Chapter 179: Another Illusion?

In the Grand Meeting Hall when Sect Leader Su had first mentioned Sword Stele, Ye Tian Yun was inwardly surprised by this name, not because it was anything special, rather, Ye Tian Yun had never heard of this to ever exist in the Gracious Sword Sect, be it in this life, or his previous one.

And even at that time, he chose to ignore this part and thought that Sword Stele was something very tightly hidden secret of the Gracious Sword Sect. And as its name suggested, this place was most probably something related to increasing Sword Cultivation and helping breakthroughs in the Sword Intent.

But later, when Ye Tian Yun came to the so-called Sword Stele, he was even more surprised to find out that as per Elder Lai Chang, this place had nothing to do with Sword Cultivation, but rather, here, the qi density was so high that if someone cultivated here, their cultivation would rise at a tremendous speed.

At first, when he had heard of this description, Ye Tian Yun immediately had a guess of what this place could be. 

But his guess turned out to be wrong because the Sword Stele was actually an underground hall, which was so scenic that it was like a picnic spot for anyone. Even though this place had high qi density, the source of this qi was very different from what Ye Tian Yun had guessed.

It was a waterfall.

This waterfall was coming from the ceiling above and anyone in the hall could sense that this waterfall was the reason why this place has such high qi density.

If all these things were not surprising enough, Ye Tian Yun also got to know about the presence of Chaos Qi, mixed in the normal qi, coming from the waterfall.

However, even though Chaos Qi was very helpful in increasing sword cultivation, this fact was only known to Ye Tian Yun, not to sect leader Su.

So, how could they name this place 'Sword Stele', when there's clearly nothing else related to Sword in this place?

This question did appear in Ye Tian Yun's mind, and this made him feel suspicious that the Sect was trying to hide something in here. And the exact same guess once again appeared in his mind.

This was also the reason why Ye Tian Yun wanted to be doubly sure if there were any spying arrays or someone looking after this place and his actions, in this hall or outside it.

To make the Sect hide its true purpose, Ye Tian Yun had a feeling that this place was quite important to the Sect, and this was also the reason why he thought that there was most probably going to be someone spying on this place.

But to his surprise, the System confirmed that this place was unmonitored, and no one was recording or spying on his actions.

This made him doubt his suspicions, but he didn't think much and focused on preparing himself to practice Sword Intent.

Soon, after performing acupuncture on himself, Ye Tian Yun began to practice sword moves and focus on slowly releasing his sword intent.

But all this came to a sudden halt as everything around him began to disappear and only one thought appeared in his mind - "It was an illusion!"

It took some time for Ye Tian Yun to recover himself from the shock and surprise as the whole greenery slowly disappeared, along with the waterfall at the center.

The source of this hall's high qi density actually turned out to be an illusion.

If this wasn't enough to make him question what was going on, the qi density in the hall remained the same!

This meant that the source of all this was actually not present here!

Ye Tian Yun frowned as he stared from one corner of the hall to the other.

Everything in front of him had changed. The trees were gone, the grass was gone, the waterfall was gone.

Even though the hall was someone still lit and Ye Tian Yun could clearly see everything, there wasn't actually much to see from.

The hall had suddenly turned into a cave.

With stone walls and sand all over the place, Ye Tian Yun couldn't help but sigh as he found himself in this situation.

'How come I didn't notice this illusion earlier?'

Ye Tian Yun asked the question to himself, and he did have a guess for this question.

'Was my natural spirit sense not enough? Because the illusion only disappeared after I began to release my Sword Domain.'

This guess seemed quite valid to him.

The natural spirit sense was the spirit sense that Ye Tian Yun had without releasing and focusing on his Sword Intent.

And when Ye Tian Yun began to release his Sword Domain, his spirit sense also began to increase and soon reached a level where it was enough for him to see through the illusion present in the hall.

Ye Tian Yun took a deep breath as he thought of the current situation. With the illusion disappeared, he felt that he suddenly got more space to cultivate and practice his Sword moves.

However, before doing anything, he needed an answer to a very important question.

'System, since everything here was an illusion, why didn't you tell me about it? Or is it that you couldn't see through this illusion?'

[Host, System only answered the doubts and questions you asked. It so no importance in telling you this was an illusion]

'No importance? How could you say that?' Ye Tian was confused by System's reply.

[Host, the reason was simple - if there is an illusion of not, it wasn't going to harm you, neither was it going to affect your cultivation]

'Well, this may be true, but aren't you here to help me? I don't think it wasn't much of an effort for you to tell me this was an illusion or not. What if someone attacked me? I was in an illusion that this place was a jungle, and I wouldn't even know how I died if someone really decided to attack me in this situation.'

[Host does not need to worry about such situations. If such a situation did occur, System would have long since warned you about it and helped you save yourself from an early death.]

Ye Tian Yun pursed his lips and asked, "Also, what about the answers you gave me, are you sure that no one can sense or spy on my actions and sword domain?"

[Host, System can reassure you that there's no one seeing your actions or sensing your cultivation. However, it would also suggest that you don't let go of Sword Domain at once, and take things slowly. Releasing the Sword Intent at once might create big changes in the surroundings, and someone with a high realm of Sword Intent, might sense your Sword Domain.]

Ye Tian Yun nodded his head, "I will take care of that."

Then, he asked, "Also, System, what do you think is the source of this high qi density? Is it what I think it is?"

[What do you think, Host?]

"Hm? DIdn't you once say you can hear my thoughts? How come you can't tell my thoughts right now?"

[Host, it's not that System is aware of all your thoughts and plans, it just sees your actions and it can only know the thoughts that are directed towards itself.]

Ye Tian Yun frowned as he heard the System's response, "You can hear only the thoughts that are directed at you? It's hard to believe…"

[Host, it is not an impossible thing to know only the thoughts other people have regarding us. In fact, there is at least one cultivator in every generation who can do this.]

"There's one in every generation!? Who's the person in my generation who can know the thoughts of others around him or her?"

[Insufficient Fate Points.]

Ye Tian Yun rolled his eyes when he heard the response, "I should have expected this," Then, scratching his chin, he asked, "To be able to hear what others think about us… doesn't that make it hard for anyone to scheme against them since this person will also know what our plans are?"

[Yes Host, this person will indeed be a tough enemy]

Ye Tian Yun nodded his head, "Well, we will see if we ever encounter such a person. For now, it's time to go back to cultivation."

He then once again looked around but saw nothing which could help him identify the source of the high qi density. 

But then, another question appeared in his mind, 'Don't tell me this is another illusion?"

How could there be high qi density for no reason? There has to be something behind all this, and there weren't even vents at this place which could allow the qi to seep in, not to forget that there were instead arrays which stopped anything from outside to enter and anything from inside to get out of the hall.

Thus the question arose in Ye Tian Yun's mind, "Is this another illusion?"