour within the prison realm, or one minute within the Planar Continents, meaning that she ultimately hadn’t spent all that much time at all. At the end, there was still no trace of a solid wall, floor or roof anywhere, but she did locate a small box that hovered above the ground at the level of an average table.

Made of metal and lacking any decorations, it didn’t seem to be very interesting on the surface, but she was unable to see a trace of anything within, as her spiritual perception was blocked completely.

Thus, she had no choice but to ponder the strange combination lock on top. There was a total of six spaces with five numbers each, which were separated by a decimal point located between the third and fourth digit. All of the rotating sections were set to zero, so she didn’t have the chance to rely on someone else’s efforts to decode it with ease.

While this did only give her a single option when it came to which sets of numbers to pick out from the first page, which was the only one to list six series of numbers of a row, the more she looked at the first page, the less she was certain that they would be in the correct order.

In any other circumstance, she could have easily tested all combinations until she got what she wanted, whatever that was, but the lockbox featured one final prominent element that made her rather reluctant to take this approach. On the top, above the six sets of five digits, were three rotating segments of a similar design, with all three painted green. She could not turn them herself, but she suspected that the moment that she attempted to open the box with the wrong order of numbers, one would turn, and she would have one less go.

Although this might not be true, and the green indicators might have some other purpose, she did not intend to test it until she had some vague idea of what the order was supposed to be.

With only three potential attempts, messing up even once would significantly decrease her chances of success, and depending on what was within the box, that might range from being an unfortunate outcome to being an absolutely devastating one. If the box hid a development for the entire Realm of Potential, some secret of cultivation, or perhaps a glimpse of some immense potential that could be fused with her, then she needed to obtain it, no matter what.

Thus, for now, she didn’t try to open it, but instead left the realm and went over the contents of the journal in her head, since she was already catching some attention at her present hiding spot despite the briefness of her stay there. She had the entire journal memorised anyway, so there was no good reason to remain within the Realm of Potential if she wasn’t going to train or cultivate.

She instead headed through the markets of the district, glancing through all kinds of manuals and books with her spiritual perception out of curiosity, interest and to gain some inspiration while she tried to put the entries of the journal into the correct order. Although only six entries held the same kinds of numbers that she would need to enter into the combination lock, in order to be certain of the correct order she would need to trace the journey described from beginning to end, as she would otherwise be no closer to the answer than when she started.

When talismans and their respective manuals didn’t prove to be very inspiring, she moved on to the far smaller street dedicated to trading materials regarding arrays. The Luo family wasn’t fond of attending this part of the district, but they couldn’t do much to prevent a few small stalls from opening, although they did take any opportunity possible to limit that number as much as possible, kicking out anyone who broke even the smallest of arbitrary, random rules that changed frequently.

Indeed, arrays proved to be more engaging to her mind, likely due to her slightly greater talent with them, so she wandered around this street, not directly engaging a single soul but simply taking in the sights.

In comparison to her Spiritual Flow arts, most of the things on display greatly lacked behind them in one way or another, just as she expected, but there were a few things that she was able to borrow from them that she hadn’t known of from her previous reading. Most of these things were minor, but after the basics were established, it were the minor things that would make the difference in the higher realms of crafting and array arrangement. Only the likes of the Antithesis method were able to truly change the way in which a process was completed, and such methods were practically unique.

For example, her method of drawing talismans with blood was extremely basic, her method of array creation were intricate but still lacking, her blacksmithing had only decently become decent in combination with the Shaper’s Grasp, and her inscription method clearly needed a lot of practise given how little she had been able to use it as of late.

‘Actually, that reminds me that I might be able to test this in the Realm of Potential. There is clearly more to it, so I should explore it far more than I already have. Yi Shi Ming had been exploring the possibility of accelerating the passage of time within the Kong Prison Realm further, even if only on a localised scale, so I should ask her about it the next time I intend to utilise the Realm of Potential for an extended period of time. The opening to that realm should be able to stabilise the space around itself sufficiently for a localised dilation of time to be completed successfully, so long as I understand the properties of space correctly.’

