V5C29: Approach to the Gang District

She was unable to confidently name the entity that had trapped her in the Bao District, nor was she too sure of the state of the others that had been trapped, although she was able to confirm that time had passed, and that she had not been forced into an illusion from the moment that the banquet began. On the contrary, it began far, far earlier, and seemed to start from the first time she gazed upon the walls of the district.

This wasn’t obvious due to reality and illusion appearing to match in most places, but none of the people that she had spoken to in the illusion had any memories of her in reality. Instead, they appeared to have ended up in an equivalent of the Fashionable Gentleman’s banquet in their illusory world, and were then trapped similarly to her. In fact, through their memories it was all the easier to confirm that, despite the seeming detail that she could remember from the darkened realm, she could not actually recall a single face, or many names, or much of the specifics of what she had done there, which matched with the experiences of the others.

Out of the names that she did catch, and out of the people that she had seen, the woman she had spoken with at the banquet did not appear to exist, and neither did Bao Jing, although both Bao Ru and Bao Kang Min were realm, just to name a few.

As she had broken through, she had dispersed the illusion for everyone, possibly including the Patriarch himself, and so they were momentarily preoccupied with understanding what had happened and did not notice the remnants of her energy. On one hand, she had wanted to speak with the Patriarch prior to ending up in the illusion, but on the other, it did not seem like a good idea to appear now, as she could always explain things after he has had the time to resolve any problems that might have occurred as a result of being trapped until the end of the month.

Given that she had ended up near the Bao District on the fourteenth, and then left on the first, it meant that she had wasted a good sixteen days on being trapped in an illusion, something that she wasn’t too fond of. She hoped that the growth of her abilities would make this less likely in the future, although, speaking of which, there was a great deal of developments with all of her cultivation paths.

Planar energy had reached the first stage of the Linked Channels realm, as one might be able to tell from the thin strands of energy that manifested upon her breakthrough. They joined what she could only call Astral Scars and her Endless Monolith, providing a constant bonus to all of her planar energy, although it also looked like the passive bonus of the one hundred joined marks was doubled by the Astral Scars, resulting in the full amplification of the marks being applied to her at all times. With the added channels, the overall increase was practically absurd.

She could already see the potential for the perfected realm bonus of this realm, as well, although she would need to get at least one perfected stage in order to have a better idea of what to expect.

The growth of her killing will was also relatively straightforward, more so due to remaining within the same realm as when she entered the darkened illusion. She was now at the very peak of the sixth realm of killing will, temporarily keeping it within the same realm as all of her other paths, and the next step would lead her onto the Yin-Yang Conduit realm. Once there, not only will the range of her energy grow by a significant margin, but she suspected that she would also be able to manifest the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow far more easily and in a far more stable form, although that stability would be impeded if she reached the realm before any of her other cultivation paths had the chance to advance even by a little bit.

For now, she was simply able to reach out even further beyond, and do even more with what she had. The shadow of her killing intent grew darker, the crimson became brighter, and the calm silver light of her spiritual will remained about the same, although its power still rose.

Her physique energy reached the next realm through a rather tremendous shortcut permitted by the sudden infusion of energy from the earthen entity. Originally, she would have had to work her way up to a full physique vein circulation throughout her system, but the burst of energy allowed her to instantly circulate the physique energy throughout all of her body and thus infuse it into everything, thus granting her the path to the next realm. At the same time, her physiques were also brought forward by a significant degree, which meant that she would need to take a little while to process all of them.

First and most significant, her Yin-Yang Ascendant physique rose by a stage, bringing her to the Imperial Yin-Yang Physique level. In simple terms, this meant that the effect of all of her other physiques was now two stages higher, and in more complex terms, it meant that she was receiving the same benefits from it as from her Dao, meaning that if the two were also able to combine together, even if it was somewhat inefficiently, she could easily raise the level of certain physiques by dozens of stages.

