While Tun Shi Tian was recuperating, Han Xuhan remembered the reason he had returned to his dao tower and turned toward his eldest minion.

"Zhanxian, pick up a sand grain from the ground, will you?"

"A sand grain? Just one?" Zhanxian was confused. Hearing the hum of confirmation, he did his best to pick up the smallest possible amount of sand on his bony fingertip. After nearly a minute of cautious movements, one particularly large grain was left on the top of the bone.

"Are you two trying to do what that Zhou girl advised you to try out? Testing whose spiritual connection to the sand grain is stronger?" the demon asked from the sideline.

"Yeah, is there any input you want to provide?" Han Xuhan replied, trying to hustle more esoteric knowledge out of the demon.

"Indeed, I do. In fact, I am quite touched that you're considering my opinion on everything despite the fact that I am a demon. Even my own family had less trust in me. I'm starting to like you, young man."

Feeling a little proud at having successfully scammed the demon, Han Xuhan said, "I'm glad that we can coexist so peacefully despite our differences. Even my racist tendencies have taken a nosedive since you saved us from the Tupshus. I'm starting to like you too, senior."

"Much appreciated. Seems like we can finally see an eye to eye. Now, on to the matter at hand... My opinion on your experiment is that if trash like you can feel their spiritual connections down to such minute levels, I'll eat shit for the rest of my life," the demon said.

"...You don't even have a body! How can you eat shit?" Han Xuhan roared, feeling indignant. "And your opinion just gave my racist sentiments a booster doze!"

"Heh."

"....Wait a damn minute, my dao heart oath!" Han Xuhan screeched in realization. "Don't you dare!"

"Feel fear yet?" the mental demon laughed uproariously. "The weak should fear the strong; this is the way of the world! So next time you feel like you can run circles around me, better think of the fact that I can make you run circles around your sect naked, covered in filth, yelling out every secret of your associates you've hoarded as blackmail material."

Han Xuhan shuddered, once again realizing that he had underestimated the horror of being possessed by mental demons.

"No wonder the Celestials went down the full genocide mode on the entire demon race! You people deserved it!" he shouted, furious.

"Look me in the eye and repeat that, trash," the demon replied in disdain. "Oh wait, I forgot that a trash like you doesn't even have the capability to meet my eyes. You're a disgrace to human cultivators! No wonder your minions have no respect for you. They'll backstab you the moment they gain a fraction of advantage, physically or spiritually."

"Are you trying to rile me up so that you can attack me with the Tupshu's spiritual pollution ability?" Han Xuhan wondered aloud.

"Conniving bastard! First you tried to make me feel safe around you despite occupying the body of the Tupshu. Then you tried to sell me this spiritual training crash-course and failed. Now that I'm using my minions to test the validity of your training proposal, you're trying to anger me into receiving the mental attack before I can evaluate the result of the test. It seems like you're hiding deeper intentions than I assumed! Perhaps this was another scheme to damage my spiritual existence in a way that I couldn't even comprehend!"

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The demon disrupted Han Xuhan's chain of accusations very easily.

"You really are getting stupider by the minute. Have you forgotten that your master can detect it the moment I try to possess you? In fact, your master has a perception skill of the same level as Solarsight. And your sect master isn't exactly going to sit by and ignore my existence either. He'll certainly be back on a regular basis, examining your spiritual well-being and making sure that I'm not trying to harm you directly or indirectly. What do I stand to gain by trying to damage your spiritual existence?"

The logic given by the demon was the exact same thoughts Han Xuhan had gone through five minutes ago when he had been offered this spiritual training regime. The only uniqueness in it was a certain word he had heard once before.

"Solarsight? I remember you spoke of this skill back when my master caught you in the act of possessing my body," he mumbled.

"It's a perception-based skill, you say? What does it do exactly?"

"What a rookie!" the demon grumbled for the umpteenth time. "Your sect hasn't even taught you the universal scale of perception yet, so you wouldn't understand what this skill really is even if I tried to explain. But there is a more scientific angle you can approach it from.

Tell me, have you never wondered how cultivators across distant galaxies, billions of lightyears away from each other, communicate?"

Dumbfounded by the sudden change of topic, Han Xuhan struggled to analyze what he was being asked about.

"Yeah, you're not wrong there. I did think about it a few times. I remember hearing from Xiao Wu that our sect has some impressive background. There are rumors about powerful sects occupying the distant corners of the macrocosm, across the sea of stars. But if that were true, it would be quite problematic. So I didn't believe most of that stuff."

Hearing his reply, the demon said with curiosity, "Problematic? Care to elaborate?"

"Well, if the universal laws I learned on Earth aren't factually wrong, then most of the stars we see in the sky are basically visions of the past. Since we use light as our medium of vision, a star that exists thousands of lightyears away from us would only show us the state it used to be in many millennia ago. So unless the cultivators from that region of the macrocosm can travel thousands of times faster than light itself, they'll never have a chance to meet us, or even know that we exist.

In the same way, if our sect has a backer organization in the sea of stars, I can't see there being any possible method of effective communication between them and us. Because one message might take ten years to reach the other party, or even more, depending on how far away the two parties are, unless..."

"Unless the magical wonders of cultivation is involved in it," the demon finished the sentence for him.

"Yup. Which just produces bigger contradictions. For example, a cultivator from a planet ten lightyear away from us might see what was happening on our planet ten years ago. But if he has any method of communication that's faster than light, then the information he will receive from here will basically be the future version of what he's seeing. How illogical would that be?! Wouldn't being faster than light pretty much create the scope of time travel, theoretically?"

"It's good that you've put that much thought into it," said the demon. "Makes it easier for me to break the news. In the universal scale of perception, communication faster than the speed of light is possible, because no cultivator at that level uses light as his principle medium of perception. In fact, it's not limited to communication either. There are even methods of teleportation across distances that you can't even comprehend. So from the mortals' viewpoint, you can simply disappear into the future, on a planet so far away that the light from that planet hasn't reached the mortal's eyes yet. If you trigger a supernova explosion near that planet, the mortal's millionth generation of descendants might see it happen. But for cultivators with some strength, they'd know all about it right when you trigger the explosion. In the mortal perception, that makes the cultivators here divine oracles who can predict what changes will take place in the sky ten thousand years later, doesn't it? Hahaha!"

"....Weird knowledge increased, but what does this have anything to do with Solarsight, the skill you speak of?"

"Everything, really. Solarsight is one of the higher stages of the universal scale of perception. Cultivators who have mastered the ability to perceive the world to the Solarsight stage can pretty much see through everything around them. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING; matter, anti-matter, energy, laws, time, soul, spirit, dao, you name it! As long as the subject itself doesn't have any linkage with a power higher than him, nothing about it can escape his focus. He can hear, see, and feel everything that's happening around him instantly."

Han Xuhan gasped audibly. "So my teacher has an ability on par with this?! That's insane!"

In a resentful tone, the demon confirmed it again. "Yeah, at least, in terms of being invasive, your master Kong Ye doesn't lose out against Solarsight users. So I have no chances of taking over your body or damaging your spiritual existence without him knowing. If you think I'm lying even now, just go ask your sect master. I bet he knows more than I do! And even he'd tell you that trying to measure the spiritual connection between you and your dao tower is a futile exercise at your level. Stop wasting time listening to your paranoid mind and chasing answers to esoterics beyond your reach. Focus on the present. Start training for what's to come!"