V4C3: Developing the Foothold

Their discussion had given Wei Yi a few things to think about, but through some principle of non-existent correlation or something along those lines, it reminded her about the unfortunate spectre that was still residing within the echo of the Ascendant’s Library.

He had fallen asleep at some point in time, shortly after she had spoken with him last, and so he had few chances to remind her of his existence, though it did also mean that he got to avoid sitting around while doing nothing at all. His soul was still stable, and it did not seem to be decaying while within her mental domain, but since she had already released one spiritual entity into the outside world, she figured that it would only be fair for the man to finally have a chance to see some of the architecture of the Planar Continents.

After all, Bai Hao had been very interested in her impression of Sanctuary when they had first approached it, so she might as well be kind to him and show him the world with more than words.

Due to the link between her mental domain and the Kong Prison Realm, and, by extension, the gateway between it and the Planar Continents, it was not impossible for her use the prison realm to stabilise his spirit without the need for the same kind of crystal that he had used while in the grasp of Ding Wen, then permit him to wander Paragon unshackled.

In fact, with her greater cultivation realm enhancing her ability to stabilise all forms of energy, inside and outside of the Kong Prison Realm, it was rather easy for her to do so, and all it required was a bit of waiting for the man in white to awaken once again.

That took a few minutes, but since she made sure to make him face the gateway in the centre of the Kong Prison Realm when he awoke, he got to experience the world on the other side, with the moon illuminating the stone structures of the desert fortress alongside the energy of numerous cultivators and guards.

“What… Where am I?” Bai Hao questioned the moment that he became conscious, his head shifting back and forth but remaining unable to look away from the world outside.

“The prison realm, except there is now a gateway into the outside, and the ground is no longer painfully crimson and silver. Neither is the air, or people’s cultivation, for that matter, and quite a few have managed to get over that annoying labelling of anyone from the west as savages,” Wei Yi briefly explained, much to the spirit’s surprise, since he had not yet managed to observe her presence due to his extreme focus on what was in front of him.

“The outside?”

“The Planar Continents. You know, the place full of planar energy? That one that you were interested in seeing?” Wei Yi reminded him, seeing as he was still in a rather state, “The fortress on the other side is not a good example of our usual architecture, but it is close enough.”

He looked outside, through the gateway and onto the fortress that was active in the night, with some people appearing and disappearing on either side of what was visible.

“That is… the Planar Continents?”

“That’s exactly what you’re seeing, and you are free to leave, if you wish. If you would be able to contribute to Paragon, the fortress that you are seeing, with some of your skills, that would be best, but I suppose I can’t stop you from sitting around and doing very little. Really, it will be your choice, but you won’t be able to leave the fortress until your soul is somehow stabilised on its own.”

“I… I must have fallen asleep at some point. We have gotten out of here this quickly? Where have those familiar colours gone?” Bai Hao questioned, although he shook his head shortly after, “No, that doesn’t matter… I’ll go…”

As he rose and left through the gateway, his movements uncertain and staggered, he was able to proceed onwards but it was clear to Wei Yi, and to the few that paid attention to him, that he wasn’t fully awake and active as he could have been. While she couldn’t be certain of the exact reason behind this, given that his soul appeared to be as stable as it had been when she had first taken him into her mental domain, she did know that this was unlikely to be something that she could correct with any of her own actions.

In theory, the spirit was closely linked to spiritual will, so through cultivating it Bai Hao might be able to stabilise himself, although she could hardly be certain about this. She did not want him to die at random because of her negligence, but she also wasn’t very keen to repeat what she had done to Min Lian and accidentally force an obsession of some kind onto the man, not that she knew many other methods of repairing minds. That was one of the many, many things that she needed to study and learn about in the future, so that she could avoid unnecessary harm and possibly undo anything that she had already done, or at least minimize any future changes to the minds of the innocent.

‘Speaking of the Scorching Blades assassin, she is still standing around here, I see…’

Min Lian had been present at the opening of the gateway, and she had avoided entering the Planar Continents this entire time as she appeared to be waiting for Wei Yi to speak to her, and now that some things had been gotten out of the way, she finally approached her.