Her Sun Regalia and Moon Regalia alike rose to the first, Greater Stage. Soothing Moon rose to reach the equivalent Superior stage of the Bright Star physique, same with Silver Form and Mortal Deity. Concentrated Humanity and Displaced Sanity both advanced to the first, Pure stage, and her Blinding Glimmering Heart rose by one stage to become the Enlightening Glimmering Heart, presumably due to all of the earthen energy that she had been dealing with within the illusory realm of the earthen entity, whatever it was.

She had collected the ember of the remnants of the realm, and that brought the appropriate physique to the Superior Lord of Cinder stage, and as a result, she suddenly realised that a completely new – speaking in terms of what she had obtained, not in terms of what existed in the world – physique had been awakened within her body.

The Elder Watcher physique was a powerful one, with some relation to the Shaper’s Grasp and Conqueror’s Eye physiques, as well as those that made up the latter, and it was likely awakened due to the empowerment of her Third Eye and spiritual perception. It had two primary abilities according to various descriptions of it, with the first being the ability to see past illusions and various kinds of falsehood, although too few have possessed it to get any clearer descriptions than that. The second was much akin to the ability of Shaper’s Grasp, and partly synergistic with it, as it allowed the cultivator to distort reality and manifest their will upon the world.

‘In fact, that should work well enough with the Conqueror’s Eye, allowing me a little more control over conquered areas without needing to invoke Law,’ Wei Yi noted at a point in her journey.

With all of the time wasted getting out of the Bao District, she had not wished to waste even a single moment, so she did not pause to verify the effects of the physique. It did not seem to be too different from what it should be, so she didn’t have any complaints even if there were some minor variation in what she ended up being able to use. Simply having one or the other ability would assist her greatly, but having more would always be good too.

Back onto the topic of physiques, the Conqueror’s Eye had also advanced to the True Conqueror’s Eye, and that was essentially it for the list of physiques. She had not been able to gather up that many more since she had initially obtained most of those currently on the list, in no small part due to the fact that the requirements for obtaining a physique seemed to be quietly rising with her every realm, meaning that she was going to need certain abnormal situations like discovering an otherworldly clone of herself in order to make much more progress in that manner. Fortunately, the number of physiques did not directly translate to her power, so this was not as bad as if she had been unable to gather up more perfected stages.

Finally, her bloodline power had reached the sixth realm as well, that of Vital Elaboration, and it might well be the first realm in which she could hope to see some development beside the standard amplification of a bloodline.

Vital Elaboration, as one might guess from the name, focused on the power of the cultivator and advanced certain important elements of the body and blood beyond the level that one might consider human. Furthermore, it was meant to boost the so-called ultimate form that one could achieve via the previous realms of bloodline power cultivation, but since she didn’t quite possess an origin from which such a form might emerge, she had been unable to appreciate such benefits. This could very well change soon.

From the Vital Elaboration realm, she would be able to obtain some kind of ultimate form of her own, and by the peak of bloodline power, she would almost certainly be able to activate it when necessary to greatly empower her own strength, with the properties of this form being able to multiply the multiplier of bloodline power by at least a single fold, if not more. There could easily be other properties, but those would only emerge once she obtained them, and while she could always pursue specific abilities, the path of the Ascendant was still limited to a certain range of strengths and powers. Doubling other forms of power and consuming those that were compatible was the core, at least so far, and so that is what she expected to empower in the future.

If there was some kind of Blood of Law, or a Law Physique, or Law Killing Will, or perhaps a cultivation method named the Path of Law, then she suspected that she might have been able to reach much further, but for now, she could only make do with what she had, not that this was particularly limited in any significant way for the moment.

Within the first stage, she couldn’t say that she was feeling too much of a difference. So far, her internal organs and vital functions were about the same as she remembered them being, akin to that of a typical human but different thanks to her own work on improving her own body. Ideally, this would partly direct the path of Vital Elaboration, and would thus result in her retaining a certain vital element of humanity that she could identify within any single organ or muscle, but she knew those affected by Primordial Corruption, such as Mo Zhouquan, and knew there were other possibilities.

That black-blooded woman, as her current partner used to say, had been transformed significantly, and while she was outwardly very similar to anyone else in the district where they had met, her insides and her mind were both affected significantly, in a way that Wei Yi would prefer to avoid.

