V3C83: The Search Begins

“In total, with all of the deductions from the auction house, your work has made me and you… two planar stones and seventeen planar shards! That is far more than I would have made even if the artisans I usually work with went all out! You deserve it!” Chen Xiu exclaimed, giving her the seventeen planar shards before pointing to the two planar stones that were being carried inside, “I will go all out to find those landmarks that you’re interested in, don’t you worry. I may have done otherwise if you had only made a few planar shards, but now, I could fund five or six more trips with this alone!”

“Glad that my work is being appreciated. My participation won’t cause any problems, I hope?”

“No, it will not. As someone with a VIP card – ahem,” he glanced at his wife, who simply looked forward with a smile as if she hadn’t accepted the card back just a short time ago, “you automatically prove that you have the funds to spend, and so long as you have funds, you can bet.”

“Excellent. How soon with the searching parties be sent out?” Wei Yi asked, pocketing the shards and instantly storing them within the House of Gold to ensure that they wouldn’t get lost.

“It should be in an hour or so, since nobody will be willing to go out without any warning at all,” Chen Xiu said, taking one last look at the planar stones that will not end up going to him, “I can inform you the moment that it happens, if you want to remain here, but if you go elsewhere, then I or someone from the teams can deliver reports.”

“I think that I will be going out soon, so the reports will be preferable.”

He nodded and left as quickly as he was able to, so that he wouldn’t need to look at the planar stones for any longer than he already had, leaving Wei Yi and Xin Fu in the room on their own, with the latter being able to maintain her calm smile even with the former’s gaze focused strictly on her.

For a few moments, they simply looked at one another – Xin Fu was mostly looking to the side, in her vague direction, but it seemed to require as much willpower from her – with neither one moving or speaking. It seemed like this could go on for a while longer, but when the door opened again, the merchant’s wife instantly rushed off as quickly as she could without seeming hurried and without bumping into the one entering.

Shun Liu Min, who had opened the door, saw the merchant’s wife run off with her usual smile, guessed that something had occurred with her again, and entered the room.

Her hair was still moist from the bath that she had taken, and her skin was flushed beautifully. Although she had already covered herself by this point, since she wasn’t keen to expose herself to most of the people living in the residence, the minimal outfit that Wei YI had made for her still emphasised the best features of her body to the lone observer in the room.

“I’d guess that the bath in this place is pleasant?”

“It certainly is. Due to the natural heat, all they need to do is warm some of the stones outside and get them to heat the water inside.”

“Very interesting. How do you feel about going outside the district and killing, or at the very least robbing, a whole bunch of people? I suspect a few of them may even be using my very own inscription against us, so you can look forward to that,” Wei Yi said, prompting a momentary confused look.

It took her a while to understand just what the implication of those words was.

“The people at the auction are going to try and take their revenge on someone that wasted a lot of their time and money?”

“Essentially. It would be difficult to obtain so much without riling someone up, not at such short notice and so quickly,” she explained, taking the planar stones and storing them away once she guarded them with her mental energy as to prevent anyone from noticing her exact method of removing them from this world, “However, some of them might just want to attack someone who seems to hit a vast amount of money. The people there must already have some wealth, but in their eyes, getting more would never hurt. In their defence, I can understand that kind of thing.”

“Are you sure about that? Certain things can very much be in excess, right?” Shun Liu Min asked.

Following her gaze downwards, Wei Yi shrugged, “I suppose that can apply in certain cases, but when it comes to simpler things like wealth and power, so long as it doesn’t attract danger, I believe that it is difficult to have an excess.”

“I guess so,” the maid shrugged, “Could you help with my hair?”

The Ascendant raised her hand and created a small ball of absolute heat, containing most of it within the sphere so that it wouldn’t instantly cook the majority of the building and kill everyone but her, since she had a perfect yin and yang physique that could produce and endure such forms of energy. Just by bringing it into the vague vicinity of Shun Liu Min’s head, every drop of water atop her hair evaporated within moments, causing her to immediately dispel the energy as to not overdo it.

For the moment before the sphere of energy went out, it almost resembled a miniature but dim sun, illuminating the room softly.

