V4C80: Heading Out

Getting back onto the general timeline of events, Wei Yi did record a few of the more interesting and feasible ideas she obtained from Miyu’s mind for later, and then proceeded onto the search for items of interest, as well as people with whom she could spend some quality time. The former proceeded without much particular success, with her locating only a few tombs alike to the one invaded by Jian Hongchao.

From those tombs, she extracted the same kinds of blood essence items that the clone made from her blood pursued, but wasn’t able to make use of any of them right away and instead stored them away for Long Huang to study on her own at some later point. If she was able to extract some kind of useful information from the blood essence, then the Ascendant’s Arbiters would only benefit from it, even if it was random information of no specific immediate significance to them.

During that day, she was approached by the people of the Bai District, who reported that their captive had awakened. She was quickly forced to recall just what they were even talking about, and quickly did.

“Why exactly did you lock up Ping Liu Yang?” she had asked at the time, “I had thought that I was very specific that you really need to kill the guardians of the Ping District in the vast majority of cases, so what exactly is it that you were attempting to do with those people? Did you learn something about her that might require my attention?”

“Well, there is this ribbon,” the man from the Bai District said, handing it over to her.

Receiving the weapon, Wei Yi analysed it with her spiritual perception and was able to confirm that the ribbon was a high-grade artefact, one that could be incredibly useful if it was given to someone that could properly to make use of the weapon and its unique combat style. Other than that, however, it was not of any particular interest to her, nor did she need to keep the woman that used it alive unless she wanted to steal the methods for using it properly from her mind and kill her after that, prompting her to look up and stare at the man with a questioning gaze.

He withstood it for a brief while before looking away in embarrassment. Clearly, this is not what he had been intending, or more likely expecting, since he was unlikely to have been the one to make the decision in the first place.

“Well… She is attractive…”

“Okay, I think I understand. However, even if she is the most beautiful woman to ever exist, I am not just going to run into her cell and take her like that. What kind of person do you think I am?”

“I-I didn’t come up with this! She might have some kind of useful information, or something else like that… If there is something wrong, you should speak with the Bai Patriarch, as I am told that he had approved of this, so none of it is related to me and I had been nowhere near the scene of the battle…” the man stammered, prompting her to dismiss him before he had the chance to say any more stupid things.

Since they had imprisoned her regardless of her own preference, she decided that she might as well visit the only living guardian of the Ping District and see whether there truly was anything that she could learn from her.

Even prior to the capture of the fourth district, she had little trouble moving around the districts under her control quickly, and with the Yi City Web, she was able to accelerate that process significantly.

As to not seem like a sudden intruder, she appeared outside of the cells that the Bai District was using to keep the guardian restrained, and approached the guard at the front doors, who let her in right away. He offered to guide her along to the area where the guardian had been placed, but she refused his offer and instead proceeded on her own, being able to detect the planar energy of the sixth realm with ease even with the kind of spiritual perception that someone at her realm would usually be able to access without the advantage of spiritual will cultivation.

The woman’s cell was at the end of a long corridor of identical cells filled with various inscriptions, arrays and artefacts specifically intended to nullify and weaken the energy of anyone present near them, but more specifically, within the cells. Their effect was likely intended to be aimed at the sixth realm, with the cells being constructed in the last five hundred thousand years at the latest, they were barely capable of affecting Wei Yi’s crystalline energy but suppressed Ping Liu Yang just fine.

‘If nothing else, she is not bad in terms of physical appeal…’ the Ascendant shrugged mentally while she knocked on the bars, “I was told that you are awake, and I can tell that you are. If you’d rather have me leave…”

“No. Were you the one to lead the assault?”

“I organised it, and I was one of the primary reasons for its success, so you could say so. Would it matter to you, former guardian?” she asked, gladly meeting the woman’s gaze as she raised her head.

“It would. Very much so. You had invaded the district, stolen my things, and have left me here with little more than rags upon my body. Do not think that I fail to see what you intend for me, you vile, lecherous woman,” Ping Liu Yang’s expression twisted in disgust, “To think that I would be brought so low for the sake of some petty revenge.”

“While I could be wrong, it seems to me that you’re misunderstanding a few things. First of all, that was the actions of the Bai District’s people, not my own. I was told they kept you alive only a short time ago, hence the visit. I have no intention of acting upon whatever desires they – and you, it seems – believe that I might possess,” Wei Yi stated, “Also, if you honestly believe that a mass, organised attack against your district’s leadership and the very structure of its society at the time would only be motivated by so-called petty revenge, then I am not certain that I will be able to continue speaking with you.”

The guardian almost looked disappointed, “I will not miss your company, then.”

“I should also mention that I can see your thoughts, you kinky bitch. Just because this is straight out of a fantasy for you doesn’t mean that your identity will simply be forgotten about.”