As for the thing that she had dealt with, her current guess was that it related to Primordial Earth, one way or another. With the powers displayed by it, as well as its capacity to subdue her perception to such an extent that she would gradually overlook more and more significant factors that would break her out of the illusion, not to mention the corrupting influence, it was very likely that it was some minion of a Primordial Deity, if not a fragment of one itself. She did not think that this was the actual Primordial Earth, however, as it was still meant to rest after the battle with Kong Shi Meng. If it had broken out, it would not need to plunge a domain into illusion in order to dominate it, which meant that it was not in an ideal state.

It would explain a great deal, however, if this theory was correct to any extent. The Bao District was incredibly rich in earth-type energy, and all of the gems were touched by it. Thus, they were likely manifested as a result of the Primordial Earth’s remaining power, although they did not appear to carry the same corruption as it did. Otherwise, she would not have left the district anywhere near as quickly as she did end up doing.

The question of why she had been immune to its direct influence was also unexplainable for now. As powerful and capable as she was, to completely endure a great quantity of corrupting influence flowing straight into her blood did not make much sense, no matter how one looked at it. Even at the very height of the fifth realm, with ideal conditions, she did not dare to call herself as powerful as things that had existed for countless years and had once dominated humanity as a whole. True, age was not the only deciding factor in one’s power, but what was clear was that the Primordial Deities were threatening entities, whether to Kong Shi Meng, Yi Shi Ming, the Greats or any other force, alive or dead.

Most likely, it would be some kind of lucky coincidence, but if there was something about her that specifically endured the power of the Primordial Deities, she would be rather concerned – not about them, but herself.

There would need to be something about her mind, body or energy that was specifically capable of combatting them, and that would suddenly make her a very valuable target for anything interested in either fighting the Primordial Deities, or ensuring that combatting them is impossible. The Blood-tinged Church had already made use of her blood and found her useful, so if they learned that she also had this ability somewhere in her bloodline, they would doubtless be intent on catching her as soon as possible. After that, only they knew what they would go on to do with her.

Being a sane person, at least for now, this was not something that she wished to happen, and so she was careful to keep her presence down and her attention up, just in case.

With her current state, travelling from district was even easier, especially with the sixth realm and the flight that it would enable her the moment that she figures out a way to adapt Law to manifest a sixth realm flight method. She could cross the gap between districts in half a day if she so wished, but there was one thing that she came across as she travelled that prevented her from rushing as quickly as she possibly could.

It was a beast-pulled carriage, with a large, long white-furred entity at the front that was practically dragging itself through the snow, its mouth open as, or perhaps so that, all of the snow in front was fed straight into its gaping jaw. Whether this was to feed the beast or for some other reason, she wasn’t sure.

These kinds of beasts weren’t particularly significant on their own, and it was instead the carriage and the person within that prompted her to drop back down to the ground. Within, she had seen someone familiar, and thus wished to see whether she could get a better view inside with her spiritual perception by literally finding some kind of excuse to enter. Although she was in the sixth realm with literally all of her cultivation paths, had a great improvement in the Earth Dao, obtained the Elder Watcher physique and improved her spiritual perception to the point that its invisibility to others became absolute, she still had limits to what she could observe.

For whatever reason, the carriage was sufficient to obstruct all of those.

‘This too, is Law… just as me saying or thinking that is likely to become Law soon enough, if it isn’t already. However, the only kind of absolute, immutable property is one that operates outside of the system that it attempts to affect, as, otherwise, it cannot overcome limitations. There are always boundaries, and breaching them cannot be a simple matter of effort, talent or energy,’ she thought while planning for the best spot to land, ‘The otherworldly demons have a good grasp of this, I think.’

Having met no experts on the matter from there just yet, she couldn’t be certain about this, but the fact that even people like Fu Zan were aware of a notion of a speed of light that no object with mass could reach or surpass due to the Laws of Orbis preventing it was a good sign that they were familiar with similar concepts, and likely more so than the Planar Continentals. Given the difference in their development and how they used the energy of their world, this only made sense. For those from Orbis, simply overpowering weaker restrictions was a little too costly.