“You know you can have just gone outside at any time, right?” she asked the assassin, “You didn’t need to wait for me.”

“I figured that I would nonetheless, Master. You had promised that I would eventually have freedom to go outside and be with you, and now that I do, I wish to take the first steps outside with you,” Min Lian replied, holding out her hand, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“No, not at all. Let’s go,” Wei Yi said, taking the assassin’s hand and bringing her towards the gateway, confidently bringing her through so that she wouldn’t hesitate in the same manner as Yi Shi Ming had done. The assassin had confirmed that she had regained her regular thoughts quite some time ago, and so she didn’t want to give her the opportunity to become reluctant or afraid of anything before her mind could fully restore itself to the level at which it should have been.

Fortunately, that did not appear to be an issue, as Min Lian followed her without hesitation, eagerly stepping into the Planar Continents with the vaguest semblance of an excited smile upon her face.

It was rather obvious that she still had difficulties with expressing anything on her own, without doing so to deceive or trick someone else as she had been trained to, but that much could be resolved, if she wanted to do so. Having some control over herself was likely something that the assassin would keep, especially while she still had the possibility of needing to make use of her abilities.

They strode out onto the stone plaza, stopping at the edge of it as to not disturb anyone else that wished to travel through the gateways. For a brief time, they gripped one another’s hands and observed the fortress, saying nothing to one another. Min Lian’s expression did not change much while they did this, but she did take very deep breaths every now and then, savouring them and the air they bestowed upon her before breathing out. As an entity manifested and animated through killing intent and, thanks to her current cultivation, planar energy, she did not require breath, nor could she perceive the vast majority of the sensory experience that one might usually relate to it, but that did little to stop her from trying.

When she did finally speak, she regained a calm expression, a faint hint of a smile gracing her lips and filling her eyes.

“Before anything else, Master, can I ask how long you intend to remain here?”

“The minimal time would be however long it takes to get settled in, establish a plan to begin the fight against Them, and to prepare everyone here for dealing with any potential threats that might assail them here, as rare as those are likely to be within the near future,” Wei Yi replied, “After that, it all depends on how long it takes to decide on a suitable approach to a district that would require my presence, and before going out, I would hope to make some advancement in my techniques and cultivation, even if it is not in terms of realm.”

“As it often is with cultivation, something like that may take a while, or it may come in an instant, correct?”

“Yes. After that – since I do know why you’re asking this – I cannot guarantee that it will be a good idea to bring you out with me on certain tasks, or whether it might be better to assign you to completely different places, but as I had mentioned previously, I wouldn’t do any of that simply to push you away.”

“Thank you, Master,” Min Lian said, “Would you mind if I was to accompany you as frequently as possible while we are both still here at Paragon?”

Wei Yi nodded, “Not at all, although there are still certain things that I wish to keep private, for a variety of reasons, nor do I intend to sleep alongside you if I ever go to bed after now. In a way, I could even assign you as my bodyguard, not that it would be in any way necessary due to my abilities, but it would be a formal declaration nonetheless.”

“I do not require such a thing, but I will make sure to appreciate it greatly. While I am sure you remember my comments on sleeping with, or alongside, you, I… won’t repeat them,” the assassin noticed the stern gaze aimed at her and did not attempt to continue the topic, removing her grip from Wei Yi’s hand, “I will not restrain you for any longer. Do not be afraid to inform me if you do wish me to separate, but please come back and get me if you do not leave by the same door.”

“Don’t worry about that, I am not that heartless, especially not with pleasant enough people such as yourself,” she said, pointing into the distance down one of the streets, “I intend to check out a place over there, so let us go.”

Min Lian nodded with a pleasant smile, although it was clearly more forced than her earlier natural expressions, and they proceeded onwards.

The place that Wei Yi pointed to was a large field amidst the many rectangular buildings in the fortress, all of which were laid out according to a simple square grid where every building would occupy a certain quantity of space. From above, some were square, some were rectangular, and a few almost seemed to be constructed from several of those shapes, not that it appeared that way from the construction quality itself, and this field was akin to a set of four squares by four squares that stood out amidst the tall stone structures around it, especially since it occupied the entire width of a section of the fortress.