‘Hm… Right, I did witness the process of a star burning up a short time ago and can replicate it at will. I also have energy that I literally call cosmic energy. Surely all of this deserves a Dao of its own, right?’ Wei YI thought, focusing on those images.

She hadn’t arrived at the concept of cultivating Dao at the time of creating her orb of star metal, so it hadn’t occurred to her then, but since she had already completed a few to a decent level, and since she had the perfect experience of the birth and death of a star, she just had to contribute it to yet another one. So far, each one had brought her immense benefits, and would likely do so in the long run, so she would be mad to not take the opportunity presented to her. Thus, with that understanding, the countless images of the cosmos that were contained within her cosmic energy, the theory of the exact nature of the creation and end of that star in the prison realm, and everything that seemed to apply to this world from the knowledge of the otherworldly demons, she momentarily shut her eyes.

‘What is a star? Why do they exist? Are the stars that I and others have the chance to create identical to the ones in the sky, or do they differ? Is the sun another star, as it is in another world, or is it something different?’ she pondered, glancing into the cosmic abyss of the Kong Prison Realm since looking up into the sky of reality wasn’t much of an option, ‘Regardless of the answer, is there planar energy out there? Why is it not something that can be reached?’

These were questions to get closer to the nature of the Cosmic Dao that she was attempting to condense within her mind, but they mostly only revealed the fact that she knew very little about the cosmos, other than the fancy colours of it. Her only understanding was of the otherworldly space, as well as the miniature star that she was able to create, but the small star differed from what the other world was said to have, lacking a number of vital properties that were documented commonly on Orbis, which confused the matter further.

She was able to compile just a little bit of information within the expansive domain of the mind and unify it together into the concept of a star – going any further was impossible for now.

It was the first time that she had attempted to solidify any concept into a sold shape within her mind, with the rest simply remaining as ideas in the library and all around the place. Such an idea might work, from what she understood of the concept of the Dao, and might even be more helpful than her earlier attempts, or it could end up harming her in the long run. Experimenting with such an important concept to her own cultivation might not have been the smartest decision, but one that made sense then.

With her eyes in reality still shut, and with only a moment having passed, she checked the Truth of the Universe. Confirming that there was a Cosmic Dao at the Initial Accomplishment stage, she intended to return to the matters of the Planar Continents, but an event in the Kong Prison Realm drew her attention almost immediately.

Since she didn’t want to bother anyone with her condensation of a Dao concept, she placed it in the core of her Endless Monolith, where it would only add a little bit to its light, but the core of the monolith suddenly grew a dozen times brighter, nearly blinding those who were still insisting on looking straight at it out of curiosity. From it shone numerous lights, crimson and flaming, light and cold, with certain ones that could barely be described no matter what words and methods one had at their disposal due to the sheer complexity of the phenomenon.

Those that hadn’t lost their sight temporarily were overwhelmed with the colours and sensations, for each distinct beam of light produced a different feeling as well. Some were like fire to the touch, others seemed to turn their heat to cold and the cold of the air to heat, some made their skin incredibly sensitive and warm, and some were thankfully as uneventful as simply forcing their bodies to move in accordance with the light for a few moments before it faded.

To those that had the misfortune to be caught inside these rays of light, this was probably akin to another breakthrough of the owner of the great Endless Monolith, but she could tell that it was not.

After all, no matter how oblivious it was possible to be, Wei Yi knew that she hadn’t broken through in any regard just yet, so no phenomenon could occur as a result of it. The only thing that she had done was place the solidified Dao concept inside of the monolith, and what everyone experienced now were aspects of the various Dao that she had comprehended so far.

In other words, everyone in the prison realm was currently facing a barrage of pure Dao thoughts.

‘What exactly keeps happening with everything I do? Stars, Dao as abundant as techniques, and now… Could the concept of the Cosmic Dao somehow equate to the Ascendant’s Dao in complexity and result in a temporary conflict of ideas? The former is individual of the latter, so they don’t mix quite as well as the others… This might actually end up being a problem,’ she frowned mentally, her mind having accelerated to keep up with all of this some time ago, ‘For quite a while, my cultivation method had not been fully adapted to my own Dao, so I technically possess a lot of insights into a Dao independent of the Ascendant’s Dao, and it has all of my earlier creations categorised under it…’

She had nearly perfect comprehension of the base five elements, high comprehension of pure planar energy and blood, and some minor understanding of lightning and the silver-leaf energy techniques of her earlier Mysterious Characters technique, which also appeared to resonate with the Cosmic Dao, hence  creating the problem that she was currently occupied with.

