V3C62: Endless Monolith

Even after a visit to both Chao Ru and a few brothels around Beast’s Rest, her mind still wasn’t calmed, so she took the opportunity to re-enter the Planar Continents and depart from the Luo District with utmost haste, heading directly to the north. The moment that she left the district, she appeared back in the Kong Prison Realm.

With the death of two of the third generation, there would be no chance of the rest of them not getting cautious and aggressive, seeking to find and kill whoever endangered their family line like that. Even if it was only the Great Luo Family that got involved in this process, their second generation was in the fifth realm and their first should be in the seventh realm, meaning that so long as any one of them appeared, they would be able to take Wei Yi and her entire current faction out before she could possibly force them into the prison realm.

Furthermore, even assuming that the Arrow of Artemis had no conditions other than sufficient energy, she needed most of what she had to kill one third-realm Great. To kill someone in the fifth realm would obviously be far more costly.

This meant that she couldn’t tarry in the Luo District, especially when she wasn’t certain what kinds of methods the Greats possessed when it came to tracking or investigation. It would be safest to be as far away from them as possible, as quickly as possible, and preferably somewhere like the desert fortress mentioned by Yi Shi Ming.

Before she would be able to do that, there was one other matter to resolve.

The planar anchor within her was steadily becoming brighter and more powerful, making it even more difficult for those in the prison realm to sleep than usual, but it meant that it was approaching the actual breakthrough process. Given how flashy and explosive these tended to be for her, it absolutely wasn’t safe to attempt a breakthrough in the district, nor anywhere near it in the regular world. For this reason, she retreated into the prison realm after getting far enough away to be able to come and go without a high likelihood of observers, as she would be able to return and run off the moment that she needed to.

Her visits during the day were also to make use of the spare time, although she did truly need to get some stress out of her system. There were no more Greats available for this purpose, so sex would do.

When that didn’t spend enough time, she also performed some bloodline cultivation away from Beast’s Rest, confirming one more time that the advancement through stages didn’t have the same destructive capability as the initial awakening upon reaching the fourth stage of Blood Trace. She was not yet certain about the breakthrough to a new realm, but that would not be relevant immediately.

It took less time than expected, mostly due to her being able to empower the process with energies of the fifth, fourth and third realm, whereas any regular bloodline cultivator would need to rely solely on it for their advancements.

Her cultivation method was still not one that most suitable for that form of energy, given as it was replicating the awakening method more so than a proper cultivation method, and necessitated outside influence in the form of the arrays and inscriptions that needed to rotate around her. An actual bloodline cultivator would likely possess some kind of basic cultivation technique to start off with, much like those of the other four paths had their own methods, but she had no clue whether there was a single soul out there with even a trace of bloodline power, let alone a full cultivation based around it.

If there was, she would like to eventually meet one, but if there was not, she would simply forge her own path forward.

When that proved to not be particularly time consuming, she went on to contemplate the principles of the Dao that she had observed while Luo Wu was suffering the loss of his anchors – the shards from which, as well as those from Luo Zhong’s anchors, were collected for later research – and found that it was not quite what Yi Shi Ming had suggested.

She certainly received some comprehension of restriction and conversion, but it felt like this was only one miniscule part of her gains, and that the Dao that she attempted to understand earlier was something greater.

If she had to put a name to it without having a full understanding of it first, she would call it something like the Dao of Law – in that particular order mostly because it sounds better than the other way around – and that it might hold a vast quantity of potential, but for now, unless she intended to make use of the Realm of Potential and the Truth of the Universe to boost its level to a usable degree, she couldn’t utilise something so broad without putting in a lot more work.

However, it was not her intention to do anything of the sort. The Realm of Potential could be used, only in a passive way, without directly attempting to develop this new Dao, but the Truth of the Universe was entirely out of the question. Besides the undoubtedly high anchor point cost of developing the technique, even bearing in mind that she now had three hundred and ten points, it would still result in some corruption of the nature of the Dao, unless she already had full understanding of it. It would be ideal not to afflict any of her Dao understanding with such things, which is why she made sure to only develop things that she already understood well enough, but she also wanted to have one separate Dao that would be entirely her own.

Due to this, she didn’t do so much as look at the Dao panel of the Truth of the Universe, although it would likely display the same name that she had given it, and instead committed to understanding and developing it on her own.