If there was one place where she could absolutely state that she stood out amongst all the rest was the raw knowledge that she had accumulated. The Gilded Library was likely considered to be a sufficiently powerful technique by Kong Shi Meng, and yet she had expanded it by several folds and even surrounded it by an enormous mental world that mirrored the prison realm created by the same man, and she would likely need to add new wings to the library if she wanted to be able to contain everything that she kept putting into it.

However, if she was able to travel all of the twenty-four major districts and accumulate their knowledge, she would eventually obtain most of the present knowledge of the Planar Continents. If she managed to find out some of their secrets as well, while she was at it, she would obtain most of the hidden truths as well. With them, she could, in theory, match those with far superior techniques.

That was not her intention, of course, but all advantages had to be taken and used, if possible.

‘All of this is nice and everything, but I seem to have drifted from my initial line of though. Unfortunate, but I did not appear to be getting anywhere anyway. In order to understand the journal fully, I may need to participate in some of this ‘aviation’ mentioned within it,’ she thought.

As she was walking towards the next street filled with shops and stalls, she came across a curious sight that seemed to be straight from a generic tale popular amongst the young that sought stories of adventure, power and defiance, describing weaker men rising against the strong with miraculous talents, techniques and artefacts that were, in truth, entirely unseen within the Planar Continents, causing most to lose interest once they had to focus on life.

Before her was a scene that had to appear at least once within such a story: two men stood opposite one another, one adorned in treasures and artefacts while the other was plain and used naught but a simple blade, with a large group surrounding the two of them but clearly supporting the first.

Not a single one was in the second realm or above, and yet they were clearly about to participate in a vicious duel, perhaps not to the death but certainly until one or the other was heavily injured.

This was, of course, a rather rare sight. Most had enough reason to limit themselves to light injury, much like when Wei Yi herself had been harassed in her youth. Few would ever go too far, and whenever they did, they did so out of folly and ignorance rather than an intentional attempt to injure the other.

‘And yet, they want to go that far? I wonder why…’

While maintaining the limited stealth method that she had used while travelling around as to not attract unnecessary attention from those that weren’t looking specifically for her, she got closer to this circle and paid attention. She didn’t think this to be very likely, but there was a chance of anything prompting inspiration for any number of issues and quandaries. To ignore a curious event and to simply pass by when such inspiration was needed would be rather foolish.

Before even a single one of them spoke, she was able to tell that the scene would differ greatly from the tales that she remembered, for none of her senses could perceive a single peculiarity about the plain man, nor in regards to his sword or clothing. Not even the Truth of the Universe shook in response to his presence, meaning that he shouldn’t possess an otherworldly gift.

Even Yi Shi Ming couldn’t detect a single thing, so it probably meant that he would be suffering today.

“Ju Zhang, with that stance, you clearly show that you are weak, and that you know it well!” the first man, the one currently holding a treasured saber glistening with planar energy flowing within it, “You couldn’t even comprehend such a technique as the Bone Dragon’s Reverie, and yet you think to challenge me without your family’s precious toys? You need to be taught your place, and I will do so gladly! I have been fed with the finest medicinal herbs from birth, and my talent is superior to yours!”

‘By the- uh, no, I should stop saying that. Still, what the fuck am I seeing, an actual recreation of one of those stories? Had he practised that… yeah, he had. That satisfied smirk makes it obvious…’

Although that made quite clear, she couldn’t really understand the situation as a whole.

For example, she was aware of the Ju family, which was one that existed within an area with an incredibly low concentration of planar energy, leading them to focus on a field that the vast majority of the world neglected – mechanisms and traps. They used weapons and equipment that barely relied on planar energy, if any was involved at all, and they were so secretive about it that they did not permit outsiders to enter their inner district, nor did they bring their weapons out of the district unless they were going to war.