These things were at odds with her new interpretation of these matters, which was currently being blasted at everyone within the prison realm.

“Wei Yi, is everything alright? Even with how your anchor has been behaving as of late, this doesn’t seem to be right,” Yi Shi Ming’s voice reached her out of the prison realm, the spatial spirit hastily assembling some barriers to try and block this energy to no avail.

‘Do you remember how I told you about my attempts to study various Dao in order to empower myself? Well, there’s now a bit of a conflict, and it might very well be caused by the fact that I had created a star in order to represent it while everything else is very much an abstract idea somewhere in my head,’ she explained to her, slowing down the time in the prison realm so that she could speak at her current speed without it going over the spatial spirit’s head.

“If that is the case, shouldn’t you solidify your other concept as well? That of the Ascendant’s Dao?”

‘I’m not even sure whether this is a good idea but judging by the fact that a Dao in Initial Accomplishment is disturbing a Dao in Full Success, I suppose that I should do it for now.’

She didn’t mention the fact that she had no idea whether this was even something that could be undone, since she didn’t want to complicate matters. The barrage of ideas should stop eventually, but in that time the Kong Prison Realm would be distorted so immensely that it might as well have been a second instance of the storm walls falling and the world recovering both planar energy and life.

Even if she had wanted to say it, there was a far larger problem, and that was that she had no clue whatsoever what to stabilise the Ascendant’s Dao and everything it contained with. The Cosmic Dao had a very clear image to it, one of the stars and galaxies and nebulae, so creating one of those things was almost natural, but as she had considered before, the very representation of the Ascendant’s Dao was herself. However, the Cosmic Dao had a star in its prime, while she…

‘The image from the Realm of Potential… potentially an otherworldly gift’s trick, but it seems to have done a lot of good for my cultivation so far, so… Fuck it.’

With those extremely unsuitable words for the situation at hand, she called upon that remaining mental image, the initial magnificence of which had long decays, and focused on what little she remembered of the true state of that memory.

Frankly, she had no clue whether that image was of her, of some extrapolation of the concepts that she had pursued so far, or something else entirely. Regardless, Dao of Law had resonated with its imagery, as did a number of other things, so it seemed to be the safest bet that she could think of for the moment, which meant that it was also the only one that she could go for on short notice. Perhaps it would be something that she would highly regret later, or maybe it would come to be highly disadvantageous right away, but she needed to go for it right away.

There were quite a few Dao covered by the Ascendant’s Dao, as was evident by the amount of them currently affecting the Kong Prison Realm, but as she went through them one by one, she found that they had a place within that image. The chains, scales and gavel fit with the Dao of Law, the bright light appeared to be made up of the basic elements, the glow within the figure’s eyes contained many aspects of yang and Dao that related to it, and that was hardly the full extent of it.

Something that had initially seemed like an overly complex puzzle suddenly fit together as if there was no ambiguity to it at all, and the comprehension of Dao within her mind followed suit.

All of the scattered thoughts regarding each one of them fell into the centre of the mental domain and the centre of the prison realm, blocking out the beams of thoughts that were besieging the population, and then formed into a different blinding light, the pure energy that existed within the image that had elevated her planar energy immensely with just one look.

Somewhere behind it, to the side of both halves of the realm, an incredibly vague figure appeared, a hand reaching out to touch the sphere of light, before her head suddenly turned towards the exact location from which Wei Yi’s mind was observing all of this. With the light that existed both behind and in front of the figure, it was difficult to see a single feature, but she could almost swear that the figure smiled towards her.

Then, just as suddenly as it had entered the realm, the figure vanished, and the bright light subsided.

The monolith and the sphere of pure planar energy within it seemed to have gone unchanged at first glance, but the centre of the planar sphere had changed from pure violet to containing the cosmos, just as her cosmic energy did.

‘Well… Uh, I think I solved whatever was happening… If that figure was the result of something that I did, which, frankly, I can’t be certain about. Why would I randomly smile to myself?’

