Path of the Ascendant

Over the next few days, Yi Fenwu’s group brought over their supplies and settled down on a hill overlooking Yi Jiazhi’s camp. In between them, a small trading area was formed, for the two groups to trade their items between one another in relative peace. The tents of both leaders were moved to overlook that area, and thus, if either side had any particular grievance with the other, one leader was able to appear and solve the issue before any significant infighting could arise.

Generally, there were not too many conflicts between Yi Fenwu and Yi Jiazhi, nor their teams, but the former would occasionally fire a few regular arrows in the vague direction of Yi Jiazhi’s camp, though it was relatively easy to escape for most cultivators.

Once the initial tension passed, Yi Wei had the opportunity to sneak away from the encampment and return to her cultivation.

Although her stage was stagnant for the past few months, she had not been avoiding cultivation – far from it. She had been spending several hours every week or so on her planar cultivation, which would have been more than enough for her to break through a dozen times had she still been in the Energy Condensation realm, but only got her to the peak of the first stage after all this time.

With the threats of an uncertain killer and Yi Fenwu, she knew that it was important to be prepared for either of them coming for her, and thus she settled down today to break through at any cost… well, most costs, with a few specific exceptions.

‘Following the pattern of my previous realm, I should expect to have a development within my planar energy half-way through. However, I already have solid internal energy, so I am not too sure on what could come next, but I am almost certain that it is this process that is causing this realm to be so difficult to advance in,’ Yi Wei thought, finding the spot richest in planar energy in the nearby area before setting up a number of arrays to obscure her presence.

Once that was done, she sat down, activating the current form of the Mysterious Character technique to absorb planar energy.

Actually, that was another curious element of her cultivation. Every single time she broke through, the characters changed and seemed to describe an entirely new technique, but, in truth, they were mostly the same with the notable exception of the wording of each stage, which had confused her for some time until she just accepted that as a quirk of the mysterious characters.

Planar energy surged into her body, flowing through the planar meridians – the ones that stored the Dawn Stars and coursed with planar energy, as opposed to the physique meridians that only held yang physique energy – and into the dantian, where the rough, gaseous energy barely contributed to the enormous solid sphere of cosmic energy. Ten minutes, then thirty and sixty passed by, and yet almost no progress was made. It reminded her of the time when she had to cultivate on her own, with the only aid provided by the mysterious characters being their demanding nature when it came to her cultivated energy.

As a result, although the significant drop in progress was disappointing, it was not disheartening.

The second hour passed, and then the third and the fourth. Only once the fifth hour came about did she begin to feel the energy within her dantian overflowing.

‘Still, just this much might not even allow me to break through before all of this excess energy flows away. Time for slightly drastic measures,’ she thought, reaching into her pocket for the remaining talisman papers, which she threw out onto the floor, arranging them into a large square.

Biting down deeply into her finger, all the way down to the bone, and drew on all talisman papers as if they were a single enormous talisman, her solid planar energy surging inside to create a two-star planar collecting talisman. Arcs of violet lightning surged between the gaps of the paper, leaving burn marks that quickly grew to cover all of the edges. Before the paper was destroyed completely, she activated the talisman.

That very moment, thunder rumbled above her, and a thin lightning bolt fell down from the heavens, striking the middle of the oversized talisman. It turned to ash instantly, but the effect had already begun. A wave of planar energy, so thick that it was visible to Yi Wei’s naked eye, rushed to her, breaking into her body and forcing itself into her planar aperture.

It continued, flooding more and more energy into the tight walls of the dantian, but even as the effect ran out, it still seemed that it would be insufficient.

‘Right, that is an issue…’ she looked around for any possible solutions to the problem, like convenient talisman paper left behind by someone else, but nothing caught her eyes. Her spiritual will, on the other hand, sunk into the ground and brushed up against what appeared to be an ancient array.

‘This! I’m not sure what it’s for, but it can draw in energy, and it can do so much better than the talismans I’m capable of making,’ Yi Wei quickly analysed the formation array’s structure and picked out the nodes that she needed to keep, ‘Now, if I break away this, this and this link, then put my energy into this node…’

She quickly executed every step of the process by sending in thin blades of liquid planar energy, finishing off with injecting a large quantity of it into the core of the array.