She froze immediately, her head promptly lowering in a vain attempt to hide her embarrassed expression. From the moment that Wei Yi began to approach her, her mind began to fill with rather explicit fantasies of the scenario, and it seemed that she was very much eager to get right into them, if her thoughts were to be regarded without any proper consideration. Unfortunately for her, she did not meet someone from the criminal portion of the Ping District, as they would have leapt onto the opportunity to have their way with her.

Then again, fantasies were hardly so fantastical once brought into reality. Seeing as she had been a guardian and managed to maintain a scar-free body without practising some powerful physical cultivation methods, it was likely that she had avoided a number of hardships that her appearance could have resulted in otherwise. The moment that the fantasy turned to reality and she was forced to confront exactly what was happening, she would be unlikely to be pleased with the situation, and it could turn a scene from paradise to nightmare in an instant, with the former being a passing thought while the latter would hang around for many decades at the least.

How this wasn’t the case with Miyu, who turned out to be more eager than even her fantasies would suggest, Wei Yi wasn’t quite sure, but they had been together entirely consensually at the very least. That likely avoided the worst possible scenarios.

“… What do you want, then?”

“Why don’t we begin with some kind of sob story? I’m sure that you’d like to get out of this alive, but I wouldn’t let that happen if you are not at all sorry about the things that you and your fellow guardians have led to, and have done. Remember, I can see those memories flashing through your mind, and they do not improve my perception of you in the slightest,” the Ascendant said while the guardian’s memories of past misdeeds seemed to eagerly gush forth, “So, if you want me to believe you when you promise to change and improve, you’ll need to make me believe that you had no other choice at all throughout your whole life. Go on then, tell me, Ping Liu Yang – what was it that forced you to act as you have?”

She did not reply immediately, the slowly rising dread clashing with the embarrassment and fear to freeze up her mind. Had Wei Yi proceeded with something, no matter what, she might have been able to get out of answering, but since she was being stared at without any sign of exhaustion or boredom, she was becoming more afraid.

Just like the vast majority of people in the world, she obviously cared about her life, one that was all too happy to flash before her with vividness that she had not had since the first time she had experienced most of those events. To speak poorly at this moment, she would likely lose that life, or, at the very least, any hope of a life that was not miserable, but she wasn’t sure whether any of the contemplation would be able to get past the Ascendant’s mind reading abilities. Perhaps she already knew everything that was on her mind and was simply revelling in her discomfort.

“That is a curious question, isn’t it? I can answer it once you answer mine,” Wei Yi smiled.

Even on the average day, her spiritual will was able to sneak into most minds she encountered without issue, and read quite a lot of surface thoughts with the same ease, and the guardian was not an exception to this rule. In fact, with the energy suppression in the cell and a limited usage of the power of Law to forcefully bring more subconscious thoughts to the forefront of one’s mind, as well as to instigate more thought that one might usually have, it would be odd if she couldn’t see everything.

With that degree of insight into the guardian’s mind, she was easily able to obtain the relevant memories of her past deeds, the reasons behind them, the various times that could just barely be referenced to suggest that she may not have been participating in everything entirely willingly, and a number of unrelated thoughts that simply shot by. There was little difficulty to any of it, and in the end, all that she got was the location of a few hidden treasures, most of which would only be of use to those in the fifth realm and below, and no memories at all that would cause her to reconsider her initial instructions prior to the invasion of the Ping District.

The guardians and the Patriarch had worked together to cause the district to remain in the state that she had found it in, so, just like the bandits and thieves themselves, they deserved no mercy.

“Come on, give me something. Even just one word. Try me.”

Suddenly, Ping Liu Yang steeled herself and raised her head, their eyes meeting once again. Without a trace of hesitation, she opened her mouth, an idea with which to get out alive rushing to be executed and the words flowing freely to her.

Before a single word was spoken, Wei Yi stepped back and said, “Cease.”

No sound came out of her mouth, her lungs and blood alike stopping entirely. Her mind blurred, her vision lost its clarity, the faint sounds of the cells and the active arrays disappearing entirely from her perception. If she had not heard that word, Ping Liu Yang might have assumed that the world itself had collapsed around her, but since that was an impossible feat for someone in the fifth realm, regardless of her personal power, she knew that something had happened to her.

Try as she might, however, it was difficult to determine the exact nature of one’s own death.

‘Frankly, I have no idea what those idiots intended when they brought her back from the Ping District. I suppose that’s what I get for fainting after accidentally blowing up half of a district with a supernova,’ Wei Yi sighed as she turned around and headed back out, ‘What a waste of time this turned out to be for me…’

The rest of that day had not been any more productive, so the day after, she decided that it was finally time to proceed onto the next district.