She couldn’t answer that, not at the moment, but there was one thing that this did teach her, as vexing as the idea itself appeared to be. Her Ascendant’s Dao and the Cosmic Dao, the first being her deduction and extrapolation of the second, did not appear to be fully compatible with one another. Whether due to her empowering one more than the other, or due to some other reason, the Cosmic Dao was able to momentarily overpower the former, and it had nearly caused some serious damage to the spatial realm under her control.

For now, the Cosmic Dao itself seemed to be restrained and controlled by her Endless Monolith, something that might or might not have occurred even if she did not practise the Ascendant’s Path, so she didn’t know how much of a part that manifestation of energy itself played in this, but it was working.

‘Excellent. One problem is averted, and one mystery is added to the list. Anything else?’ she asked nobody, making sure that her words didn’t get out to anyone in the hopes that it wouldn’t cause any further trouble, but it should have been obvious to her by now that if she wanted to avoid trouble, her current path wasn’t the most suitable.

As she planned once more to return to the matters of the Planar Continents, her gaze was marked by a strange black spot that emerged in the corner of her vision. It did move as she moved her mental vision, and when she figured out where it seemed to be originating from, she sighed.

Before she could do much, she was swallowed by the dark spot, and found herself within the Realm of Potential. She had no clue what it was trying to do this time, and all that she could be certain of what that it had been a good idea to slow down the time of the Kong Prison Realm the moment that a problem had occurred within it. It could be another image that could permit for the formation of a Dao or a huge leap in her cultivation, or it could be something negative, but it would waste time either way.

While her mind had focused on the Dao, the darkness of the Realm momentarily filled with light, but it faded very quickly after, prompting her to frown.

Usually, whenever the otherworldly gift created anything, it either would or wouldn’t exist, and there wouldn’t be any vagueness nor uncertainty. This time, however, there were both, and it hadn’t occurred from a technique but the very thought of the Dao instead – the pondering of which once more conjured that vague image.

This obviously prompted further investigation, so she focused on something that she understood reasonably well, but not as much as her prime Dao, just in case it would lead to some more complications. As nice as the outcomes of certain complications could be, she had enough for the day.

Her chosen Dao for the test was the Absolute Dao, and just as before, when it was focused upon, a vague image appeared before her. However, the more she focused upon it, the more the image became clear, and the clearer it became that it was not the same one that the very concept of the Dao led to. While that contained much of the light that the image the Realm of Potential had given her before had, the Absolute Dao had only the vague shape of something piercing all things.

‘No, not piercing. The Absolute does not need to care for something of the sort. It passes through, whatever the material, whatever the place- wait, what did-’

The image before her flared up all of a sudden, growing denser and brighter, the earlier concept becoming far more obvious to her even when she did not look at the image at all. Furthermore, she felt her vision blur for a moment, recovering the next, and while it made no difference inside the realm, she could notice one direct change with the simple conjuring of a mirror.

Another circle had formed within her vision, another Dao reached the Great Stride stage, and she achieved another vision state, all through an unplanned, second-long visit to the Realm of Potential. In short, it was the most confusing day in a long time.

‘What is happening to me today? Things are, technically, going well, but can’t the world not throw back all of the agitation I had encouraged while at the auction? I was much nicer than this…’ Wei Yi got that complain out of her system before focusing on the more important matters, ‘So, judging by the way that this is responding to my thoughts, it seems that it now allows me to comprehend Dao more quickly. I must have been on the edge of the Absolute Dao’s next stage after my work with the inscriptions, so getting in here sped up the process significantly. The notion of the Absolute not simply destroying all but instead overcoming it completely had already been somewhere in my mind, but the otherworldly gift must have pushed it to the forefront. If that’s all, then this should be perfectly fine.’

As she had concluded before, the Truth of the Universe completed everything that she hadn’t in a mechanical, artificial manner that was possibly tainted by the azure light that had inhabited it, but the Realm of Potential was effectively allowing her own thoughts to be focused far more precisely than usual, guiding her to the answer instead of forcing it onto her.

It had some modification of the perceived future in order to suit her, that much she could be sure of, but it had much less of a chance to negatively affect her due to the differences between the approaches.