After all, she was keen on setting some kind of law in the Planar Continents that would prevent all of the current flaws of society from existing, so it was exactly the sort of thing she needed.

There was also that image that still remained within her head, and that was finally able to cause the anchor to begin transforming. It featured a set of things that made one think of a judge or a court of law, as envisaged by Kong Shi Meng and the other otherworldly demons, so if this was indeed what she saw, then it could be said that she had some degree of fate with the field of law and order. In theory, with the hidden insights that she gained from the image, she could develop the Dao at great speed.

To test this, and to allow more time to pass, she sat down with her eyes shut and focused on her own comprehension of the matters of law, both in terms of the rules and laws that existed in Beast’s Rest, those that had been made by Kong Shi Meng and those that still remained within Yi City, and natural laws such as that of water turning into steam at high temperatures.

One thing that could be immediately observed about both of these things was that they were hardly immutable. Typical laws, set by humans, could be broken with ease so long as someone had enough power, and even if such a method was to be ignored, even the natural laws could be broken. For instance, the ocean around and in between the Planar Continents, water would experience a strange change and become impossible to boil, even at the temperatures present near and past the Glass Wastes. Water taken from the ocean would remain in that state for five minutes, no matter what was done to it, and revert to normal after that, and any water placed into the ocean would immediately mix with it and gain the same properties.

Perhaps this was simply one natural law superseding or overcoming another, but it still showed that each law could be overcome.

If she wanted to benefit the most from such laws, it would be reasonable to focus on the strongest and most oppressive one of all, so to speak – the law of the strong dominating the weak. It was a rule that she despised quite intently, but it was also the one that she would need to use if she wanted to keep Yi City in some semblance of peace and reason.

Just in the same way that anything could break so long as one had enough power, so could any law be subverted and broken with enough strength. Anything that seems impossible is only so because one lacks the ability at that moment, and not due to some impossibility. Even travelling through time, or at the very least altering past events, shouldn’t be outside of the reach of a cultivator so long as they are able to accumulate enough energy and knowledge to achieve their goal, and so long as they aren’t worried about the repercussions of their actions.

Out of all natural rules, it was perhaps the most all-encompassing, and the most obvious to both common men and transcendental cultivators. It applied in business, in daily life, in combat, and anywhere else. So long as the right form and quantity of strength is possessed, any misdeed will be ignored or outright praised. The only reason that any district is even able to enforce a set of rules is due to their patriarchs typically being in the seventh realm, meaning that anyone beneath that realm would be suicidal to try and upset order too greatly. If cultivators of the eighth realm were as common as grains of sand, then it would be they that set the rules, and the districts could do nothing.

By that logic, so long as there was something that stood above the entirety of the world, something that surpassed the damned heavens and towered above the rotten earth, then that entity would be able to demand any kind of order they wished for and guarantee that it was enforced.

‘That had been my intention for some time, hasn’t it? It means that I have comprehended far more of the nature of the Dao of Law than I had assumed,’ she thought to herself, ‘If it isn’t yet developed enough to empower by abilities, then that must mean that my chosen Dao is as complex as I had thought it to be, and I won’t make much progress with this particular law. Then, I should ponder another, like that of the suppression of elements.’

She had understood long ago that the elements weren’t separate factors that had no relation to one another. Rather, some supported one another, while others opposed the other. Fire burned wood, for wood empowered the flame, whereas water subdued flame due to opposing it. A water cultivator would stand a greater chance against a fire cultivator than one that practised earth-type techniques.

Again, as she considered it in greater detail, she realised that she had a rather great understanding of this notion as well, and that her evaluation of her own comprehension of the Dao of Law might be incorrect.

Comprehending a Dao allowed it to empower everything done by the cultivator, in the cultivator’s favour, through an unconscious application of the Dao’s laws and tenets – a set of terminology that didn’t escape her notice, of course – that would bend any action towards the most positive outcome possible through that Dao. Due to how useful her understanding of the forms of energy that support and oppose one another, she suspected that it was already being partially imbued by her comprehension of that law, which finally prompted her to confirm the status of the Dao of Law within the Truth of the Universe.

