V3C59: A Glimpse

On the eighth of the fourth month, four days after the lockbox had been found, she finally thought that she had the right answer.

It wasn’t that the journal entries were that difficult to put together, but because she needed to be absolutely certain of the correct order of directions, which didn’t include the beginning or the end of the journey, nor the destination and the start. That meant that she wasn’t able to simply ensure that the journey brought her from one place to another correctly, and instead had to figure out what the journal wanted from her with very little to go off of.

Eventually, she did arrive at a satisfactory arrangement of journal entries, or, more precisely, three of them. One of them had to work, and if she had only three attempts, then she would be guaranteed to open it successfully.

She had accomplished that the day before, and the only reason she had taken a little longer was due to wanting to try and get it right on the first try. Whatever the contents of the lockbox were, there was a small chance of the first guess being successful providing a greater reward than using the other two attempts would, so she would naturally do her best to guarantee obtaining that reward if possible.

In truth, the more time that she had spent within the Realm of Potential, the more that she felt that she was remembering something, or that she was approaching that memory, but it had still not come, and it seemed as if it would forever remain out of her reach. If this lockbox had something that could either recreate whatever had happened in the encounter, or otherwise showcase something notable once more, she could potentially benefit greatly, especially if she was able to interpret some of those images to obtain techniques far before she could genuinely gain them.

That could theoretically permit her to create a technique out of nothing, since that future or potential self could have also obtained that same technique from the same source, meaning that it would have no origin nor any true conclusion.

Whether or not this made any sense at all wasn’t something that she intended to argue, because she neither cared nor had any interest in the matter. If she could obtain a benefit from it without shattering the fabric of reality, then she would naturally take it, but if she was unable to do so, then she wouldn’t. There was no point dreaming about things that were impossible in literally every way, unless she just happened to obtain whatever it was without needing to go out of her way.

There were plenty of things that could be obtained more easily than a technique made in the future, or one that couldn’t have ever been made, and they would be far more beneficial together.

‘And yet, I still do not understand what any of these numbers mean. 114.50, 116.40, 114.35… Fu Zan and Miyu have no idea what they mean, so they are clearly not something universal within their versions of reality – if that is indeed what is happening… It must mean something relating to planes and the like, so perhaps it is something used by pilots, as they’re apparently called…’

Whatever the answer was, it didn’t matter so long as she had guessed accurately.

One by one, she entered these numbers into the lockbox. 114.50, 116.40, 114.35, 116.25, 114.75, then 115.10, which meant as much to her as the concept of bloodline resonance likely meant to otherworldly demons.

Once she made sure that these were accurate to the journal, to her own recollection and that the order was correct, she lowered her hand to the button near the bottom of the lid, close to the gap between it and the main body of the lockbox, and delicately pressed down upon it with a single slender finger.

She heard a click, and then the lid opened.

‘Shit, it worked! I still have no idea what any of this is, but at the very least I have now obtained… something. Let’s see,’ Wei Yi took hold of it with both hands, then opened it up.

Immediately, she felt as if her very being quaked as a single sight appeared within her mind. A single frozen scene, without a trace of action nor movement, but it alone seemed capable of shattering the very world, of shaking her mind, of crushing the laws of reality and remaking them to its whims, as if what she beheld was no simple image but a deity of immense power. A divine being that surpassed the so-called primordial gods and stood beyond the realm of mortals.

All it showed was a single figure surrounded by bright light, so bright that her features were indistinguishable, although her feminine build was still observable, as well as the long hair and the bright glow of her eyes that stood out amidst the rest of the ambient light.

Countless chains were coiled around her, behind her, and before her, as was a strict and unshakable aura of authority and absolute law. Somewhere far behind her, a set of scales hovered in the air, although they were so faint that they could barely be seen. Before her, the vague outline of a gavel also floated somewhere near her hand.

As a whole, this image was discordant and chaotic, with so many elements that didn’t seem to quite belong beside one another. Most of these weren’t something that she could explain, especially not as the image instantly disappeared after only an instant of existence, and even her memory of it could barely endure as the mere concept of the image still possessed that same unimaginable might, causing it to be a million times heavier than anything that she had stored within the Ascendant’s Library before it, causing the entire mental structure to tremble madly.

