V4C50: Practise of Dao

They continued to discuss matters for a little while, but there was only so much to be learned in the night, as the sun set, and the moon shone over the world. On the morning of the next day, there would be another expedition to the south, towards the Luo District, and before then, Wei Yi wanted to experiment with some of the things that she had received as a result of the Bai Ancestral Hall’s mysterious set of challenges.

Mostly, all that she had obtained was the change to her soul, if that was even what happened, and the three Dao from the three initial figures.

There were also the cultivation resources that she had taken from the Chao District, which she decided would be most useful to be consumed during that kind of cultivation practise simply due to it permitting her to develop and improve her own control over her own energy while absorbing more of it.

Also, she had the prisoners from the previous conflict to consider, like Shi Bao Ya, who was still locked up within Paragon and likely being rather scared and confused regarding the situation. After all, nobody would go out to speak with her when they weren’t aware of the situation and how the Flood Kings were going to be dealt with. There weren’t many other prisoners, and the only other person or particular relevance was Huang Yu Di, who had been settled at the edge of the fortress and permitted to wander around just enough to prevent him from being afraid of being locked up without terrifying him in some other way instead.

His paranoia was quite significant, but it was something that could be resolved, fortunately enough. Unless it became enough of a problem for the entirety of Paragon, Wei Yi would not be attempting to meddle with his mind. That was simply too risky and reckless at the same time, and she had no need to impose herself on people like that.

Thus, she only had a few matters to resolve, and she decided to get the one of Shi Bao Ya over with before anything else.

As the owner of the Kong Prison Realm, the spatial realm connected to the ancient fortress created by the same figure as the realm’s creator, she didn’t need to enquire about the cell into which one of the leading figures amongst the Flood Kings of Shi was placed.

“Hello, Shi Bao Ya. Care to have a chat?” Wei Yi asked as she appeared at the doors of the woman’s room.

Naturally, such a sudden appearance, as if she came out of thin air, was rather shocking even to a knowledgeable cultivator of some years like Shi Bao Ya, who was in the Active Core realm and must have spent quite some time out of the district engaging in difficult training and cultivation to reach the level she was at today. Teleportation was simply impossible for those below the seventh realm, and possibly even for those in that realm, as that was simply too complex a matter.

Wei Yi didn’t teleport, nor did she engage the capabilities of the master of a spatial realm to simply place herself where she wished to be.

Rather, she had decided to do exactly as she had been advised to some time ago, and came up with her own method of travel for the fourth realm, as it was about the right time to do so. She would only be in the fourth realm for a little while longer, and she had a perfectly suitable focus for a movement art as well, that being the natural binding of law.

To move more quickly, she didn’t employ the odd movements necessitated by the techniques that she had seen before this, both from the Yi family elder that had guided the expedition to the Kong District and the Thunder Lord, and instead focused on the principle of Law, since it was essentially the core of everything that she had personally been able to create in the world. The world itself may have been somewhat reluctant to grant her the Full Success of the Dao of Law, but she didn’t need that to achieve her goals.

The core of her movement method was that of investing energy and obtaining the result she wished of without requiring the time that would typically be taken. Essentially, it was the use of the Dao of Law to skip the process of actual movement, and to end up somewhere far more quickly and with far fewer obstacles than she might otherwise encounter. There was much room for improvement, but for now she was able to infuse all of her movement techniques into the principle and then skip ahead to the outcome. It did cost her more planar energy, since she needed to influence the chains of the world to complete her action before she had a chance to move in the regular manner, as one might upon usage of a typical movement technique.

Still, with her plentiful planar pool, that much was something that she could afford, and so she did.

Shi Bao Ya had gasped upon her appearance, but managed to calm herself quickly enough while she rose to her feet and said, “Hey, Wei Yi, right? What exactly happened? Why am I locked up here?”

“You’re asking someone that you were intending to attack, just so that you remember. I won’t be blaming you if that is not something that you decided, since your position in the Flood Kings didn’t seem to be higher than that of the other two, but if you’re also interested in wiping out the Hunters of the Cosmos, I don’t think that we will be able to converse as calmly as you’d likely prefer,” Wei Yi said, “So, do make up your mind now.”