For a second or two, the array flickered, unwilling to accept its new role, but after that it began to draw in planar energy from within the nearest kilometre. It was not immediately pulled to Yi Wei’s body, but it instead formed a large sphere around her, where the planar energy condensed into gaseous and then liquid form before two streams of violet energy raced to her abdomen.

That was enough for her breakthrough to begin.

Her planar energy permeated throughout her body as it burst out of the planar aperture, flooding her body as it rebuilt her body for a second time, though it only tore apart the more minor elements within her rather than every single bone and muscle.

The blood vessels, the physical echo of the meridians and the nerves in her body were torn and then repaired, as before, on the energy’s path outside her body. It formed a solid shell around her, tightly enveloping every feature, every tiny hair and eyelash, before receding and returning as she experienced the second, perfected stage breakthrough. It repeated the same process, strengthening her every hair and vein, and when it returned to her dantian, she could see that it had somehow grown even denser, which she thought to be impossible.

‘What could possibly come after a solid state? Some sort of… void state? Nah, there’s no point thinking about it. Instead, I should check out what this-’

She turned around as she felt some disturbance within the surrounding area, but what greeted her was not some beast or human, but an enormous tear within space itself, a large hole within the air between a few trees that led to a great stone hall. White smoke poured from the spatial gateway, filling the area.

‘Did… did this show up as a result of me tampering with the array? I thought that if I damaged a spatial array, the space within would collapse…’ she frowned, checking her memories before shaking her head decisively, ‘No, this can’t be an isolated space. Then, it must be an illusory wall, or an illusory world, and it likely opened up due to me removing the array that kept it hidden.’

Yi Wei stood up and brushed off her clothes, picked up her spear-arrow, and entered the illusion.

Within the illusory spatial tear, a great hall, with pillars of grey stone that were as tall as the largest trees within the forest, holding up the dark ceiling as if it were the sky. In the distance, within what appeared to be the middle of the hall, stood a familiar pillar, with a faint beam of light going up from its centre and into a small hole within the ceiling.

Naturally, she went straight for it after confirming that there were no obvious threats in sight. Just in case, she used a defensive technique and stretched out her spiritual will to detect any incoming threats, regardless of what they were.

She crossed half of the dark hall safely, turning part-way to examine the sight behind the illusory tear. Despite not being physically possible, the hall expanded behind it as well, stopping far away from the point of entry. At the walls, there were countless faint shapes that resembled chains, hanging from the ceiling and bound to the floor, occasionally rattling and sending echoes of metal hitting metal throughout the stone hall.

Her long walk was paused when she didn’t hear stone underneath her foot, but metal. As she glanced down, she saw a golden line, a part of a golden circle that went all around the stone pedestal.

A blade descended onto her from behind.

Yi Wei leapt out of the way, blinking as she did so, and the scene before her was completely different. An endless battlefield, a floor of sand and countless bodies armoured in bronze and silver, with various weapons in them and in the ground. Each weapon had either a blue or a red ribbon attached to their handles which waved in the strong wind of the deserted plains.

Currently, eight bronze warriors surrounded her, holding swords, spear, guandao and sabres, red ribbons tied onto their weapons. Their helmets covered up their faces and revealed nothing other than pairs of glowing red eyes.

Two figures lunged at her, one targeting her neck while the other attacked her legs. She evaded the first via Storm’s Edge Dash and appeared right next to the other foe.

Her fist struck the figure’s head with full force, combining lightning and dawn light into a simple punch.

However, the armoured humanoid was unmoved. Her hand bounced off the armour, doing little more than creating a small scratch on its surface. It was as if these soldiers were all impeccable experts, shielding their entire bodies with pure defensive planar energy in such a fashion that any strike was absorbed and ignored completely-

‘Wait! This doesn’t make sense! Where did they come from? Why can’t I sense any trace of cultivation in their bodies? How am I here, all of a sudden?’ her mind raced as she activated every mental technique in her arsenal to make sense of recent events, ‘That’s right! I was in an illusory world, so whatever these things are, there is a high chance that they are fake, and that this entire battlefield is a simple illusion! Why didn’t I realise that quicker?’

As the Kong Mental Arts planar energy entered her mind, in combination with her comprehension of events, the world around her flickered and, with the sound of breaking glass, shattered completely, leaving her back within the stone hall.