‘Minor Achievement? What the… when did that happen? I could swear that it wasn’t… oh. Comprehension of the Dao isn’t as simple as understanding parts of it, but realising how they relate to the Dao that I wish to practise… so that’s how it is. By realising my comprehension of certain matters and applying it to the Dao of Law, I was able to advance it…’ Wei Yi realised, ‘I truly have some affinity with this Dao. A good choice on my part, then.’

This was truly fortunate, and so she pondered all of her other realisations and understandings to see whether they could be applied to the Dao of Law.

Besides a few minor matters, she was unable to consider much until she witnessed the planar anchor in the prison realm finally lit up to the point that it was absolutely blinding, and audible cracks resounded from it, echoing throughout the Kong Prison Realm and drawing much attention to it.

“Everyone, get inside and seal your windows. Ignore the commotion!” she yelled out, empowering her voice with the Lion’s Roar technique and physique ability before further boosting it with the minor amount of control that she possessed over the spatial realm, as she suspected that staring too much at the intense light would hardly be beneficial to anyone with eyes.

Even if the excess light burning the retinas of everyone that witnesses it without refining their eyes to the same extent that Wei Yi had somewhat recently wasn’t a major concern, then the vast quantities of energy that would inevitably surge from the anchor should most certainly be avoided. Even if they weren’t naturally malicious, the immense concentration of power that would come from her anchor in particular, in a realm where her will was the closest thing to absolute that anything can be, could easily be fatal to anyone who isn’t in the equivalent of the fifth realm in terms of their power.

At the moment, only Luo Lia Kun was at that level of power if the spatial spirit of the land itself wasn’t taken into account.

“Yi Shi Ming, block off as much of that possible!” Wei Yi instructed after her voice began reaching those in Sanctuary and Beast’s Rest, “You’ve never seen anything like this before, have you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Yi Shi Ming was able to calmly reply despite creating an immense and complex circular barrier around the entirety of the central region of the prison realm, obscuring as much sound, light and energy from passing through it as was possible.

To block everything entirely would not only cost much more energy to maintain, which, depending on the duration of the breakthrough process, might lead to it failing to contain the last portion of the process, but it would also rid the population of the prison realm of their light entirely, which would plunge them into near-complete darkness for however long this would take. The sky above them all would be of little use, given that it lacked a moon or sun to illuminate them, and being in absolute darkness after many years of perpetual light would be rather disconcerting to most.

With a shielding barrier that allowed a little percentage of the energy to come through, the people of the Kong Prison Realm would retain light and gain some of the energy released, whatever it was.

So long as they were able to cultivate with it, or otherwise gain some advantage from it, it would naturally be far better than simply allowing everything emerging from her anchor to go to waste. Since it would probably not be something useful to her, given that it would be removed from the anchor prior to its development, the rest of the Kong Prison Realm might as well become stronger at the same time as her.

After a few brief moments of respite, the anchor pulsed immensely, a far greater quantity of energy shaking the prison realm and the barrier that surrounded the anchor itself, forcing a far larger amount of light and power to surge through the restrictive barrier and wash over the surrounding cities. Houses and businesses shook, much to the displeasure of the few that thought to ignore the commotion and continue their efforts in one of the many brothels around the Kong Prison Realm. However, neither the spatial spirit nor the master of the realm could spare their attention, for they had their focus solely on the anchor itself, and the rapid expansion of its centre.

Much like it had been over the previous few stages and perfected stages, the anchor was slowly bulging out further and further, the sphere of pure planar energy in the middle and the nascent rift being exposed more with every breath.

Since this was happening, Wei Yi decided that it was a prime opportunity to widen the rift further.

With five forms of energy available freely to her, all of which had recovered fully by the time that her anchor got around to developing, forcing the nascent rift to grow would be notably less challenging than when she had done it prior to claiming the Kong Prison Realm for herself, when she only had spiritual will, killing intent and physique energy on her side, all of which were in a significantly lower realm back then.

Furthermore, she gained a greater understanding of planar energy as a whole, had experience with developing energies that seemed entirely unused by the people of the Planar Continents, so she was more than confident in making some significant progress today.

Cosmic light, silver and crimson, dawn light and moonlight, and the blood-tinged stars of her bloodline converged together upon the rift in the centre of the absolutely blinding anchor, their united power forcing open the quiet rift and pulling apart its edges, unwittingly summoning quite an inappropriate image in her mind as they did so.