Whatever it was trying to depict, she did recognise it from somewhere, but she had no time to contemplate this. Instead, her focus had to be on any concepts that she could learn from this image before it forced itself out of her mind, leaving her with naught but a vague and ineffective recollection.

She observed it with the most attention that she had to invest into anything since the day that she was born, and yet, no matter how much she tried to understand, everything seemed far too complex for her to ever comprehend even a fragment of it. Every object was ordinary, save for the overwhelming aura and the light, and yet they contained countless concepts that bordered on the Great Dao itself, if not surpassing it through mere existence.

If her understanding of the world was like a pond, then this image promised and required a boundless ocean-like realm that had no bounds nor borders, without a single interruption or impurity, just in order to permit even the faintest of understandings to be glimpsed from it. For a such a thing to even be possible was terrifying, for it certainly couldn’t have belonged to the limited field of planar energy cultivation. No, if there was one thing that she could understand from the momentary existence, it was that it contained no traces of planar energy as she was able to understand it, if at all, and yet it stood so far above everything else.

There was a moment when she was stunned by it, and then it disappeared, leaving the aforementioned attempt to recapture its true complexity within her library.

At some point, she had even fallen to the ground, her eyes and mouth had dried, her head trembled, and her hands and limbs were incapable of being still. Her breath was unstable, and much of the inside of her body seemed as if it had suffered a major burn just moments earlier, when her consciousness was most unstable.

‘What the… That…’ she couldn’t even form a proper word for some time.

When she finally managed to rise and recognise her own surroundings, she found that only a few minutes had passed, but it felt as if a decade had gone by.

She readily ignored the dirt on her robe and knees, as well as on her hands, which she had apparently used in order to support herself from falling entirely at some uncertain point in time, and instead looked back into herself to see whether anything at all had been obtained from that impossible sight. To have received such an enormous mental and physical shock and yet receive nothing would have been rather terrible, but, fortunately, she recognised her gains immediately.

The planar anchor that floated within her dantian and was reflected within the prison realm was currently glowing with an immense light, washing over the entirety of the Kong Prison Realm’s surface, temporarily bringing all of it into daytime with a fascinating glow that was neither white nor purple nor even cosmic in colour, with all of them present and yet absent as the pillar illuminated this spatial realm. With every breath, the glowing anchor pulsed with immense power, surpassing even the power of the spatial spirit in the eyes of all that beheld it.

It seemed as if it filled the realm with energy, although all that it did was disperse the planar energy that would typically float beside the planar anchor.

Her realm appeared to have advanced to the very edge of the fifth stage, sitting seemingly just a single drop away from the next stage, although it only took her a moment of consideration to understand that this was not the case. Instead, it was in the space between the two stages, simply sitting by and building up energy in preparation for that gap to eventually be crossed.

‘This seems to be the approach to the Endless Monolith, I suppose. It seems like this will take some time until completion… about a day or two… not ideal, but at the very least this is finally complete, and I can move my attention onto anything else,’ Wei Yi thought, taking one last look at the glowing anchor within her dantian and prison realm at once, ‘I still have that scene in my mind, but a mere image is far inferior to the full thing. So far as I can tell, I don’t seem to have acquired anything beside the energy for the anchor to begin transforming, which is a terrible shame. Judging by the power of the image when I first saw it, the Realm of Potential shouldn’t be able to produce anything like it for a long time.’

In fact, she didn’t even know whether it was possible, since the azure light of the other world appeared to have an infinite quantity of energy that couldn’t be matched by cultivators, nor by the spatial realm within her possession. The image must have been created back when that light was still present, and yet it was still only able to produce a single still moment.

She released a small quantity of planar energy from her hand while she pondered the extremely vague ideas she had obtained from the image, but it suddenly scattered as she felt an enormous bout of pain flood her arm, everywhere where that wisp of energy had passed through.

She gritted her teeth and endured the sensation, before carefully examining the inside of her arm.