Yi Wei heaved a sigh of relief, ‘Phew. I wonder who had such an imagination as to put together an immense battlefield like that, with so many fallen warriors. It felt like it was endless…’

 

Atop the void, within a simple seat, a woman with hair that was all white except for its black tips, that lay near her knees, stared into the beyond. She was expressionless, but behind her eyes one could glimpse an endless battlefield, stretching on for all eternity.

 

Now that she had a better opportunity to take in the golden circle, she realised that it was part of an enormous array inscription, surrounding the central pillar and containing a number of various formation arrays that were no lower than five stars. Without a shadow of a doubt, whoever created this particular illusory realm was an expert, no, a genius, a grandmaster in the craft.

She paused for a moment to carefully memorise it all, in the hopes of learning something from this wonderful creation. Judging by the fact that it was difficult for her to fully take it all in within a second, there was likely quite a number of insights into the Dao within its construction, and it would be immensely helpful for her to understand even a fragment of it in the future. If she was able to correctly recreate it, or perhaps even improve it, then she could be unconquerable for those with feebler minds beneath the sixth realm.

With it in mind, she made sure to avoid any potential areas for triggering the array again and attempted to head toward the pedestal in the middle.

Yet, despite that, when she was within reach of that obelisk, she felt another illusion form around her. It was a simple arena, with candles sitting in a circle on the outside, with a lone figure standing opposite her.

“Thee, who doth trespass upon these grounds, thou hath proven that thou art capable in one quarter of the arts of the Kong. Thine mind is strong, but to test thine skill, I wish to combat thee in this world without thine illusory breaking,” the figure bowed, revealing itself to be a bald, aged man, with spectral features and thin body covered by red robes that were in turn covered by several pieces of bronze armour.

“Kong? These hidden grounds belong to the Kong family?” Yi Wei asked, ‘My mental arts also originate from them, presumably, so that would explain why they were so effective against that array.’

“Indeed. With the assistance of a master, they were initially built to assist in the training of our disciples, but mid-way through, we had no choice but to conceal them, for our family was collapsing and our greatest son refused to assist us.”

‘Then this was built before the fall of the Kong family, which no longer has a district to their name. They lost their land a long, long time ago, so this hidden realm must be ancient,’ she thought, ‘Their greatest son… I wonder if that is related to the creator of the Kong Mental Arts, who rejected the family name.’

“Who is this ‘greatest son’?”

“Kong Shi Meng, the prodigy, the heir apparent, the reincarnation of our ancestors. Despite that, he was not loyal to the family, clearly lacking in his filial piety, and thus he left us at our most difficult time.”

‘Kong Shi Meng… I’ve never heard of that name, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it was simply lost to time, like so many other people, great deeds and creations. Not everyone has the fortune to become as powerful and well-known as the Master of Yi City, after all,’ Yi Wei considered, “I see. So, you want to fight me? Are you going to lower your cultivation to my level?”

The figure shook its head, “I hath no cultivation, for I am a mere illusion. In terms of power, I will be similar to thee, but if thou art more skilled, or sufficiently capable to withstand me for five minutes, it shalt be my loss.”

“As long as you’re not going to be like the bronze warriors, who withstood a punch at my full strength, I don’t see any issue.”

“Nay, they were incorporeal creatures, merely figments of the imagination of their creator, inspired by our tools and weaponry,” the bald man explained, bowing to her a second time, “I am Kong Dong Ming, or, rather, I was created with him as my base. Perhaps thou shalt be able to find his legacy within the hidden grounds, if thou art fortunate.”

Seeing that he remained in that bow, she returned it, and when she rose, so did he. Kong Dong Ming reached into the air and pulled out an hourglass, which he flipped and tossed into the air. It struck some invisible point in the air and froze, except for the grains of sand within that began to fall.

At the same time, he straightened his back and put his arms by his sides.

‘He wants me to attack first? Well, I prefer being on the offensive nonetheless,’ Yi Wei thought and rushed at him, ready to use both Dawn Flowing Light and Elysian Palm.

However, the moment she entered within a certain range of him, he threw up one hand and balled it up into a fist while radiant blue energy surged through his arm and into his fist, lighting it up from the bone to the skin.