“I don’t really understand what happened, but… You weren’t being entirely real out in the sandstorm, were you? The whole camp, the claims of you being the Hunters… If that was a lie, then we may not need to be at odds with one another.”

“That may be the case, but it would be easily resolved if you just tell me what your Flood Kings were up to.”

“Our target… No, wait. Before that, the Flood Kings… what happened to the rest?”

“What do you think usually happens in an intense conflict where everyone appears to be intent on killing one another? Death and destruction, save for the latter as it happened in a place where it is impossible to tell what happened after only a few hours due to the constant movement of the sands and dunes,” the Ascendant said, “Unless there were other members of the Flood Kings elsewhere, you are the only one I know of that still lives.”

“O-Oh… That… Fine. We had come here to track down and hunt down the Perpetuals of the Worm, as our and the Chu District’s people had concluded that they were potentially dangerous. Whether or not they were connected to the Primordial Deities, they were a source of uncertainty for our districts and ones that we wished to get rid of,” Shi Bao Ya said, and although her voice had recovered, her posture didn’t. She sat on the bed allowed to her and held her head in her hands, with her palms on her forehead as she stared at the floor without much movement.

Wei Yi wasn’t going to claim that she didn’t understand the reaction, especially if Shi Bao Ya had been close to some members of the Flood Kings beyond simply knowing their names and abilities, but it wasn’t relevant to her right now. She had a limited amount of time to converse with her, and the woman would have plenty of time to get over the same matters that Wei Yi had previously dealt with after the expedition to the Kong District and the deaths caused by the Greats.

In fact, it was due to her experience that she had deemed it best to converse with her quickly. The more she sat around and was permitted to have nothing else to ponder about, the worse it would be for Shi Bao Ya.

Back when Wei Yi had been treading back to the Yi District, and when she had wandered throughout the Kong Prison Realm before she had encountered the Black Terror, she had nothing better to do than ponder her past and present state. That had been rather unfortunate, since it flooded her mental domain with a crimson mist that had been able to contribute to her killing intent cultivation, thus causing it to be significantly more powerful than the killing intent of most, but it was simply not beneficial to her mental state even now. Her arm was still fluctuating into the killing will form to her normal state, and that wouldn’t be an issue had she managed to comprehend her world view without needing to be shaken into it after a number of panicked days.

The general state that she was currently in, willing to do anything and everything to achieve her goals simply because she believed that they were necessary, was suitable for her goals, but it wouldn’t do well for her afterwards – if there was an afterwards for her, which she would certainly hope for but didn’t necessarily expect. There may be a need for her to sacrifice herself more than she would like.

“How did the Hunters of the Cosmos get involved, then? You could have stayed out of the fight between us and the 7th Legion.”

“Well… You hardly made the best impression…”

“I thought I had come off as a very pleasant person. I was very straightforward, showcased most things about me, and didn’t begin the fight until the fucker known as Ping Wu appeared and forced my hand with whatever he was doing,” Wei Yi said.

“About that…” Shi Bao Ya raised her head, a trace of moisture within her eyes that she pretended wasn’t there, “You appear to be acting as the leader around here… is that actually the case? Are you…”

“The way you’re looking at me, it’s almost as if you think that I don’t look like a suitable leader. While I understand that kind of assumption when looking at my appearance back then, when I was intending to make myself look like some kind of brute, I think that my current state is both reasonable and dignified,” the Ascendant raised her gauntleted hand and projected a small spiritual energy map into it, looking into it for a moment as to display the full extent of her dignity.

“Uh… I won’t deny that you do look reasonable at the moment, but your other hand…”

“Yeah, that’s something I’m working on. Anyway, since you appear to have gotten over things for now, let’s get back onto our original topic. On the condition that you share everything you learned from your time in the Flood Kings, I can permit you to wander outside of the prison cell without extensive supervision,” Wei Yi claimed, lying without a hint of hesitation, “Otherwise, you will need to reside here for far longer, until the Shi District is allied with us and you lose any reason to attack us even with the gateway opening.”