‘Fuck, everything in here burned!’ her eyes widened as she witnessed the inside of her left arm, which was closer to charcoal than to living flesh. Everything that her planar energy had touched was utterly annihilated, although the rest of the energy that remained was quickly forcing her body to repair itself as quickly as it could. ‘I suppose that I was wrong. I did indeed receive something from the Realm of Potential and the strange image, but it has led to greater difficulties in controlling my energy…’

On closer inspection, she noticed that this wasn’t just some kind of fire-type energy, but rather all of the elements, as well as raw planar energy, that appeared to have affected her. There were traces of regular burns, planar burns, which were less pleasant than regular burns by a significant extent, frost and freezing, some parts that turned to stone, others that were cut by a thousand incredibly small blades, and more that were affected by a strange natural force that was clearly the consequence of wood energy.

Despite all of this, everything affected by this overly aggressive force was in a better state than the rest of her body by far in terms of purity and the like.

It was as if a thousand rounds of planar energy refinement had occurred and failed to fully recover before the energy had been expelled from her body due to her unnecessarily hasty actions. From this fact, her situation became a little clearer, since it became rather obvious that she had indeed gained some kind of enlightenment from the Realm of Potential, even if she didn’t understand it.

Fortunately, it was something that was now within her possession, so she would be able to control it soon and eventually understand it completely, but before then, she intended to make full use of the power that she currently had within herself, just in case her subconscious mind understood the way to dampen the effect of her energy before she did and prevented her from using the full extent of its current state.

For this reason, she found a place in the prison realm that was far away from any living being, set up a few arrays to protect herself from others, to assist in the recovery of her flesh, and to prevent anyone or anything from being damaged by her, then slowly began the circulation of her energy. It instantly burned, painfully and unpleasantly, but she kept her concentration and persisted.

The first time that she had made use of this method to empower herself, it was not a pleasant sensation by any degree, and after it, she had experienced countless injures and painful feelings on purpose and otherwise, all as she strove to grow and rise. For this reason, she had the absolute confidence to state that this particular feeling, this particular sensation of her body being absolutely destroyed and remade in a manner that refined it, was easily the most painful thing that could be felt on the Planar Continents without expressly attempting to cause pain.

Every part of her was obliterated and reborn within an instant, and constantly. Seconds passed, then minutes and then even an entire hour.

At first, it had been nice to see the surprised reaction from others upon the improvement of her appearance, or her techniques or some other matter, but after it had happened so many times, she was becoming rather tired of it.

With such a start to the day, perhaps it wasn’t necessary to say that she had once again experienced a certain degree of improvement, this time in all fields of cultivation. Her planar cultivation had already partially risen thanks to the shocking image, but during the period of refinement her bloodline power had risen to the third stage, thankfully without unnecessary incident, her physique energy had also gone up by a stage, reaching the sixth stage, while her killing will – or, more precisely, spiritual will and killing intent – rose to the second stage.

Her overall ability increased by another ten percent thanks to the one stage of bloodline power progress, which, in combination with the empowered developing anchor and the growth of the other cultivation paths meant that if she would ever go against the Remnants of Yin and any Greats that hid behind them, she would need to do so soon if that action was to mean anything.

Besides the more useful kinds of developments, her appearance had somehow changed once more. She barely knew enough words to describe herself differently each time, so all that she could definitively say about herself at this point was that she was ascending even further into the realm of a transcendent beauty unparalleled in all the world, even if things like taste and preference would likely cause some to prefer others over her due to preference alone.

If one was to observe her from a purely objective view point, however, it would be difficult to argue that she had very few flaws remaining, to the point that she would be very impressed if anything about her body changed as part of some visual change. Every one of her features was at the peak of what they could be, her skin was perfectly soft and resilient, and… well, not every part of her body necessitated a full description. All that needed to be said was that nobody could genuinely find her lacking, no matter how they looked at her.

‘In theory, this means that any future changes would need to be improvements beyond the essence of humanity – ascendant changes, I guess,’ she momentarily glanced down at her hands while walking past an unfortunately large number of observers in the Luo District, ‘While that’s great, it has effectively thrown off any plans to change the way they look at me. I think most would rather enjoy any kind of pain I could cause than ignore my beauty… Shame…’

Even if it was somehow possible to prevent half of the world from seeing her in that way, having every woman in the world stare at her in either lust or jealousy would still not be pleasant.