With a familiar person, she could have jumped in quietly and calmly, but she decided that it was best to present a more accurate image of herself than what the person had originally seen. Thus, all the way from the sky, she simply fell onto the ground from a great height, not slowing herself at all.

She was tall and muscular, so she did have some weight to her, and through a quick application of the Earth Dao, her landing sent an enormous shockwave that forced the beast to a stop.

As she straightened her back and looked into the carriage from the front-facing window, she said loudly, “You seem like a familiar face. Would it be an issue for me to enter the carriage for some part of your journey?”

Naturally, even had they been close friends prior to this, such an entrance would have drawn some strange looks and strange thoughts, for there was no reason for a friend to drop in from the sky in such a literal and unexpected manner. The person on the inside looked at her in an attempt to recognise her, most likely, but due to her wearing only her Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival, she was not dressed in a style familiar to anyone in the southern regions.

“You’d done a rather good job at making a fur cloak for me, so I wished to thank you.”

Another pause followed, but after a little while, she could clearly see the woman in the carriage nod and open a door on the side for her, without any further invitations or statements.

She nodded back and quickly made her way over, for there was no particular reason to hold anyone up when they were both clearly heading somewhere, whether together and to the same destination or not. The door was ordinary in design, save for the material clearly repelling spiritual perception far better than most that she had seen, and the inside was much alike, with two places to sit at the front and back, facing one another. The woman sat at the back, facing the front, so she took the opposite position and sat on the side, as to not block the view too much.

Once the beast in front began to move again, the woman spoke first.

“I had not expected the cripple to get this far, even with the beast you had hunted.”

“I may have a single arm, but I am not crippled. Eventually, I will be stronger than I could have ever been with an ordinary arm, and it is only a matter of time before this occurs. Look,” Wei Yi manifested the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, dispersing it a moment later as to not make the limitations obvious, “That being said, a simple merchant travelling in a carriage like this…”

“The Gang family, for all its faults, remembers traditions and the past well. We remember much of what the rest of Yi City has forgotten,” the woman replied simply.

“Gang family… We are both heading to the same place, then, I assume? I think it would be best if we introduced ourselves, as neither of us were particularly forthcoming when we had last spoke at the Qiang District,” she suggested, not following up on the suggestion just yet.

“Is there much of a point? I was selling you a service, you made use of it. Must we go beyond that?”

“Fine, I will state the obvious. Near the peak of the sixth realm, with over fifty channels… you aren’t some ordinary merchant, not unless you’ve got the luck that the heavens wish they had. You are going to the Gang District in a rather effective carriage for hiding your energy and identity, and you are also more surprised to find that I have recovered so well, not that I am in the sixth realm, like you are. Who are you?”

The woman sighed, “Gang Xiu Ling. I had the chance to become Matriarch of the Gang District once, something that you are unlikely to know.”

“My name is Wei Yi. No such luck for me, although I have killed a Patriarch and fought a few more already. Ever heard of the Ascendant from up north?” the lack of a visible response did not deter her from continuing, “Given that you had the chance and ended up being a merchant at the very south, I can only assume that you either refused… or weren’t able to take it. I can always help, if you want, so long as you are better than the current Patriarch or Matriarch. Are you even interested, or should I just leave and go my own way?”

She had been able to remain calm before the mention of the offer, but Gang Xiu Ling’s face changed the moment after it, revealing a great deal of buried resentment through her eyes. After looking around, as if they were in a more public space than an otherwise empty carriage, her gaze returned to the Ascendant.

“Northern Ascendant… I think I recall something on the topic. Fine, I will be as clear and as straightforward as you wish me to be. It is true that I had wished to become Matriarch, and that I may very well have claimed the position without what happened next,” Gang Xiu Ling said, glaring at her, “There was another that vied for the position, and his name is Gang Shu Wen. After Gang Long, our previous Patriarch had died of old age, we were going to have a selection according to the old traditions of the Gang family, and this did proceed as expected at first. I say at first, because there is usually an unspoken understanding that certain topics be avoided.”