That meant that cultivation of the Dao should be mostly safe within it, so long as she believed the acceleration of her thoughts to be worthwhile, but with the way in which she occasionally became enlightened to all kinds of things, it wouldn’t be a good idea to use it for the primary Ascendant Dao, Cosmic Dao or the Dao of Law, which were her most significant Dao so far. Everything else could benefit from it, although moderation and some individual contemplation would still be for the best.

She sighed, then left the Realm of Potential once she confirmed that she was able to.

Just to be certain, she looked around the spatial realm to confirm that nothing significant was damaged, and that there were no more oddities intending to appear before her, and seemed to find none, finally allowing her to leave.

Within the Planar Continents, very little time had passed, so when her eyes reopened, it seemed as if she had just blinked unusually slowly.

“That’s a very useful ability. Shame I went for wood-type cultivation when I… Wei Yi?” the maid paused, looking her directly in the eyes for quite a while. She didn’t seem to be satisfied with just that, so she took a step forward and looked even more closely, her own eyes narrowing as if she was searching for something. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?”

Everything that had just occurred was rather draining, but Wei Yi managed to regain her calmness and leaned forward, until their faces nearly met, “At this point, I might have said the same about your lips, and we could have had a moment, but the voyeur is around again.”

This time, they didn’t even need to rely on her words or on their spiritual perception, as the sound of something falling over on the other side of a wall was heard.

“I guess this wall isn’t soundproof, then,” Shun Liu Min said, not turning to look towards the sound but instead maintaining a focused stare into her eyes, “Your eyes do seem to get more and more brilliant with every day I see them.”

“Back onto that topic… Let’s not spend all day doing this and nothing else.”

The maid was naturally reluctant, seeing as she became entranced with her eyes in the first place, but when Wei Yi stepped away and put her mask back on, no amount of sudden fascination would make her think that it was a good idea to keep pushing something that even she didn’t fully understand. After all, save for a thin circle within the iris of her eyes, nothing else had changed from a minute ago, and yet she wasn’t so focused on her then.

Remembering the discussion they had during their journey to the district also helped, since it was clear that her current behaviour was not so different from an attempt at flirting, which wouldn’t be of much use even if Shun Liu Min had a lot of experience and skill in it. Due to her circumstances, she did not.

As such, she also prepared to leave, quickly adjusting her hair and taking the weapons that had been prepared for her.

With a third of her life having been spent within the mansion of Ping Gangze, she lacked much experience with combat beside what she had been taught back in the Shun District, so in order to make it easiest for her to be able to contribute, Wei Yi chose a spear for her. First of all, the spear as a weapon was one of the easiest to learn, it allowed for a lot of range between a user and their foe, and tended to benefit from raw strength more so than a sword might. For someone who needed to get to grips with a weapon quickly, it was perhaps the best choice, not to mention all of the techniques that Wei Yi already had to teach her.

Just as with many other ideas and notions, the Ascendant had embedded most of her basic comprehension of various weapon arts and elements into the Ascendant’s Disciple technique, so it would be easier for Shun Liu Min to learn these things than it would be for those without that same technique. She would be given the Living Spear and the Eight Great Changes the moment that she was able to wield the spear effectively, which would make her a little more competent in battle.

Once she had that grasped, she would be able to pick up other techniques a little more naturally, using her understanding of the spear as a foundation, and if she invests a lot of time into practicing it at a later point, she could even condense some kind of spear intent or Spear Dao, depending on whether there was even a difference between the two.

‘Come to think of it, I technically possess a Law Intent and Absolute Intent now, don’t I? I’ll need to see whether I can make use of it in today’s encounter,’ Wei Yi thought, glancing over at the Truth of the Universe while Shun Liu Min was placing the spear on her back, ‘If I also develop my Hand Dao and Sword Dao, I could resemble the supposed heroes of the Wu family, who have mastered their techniques to such an extent that they don’t require planar energy in order to perform the abilities that it would usually bestow. Depending on how they practise their martial arts, that might not be false…’

When they were prepared, they left, not bothering to speak to Xin Fu, who had considerably more trouble maintaining her smile this time.

They headed out of the residence, out of the district, ignoring those that tailed them since they had already figured out a way to handle them, and left through the gates with the aid of a pass given to her by Chen Xiu alongside the many planar stones and shards.