She had been remaining near the Yi City Web in order to be able to respond to any attacks or emergencies in her territory, but as four days passed without any such situations occurring, she naturally needed to move on and expand her territory once more. Due to the existence of the web, it was best to capture districts near her even more so than before, leaving her with a very limited selection of optimal districts to capture, with most of them being more useful due to what they were connected to rather than their own focuses.

The Ju District was certain to prove a challenge, as they had mastered the usage of anything but planar energy to survive, so trying to go through it to either the Shi or Chu District wouldn’t be wise, especially when it was also possible to get to the latter district via the Ping or Luo District.

Despite that, the Chu District was also not the best place to go, as it would simply bring her closer to the richest district of all, the Chen District. The moment that the people of that district received the opportunity to trade with the Arbiters, they would be guaranteed to somehow buy out the entire territory, so she would rather avoid such a thing. Even aside from what was likely an exaggeration of the Chen family’s proclivities, although she doubted that the exaggeration was that excessive, she had little reason to head closer to what was likely to be one of the more powerful strongholds of the Greats, as their power tended to correlate with that of the district itself.

Attempting to obtain the alliance of the Ning District would thus be similarly challenging, with it being even more risky due to the proximity to what is likely to be the centre of the Great Family’s power, that being the Yi District. It would make for an easier approach to the Kong District, but she didn’t expect that to be necessary.

After the discovery of the web, she also found little reason to invade the former minor districts on the outside of the current territory of Yi City, as they would be unlikely to have anything of interest to her. The Empire of Dawn was not a nation that she could easily overwhelm, the Serpent Tribe that bordered the Chao District did not appear to be interested in attacking Paragon or the district, the Free Tribes weren’t particularly active either, and few of them had anything of note to offer her, as far as she knew.

For that reason, Wei Yi concluded that it would be best to pursue the Jiang District’s alliance first.

On one hand, it might extend the range of her control of the Yi City Web, if the Jiang District was connected to the Luo and Bai Districts in that fashion, but if not, it would still bring her closer to the Lan District, which she had wanted to visit for some time. It would grant her the opportunity to meet with far more of the eastern Daoists and learn from their methods that also worked in the Western Continent – as the differences in cultivation between the two continents meant that certain principles were entirely unusable by those using the cultivation system of the other continent – and perhaps their usage of tribulations for cultivation might give her a method to overwhelm higher realm cultivators by forcefully inducing a tribulation that they are not at all prepared to handle.

Additionally, it would allow her access to a great number of talented pill refiners that she could recruit into her Arbiters, giving her the opportunity to teach them the methods that she had and did not require the Antithesis energy, resulting in a large influx of decent pills into her faction.

With that in mind, she exited the Luo District at the very edge of the Yi City Web and proceeded towards the south-east, intending this visit to be one that was more explorative in nature rather than an instant inclusion of the Jiang District into the alliance of the Ascendant’s Arbiters. That would free up some of her own time, as they would be able to create the weaker pills that did not require her involvement and methods, allowing her to only create those that were completely beyond the typical alchemist.

Their herbs would also be of great use to the refiners that she already had, and would add to the various gardens in Paragon and the Kong Prison Realm, which were sufficient for the fortress and spatial realm, but not sufficient for the rest of the districts that she was adding to the list of allies. If she was to ensure their ability to participate in future conflicts, and to guarantee their rapid development, she would need enough pills for all of them to use however they wanted, and this would naturally be significantly easier with both more resources to work with, and more pills to consume, allowing them to not only take advantage of the latter products, but also to practise pill refining on their own, which was something that Wei Yi very much wanted them to do.

Simply put, if all of the districts had some expertise in all five of the great arts, then she would be able to find talented individuals from all of the districts under her control, and thus the number of experts would increase and greatly benefit her and her entire faction. She wasn’t entirely sure why the Master of Yi City had created something that would prevent certain talents from shining, since his world should have given him more experience with such things from the various stories that he had back there, but unless there was some kind of hidden intention that she had yet to learn, she would much rather prefer to take advantage of every possible talent.

There were almost guaranteed to be some hidden geniuses in the Ning District, for instance, that would have done far better in the Jiang District due to their hidden comprehension and innate realisation of certain principles relating to pill refining rather than blacksmithing, and once she ensured that every district could work with all of the greats arts, such talent would no longer be missed.

‘Back to the previous topic, however, I do not expect to be able to force the Jiang District into the alliance within one visit, when I have previously not visited it at all. That would be unrealistic, especially after all of the luck that I’ve already had in the previous districts. Nonetheless, I should learn as much as possible and get into negotiations with the Patriarch and form some kind of communication channel with him before attempting to move on,’ she thought, rushing through the land and, finally, after a long time spent away from the Central Region, she finally returned to it.

The green, tall grass and similarly high trees surrounded her with a pleasant air and smell, one that was fortunately not eliminated alongside her sense of taste.

It was nice to be back.