She had encountered the Bone Dragon’s Reverie technique at some point in time and knew that it was a complex technique that wasn’t really worth practising no matter what situation someone was in, nor who they were or what talents they had.

“Luo Rong, you are going too far!” Ju Zhang exclaimed, but he was able to provide no suitable rebuttal.

“Too far? For you, someone without talent or skill, to try and go against me is going too far! My family rules this district! You, Ju Zhang, were asking for everything!”

‘Maybe I should just go. This is either the rehearsal for a play, or the minds of current… future generation? Current generation, I suppose… Ahem, or the minds of the current generation have fallen far behind the minds of the previous ones, exactly as the Greats intended. Still, that Ju Zhang has been able to annoy that Luo Rong enough without the use of excessively fancy techniques, so he must be someone capable enough. I don’t need to be here…’

“As for the Bone Dragon’s Reverie, I was able to learn it within a week, reaching the Initial Accomplishment stage within that time, while you used that week to study nothing but the beginner’s blade arts! Clearly, you are a fool!” Luo Rong continued, causing Wei Yi to roll her eyes.

There was so much wrong with his statement that she was tempted to run in and provide him with a quick lecture on why picking something based purely on the name was never a good idea, why the basics mattered, why wasting his time attacking someone else at this early point of their lives wouldn’t do them any good…

“It is obvious why she left you, Ju Zhang. You are unsuitable for cultivation! Scatter your cultivation before me or die!”

“I would never throw away my life’s work, no matter what my family, you, or Shi Xiuying say!”

‘That Shi Xiuying must be some attractive woman that the two of them are interested in. If this is going exactly as one of those stories, then she was likely a childhood friend of Ju Zhang, and she broke up with him in favour of Luo Rong… for whatever reason. Could’ve just found someone like Chao Ru… oh, right, that’s only me that thinks like that…’ Wei Yi tried to calm herself with something, before the two had the opportunity to do something even more silly.

However, she couldn’t possibly miss the shift in Luo Rong’s stance, and the way in which energy flowed throughout his arms and weapon that blatantly followed the circulation of the Bone Dragon’s Reverie, creating the vague primordial aura of the technique around himself.

With a proud yet angry expression, he stepped forward and pointed the tip of his weapon at his opponent.

“Behold the art that you have failed to practise with your lacking talent! The Bone Dragon’s Reverie is a top quality technique that utilises the power of the seven principles, nine cores, eleven circles and fifty-eight revolutions to bring out the power of a bone dragon into reality, to manifest their power and to strike at the weaklings that stand against the geniuses that are able to practise it!”

‘No, that’s not-’

“With three primary moves, I shall destroy you and your cultivation! Watch as I use the first move – Snapping the Skull! It combines the seven principles and the eleven circles into one mighty move that can break any bone and destroy any man! Take my move!”

He attacked swiftly, as swiftly as anyone could after having displayed their attack for several minutes before actually using it. This did allow Ju Zhang to block the first strike, then the second and third, all of which were aimed towards the same place. While each movement was extremely fanciful and adorned with a dense aura of power, as dense as anything that could be produced while still in the first realm and in the fifth stage, the attacks themselves were the epitome of predictable, partly due to the design of the technique, but mostly as a result of Luo Rong’s incompetence.

That someone without exceptional talents in the third stage was able to handle it with ease made the opponent’s incapability rather obvious.

And yet, the warriors that surrounded them were blatantly on Luo Rong’s side, and seemed to have received whatever script that he was reading from, as they quickly began to cheer and chatter about matters in his favour.

“Look at Young Master Rong’s immense talents! That set of moves has already reached the Initial Accomplishment stage after only a week, and now his every attack can quake the heavens and the earth!” one man exclaimed without a single trace of shame, as if he wasn’t saying something blatantly false and absolutely nonsensical, “I aspire to reach his level by the end of my life!”