“Light of Divinity!” Kong Dong Ming yelled, causing an enormous circle of light to appear before him, creating an enormous formation array on the ground while the blue energy congealed around his hand, forming into the shape of a great hammer, engraved with ornate shapes and decorations that had a slight golden sheen.

She looked down and saw that she stood right within the circle, and that it was slowly getting brighter.

Her figure suddenly shifted a few metres back, just in time to witness a thick beam of light descend upon the circle, melting the stone around it into a crimson magma.

As it faded, Yi Wei was sure that if she had stood beneath it, even if she used every means at her disposal, she would not be able to survive, ‘Except for the fact that he compromised his ability to use this to trick me in the future by yelling a certain line while using this technique, it is a very impressive skill. I’m not sure if he has misunderstood my level of power, or if that ‘Light of Divinity’ is so powerful even at the second realm.’

Regardless, that attack had to have been costly on his energy, so she returned to her initial plan and appeared behind the man, striking his spine with an incredibly concentrated wave of Dawn Flowing Light. Her fist hit his flesh, but it bounced off, leaving only a minor bruise. As he began to turn, she retreated via Storm’s Edge Dash.

‘He said his power would be similar to mine, but not his body. I see what he did, but it won’t be enough. I still have Scarlet Metal Strike, so no matter how tough he is, I can bring him down.’

The man lowered both hands, motioned as if he was grabbing onto something, then raised it with great effort, “Ancestral Call!”

Before she had an opportunity to mentally reprimand this illusion, she saw the stone all around her shake as several large groups of stone totems burst out of the ground, atop which blue light condensed into the top halves of humanoid forms, abruptly cutting off at the torso. They had two long, large arms and small heads, with a single brighter clump of blue energy acting as an eye in the middle of their heads. Other than that, they were mostly featureless, lacking mouths or any clear semblance of basic anatomy or muscle definition.

Out of the five groups of ten that appeared, one surrounded her completely. Four of the glowing figures were within reach of her, and the moment they understood that, they attacked. Four great fists rose into the air, and four descended on the spot where Yi Wei stood a second prior.

The surface beneath their fists was crushed to dust, leaving behind a large pit where they struck.

‘Really? He’s strong and these things are strong as well? This reminds me of that Red Phantom Flood, except these actually benefit their user,’ she complained, charging a Storm Burst on her hand.

As soon as it was ready, she leapt towards the blue figure and launched a bolt of lightning towards the totem atop which it floated. It raised its fist towards her, but the moment the lightning touched the totem, it crumbled into dust, and the blue figure dispersed instantaneously, as if it hadn’t just demonstrated the strength of an expert body cultivator.

No matter how strange that was, Yi Wei wasn’t planning to complain just because things got easier. She obliterated the group with Dawn Flowing Light, then glanced in the direction of Kong Dong Ming to see what he was doing.

“The Touch of God!” the man shouted, thrusting his fist at her as his blue energy erupted into a great beam.

“F-” her cursing was interrupted by the sudden use of Storm’s Edge Dash, which knocked out most of the air in her lungs, “You’re yelling out every single technique you use, and yet they’re still this ridiculously destructive. How in the heavens had you ever used these in the real world? You’d obliterate the entire area just to kill an insect, you madman!”

“That is the way of the Kong! We practise the mental arts, and we annihilate our enemies! Ancestral Eyes!”

She had dashed over to a cluster of the so-called ancestors, expecting them to attack in the same fashion that they had before, but as soon Kong Dong Ming said those last two words, their behaviour clearly changed. The blue light in the middle of their heads suddenly turned bronze, and their initial clunky movement changed to be far more fluid… and familiar. Even without the man’s helpful screams, she knew that two were about to use Light of Divinity, while another three were preparing the Touch of God, whilst the others…

‘Don’t tell me that they can also call upon more ancestors?’

Even as two glowing circles appeared on the floor, she ignored them, releasing five concentrated beams of sunlight at the totems of the last five ancestors, while, somewhat foolishly, calling out the name for the technique, “Dawn Slicing Beam!”

It wasn’t done out of some desire to show off her ability – though she was proud of it – but rather out of anger that the illusory man was able to do so well despite yelling out the name of every single move. That was such a bad practise that even the majority of the idiot battle junkies within the Yi family refrained from it, and yet this illusion could get away with it despite supposedly being at her level of power.