“Certain topics?”

“… There are a lot of things that the south does not approve of. We believe that we all have specific roles and positions, and that there are certain things that we simply shouldn’t do. For instance, we hold that marriage is a significant element of life, and that relationships were to be between men and women. Strictly speaking, there is no issue with other partnerships, but only for what one might call recreational purposes, and ideally never in public.”

“So, your opponent decided to reveal those kinds of things about you, and in doing so, even though you had never gone beyond the acceptable boundaries of southern society, he was able to use this to build up a case against you, leading to his victory and eventually your departure from the district.”

Gang Xiu Ling raised an eyebrow, “You are clearly not from the south with that kind of attitude. Also, have you been at the Gang District recently?”

“I merely used what you had mentioned to make some basic deductions. I would hope that most are capable of doing the same, or else I would be very concerned about the state of the world and of the people that I am attempting to aid with my battle against the Greats…” the Ascendant paused, “What exactly happened? I don’t know your selection process all too well, so it’s hard to know whether you even have the chance of returning.”

“In theory, I do. The process of deliberation and selection lasts for a whole year, but from the third day, he began providing a single bit of evidence for actions that contradicted the expectations of a new Matriarch. He had begun with the proof of my past female lover, which, since I was fully aware that I might need to occupy this position, I had been sure to keep quiet and reserved, as any previous Patriarch or Matriarch would have done. The next day, he came up with something else, and then something else the day after, and after a year of slowly bringing up more and more significant elements, I was found to be unsuitable,” Gang Xiu Ling explained, “One or two errors would have been tolerated, but so many…”

“Is the order in which he presented his findings the reason why you began with mentioning the southern stance on relationships?”

“Do I need even need to explain that I hold a grudge? The fucker could have begun with anything, and have presented anything, but he chose that, of all things… My former lover didn’t help, although it was clear that she had simply been trying to protect herself and her family…”

“… Right,” Wei Yi leaned forward, manifesting her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow so that she could lean on her left hand, a posture that she vastly preferred to using her right hand, “We have slightly shifted from the original topic, so let me just briefly return us to it so that we may be sure whether there even is any point to a conversation like this. Just imagine if we talk about all this and simply conclude that we cannot work together, or that the current Patriarch is one that would actually suit my interests far more.”

“You don’t think that he’s an asshole?”

“I’ve not met him, but for all I know, this is a necessary evil. Admit it, had you thought of it, you might have done the same.”

The woman opposite her frowned, but after a short while, she was unable to refute such a claim. Clearly, she was no saint either, which was to be expected for anyone that might have been at the top of any organisation or group. This was fine, though, since the Ascendant herself had long ago been convinced that any attempt at sainthood wouldn’t be good enough for what she wanted.

“So, let me ask the thing that I care about most, at least for the moment. Right now, and if you were to claim the position of Matriarch, what would your stance be on the Great Families? Do you believe it is best to elevate the power of the world, even if it puts us at risk, or to drop it as low as possible to keep us safe?” Wei Yi paused, wishing that she would have free reign to move her left arm without dispersing and manifesting it repeatedly, as that would allow her to put the two sides of the argument onto a metaphorical set of scales, “You may take your time, but I don’t really think that you need to do so. In this regard, a stance should have formed long ago within your mind.”

“You’re right. While I am not certain what would be best, I know what I want. The world must be stronger and better, never weaker, even if it is incredibly risky to us all. We did not construct walls and defences only for them to remain untested.”

“And the Greats?”

“I know less of them than you might wish me to, but what little I have been able to hear from my parents has convinced me that they are a blight to the world.”

Wei Yi scattered the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and reached out with her right hand, offering it to the future Matriarch, “In that case, we can very well get along for the moment, and I might even have some ideas for getting you out of your predicament, although you must obviously have some ideas of your own since you’ve decided to travel back to your home district. Let us work together and improve the world, Gang Xiu Ling.”

“I hope this goes well, Wei Yi.”