“… Sorry, what? You… you intend to ally with an entire district? That… this place might be larger than I presume, but that is very unlikely at your realm-”

“Peak of fourth, soon heading to the fifth? Perhaps, and maybe even the involvement of Great Dark and Great Light with their sixth realm might make things challenging. However, that hasn’t stopped the Chao and Bai District from allying with us, so I doubt that it will necessarily be difficult to get together with a district when I understand exactly what they’re concerned about.”

Shi Bao Ya was tempted to ask questions about a number of things that the Ascendant told her, but the last part gave her no option but to immediately inquire about it if she didn’t want to lose her chance, “You… you do?”

“I don’t know if it is the same thing, but I had encountered something called the Magnanimous Leech, a technique for cultivating killing intent that leeches upon the features and qualities of others, distorting the self into a perfect form of all that had been absorbed, with their talents, strengths and intellects. The cost is that it forcefully attached itself to the person, and there wasn’t a single thing that could be done to break it away. All that the person who cultivated it was capable of doing was feeding it more and more with each day,” Wei Yi shared.

She appeared within the chamber of Shi Bao Ya while she spoke, doing so quietly so that she didn’t notice, then created an illusory form of the cultivator of the Magnanimous Leech.

“I’d ask you to guess what her surname was, but that would be far too cruel when you really don’t deserve it. Instead, I can just tell you right away that she was called…” despite her own words, Wei Yi did pause for a moment as she reverted that illusion to what she supposed one of the three leaders of Beast’s Rest might have looked like when she had first acquired her technique, “Shi Luo Feng.”

Even with the pause, the surname was already clearly revealed to Shi Bao Ya by the mere mention of it. Had the name been anything else, it would have been of no relevance at all to the situation, and Wei Yi could have just moved on with nothing but the allusion to her understanding of the plight of the Shi.

Now, however, it was clear that the old plague of the Shi family had not ended yet.

“Even if the name is coincidental, the fact that such a coincidence can occur… What kind of crime have we committed that the heavens punish us like this?”

“No clue, but it is not impossible to deal with the technique if it has been dispelled from a person. With enough effort, I could get rid of it for good, and do so while keeping the good looks of the Shi intact… Theoretically. Depending on your stance on this, I could experiment on you so long as you let me, although I will not force you to. For now, just tell me about the matters of the Shi District, and then my Arbiters might be able to share the good news with them when appropriate.”

Shi Bao Ya clearly hesitated, but as she remembered the reason that she had spoken to Wei Yi in the first place, upon her first arrival to the camp of the supposed Hunters of the Cosmos, she could hardly continue stalling for much longer.

In the end, the member of the Flood Kings managed to arrive at the solution of writing down her knowledge for Wei Yi to browse at her own leisure later, since the Ascendant had indicated her own inability to stand around for too long. This was the optimal solution for both of them, exactly because Wei Yi would just be able to scan through everything the next time she came over.

As a result, she had all of the time she needed to head into the Kong Prison Realm, slow down time, then go into the Realm of Potential to forcefully optimise her performance and slow things down further while she got to practising the three Dao of the Bai family’s apparent ancestors. Out of those, only two were currently in a free state, with the third being sealed as to prevent it from affecting her mind, but that hardly meant that she couldn’t contemplate all three of the them on her own. In fact, the sealed state of the Eldritch Dao simply meant that she could deduce matters about it on her own, without being influenced by what had been imagined before her.

With the other two, their ideas didn’t contradict her own worldview as much as the Eldritch Dao did, so she didn’t need to suppress them with as much vigour and energy as she had the third Dao, but she still wasn’t confident with simply leaving them be.

The issue was simply that each matter contradictory to her current development would, overall, negatively affect her strength and resilience. The more doubts she had, the more uncertain she was, the less progress she would be able to make, and the less strength she would be able to invest into any one task. She had not been happy with this fact from the moment that she had acquired her Dao, but she had little choice but to make use of this system regardless of the costs.