“Ha! Thou doth understand our ways!”

“Your ways? That is pure stupidity! All you’re doing is letting your enemies learn your moves! You act like you’re showing off, but anyone who is actually impressed by your nonsense is even more foolish than you!” she spoke with a raised voice, punctuating her last sentence with an Earth-Shaking Step.

That was a movement technique with the auxiliary purpose of disturbing nearby foes via sending a large tremor through the ground. Luckily, it did just enough damage to shatter the ancestor totems, but not in time to disturb the tremendous beam of the Light of Divinity, which crashed down upon her location.

‘You’ve got a powerful attack? Then I’ll get a powerful attack!’ she exclaimed mentally, ‘Bestial Palm!’

Although she had initially dismissed that skill as not being too beneficial to her, it did have a function that was immensely useful in the current situation – it was created to mimic a beast’s retaliation when they are cornered, to recreate their last attempt to take down their foe, even at the cost of their own life. As a result, if faced with an attack that was more powerful than her own, it would grow in strength to match it.

A planar construct of some uncertain beast burst out of her palm, expanding to cover her completely as it flew upward to meet the blue beam, the product of two half-formed Lights of Divinity.

When it was struck, it nearly collapsed that same instant, but the properties of the Bestial Palm caused the planar construct to ignite with twice the power, causing the beast to change form and the energy contained within to burst out.

Yi Wei took advantage of the temporary barrier and used another Storm’s Edge Dash, clearing the area of the beam and appearing on top of a totem, which she crushed with her weight as she landed on it. The other ancestors did not look to be under the effect of the Ancestral Eyes, which gave her enough time to trace the number 1 on her collar.

In an instant, it felt as if her body lost all of its weight. It had been more than a year since she last messed with the training set, and thus she had completely adjusted to the pressure it put upon her.

Now that it was gone, she felt like she could soar into the sky with a simple step.

And soar she did. She pushed off the ground with her foot and vanished from the spot, travelling in an instant to the illusory figure, launching her fist at him while circulating her pure yang in a manner similar to the Elysian Palm.

With the added strength of channelling her planar energy, her strike instantly obliterated the ground in front of it, shattering stone and turning the candles at the edge of the arena to dust. A wave of absolute yang flew out, melting all in its path, searing even through the illusion and leaving behind a large tear within space.

Kong Dong Ming, however, vanished the moment she attacked him. Behind her, she heard the crumbling of stone, and spun around to find a totem broken, and his figure standing in its place.

‘I was the one lecturing him about tactics, and yet I lost myself to an emotional outburst,’ Yi Wei scolded herself, restricting any more of her yang physique energy from flowing out. She had used some of it on the Dawn Flowing Light and Slicing Beam, and with the immense consumption of the Yang Elysian Fist, she had only a third of her yang energy remaining, as well as three-quarters of her planar energy and two more uses of the Storm’s Edge Dash before it began to take a toll on her body, not that she needed it with her unlocked strength.

She activated her mental techniques to stabilise her mind while she checked the remaining sand within the hourglass, ‘By the looks of it, I still have four minutes left. If he doesn’t pull out any more surprises, then-’

“Ancestral Call!”

‘You’re joking, right?’ she hoped, but without enough time to stop him, she could only watch on as five more groups of ancestors rose from the ground.

Fortunately for her, she noticed the illusory figure stagger on the spot, suggesting that there was a limit to how many ancestors he could have at once. Less fortunately, however, was that his next action was to call out ‘Ancestral Eyes’, transforming every single clump of blue energy within their heads to bronze, before they also reached into the ground and began to raise more of themselves.

Yi Wei weighed up her options, then vanished.

 

The illusion spent an entire minute searching for her before it realised that it wasn’t working. It used its false spiritual will, made every ancestral totem spread their arms and scour every single spot of the arena, as there were invisible walls preventing either of them from going beyond the circle of candles which significantly limited the space in which Yi Wei could hide, but none of his efforts produced any results beyond tiring him out.

“Light of Divinity!” he shouted into the heavens, willing every single ancestor to copy his motions and flood the area with light.

For a moment, he thought he heard footsteps, but they were quickly drowned out by the deafening blue beams that scorched the stone ground, eliminating every single ancestor totem as collateral damage. Before the glow cleared, Kong Dong Ming knew that he had missed.