She was able to put that particular thought aside, as she did not yet comprehend anything resembling the Dao of Lust, and instead forced the anchor’s stabilisation to intensify upon its own centre to further assist the growth of the nascent rift. Before her eyes, it rose from being only slightly open at ten percent of its maximum size to eleven, then twelve and thirteen, slowing down once it approached fourteen percent openness. Nevertheless, she continued forcing her energy into the rift, using her own body to withstand the constant radiation of energy from the anchor.

It didn’t so much hurt as it seemed to be intent on distorting her very being, the close proximity likely impacting her significantly more than it would those behind the barrier, who would only endure strictly beneficial changed in terms of endurance, but she was able to keep herself stable and resisted all such effects, learning a great deal about how to do this most effectively in the process.

Eventually, it rose to fifteen percent openness, and then ceased at sixteen percent, although she was mostly certain that it could go far, far further so long as her energy was powerful enough.

While this change seemed insignificant in terms of numbers alone, it was absolutely immense since it transformed from allowing her to recover a tenth of her planar energy per four minutes to bringing her to nearly twenty percent per four minutes, or a similar kind of recovery as before but only in two minutes. Once it was raised to forty, it would be like recovering a tenth of her energy per minute, and if she could open the rift all the way up before reaching the eighth realm, a quarter of her overall energy would recover per minute. Furthermore, that was all if it was assumed that there would be no great change upon the full opening of the rift.

To be able to recover any kind of energy expenditure in just four minutes was absolutely worthwhile to pursue, and it would guarantee that all of her pools of energy remained filled with at least a drop of energy at all times, and would aid her in resisting any kind of energy conversion if she ever came across it again.

However, since she was unable to achieve this now, she stepped back and cast down the anchor within her into the prison realm, allowing it to merge with the mirage fully.

In that moment, it shook the realm once again. This time, the enormous concentration of light that had gathered on the anchor burst outwards in a sphere, completely surrounding the anchor and, for a brief moment, it resembled the core of the fourth realm, as well as the illusory core that had formed since the Planar Pool realm. For a moment, she pondered whether she was mistaken about the nature of the Endless Monolith, but then the overwhelming light revealed its purpose.

Following it, the anchor similarly exploded outwards, the many chunks and pieces of glistening black crystalline matter bursting out of the structure while the light itself sunk back it, passing through the chunks of the anchor without difficulty. The light settled down around the globe of pure planar energy, enveloping it perfectly and almost multiplying the brightness of the globe.

Without it blinding everyone including the owner of the anchor, Wei Yi was now able to see the new appearance of her planar anchor, or, as it should rightfully be called, the Endless Monolith that now presided over the prison realm.

In terms of material, it was naturally still made of a material similar to the one that composed a standard planar anchor, being black and crystalline as it had become due to her cultivation towards perfection. The major difference was the power that it now contained, and the shape that this structure now possessed, with only the top and bottom of the anchor remaining where they had been prior to this.

The rest now floated around the centre, where the bright light melded with the planar energy and occasionally revealed waves of violet beneath the pure white. These pieces were large, and each seemed to contain a single element, or a single combination of them. One contained sparking golden lightning, another was covered in silver leaves, yet another was coated in flaming cracks and actual flames, which had a tint of phoenix and qilin flame at the same time, as well as yet another that was covered in a thin layer of blood that dripped from it, but never actually led to the decrease of fluid.

They joined the anchor shards from the Great Family member that had perished in the Kong Prison Realm long ago, floating around the Endless Monolith together.

The other pieces, from the anchors that belonged to the third generation of the Great Luo Family, which conveniently produced only one shard per anchor ,were not yet added to the Endless Monolith, as Wei Yi was interested in studying them a little more before doing this. If the bloodlines of the Greats were anything to go by, they usually didn’t surpass forty or fifty anchors, so to have more shards than she already had might simply be inviting disaster.

For now, such a thing wasn’t even necessary. From the fluctuations of energy around the monolith, she was able to tell that the effects of the anchor’s empowerment had not just grown by a little bit, but outright doubled. If she was to set it down now, her every drop of planar energy would have four times the power that it usually would, and with the rapid recovery of the nascent rift, the passive empowerment of her bloodline, and her other four forms of energy, as well as the support of her several Dao, her fighting ability would certainly match that of someone in the fourth realm, or even surpass it without requiring the usage of a single combat technique.