‘At this point, it might be that I would need to lose an arm or something for them to notice it…’

Naturally, losing an arm would not be a productive nor efficient way of achieving her goals, so she wouldn’t go that far no matter what. A single missing finger could affect one’s ability to properly execute certain techniques, so getting rid of a whole limb would be absolutely catastrophic to her or anyone else in the world.

It would always be easier to disguise herself in a more overt way to force attention to that rather than her physical features, which she could so as soon as she departed the district. That would come the moment that the Remnants of Yin met in large enough number for there to be enough of them to very any of her hypotheses. While that was almost certainly a rare occasion, seeing as they were meant to be a secret group supposedly unknown to the Greats, she had already noticed the signs of their gathering, and the fact that she was called for by Luo Lia Kun meant that it would occur soon.

“So, are you going to stop staring, or…”

“Sorry, Wei Yi. Don’t know what came over me,” Chao Ru apologised, as she had entered to relay the vice-leader’s message but was instantly distracted by Wei Yi’s face, “She said she wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh, okay. Have you tried out the technique I taught you?”

“I have, but… I don’t see why it would ever be of any use. It is far less effective than anything I am able to do already…”

“Everything has a purpose, and you should make sure to remember that. Sometimes, you need the most complex method in existence, but at others, such a thing would be entirely to your detriment. I’d liken your affinity in planar energy to this, since you have pursued a somewhat different path due to it, which may eventually benefit you far more than planar energy could.”

“You… you really think so?” Chao Ru clearly had some doubts, as would anyone in her position.

One’s body could bring one quite a long distance, but in the eyes of those within the Planar Continents, it could never match the power of planar energy, which seemed omnipotent so long as it was brought to its absolute peak. This wasn’t strictly wrong, but to those ignorant of the existence of physique energy and other derivatives of planar energy, mistakes were often made in the judgement of the quality and effectiveness of certain paths.

She could hardly tell Chao Ru to discard her cultivation and attempt to condense physique energy, but perhaps the woman could figure it out on her own if she gave it enough thought.

“Yeah. I do,” Wei Yi said, then smiled, “I could show you some nice uses of that body today…”

“Uhm… You should first talk to the vice-leader first, I’ll… I’ll get cleaned up and do some training first… not in that order…”

“You know, I’m amazed just how shy you can be after everything. I thought you were experienced.”

“I… It had never been quite the same… You’re very… eh… adventurous, and… skilled…”

“Oh, I see…” her smile grew even larger, “In honour of that admission, I’ll try something even more adventurous and skilful, so be sure to be very clean and very prepared… and do consider the best order of bathing and exercise. I’m sure that there are some very good reasons to go for either combination, don’t you think?”

Chao Ru nodded shyly and rushed off, clearly putting exactly as much thought into the matter as she had been asked to, leaving Wei Yi to visit the vice-leader on her own.

As usual, Luo Lia Kun was within her office, dealing with various matters that didn’t concern the Remnants of Yin directly, although some of the documents and tasks that she was going through almost certainly did relate to it in a covert manner, perhaps making use of codes and general omissions of information that anyone beside her wouldn’t need to know of in order to handle whatever the documents described.

The moment that she entered, the vice-leader immediately put the papers down and rose.

“Finally. I’d called for you earlier, but you sure took your time… Listen, I need to be out of here right now, so would you like to go out and drink something?”

“Uh… Sure?”

“Good, come with me,” Luo Lia Kun instructed immediately, going around her desk and leaving the room swiftly. With such rare insistence, as if she had been annoyed for a very long time by someone and had to get away from them as swiftly as possible, Wei Yi didn’t really have much of a choice if she didn’t want to cause a disturbance.

The vice-leader brought the two of them out of the Brotherhood of Power headquarters and towards the market streets of the Luo District. There, she immediately headed towards a particular part of the area, clearly showcasing her familiarity with the area as she lead Wei Yi towards a stall being visited by only a few individuals, although all of them were most certainly satisfied with their decision to purchase the product on offer.

With a simple gesture from Luo Lia Kun, some of those people parted and allowed them to sit down beside one another, while also serving to confirm to Wei Yi that this was indeed where they were headed.