On the field, as with the majority of the fortress itself that wasn’t covered in the stone plate streets, was a layer of dirt that must have endured the prolonged cover of sand for however many decades the fortress had been beneath the ground, but there in particular, the dirt was clearly far more fertile and suitable for the growth of plants and crops than elsewhere.

Furthermore, from her admittedly limited understanding of planar flora growth and harvesting, these areas appeared to be filled with a decent amount of energy and nutrition for any kind of elemental plant, even those that relied on pure planar energy, so each one of these fields would be highly suitable for the growth of any chosen miracle fruit or herb. All that would be needed were some experts on those kinds of matters, and there were already quite a few in the prison realm that knew about such things.

After confirming that Min Lian did not have much input on the matter, since she possessed only cursory and minimal knowledge of farming as part of her training to allow her to fit in as any kind of individual in any kind of position, the fields were designated for the growth of certain kinds of plants. Some were dedicated to that which could feed the people of Paragon, others were for cultivation, and some were for crafting and refining. She did not specify exact crops, since that would be for those more knowledgeable than her to decide and could be altered whenever needed if it seemed that it would be better to replace one type of herb or fruit for another.

In addition, she was able to observe that the enormous array beneath the ground of the fortress had a link to the fields as well as numerous other things within it, and could be used to either manipulate the quantity of certain kinds of energy or to simply boost it within the soil, allowing the environment for the growth of certain materials to be made even better than it would be in more natural yet naturally suitable environments.

In fact, alongside the sand barrier that kept the place hidden, creating a sandstorm that would occasionally fluctuate to seem realistic, and obscure a further portion of the desert with a similar illusory method to the one utilised to obscure the fortress in the first place, it also had the ability to prevent planar energy from escaping from the confines of the square space. That meant that the free flow of unbound planar energy from within the prison realm wasn’t going to spread to the rest of the Planar Continents and would only benefit the small space itself.

She directed a notice regarding this towards the farmers on her side, then moved on to some of the tallest structures in the fortress.

It was a large tower, two spaces by four spaces in size, and it contained numerous rooms within that were illuminated by small lights akin to the one in the very centre of the fortress, albeit without the same capability as that possessed of supporting gateways into spatial realms. They had plain stone shapes resembling beds, chairs and more, but wouldn’t offer that much space for anything else.

For her, such a space was akin to the Ning District’s tight environments, which was not a pleasant place to live in whatsoever, but since it was available, she quickly considered exactly how such a space was to be used, drawing from the setup of Sanctuary and their three smaller cities.

There, they separated people based on their ability, not just in cultivation, but whether they would be able to contribute to Sanctuary and beyond. If they couldn’t, their living space would be inferior and the resources they would have access to that would naturally decrease, although only after they had a chance to prove themselves. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do and placing people that were going to live in Paragon without doing much to improve it inside of the smaller and more tightly packed residences seemed like a reasonable solution.

They could live there, be safe from the Greats while having the chance to cultivate in the planar energy-rich atmosphere of the fortress, and if they did ever decide to get to work, or contribute in some way, they could naturally be moved to a place that would be of greater use to them and that would permit for them to best perform whatever task they wish to dedicate themselves to.

She hoped that there wouldn’t be many with a lazy nature that she would have to let inside of the desert fortress, but there might always be those that cannot do much work either, for whom one of the more spacious residences wouldn’t be particularly suitable.

Alternatively, given the fact that most buildings lacked windows and had doors that were easy to secure in the first place, and might be more or less suitable depending on the exact population that would settle in Paragon, the building could be used for those that did not appear to be immediate threats, as a jail or prison would be better for them, but for those that were also not guaranteed to be entirely allied to the Ascendant’s Arbiters or otherwise posed some risk to the people that should be contained for a time.

Once they proved themselves, they could be brought out to other residences.

