220 The Struggle is Real

Infinite darkness filled Leon's field of vision. He could not see anything. He seemed to have been robbed of all his senses, all except his own existence. 

He felt incredibly cold, not from his body but from the recess of his soul like he was fading away from existence. He felt helpless and couldn't do anything. He was just like a subconscious thought mindlessly drifting through the endless cold void without control.

'Did I fail?' Leon thought. 

He could fill his own consciousness slowly slipping away. 

'No, that shouldn't be the case… This dark void is different from that deathly monochrome void. I should have already left the dreamscape and returned to my real body.' 

'…Then was I too late?'

Leon could not think of any other reasonable explanation for his current state. It seems like his perception of the outside world has been sealed off and he was trapped in his own subconscious space.

He was still conscious of his own thoughts, but it was waning with time.

'This must be the moment of clarity before death…'

Leon was disappointed. It seems his body had already died. The reason he was still conscious of his own thoughts was that he had just returned to his body. It was just a matter of time before he was dead in both mind and body.

'I did what I could… There's no use crying over spilled milk now…'

Leon felt death creeping closer to him with open arms, but he did not repulse it, nor did he have the strength to. He was tired. He just wants to sleep for eternity.

His soul shook when he thought along such dangerous lines.

'No! I cannot fall asleep! If I give up now, it will really be over!' 

His mind screamed. His journey had barely started. He still had people to see and things to do! He refuses to be laid to rest here!

'Fight it! I must fight against this feeling!' 

Leon thought determinedly. He would grit his teeth if he could. 

'If there's a will, there's a way!'

What he needed to do right now was think, think of a solution to get himself out of his current predicament!

Leon began wracking his head anxiously. It was a race against time. 

One should remain calm in dire situations to make clearheaded and correct choices, but how can he do that when he knows he will die if he does not do something? 

In Leon's anxiety, he had forgotten one simple truth. His body was mortal. Only after overcoming Divine Damnation and reaching the Divine Origin Realm, would his soul be strong enough to survive without a living body for a period of time.

Although his current soul had a higher starting point and he had retained his divine sense ability, he was far from the same level as when he was still in the Divine Origin Realm. 

Drip…

The sound was very soft and sudden, but within the quiet subconscious space of his mind, Leon heard it clearly no matter how subtle it was. It was just a single drop of blood, but it was like the thin veil over his eyes had been lifted.

His blood had not run dry just yet. It was still bleeding. Leon was pleasantly surprised. For him to only hear a drop of blood now implies that his body was bleeding at an incredibly slowly.

Furthermore, it also would not have been possible to hear his blood dripping if his body wasn't positioned in a way that allows for it to happen.

'Should I say my luck is good for such a coincidence? Or should I say it's bad for landing myself in such a situation in the first place?'

Leon despondently thought. Nevertheless, he was pleased to know he was still alive.

'It seems my perception to the outside has not been completely cut off and had only been sealed inside as a form of self-preservation mechanism of the body, allowing me to hold out longer by conserving energy."

'This should be what it feels like to be in a pseudo-death state... but the chances of a person being conscious in a pseudo-death state, I'm probably the first due to a strange string of events and happenstance.' 

Leon continued wryly. He didn't want to sound arrogant, but he had not heard of such precedents in all his time as a doctor. 

Maybe one day when he had settled down somewhere, he should write a book about his life experience…

Leon shook his mind. 

'While I am not dead yet, I'm also not far from it and eventually will be if nothing is done to stop it. I cannot wait for someone to come save me; I can only rely on myself. I doubt anyone else can enter after I succeeded in escaping the dreamscape.'

Arden was very thorough in passing his inheritance. There can be multiple candidates, but only one true successor. 

If he had died inside the dreamscape, the inheritance building would reset itself for the next challenger, but since he managed to escape, the dreamscape most likely no longer exists.

But no matter how thorough Arden was, the great genius would have never guessed that his successor was about to die after passing his final trial, ending his legacy.

Leon could imagine Arden rolling in his grave and cursing his nine generations, should he fail at this point.

At this moment, what he needed to do was reestablish his connection to the outside world and regain control of his body. This was the hard part. What followed after was the easy part. 

However, Leon did not have any good methods to go about tackling this problem. Everything was dependent on his will. 

Like a person in a vegetative state trapped in a beautiful dream, they would be really unwilling for it to end. Unless they were willing or received strong outside stimulus that aroused their emotion, they would never wake up.

'I'm obviously conscious and clear of my reasons and desire to get out… but it's not working. Why is this so?'

'What's also concerning is I can still feel my elemental seeds, but I can't tap into their power. Something feels different.'

'What is happening to my body?'

He was supposed to be an expert when it comes to human anatomy but mixed with a cultivation system he was still exploring and limited senses, it was like trying to understand something with his eyes covered and hands and feet tied. He did not have a clue. 

He could only guess that this change was brought by his Five Element Body. 

Time trickled by but no matter how hard Leon willed it, it was to no avail. He could not escape his own subconscious space. 

He began losing track of time. A long time seemed to have passed and the sound of his blood dripping could no longer be heard for some time. 

Did his body run out of blood or did his wound finally closed up? 

He didn't know. His mental strength was slipping away, and his consciousness began fading in and out. He had lost count of how many times this had happened.

The next time he came to, he was very weak, very cold. His sense of sight seemed to have returned but darkness filled his vision. The room was dark and gloomy. 

His body was laid on top of a stone coffin and his blood that dripped down from it had already solidified.

"I'm… back?"

Leon said feebly with parched lips. He had lost too much blood and his body refused to move.

He didn't have time to celebrate. Although he came back, he didn't know when he was going to lapse in unconsciousness again and perhaps for the last time at that. He knew what he had to do. 

Despite his body's objection to moving, Leon fished out a pill bottle with the highest tier of healing he had with shaky hands. 

The next hurdle was not one he would have imagined until this day, removing the lid from the pill bottle. It was a real struggle. 

It was like an internal battle between two monkies, representing his mind and body each. They wrestled and one screamed 'noooo', while the other screamed, 'yessss' repeatedly.

A long and arduous battle was fought before the mind won. 

Leon didn't count how many tier-3 healing pills he had plopped into his mouth afterward before he lapsed back into unconsciousness due to exhaustion.

Half an hour later, he regained consciousness again for the Nth time. This time, although he was still weak, he had finally overcome death and his life was no longer in danger.

Leon got the chance to finally observe the real interior of the inheritance building. Looking around, he noticed that high-level plants had grown inside here around the stone coffin. 

However, they had all wilted and died. It seemed really recent. 

On the ground, piles of dust filled the place. Or rather, they were all crystal fragments. Judging by the amount, there were at least several thousand crystals when it was still intact. 

"Are these all from transcendent crystals?!"

Leon became shocked at once. What happened here!? Did Arden leave a bunch of scraps to tell him something? Or did something else happened here that he doesn't know about!?

"It's impossible for my own body to have absorbed so much energy. It would explode from overloading." 

Leon frowned before his pale face suddenly paled even more. 

"My cultivation… what happened to all my cultivation!?"