There are some moments in our daily life when we feel like we're at the top of the intelligence-based ranking of all humanity.
Or maybe that was just Han Xuhan's thing. He certainly felt like that right now after pulling his latest stunt, which was giving off the impression of a successful 'move'.
Standing beside him, Qian Yun had started wheezing at some point during his narcissistic self-appreciation.
Han Xuhan would laugh alongside him too, if not for the fact that his insides had suddenly started churning like boiling water.
Han Xuhan briefly wondered if the punishment was actually coming to get his ass. But shouldn't the punishment have fallen on Zhanxian first? It was the skeleton's finger that wrote the law fragments after all...cough, or the cyan-robed man, since the paper he carved the first law fragment in belonged to that guy, or even Mu Ran, because it was his law fragment that they were banking on...
One might call Han Xuhan a bad person for treating a sentient creature like Zhanxian as a meat shield...Or more accurately, a bone shield.
But Han Xuhan didn't have any other choice at this point. Even if there was a way to solve this impasse they were facing, he was perhaps not intelligent enough to figure it out. He was never the brightest cookie in the jar, or the sharpest bone on a skeleton.
He had to stop making all these bone jokes...
He had made a half-assed plan to make this work in his favor. Since the law fragments on the wall seemed to be active, possibly with a mysterious source, Han Xuhan wanted to use that source to fuel his own law fragments. It was a simple, crude, and risky plan. Even if anyone in this stadium were lucky enough to accidentally figure the meaning of the texts out, they wouldn't dare to make a move so risky in fear of the possible punishment for such a stunt.
As soon as the last person of their selected 24 helpers finished carving the last millimeter of the law fragment that would activate all the newly written laws, Han Xuhan's body suddenly felt like it had been stuffed with a bunch of snakes.
It wasn't a painful experience, to be honest. But certainly uncomfortable. Immediately, Han Xuhan tried to see what was wrong with his body using the qi perception technique to observe the flow of qi inside his meridians.
He couldn't find anything out of ordinary. Yet the feeling of being stuffed with cylindrical, moving creatures only became even more intense.
Han Xuhan opened an eye and glanced at Zhanxian to see if the skeleton was exhibiting any odd reactions. But it simply stood beside him, unmoving and silent. Something was odd.
Han Xuhan felt a strange phenomenon after opening his eyes.
Time was slow, almost stagnant.
Did I unlock some sort of superpower? Or is it the fabled time of retrospection of one's entire life before dying abruptly?
His friend Qian Yun was doubled over, still in his laughing posture.
The cultivators further away were as still as him, stuck in the middle of their movements.
Han Xuhan decided to inspect his dao base. He wanted one last look at the fruit of his labor before he got smote with whatever ball-busting lightning from the heavens that was coming to deal out his punishment.
The dao tower, however, held a surprise for him. It was shaking as if it was on the epicenter of an earthquake.
Han Xuhan's consciousness floated inside the shaking building. The only floor in it, consisting of one large hall room, turned out to be the source of the disturbance.
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Han Xuhan's dao tower was undergoing a renovation.
The walls, which had been pristine white before, were now being filled up with familiar-looking symbols. Not a single inch was spared, not a single stroke was unfamiliar.
The walls were thus painted black, like splatterings of dried blood. Han Xuhan's dao tower could be officially advertised as a horror house in a high-budget movie set and it wouldn't be at all out of place. It scared the hell out of its owner himself.
Han Xuhan felt chills down his spine. The words gave off the impression of living creatures. It was a disturbing sight, to say the least, and he had always been a bit of a coward.
In his past life, he wasn't even courageous enough to watch any of the popular horror movies. But right now, he was within an intangible, imaginary part of his consciousness where everything was a vague representation of his own abilities. This wasn't something he could avoid just because he was scared of it. The paint coating looked very high quality and permanent. He would have to face the ever-moving, bloody strokes on the wall every time he inspected his dao base.
On the bright side, this was Zhanxian's home. If he survived the current predicament, the skeleton could always accompany him when he entered this place, hehe...
Did he just plan to scare an undead skeleton soldier with incomprehensible illustrations?
Han Xuhan felt an urgent need to attend a mental therapy session in the infirmary. Logically speaking, therapy should work wonders against mental demons.
The world of cultivation was getting to him. It was far too stressful a place. But he liked it!
The anticipated punishment hadn't yet appeared. There were no further changes in Han Xuhan's dao tower. The texts on the wall of the tower were rather well organized. After a few moments of observation, Han Xuhan got the gist of what had happened.
The language he had been busy deciphering, the language of laws, was similar to cultivation techniques, judging by the fact that it required one to use a massive amount of qi to comprehend the meaning behind each alphabet.
In the last seven hours, he, along with his new friend, had done their best to decipher everything around them. They had managed to decipher some, while the rest were either unknown or contained meanings too vague for them to understand.
Using some guesswork, Han Xuhan managed to design a theory; if the entire language of laws was a humongous-sized technique, then he had just managed to comprehend part of its first volume and this manifested within his dao tower just how the skeletal monarch technique had. All the alphabets and words here were known to him because he had deciphered their meaning and had the ability to use them in a law fragment. Those he didn't know fully, were not present in the dao tower...for now at least.
According to elder Kong, each technique he practiced was supposed to create and occupy one room in his dao base. But this technique had spread itself across the walls.
Was it because Han Xuahan had been secretly thinking about how bland the walls here looked since his first look at his dao base?
This tower was a part of his imagination. So such a phenomenon could be explained as his thoughts influencing it.
Han Xuhan had no way to gauge how much he had mastered the language of laws. It was easy to guess that the circle of laws outside did not contain the entirety of the language of laws. There could be an infinite number of alphabets in this language, because the laws seemed like they could affect anything with enough power fuelling them, and the universe itself was nearly infinite. Who knew where the limits lay?
Han Xuhan felt an uncontrollable urge to know that answer. Knowledge like this was so interesting!
Briefly letting out a silent chuckle, his consciousness returned to focus on his surroundings.
Han Xuhan looked around. Time had returned to its normal pace.
There was one change though. The wall in front of him where they had written the laws was letting out an imperceptible glow.
It had worked. His precautions had been unnecessary, perhaps. This was still the periphery of the fog after all. The cultivator who had created this testing ground would leave them some leeway for a test at the early stages.
The last law fragment he had written was being used as a secondary source of the laws on the walls, affecting the extra laws he had written on the paper prior to it, as well as Mu Ran's law fragment on the ground.
"These cultivators are going to kill us if we ever meet them in the future, you know?"
The cyan-robed man asked lightly in a low voice.
"Well, I wouldn't bet on that. Just because they would try doesn't mean they'd succeed ."
Han Xuhan laughed this time as a crimson glow enveloped the three of them and a commotion broke out all over the stadium.
The red light around them was very eye-catching and familiar to the rest of their competitors. They all stared, wide-eyed.
"Bye bye you retards! When you get thrown outta this holy ground of inheritance, remember that it was I, the great and mighty Shen Kai, who did it! Trashes like you are not worthy of the super awesome inheritance that lies inside! Only I, Shen Kai, the supreme demon, deserve such inheritance! Sit outside, and regret, you shrimps! Remember my name! Next time you hear it, you better quake in fear!"
Han Xuhan's voice was very loud. Everyone inside the stadium heard him. Qian Yun choked again and started laughing in fits.