Of course, all of that depended on the amount of space that would be ultimately available. If the prison realm was constantly full of people, making use of such spaces for ordinary people would be necessary, since Paragon was in much the same situation as the Ning District due to the extreme limitations of the available space, and the array beneath the fortress prevented them from digging any deeper than what was already there – which wasn’t insignificant.

“Hey, Min Lian, what do you think about vast underground networks with a variety of different spaces that are all intended for different purposes?”

“Master, that seems like an unnecessarily vague way to explain that the desert fortress contains a series of such spaces. I can’t say that I have a strong opinion on them one way or the other, even with all of the time I had spent within one as a hatred avatar.”

“Really? Well, in that case, we’ll just take a look at them together with our own limited interest.”

Naturally, the assassin didn’t intend to argue about that, so the two of them proceeded to one of the buildings that seemed to be designed specifically to connect to the large expanse beneath the fortress that Wei Yi was able to sense due to the prison realm effectively uniting with Paragon for now, extending her and Yi Shi Ming’s ability to sense everything within the prison realm to the fortress as well, although it was limited only to Paragon itself and not a wide radius around it.

That much was still enough for her to observe plenty of curious things that she was now going through one by one as she was coming across them, but there was so much to see underground that she could hardly just glance past it.

Beneath the ground, accessible through that building which contained little more than a staircase spiralling around itself and a small space that could be dedicated to storing anything that might be necessary below the ground, although there was little that Wei Yi could see that was necessary for the environment down there. There was a full circulation of fresh air throughout the underground area, there was plenty of light, some flowing water, and the air was even pleasantly cool, as one might expect from an environment that didn’t need to suffer from the sun.

After all, even the Glass Wastes that would immediately incinerate the vast majority of life and turn them into the same form of glass as that which made up the rest of the absolute north would permit someone to endure beneath the ground, so long as they were deep enough for the solar rays to be unable to penetrate the glass. The part of the desert in which Paragon was located in wasn’t so hot, nor did it have abyssal basalt beneath it, but what was beneath the ground was certainly interesting.

Requiring only a short journey down, they quickly came into the open once more, being met with the bright interior of the cave and a number of other sets of stairs that were also descending from the surface to the bottom of the cave. All of them led to similar buildings at the bottom, surrounded by similar structures to the ones that were placed above the ground, but the underground portion didn’t just stop with replicating the layout of the fortress and instead extended past its normal borders, leading to the underground version being almost twice as large in terms of area as the one above.

Also, at the edges of this area were countless minerals and ores that appeared to have been half-dug during the time that the fortress was established and used, and were now all for their taking.

The least significant materials had a medium-grade and were four-stars in terms of quality, while the most impressive thing that she was able to find was seven stars and of a high-grade, meaning that it could be of use to the highest realm that was currently available to the world and could be used to create a powerful weapon, incredible inscription, or construct the flags for an impeccable array that would pose a threat even to one of the Greats in the first generation so long as a capable seven-star array arranger worked on the project. In short, it was an absolutely incredible discovery, and it was not just present but prepared for them to be used the moment that the appropriate tools and methods were procured.

Naturally, drawing upon some of these would take a long time, since some of the most powerful materials essentially required one to be in the seventh realm in order for them to be dug up, which would take even the likes of Great Dark and Great Light quite some time to achieve.

Yi Shi Ming was able to fight at the level of the seventh realm, but she had never cultivated any mining methods, nor did she know as many techniques as would be needed for all of these materials, and simply extracting them with a spatial method would make it easier to set up some other preparation for the processing and the refinement of the ores. However, many seven-star ores also possessed spatial capabilities and abilities, so they could resist the spatial control of a seventh realm cultivator, and it would essentially be no different from any other cultivator if she did attempt to interact with them.

Ideally, the Ascendant’s Arbiters would have a few expert miners, diggers and resource harvesters that specifically practised techniques and even a cultivation method that was specifically aligned with the intricacies of the process. At that point, it would be very easy to harvest all of these things once the cultivators reach the necessary realms, and they could keep focusing on that specific task in order to obtain as many of those materials as necessary.