“Have you ever tried a food called chocolate, Wei Yi?” asked the vice-leader, continuing when she saw her shake her head, “It’s made from some kind of bean, and is an ordinary food without a hint of planar energy, but if mixed in a particular way with milk and some other ingredients, it can become a rather pleasant thing to consume in liquid or solid form. Here, they sell something they call hot chocolate.”

As if to take over the advertisement pitch, the owner of the stall came to the front and said, “It’s mostly a melted bar of chocolate, but in a specific mixture, it can be dense and filled with flavour!”

“He tells that to everyone, all the time. I just thought to speed the explanation along,” Luo Lia Kun admitted, passing over two coins, “Two cups for us.”

The stall owner nodded and ran off to the area where he prepared this mixture.

‘Oh, wonderful. More things that I cannot taste… Maybe the texture of the drink won’t be too bad,’ Wei Yi hoped, looking at the preparation process with some idle curiosity, mostly due to the vice-leader beside her deciding to say nothing after they sat down.

Some time passed until the product was ready, at which point the owner turned back around and brought over two cups filled with a brown steaming liquid, which he delicately placed before them.

“So… are we-”

“Just drink the hot chocolate and stop talking. I got away from that for a reason, and we’re in a public space nonetheless. If you don’t like it, I can finish the drink for you, but I have to drink at least one cup before we go.”

Seeing as the vice-leader was being extremely insistent, and seemingly forgetting about her inability to taste a single thing, she lifted a cup and tried the drink.

‘Hm… sweet…’ her eyes immediately widened, and she threw the cup at the stall owner while shouting, “Poison!”

Although Luo Lia Kun obviously couldn’t have known what provoked such a reaction, if there was one thing that she could understand and recall at that moment it would be that Wei Yi the Warrior did not perform common tricks or attempt to fool others. Whatever she had noticed was genuine, and even if she, an expert in the fifth realm, hurt someone for no good reason, it would be forgiven quickly.

Thus, she thrust out her hand and readily used one of the glowing marks within her body, causing a binding stream of energy to encase the shop owner, who was distracted for a brief moment by a cup full of hot liquid striking his forehead at an immense speed.

Like that, he was easily subdued and thrown against the stall with the side of his face lying on the wooden surface, being held down by the vice-leader.

Wei Yi wiped away the stain on chocolate on her lips and quietly burned it away with physique energy, while doing the same with any traces of the substance on the inside of her body. She had noticed, after some experimentation with poisonous substances back in the prison realm, that the intensity of a poison’s taste and its strength tended to correlate. Since she was able to perceive the poison with such ease, it was clearly something to watch out for, and even though her body could handle most things of that nature on its own, it was always better to be absolutely sure in such situations.

Meanwhile, Luo Lia Kun had all of her attention on the stall owner, asking, “Who are you? What are the properties of the poison that you have placed inside of my drink? Have you begun doing this recently, or have you-”

She did not have the chance to finish as a subtle movement of the man’s mouth caused a small drop of poison to come into contact with his tongue, spreading all over it in less than an instant, disabling it and taking his life only a moment later. This action had been so minor that even the perception of the fifth realm didn’t give her a chance to interrupt him.

“Shit… Well then… Wei Yi, how were you-” this time, she interrupted herself as she finally recalled their conversation at Chao Ru’s residence, “You can taste poisons, right? Sorry, nearly forgot.”

“Eh, it’s fine. Any idea who this guy was? One of Them, perhaps?”

The second question was thrown out as an invitation, but as Luo Lia Kun shook her head with a confused expression, it seemed that this wasn’t someone involved in the conflict, “No clue, I’m afraid. I don’t even know if this is something that he had just started doing, or if I had been drinking some form of poison all along.”

She picked up her cup, which was still full and steaming, and cautiously held it away from herself.

“I’ll get Long Huang to take a look at this…”

“By the way, since everyone else seems to have been scared off, could you tell me whatever it was that you had called me for?” Wei Yi asked, waving towards the recently emptied surroundings.

“That? You see, our organisation will be convening in my office tomorrow. You need to appear in order to participate in the official entry ceremony, and so that you may finally meet with our leader. She’s coming out of seclusion for once, so if you miss out, you may never meet her in your lifetime.”