Dao were simply too powerful in what they allowed her to do, and while she might not be able to obtain every Dao due to their contradictory natures, she has been able to adapt certain ideas into a concept that was compatible with her. The Ire Dao, the very notion of rebellion and opposition, was made a part of the Dao of Law due to the principle of rebellion following and being part of law itself. She intended to do the same with the Moonlight Dao and the Entropy Dao, but she did doubt that the Eldritch Dao would be adaptable in such a manner.

Unlike the Ire Dao, which was still a matter of rational thought, the Eldritch Dao was essentially the very antithesis of the Dao of Law – and not one that could be adapted through Antithesis energy.

Whereas the Dao of Law was about rationality and a clear cause and effect for all things, with everything following a clear and rational path due to the inherent laws of reality itself, which overpowered such matters as the heavens for they were also under the control of reality, the Eldritch Dao…

‘It is madness itself, far worse than even the irrationality of Primordial Corruption. That has some semblance of reason, but the Eldritch Dao…’ she couldn’t even find appropriate words to describe the sheer nonsense that the Eldritch Dao in the form that she had received embodied. It was, perhaps, only natural that the third figure had been able to enter some kind of separate space full of tendrils and wrap the entire floating land in them without any obvious spatial capabilities of the seventh realm. If space itself was seen as false, then why bend it at all?

Obviously, for Wei Yi, such a form of thought was entirely incompatible. She didn’t think that everything she saw now was immutable, but she did think that there was a certain logic to all matters. If someone disliked another, it wasn’t due to something random, but it could be a series of matters combining into a single outcome. When a beast was caught in a trap, there was obviously a set of events that had led the trap to being there and made the beast incapable of noticing it.

The view of the Eldritch Dao that she currently had was different. If a person disliked another, it could be due to some figure on the other side of the world losing at a game of chess. At the time that a beast was caught in a trap, it wasn’t because the trap was set up well, but due to it manifesting suddenly.

There was no reasonable explanation of such things in her view, no possible way to see everything as the random whims of some entity beyond reality, if even that.

For this reason, she did not begin with it, but with the Entropy Dao, which she was able to understand the most due to the way in which it tied heavily into the Dao of Law. If it was truly an otherworldly principle as she suspected, then it might even be related to the scientific path of the world known as Orbis, at least this version of it would. That would make sense, give her an easier time to adapt it to her own path, and would cause some problems in the long run, as entropy as a concept simply didn’t exist in the Planar Continents.

As she raised her hand within the Realm of Potential and summoned a foe for herself to practise some kind of Entropy Dao move on, or perhaps to give her an opportunity to integrate the Black Sun into that path, she considered once again why the current state of the Dao didn’t suit her.

Old things would be worn away, and complex structures would be returned to simplicity and dust – that was true. If left without intelligent life, perhaps the Planar Continents would turn into a single mass of mud and nothing else. However, there was one thing that would always be at odds with the notion of returning to purity and simplicity.

‘Planar energy contradicts this completely. It is permanent, infinite, and even when it dried up, it turns out that this was due to the Great Families forcefully claiming far more of it than they should have been able to. Perhaps they are even keeping their anchor energy within Testament, and thus they have prevented the full extent of energy from rising up. Maybe the planar energy around us was even meant to be closer to the ninth realm, allowing everyone to rise to that level so quickly…’ Wei Yi pondered, striking at a replica of her while trying to grasp at the notion of absolute decay, ‘Thus, it is important to ask whether planar energy is part of the laws of the world, or actually contrary to it.’

In many ways, it was planar energy that, alone, set this world apart from the Orbis that the otherworldly demons belonged to. Electricity could be created even here, and if all of the technological innovations that they had made were moved over to the Planar Continents, perhaps it wouldn’t be impossible for them to not even notice that anything had changed. However, in energy alone, the nature of the world changed significantly, and thus it was important to conclude the order of matters.

Depending on the truth, her Entropy Dao understanding could leap straight to the Full Success stage, provided that the world itself didn’t also lack a proper understanding of it like it did for the Dao of Law.

‘I believe I heard one of the otherworldly demons speaking about the conundrum of the chicken and the egg, with the contention being which one came first. From what I understand, their theory of evolution dictates that the egg would have come first, but, aside from that, it is not dissimilar to this problem,’ she frowned, dispatching that replica with ease.