Such a system would permit a constant supply of those precious materials, resulting in more weapons, defences, armour and potentially even goods to be traded with districts and merchants such as Chen Xiu, whereas forcing warriors or other cultivators focused on other fields to work as miners would prevent them from doing other things and lead to far less efficiency and effectiveness in the process.

“So, what do you think? Personally, I believe that this place looks quite nice, although there’s clearly a lot of room for improvement the moment that people settle in.”

“I don’t really have much to say on this, but…”

“Go on.”

“The way in which the dark stone reflects light, the glow of the blue lights, the many different glistening ores and gems embedded within the sides of the cave, and the way the many buildings are arranged… It is rather… nice to look at, I suppose. I think.”

“I can see that as well. Also, you don’t need to double guess yourself when it comes to your views on beauty and general attractiveness, since that is something that anyone can disagree with and it really won’t matter,” Wei Yi said, patting the shy-looking assassin on the shoulder, “I mean, I’m sure you know that as well, but I figure that I might as well say it so that you don’t keep looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like… a small, scared animal, I guess?” the Ascendant shrugged, “Look, I think everyone around here needs and deserves a little more confidence in their actions, and you, as someone with a lot of training in the field, should know that things like these are hardly unusual for people to say. Just don’t worry about it as much, especially when you’re only around me. I’ve done some strange things myself, so I won’t be harsh about anything.”

“You… Master, if an enemy was to oversee this scene, as well as one where you slaughtered countless physique cultivators while being covered in blood, they would be highly confused about your nature. If I had to say it, I think that you would make for a good father… as strange as that is,” the assassin said.

“Is this some innate skill of other women that I never experienced?”

“What is, Master?”

Wei Yi coughed, “No, nothing. Let’s take a look around here and see if we can’t find anything interesting around here as well. My spiritual perception doesn’t reach as far here, so…”

Although Min Lian was somewhat confused at the exact response of her master, she was hardly able to confirm what a number of women – three, for the moment – had already experienced first-hand, as Wei Yi’s cultivation and spiritual will was able to block out any attempts at spying on her body without her even needing to make it do so. Due to the knowledge that she possessed about the common faults of any obstruction and disguise methods, it would even automatically hide the exact features of her body as to not unveil anything that she did not want to be see, and that did usually extend to the results of practising the Yin Soul Yang Root technique.

She wasn’t exactly ashamed of it, nor was there much that could shame her after everything she had already been through, but she did not have any interest in seeing it become common knowledge, and she especially didn’t want someone who had already asked to be used however she liked to learn that there was yet another way in which she could be used.

Also, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the compliment, or perhaps the observation. If she was going to have children at any time in the near future, or possibly later depending on the exact state of her reproductive system after all the times that her body had been burnt up, torn apart and what not, she would need to take the male role in the process, but that did not mean that she wanted such a thing to be easy to guess.

So that the conversation had no chance of returning to the topic, Wei Yi used a method that was bound to work, asking, “By the way, could you teach me some of the more common skills you had learned at the Scorching Blades?”

“Master? Not that I will say no, but why exactly is this of interest to you?” Min Lian asked, reacting less than Shun Liu Min but also more than she usually would, “I could see why further Scorching Blades combat techniques, of which I do not unfortunately have any more, would be of interest to you, but not this.”

“Well… Actually, you might have an answer for this – in front of what kind person would you speak most carelessly?”

“Most carelessly… Ah,” the assassin seemed to understand, “Servants and the like are one thing, but unless they earn someone’s trust, they would hardly say too much in front of them. However, if one was to deal with a fallen foe, one without any chances of recovery, someone who had lost completely, one might go out of their way to taunt them, especially if this foe had proven to be a great nuisance in the past. At that point, information would practically flow from their mouth.”

“Exactly. As such, I should be prepared to act accordingly, should I not?”

“Master, I would not… no, let me change my phrasing. I don’t think that this is something that should be planned for until you have some idea of the nature of your foe. If they have no interest in capturing you, then they would never allow this kind of situation to occur.”

“Don’t worry, it is rather clear what those people act like, in private and in public. All I need to figure out is exactly how they satisfy their desire to express their superiority, and then…”