‘You’re in the ninth stage already, you imbecile!’

Obviously not hearing her mental cries, another warrior eagerly nodded along, “Indeed, his movements are so intricate and powerful that he will doubtlessly become the strongest in the future!”

Wei Yi was incapable of offering up a comment at that time, as she struggled not to act at that very moment. With so much knowledge and experience under her non-existent belt, she had developed somewhat of a fondness for accuracy and legitimacy, neither of which was present here. Furthermore, she was currently seeing a familiar situation that had previously provoked quite some emotions in her, even if this one was exaggerated to a ridiculous degree, and while she had gotten better at controlling her emotions after twenty years of sitting about in the prison realm amongst some other things, there were still matters that were able to provoke them quite easily.

For instance, someone that was akin to Kong Dong Ming in his ridiculous ways, not only proclaiming the technique he’d use ahead of time, as the shadow did, but also explaining it fully before attacking with it.

“So, you have managed to withstand my first attacks? Do you think that this is something to be proud of, talentless fool?” Luo Rong asked, withdrawing and changing his posture, holding his blade straight up, “Let me display the second move of the Bone Dragon’s Reverie to you, so that you can truly understand the enormity of your mistake in choosing such a basic, primitive technique-”

“Alright, that’s ENOUGH!” Wei Yi suddenly appeared between them, shocking them, the warriors, and those few that thought to observe this situation in addition to her, “First of all, what the fuck are you two even fighting over? Huh? You go on and on about how impressive you are, even your subordinates do, and yet you are frustrated that someone else decided to pick something easier than your shitty technique? Are you drunk?”

“Y-You are…?”

There were a few things that one might inquire about with such a question, but his earlier monologues made it obvious what he wanted to know, so she told him straightforwardly, “Third realm.”

“O-Oh… I… Sister, I was just-”

“Who the fuck are you calling your sister? I’d be so embarrassed if I had any relation to you!” Wei Yi exclaimed, causing his face to go red while the warriors around him went quiet, “Explain yourself before I disperse your cultivation instead!”

“H-He is just a weakling…”

“Alright, since you are too stupid to understand your own actions, let me explain it for you. You are a young, arrogant moron, and your lacking abilities have been a bit of a problem for you. Because you cannot accept your own uselessness, so you even brag about shit like consuming medicinal herbs… By the way, doing something like that is absolutely moronic! To derive the entirety of your cultivation and power from plants is like intentionally filling a bucket with dirt before going to draw water. You are ruining your own chances!”

The young man couldn’t figure out a single thing to say, and he didn’t dare contradict a single thing said by the powerful existence before him, both due to none of this being wrong, but also because he was afraid that a single careless movement from her could obliterate him. Unlike many cultivators that he knew of, Wei Yi looked strong both physically and in terms of planar energy, although he was unable to sense it precisely due to the lack of externalised spiritual perception.

Furthermore, her style and appearance did not make her resemble the calm and collected kind of cultivator, but rather the wild and easily angered – as seemed to be confirmed to him by her outburst.

“Also, I heard you mention talent? What fucking talent are you talking about? Just because you can understand an unnecessarily complex technique doesn’t mean that you’ve got any kind of superior talent, and if you’ve only reached the fifth stage after years of planar herb consumption, you are a total fucking waste!”

“B-But…”

“If you’re going to be attacking, you do it immediately! What the fuck is with your bullshit explanations? Do you want him to block all of your attacks with ease? Have you received many injuries on your head? What has he even done to you?”

“S-Senior, if I may…” Ju Zhang mumbled behind her, “He challenged me over a pill… and I happened to win…”

She raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them, “… Really? That?”

It occurred to her that she had encountered a very similar situation, and while she did need to fight a pair of people after winning such a duel, a smarter person showed up by the third time, preventing the fights from escalating further. That this didn’t occur here showed that the overdressed man had not only not gotten helpers to fight his battles for him yet, but that nobody else seemed to care.