To use the notion of decay was easy enough, but unless she understood it, she would not have a Dao, but a technique, or a set of techniques. It would be significantly weaker, simply due to the vast difference, no, the absolute gap between a movement and a concept.

In other words, a single step was not usually particularly effective, especially when it was random and aimless. This was especially true when a step was made without understanding the situation, and thus led to the wrong place, or into a trap or towards the worst possible situation. That was essentially the nature of a combat technique on its own, without any additional care, observation, attention, or anything else. Obviously, no person would actually make use of a technique in a vacuum like that, but that was beside the point.

On the other hand, a Dao was akin to the full understanding and realisation of the battlefield. It was making a step to avoid a hail of arrow fire, to evade a blade, to dodge a trap in the ground, and to crush a branch that would then lead to the fall of every single opponent around her. That would be the true complexity of Dao, the true power of it, and it was what she wanted to obtain.

With the Entropy Dao of her own, she could use the Black Sun technique to not just defeat a small force, but to dominate a battlefield and to apply it in her every move.

‘So… what came first? What changed the other? Is planar energy antithetical to law, or the source of the current law?’ she was forced to ask again, ceasing her combat with foes as she instead sat down and allowed a field of planar energy to surround her. It wouldn’t do her any good to simply attack a problem without first understanding it, so it would be better to observe the energy around her and attempt to understand how it related to other matters.

Eventually, she might arrive at a conclusion of some kind.

‘Of course, how it could it ever be that easy?’ Wei Yi asked herself as she stared up at an illusory moon.

She hadn’t expected things to go smoothly and be completed within a single night, but she still discovered just how difficult it was to poke at the very structure of the world when the nature of her exploration wasn’t self-evident, like Law was.

Without that, or the ability to verify a single one of her theories, all that she had ended up doing was going through a large pile of hay in search of a single particle of dust, and had few achievements in that regard. Although she did acquire a slightly greater understanding of planar energy as a whole, this was a minor change, accomplishing far less than she would have liked from several lengthy hours of contemplation within the Realm of Potential. Since this wasn’t going well for her, she tried a different approach.

From her knowledge, both Orbis and the Planar Continents had moons, and both had suns, and both had the cosmos. They appeared to be different, but that didn’t change the fact that there was the potential of a common link between them. If she was able to understand the nature of the Moonlight Dao, she would then be able to deduce more on the matter of entropy.

Unfortunately, the Moonlight Dao was also a strange one for her, as the insights that she had gained from the first figure didn’t care about the moon as she understood it. Instead, the first figure treated the moon as an intelligent, cogent entity with its own goals and desires, and saw itself as a person bound to the moon, and someone that was subservient to it. This did align with what she had seen on the murals and statues of the Bai Ancestral Hall, but it did conflict heavily with the world’s knowledge of the moon, what the moon could and couldn’t do, and how the moon interacted with others, just to name a few matters of concern.

In the eyes of the people of the Planar Continents, there were plenty of skills relating to the moon, and the Eastern Continent supposedly had a number of sects that focused upon them.

The Moon Throne Sect, the Golden Moon Sect, the Eclipse of Moon and Sun on the Seventh Night Sect… the last one was particularly nonsensical in terms of a name, but that was hardly the major problem. While there were techniques that were inspired by the moon and were influenced by it in some ways, none of them actually pulled on the power of a conscious mind when they made use of the moon itself.

That wasn’t to say that it was impossible, but Wei Yi could hardly contemplate a possibility that had never made itself known within the world. Furthermore, she didn’t see herself as some servant of the moon, nor did she intend to allow herself to become one if that was even possible in this world.

‘From what I know, the other world – or world’s – don’t have such a moon either, so… Was there a Primordial Moon, perhaps? No, there is a certain pattern to the primordial deities, and this Dao doesn’t quite align with it…’ Wei Yi frowned, sighing, ‘Not much point in looking at the Eldritch Dao either, so, for now, I suppose that I must abandon my pursuits. I have other matters to deal with.’

Since she had spent quite some time in the Realm of Potential, that meant a lot of time had passed for her body as well.

Finally, she was nearing the fifth realm.