To make it even better, this was only the first part of the breakthrough process.

She reached the equivalent of the next realm through her perfected stages combining with regular ones, thus attaining this Endless Monolith, but that still left the perfected stage to break through to, and all that was left was for her to undergo the breakthrough process somewhere other than the prison realm.

Since one breakthrough didn’t lead to an enormous fissure forming in the ground, the next one that didn’t have as great an effect upon her cultivation was bound to also be safe to undergo.

Having entered the Kong Prison Realm from the outside of the district, the moment that she left, she was already safe from immediate observation, and with just a little bit of effort, she was able to get a little further away and obscure herself with a few arrays to prevent any unwanted intruders from making their way into her vicinity. Then, she allowed a small quantity of planar energy to seep into her monolith.

It instantly lit up again, the white energy surrounding the planar sphere expanded and surrounded the monolith, much of it separating from the monolith and wrapping around her body, floating around it for a brief moment before seeping into it.

Unlike the first time that she had to deal with the white energy, it had no negative effects on her this time, perhaps due to having merged with the pure planar pool that existed within her monolith – funnily enough, that sphere of pure planar energy was many times larger than the usual planar pool of most in the second and third realms, and yet it was not even a source of energy but just an aspect of her former anchor – and instantly mixed with her five forms of power, but did not truly merge with them, instead floating about within them as if it was sand in water.

‘Based on the way that it previously attempted to change my body, I have to assume that this time it will do more of the same. Perhaps I need to circulate my energy myself?’

If that was indeed the case, then she would be in luck as she would have the ability to focus her energy on whatever she wanted. For example, if she felt that her left arm was in need of some strengthening and improvement in some way understood only by those at such a high plane as the heavens, then she could focus all of her efforts on that arm, and receive far more benefits than if it was just dispersed over her entire body.

In addition, since it was infused into her own energy, rather than acting out of its own accord, there was a chance that it would follow her own will and understanding of the right path forward, invoking the Dao that she did understand to strengthen herself greatly.

‘Speaking of Dao, I should someday test out whether or not having more of them can negatively affect me, or if it just a straight up improvement,’ she considered while pondering the best place to utilise her energy, ‘Also speaking of the Dao, this time the Dao of Lust… I should have a decent understanding of it by now, given how much I’ve slept around. Maybe I should try to comprehend it in the future.’

Since she was already wondering whether it was better to go for more or less in this situation, she kept that in mind and concluded that the best things to enhance this time would be her bones, the framework that made up the body of any human being. If she was right about the white light, whatever it was, then she would have as many chances to use it as she would have breakthroughs until the next realm, or seven more at the very least. With that many chances, she would be able to separately temper her muscles, blood vessels, meridians, vital organs, skin, external organs and her extremities, not necessarily in that order and not necessarily only them.

The was to make good use of the energy that she had, and so wasting it by spreading it all around her body in one go, when one part might be insufficient to support another, would be foolish.

It might even be the case that once her foundations are enhanced, the other parts of her body can develop at a faster pace and benefit more from the white energy, and it could even be that if she devoted all of the energy to strengthening nothing but her bones, the eventual gains would be far, far superior to any other approach to this situation. She intended to discard the theory, not because she didn’t think that this could be plausible, but because she simply didn’t know how to strengthen her bones to such a degree.

While some stories might describe the ability to progress infinitely, reality wasn’t that simple. There was only so much that raw empowerment could do, for even if it was possible for her bones to develop endlessly, it wouldn’t solve certain flaws so much as simply negate them via the same law of strength suppressing weakness as with many things in the world.

Thus, the only improvement that she could achieve with the energy that she did have was one that affected the core structure of the bones, which is where her problem came from. Due to all of the cultivation and refinement that already happened, she was close to the limit of what she could envisage. Even if she pulled some inspiration from every mythical creature that ever existed in the continents, she would not have much further to go.

‘As a result, unless I accidentally break through in the Dao of Bone – if such a thing can even exist – and receive some great insight into a further development path, a single stage of refinement is all that I can manage.’

She shut her eyes and retrieved the anchor into her dantian, focusing on her bones.