“So, you lost because you were a useless idiot and instead of going off to learn, you keep repeating the same thing over and over again? What the fuck is wrong with your head? Stop and fuck off!”

With a single wave of her hand, she released a burst of force that threw all of the warriors, as well as the overdressed man, away, while leaving Ju Zhang untouched with a little bit of careful energy manipulation.

This action didn’t damage anything, nor any of them, allowing them all to run off as quickly as they were able to, with two of the warriors practically carrying Luo Rong away as he did not possess a movement technique that would allow him to keep up with stronger, fitter and more agile individuals than himself. All of the bystanders also distanced themselves, for there was little more to see, and few wanted to earn the ire of this mad woman.

All of this left her pondering her own actions.

‘I… just broke character quite immensely, haven’t I? Wei Yi the Warrior wouldn’t go into a rage just because two kids are fighting one another… As I thought, acting is something that I can do, but it is not for me,’ she concluded quickly, taking a deep breath to regain her proper countenance, ‘Still, it seems that one can go for days away from their home and still encounter the exact same scenarios there…’

She revoked her energy into her body and prepared to leave, but the young man behind her remained focused upon her, and immediately acted when she moved.

Without any hesitation, he leapt onto the ground and kowtowed before her, ignoring the fact that the road was more dirt than stone in this part of the district. “Please, senior, take me in as your student! I wish to cultivate, and I will do anything to do so!”

‘I don’t want to take in any students, but if I just say that, he may not be discouraged as much as…’ she turned her head toward him and said, “Not interested. Turn yourself into a woman first.”

She obviously had no intentions of only ever having women on her side, as that would eliminate at least half of the world’s human population from cooperating with her, working under her or above her, which would just be unnecessarily restrictive for them and for herself, since talent came from all sorts of places. It also shouldn’t need to be said that she wasn’t looking to get some kind of harem of students, or that she would only teach those that were attractive to her.

The reason that she went for this particular condition was that it was one of the most difficult ones to achieve for someone in the first realm, and without any backing or funding. At the later realms, it wasn’t impossible to change one’s body to such an extent, and at the lower realms, certain methods did exist, but it was something that would seem close and yet endlessly distant for someone like Ju Zhang.

Hopefully, while he sought that way, he would get stronger, earn the cultivation realm that he wants, forget about her and make use of his strength for whatever it was that he needed it for. In that way, he would still benefit, due to being provided a reason to persevere and push himself to his limits, and could go on to do some good without needing to be involved with all of the madness and insanity that Wei Yi frequently engaged in. Furthermore, the fact that she had sided with him in this confrontation should dissuade Luo Rong from attacking him for some time, giving him enough space to grow or escape, depending on what he wanted to do.

“… I understand! I will achieve this!” he loudly stated, remaining on the ground while she walked away.

She pretended not to hear him and continued to distance herself from him, hoping to make a bad impression by ignoring his attempts so that he would focus more of his efforts onto advancing on his own rather than seeking an unlikely method, but she couldn’t be certain that would occur.

Some people had very interesting thoughts and ideas, which was perhaps the kindest way to put it, and if he did go all out, he might even discover some method that she hadn’t thought of up to this point. While the chances of this were low, she did ponder for a moment whether she should carefully examine the area to remove all possibilities of such a thing occurring, but ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth the effort.

There were quite a few things that she needed to do other than making sure that one young man was not wasting his time and energy.

‘I need to open up the lockbox, and deal with the Remnants of Yin… I’ll certainly need to personally reconstruct the flight described within the journal, and as for the latter, there seem to be more and more people appearing within the headquarters of the Brotherhood of Power. Some are bound to be related to the Remnants, so there should be a major meeting soon,’ she concluded as she finally moved on from that market street to another, ‘That means that I should focus on the former, and stop getting into random situations that seem to be torn straight out of the dullest tales I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Hm…’