‘How? That attack hit every single point in the area…’ he thought, slowly raising his head, ‘Is she capable of floating in the air? Just in case…’

“Touch of God!”

He fired a great beam from his hand, aiming it upward, striking the very top of the hall without any visible damage. Unlike the floor of the arena, which was accurately simulated by the illusory world of the Lock Obelisk, most of the surrounding area only existed as an image to make it appear more believable.  Kong Dong Ming could attack it over and over again without any clear effect, but before he could, a faint shape fell down next to him mid-way through his attack.

A wave of pure yang energy engulfed him.

 

When the hourglass stopped, and fell from the air, neither of them were in a good shape. Yi Wei’s energy was completely exhausted, and the illusory figure was missing an arm and a significant patch of flesh in its stomach.

The moment that it did fall, both of their states recovered instantly, and they returned to their original positions in the arena.

“Thou… hath passed. The fact that thou hath managed to comprehend that I am incapable of swapping my position with an Ancestor during an attack – though I suspect that thou were simply guessing, were thou not? I can grant thee passage to thine target – the Lock Obelisk of the Kong Holy Space. If thou hath any other wishes, I can consider them now.”

Yi Wei caught her breath while directing an angry glare at the illusion, “Can I violently stab you?”

“I still hath my possession of the sense of pain, so I wouldst prefer it if thou didst not do this,” Kong Dong Ming replied, “To calm thine mental state, I would advise thee to follow the chapter within thine mental arts regarding the dissolution of abnormal states.”

She shut her eyes for a moment, and quickly did as he recommended. When she opened them again, the anger was completely gone from her eyes, “My apologies. I seem to have a certain problem with people being much stronger than me despite lacking any clear reason to be as powerful as they are, since they are, supposedly, in the same realm, don’t have certain advantages that I do have, and do not appear to treat the fight as seriously as I was. I will attempt to improve on this in the future.”

“Thou need’th not apologise, for thou art learning from thine mistakes, as all should. Even the Ancestors were flawed, in their own ways, and we must seek to improve over them to make progress within our study,” the illusory figure nodded, “Now that thou art aware of thine deficiency, thou may attempt to improve it.”

“I am already aiming to do that, but I think that one flaw has significantly overshadowed the other.”

“Ah, then I truly cannot reprimand thee, especially not after thou hath proven thine capability in combat despite thine shortcomings.”

“In that case, let me ask you what these are for,” Yi Wei raised her arm and lowered the training set’s bracelet, displaying the quarter of the symbol on it, “Based on the fact that it came from a Lock Obelisk, I assume this is either a lock, or a key to a lock, though I cannot comprehend why you would display it so obviously on someone’s arm."

Kong Dong Ming nodded, “Thine second presumption is correct, though I cannot explain what thou shalt be able to locate within the Kong Holy Space. That shalt be left up to thee for thine own exploration.”

“I see. Then, why don’t you just tell me everything that you can?”

“Very well. There are, as thou coulds’t hath surmised, a total of four Lock Obelisks, and four key fragments that thou can gain. One can gain only one key from an obelisk, so if thou art not the only one seeking entrance, then thou needeth to ally thyself with another holder of a key if thou art not in possession of all four. Once the Holy Grounds open, all may enter, but only those with keys, or those accompanying them, shalt be able to access the areas with true rewards,” Kong Dong Ming explained, “Additionally, all Lock Obelisks are within the Kong District, so if thou art not certain of their location, thou may seeketh them within the valley.”

“Hold on, are you saying that this forested valley is the Kong District?” Yi Wei’s eyes widened. Even without the hidden grounds – or, rather, the Kong Holy Space – it was still a great discovery to learn that such an ancient location is secretly immediately next to the Yi District, potentially containing countless forgotten skills and techniques.

That finally cleared up all of her frustration, so she smiled and pretended to ask innocuously, “Then, could you direct me to the technique library?”

“Thou seeketh the Ancestral Library? It cans’t be found north of here, within the underground tribute chamber to our ancestors. Thou shouldst know the password to open the door, if thee should be in our library,” he replied.

“Thank you very much,” she said with a stiff smile, ‘Even if the door is still there, it won’t stop me!’