Nearly fifteen days had passed since the start of Feng Zhiming’s journey to the Heart of the Wildlands.

The majority of the days had been spent answering Dolly’s questions and trying to extract information from her, an unsuccessful endeavour.

Anissa and Ellia kept busy by constantly sparring with each other and Lyra kept herself busy working on refining her Qi control.

*CLASH*

Anissa flew backwards after her sword collided with Ellia’s.

“Are you certain this is a spar? The force of your attacks seems like they want to kill me.” Ellia who had been equally pushed back spoke as he chucked his great-sword over his shoulder.

Anissa smirked.

“Even in a spar a sword wielder should never blunt their edge.”

She raised the sword before her in a defensive position.

[Ocean Splitting Sword 3rd form Fata Morgana]

Her figure began to shimmer in the bright sun before she quickly threw the blade at Ellia, surprising him.

Ellia maneuvered to dodge the blade but as soon as he looked up to where Anissa had been standing he noticed that she was gone.

He shivered as he felt the cold touch of a sword pushing against his neck.

“Concede?” A voice came from behind him.

Ellia sighed.

“Did you seriously incorporate an illusion technique into your sword forms?”

In reality she had launched herself with the sword, but her sword technique had actually cast an illusion making it seem like she threw the sword.

Qi was the basis of these techniques, the reason sword techniques were so powerful were that they could utilize Qi in ways a person may find incredibly difficult, that illusion technique would have been impossible for Anissa if she didn't rely on the activation of the sword form.

It was like instantly building a house without even knowing how to build, it was possible for someone to build a house but it would require much time and effort, in this case the house was built instantly.

This was the ingenuity of sword techniques.

“My father was the one who invented it, I’m just an imitator.” she replied humbly before returning to her starting point before Ellia.

She gestured for Ellia to attack again.

Ellia, who had grown tired of the constant duels gritted his teeth and tightened his grip around his sword before dashing at Anissa.

The two swords collided and sparks flew from the clash.

Dolly clapped as she watched from the sidelines.

“That was so amazing.” she said as her lips curled up into a smile.

Lyra, who had been working on what looked like Qi manipulation, holding hundreds of small flames above her in the sky, turned to look at Ellia and clicked her tongue.

“You’re making me look bad, fighting without your armor.” she said and closed her eyes before focusing on her flames again.

Feng Zhiming wanted to say something to her to stir the pot, but he withheld himself, he had been working on something of his own.

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Within Zhishi Wu’s scripture he had found an interesting concept that he wanted to look into, after seeing Dolly’s intricate manipulation of the ship he had been motivated to revisit an old concept.

“Atoms.” he spoke to himself as he sat in one of the chairs atop the crows nest.

In the book atoms were said to be one of the smallest units of reality, composing everything.

Feng Zhiming activated his Art of Demonic Cognizance.

He held his palms together and stared at them, he felt the area, he could feel the ever absent wind blowing through his palms.

Deeper than that he could feel Qi, he needed to find the smallest unit of Qi within his palms.

He looked, he looked and he looked, his eyes started to turn red and were on the verge of bleeding, this was when he activated his art of Demonic Resurgence.

His eyes were in a constant stage of destruction and recreation, but he could feel himself getting closer to seeing an atom.

He began to see the blood pumping through his hand and even the cells that populated his veins.

He quickly cut open his finger and laid a drop of blood down on his palm.

Within his own blood he looked closer and closer until he saw what composed a blood cell and even deeper.

He gasped as he saw it for a split second, just at it had been described.

But just as soon as he saw the atom his eyes burst open and exploded.

"By the Dao!" he said as pain shot through his body.

He clutched his eyes and slowly let them recover after deactivating the Art of Demonic Cognizance.

He leaned back into the chair and thought about what he had seen, the sooner he could see an atom the sooner he’d be able to cleave it.

“But cleaving an atom isn’t enough, It’s too weak to deal with even peak Ethereal core cultivators.”

Based on its description and the destruction it could cause, he had determined it was a good way to cause chaos or confusion but it was not a good attack against a powerful cultivator.

He sighed and closed his newly recovered eyes, this had truly been exhausting.

He didn't even realize when he darkness consumed his vision and sleep took a hold of him.

...

Feng Zhiming found himself in a familiar dark space once again, it seemed like even his own mind was no longer a safe place.

“No wonder sleep came to me so easily.” he understood that something or someone had wanted him to fall asleep.

He stood in a dark void, the same fear did not plague him, he had prepared for this sort of possibility.

“Well, is anyone going to speak?”

He tried to find the origin of his nightmares.

Without warning the void of darkness was lit up with a flash of light.

When the flash disappeared, he no longer stood in a void.

He stood on hardwood floors, inside of a completely foreign room, it was a library of sorts.

It had high ceilings and was filled with bookshelves that stretched from the ground to the roof, dark wooden bookshelves, chandeliers hoisting candles lit up the library as they hung by the support of iron chains.

A dark dimly lit library.

After his spiritual sense failed to deploy he began to walk, as he walked around the endless library he came across many different books.

“What is this architecture?” he thought to himself as he looked around, he had never seen anything close to resembling a chandelier before. Yet he knew what a chandelier was, this was truly subverting his understanding of knowledge.

“Was it my new identity that knew of chandeliers?”

He continued to brainstorm as he walked around, this did not seem like a case of his previous identity's knowledge, that felt more like he remembered something, but this.

“It feels like I learn what something is after perceiving it.”

He inspected some of the books.

“Chemistry and Alchemy: Grand Unification, The Theory of C(a$s Essence, Chronicles of the U@c(ow%ed King, Teachings of the Void.”

After he attempted to read some of the titles he tried to pull them off the shelf, had he been granted some divine knowledge by some great creature’s grace?

“Yeah right.” he chuckled.

All his attempts to pull the books off the shelf were unsuccessful, halted by an unseen force, it was unlike a force he had ever experienced before.

He felt as though it wasn’t a matter of physical strength, rather he was just unqualified to touch them, even reading the titles made him lightheaded.

As he was trying to figure out what to do, he found a torn piece of paper lying at his feet.

He bent down to pick it up and read what it said.

Hail the Heavenly Demon

Subjugator of the Beastial Origin

Progenitor of the Eon of Humanity

All Father of Cultivation

Feng Zhiming’s eyes narrowed.

“Heavenly Demon, as in the Heavenly Divine Demon Sect?” He tried to read the paper once more.

But to his dismay it had vanished into thin air.

“Just what is it you want from me?!” he asked as he rotated his body trying to find a semblance of a person, what kind of game was this, did he want to tell him something or did he not?

He took a few more steps and without explanation the rows of bookshelves finally ended, As he laid his eyes on a table.

A small table on top of a luxurious carpet, depictions of what looked like dragons carved into it.

He walked closer to the table and he saw it, a notebook with a name on the front, one look at the name and his mind shattered.

He fell to his knees as he covered his mouth, trying to stop himself from throwing up blood.

V*E()D(@AS, of Truth and Veracity.