Chapter 50: Chapter 50

I cannot figure it out. I have spent days, now, probing the black sphere that hovers above my sea of consciousness but below my inner vessel. I understand, through that mechanism that living creatures call intuition, that it is hollow but I cannot find an access point.

It appeared, at first, as a black blob but over time it stabilized itself into a perfectly spherical shape — like a celestial object — and its exterior became shiny like metal. I know it is hollow. I know it has a purpose. I just don’t know how to get inside it, or what its purpose is.

Over these past few days, the only difference I notice is a faint flash of gold light, like a transient hum of sword Qi, or a flash of array symbols refracting on the surface of the sphere from within.

This thing devoured most of the valuable materials and items that Li Feng’s ring had stored, and there was no way to get them back without going inside. If they were even still there. After all, this appeared as a result of my new World Eater talent, though I hate to call it a talent because I was not able to activate it yet.

At first I thought, since the name suggests it could eat the world, that I could casually devour dirt or air, but when I opened my aperture, nothing happened. Even Zhao Wei did not get devoured. Only his spatial ring.

I wince internally — or at least I pretend to wince, since I cannot really feel pain — at the thought of losing Zhao Wei’s ring too.

Despite the catastrophic loss and unspeakable failure of recovering valuable materials, I still consider the whole situation to be an overall triumph. Lan Xiaohui’s heart is like steel now. Where before I worried that she had not decided in her heart to follow this path and to sever herself from her previous attachments, there is now no such concern.

Even the betrayal and the prospect of having the closest thing to comrades try to kill her did not dampen her mood in the aftermath. If anything, her mood improved. As if she didn’t just eliminate dangerous enemies, but extinguished the poisons in her heart.

Even though my attention is entirely committed to deciphering the strange object in my sea of consciousness, as it likely holds the key to unlocking my World Eater talent, that does not mean that I completely ignore Lan Xiaohui, or pay no attention to her.

Technically.

A part of my consciousness is devoted to her entirely, both in the case of an emergency where she has to use the mnemonic, but also to observe her and regard our surroundings. My perception now reaches a total of 75 steps after the improvements I received from devouring Li Feng’s ring — which was a welcome surprise if the nature of it wasn’t so unwelcome.

However, the largest parts of my consciousness are devoted to operating the Array and training my perception. I do not have a method yet to further improve my body cultivation, and cultivating my Qi is not efficient without the dual cultivation method.

Lan Xiaohui has enjoyed a nomadic lifestyle in the past few days, if it could be called enjoyment. She has still to recover fully from the battle against Li Feng. In the final moments of that battle, she had deflected Li Feng’s most powerful technique in which he poured his life essence, and though it appeared that Lan Xiaohui was unharmed, it turned out not to be the case. Her hand got caught in the blast, where she was holding her sword, and the heat had severely injured her.

Recovery would require high grade medicinal pastes.

But that is not the main reason. Her spiritual reserves were exhausted. She also fought to the very limit of her abilities and poured in everything she had in order to withstand Li Feng. She may not have looked like it, or made it even appear effortless, but that was not the case.

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It has been four sun cycles since that battle, and she had not slept since then. She rested briefly, when the opportunity would present itself, but she mostly stayed on the move. Progress was slow. This close to the innermost region of the forest meant that there were many demonic beasts around. Even I am aware of their existence, despite being unable to see them. Every now and again, the sounds of battle would reach me, accompanied by the howls of powerful creatures.

Against cultivators, one could defeat another of a higher stage of cultivation so long as their Dao was deeper, and their martial art was more profound. But demonic beasts were different. To a certain extent, martial arts can make up for the lack of body cultivation, but even I know that this only works up to a certain point.

The creatures that lurk here may be beyond that point. If Lan Xiaohui runs into a demonic beast that is in the Peak of Foundation Establishment — like Wukong — it is not certain if she would even be able to escape with her life, much less fight to a draw or win.

Lan Xiaohui’s exploration is not for nothing. She explores in a radius around her. She neither intends to advance further within the Forbidden Ancestral Hunting Ground, nor retreat outward. She intends to stay and goes through the motions of reconnaissance. She is not arrogant about it either — she needs several days of rest and recovery.

The spot she picked out to scout is upstream of the small pond where she fought Li Feng and at a point where the stream split, she followed this new stream to another pond. This pond was not out in the open like the other one, but rather inside a grotto that seemed to have been created naturally.

Unlike the previous cave, this one did have strong ambient Qi, and it being a grotto did not diminish the presence of natural wildlife. Strangely enough, there were passive creatures inside, with cultivations as deep as Qi Refining, yet they showed no hostile intent or fear towards Lan Xiaohui.

The floor was overrun by vegetation, and thick moss grew on the stone walls of the grotto. In total, it was about fifty steps deep and wide, and thirty steps tall, though most of this area was dominated by the pool in the center of the chamber.

Here, Lan Xiaohui made her temporary home after scouting the surroundings and ensuring that they were safe. By my approximations, I didn’t think that the surroundings would be safe, but perhaps Li Feng and Zhao Wei had already killed the most dangerous beasts. Or perhaps someone else did.

Or perhaps there was a mystery about this grotto, considering the presence of creatures that did not want to eat Lan Xiaohui.

Of those creatures, the spiritual elk seems the most eminent, with a cultivation base in the peak of the Qi Refining realm. The other creatures — two doe, several hamsters, a few birds, and a small fox — did not have cultivations anywhere near as impressive.

After reaching this place, Lan Xiaohui sighs happily and moves to a comfortable spot near the pond, where she lies down, hugs me to her chest, and goes to sleep at once.

At the same time, I notice the black sphere inside my sea of consciousness shimmer and flash, as if something passed through its surface.

Interesting.

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