"Soil is just not only that but an accumulation of all the memories of a plane...

And so, with every inch you dig into it, you uncover those memories, and with them, all of their weight..."

Now the words didn't resonate only in Bai Qi's head but actually came from around him as if it was the darkness surrounding him who spoke. Bai Qi could even recognize the voice as the same one that had communicated with him during the first part of the event,

He couldn't answer the thought. Thus, Bai Qi continued forward, even as he felt increasing pressure with every step taken since the moment the voice manifested physically.

But increased pressure, as if layer over layer of soil covered Bai Qi, wasn't the only thing assaulting him now. Every few steps, images would flash in Bai Qi's mind, telling him some story, one that, while he could follow, he didn't understand entirely. At least not from the few scattered images, or maybe, memories?

*

A small flower blossoming under the sun, a typical tiger lily, or maybe it was uncommon, as in all of the barren lands where it stood, there was but a single flower;

And indeed, it would turn out to be uncommon, as the following image showed the flower still blossoming while being blanketed with snow;

Then it would be the same flower, once again, under strong sunlight, as if it was the summer's solstice;

The lily wouldn't wither or show any changes for years, except for one, its petals began to spread a glimmer of their own, not only to reflect the sun from their reversed, dotted petals;

Suddenly, there was no tiger lily, but in the same place, a flower on a single stalk of pure blackness stood, its eight petals a mix of black and red;

The flower appeared to be far more uncommon than the previous one, as now, in an image of a snowstorm, not a single snowflake would approach it, dozens of feet around the flower showing no signs of the raging blizzard taking place;

Beasts, from common ones to spiritual started to appear in the following images, each of them attempting to approach the flower;

Some would be allowed to approach while others stopped at the same five or six feet range from it, the same as the snow before;

Then, abruptly, the main character of this story changed. In place of a flower, there stood a woman of untold beauty. Of dark skin that could overshadow the midnight sky and orange eyes that looked brighter than the petals of the initial lily;

To this woman, beasts started to pay homage. Mortal and spiritual beasts inclined their heads before her, even if some looked forced to do so;

After a string of images that denoted power, the focus changed, now showing the area around the location of the woman, the small hill on which she stood, the enormous forest where the beasts that came to pay homage lived, one full of strange, thin and tall trees with not a single branch or leave under the mark of fifty feet;

Then a human appeared, just a man that looked like a scout, dressed in clothes the color of soil, holding a crude-looking spear in one hand while slowly crawling through the forest;

More followed quickly, with an entire group of people dressed in beast furs and holding an array of makeshift weapons, ranging from bone to stone and low-quality iron;

The humans would fight the beasts, but alas! None could even stand a chance against any spiritual ones. After all, among all the group, there was not a single one capable of using qi;

Still, the situation would change some images later with cultivators. Rough and crude in their methods as they were, they still changed the flow of the battles, with corpses of beasts being now far more abundant while the bodies of humans started to lessen;

The following image showed beasts gathering around the woman - their heads inclined as if asking for something;

But as it would turn out, the beasts probably didn't get what they wanted, as the image that followed the previous one was one of the human cultivators fighting beasts just in front of the woman, who continued to stand motionless;

It would seem that the beasts would be the losing party, as now humans stood some feet away from the black-skinned woman. And while they didn't bend their heads, they still appeared fearful of her and seemed to be unable to approach further;

A few images would show single humans, women, and men, attempting to approach closer, only to be repelled by an invisible force. Some gently, others far more forcefully, images showing wounds and blood on their bodies;

Yet it appeared that the cultivators reached a kind of understanding with the being that claimed the hill without moving a single inch in all years;

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First, one by one, then in pairs, and at some point groups, cultivators would be allowed to approach the black-skinned woman, and after kowtowing, or maybe praying, they would sit down nearby, as if in meditation;

Some of the ones that meditated, all of them women, would suddenly become basked in the same glimmer as the petals of the flower had released before, the same one that now surrounded the woman;

Years would pass, and the faces of the cultivators would change, but the agreement stood in place, even as the groups got larger or their equipment visibly increased in quality;

Women of the groups would receive what appeared to be a blessing, all while the men surrounding them could only continue to meditate;

But at some point, a man would also receive such a blessing. But it wasn't a simple blessing, as the glimmer that surrounded him was far above the one around the few women of his group, seemingly the being that looked like a black-skinned, red-eyed woman decided to share his blessing with a male;

Suddenly, without any observable reason, the tone of the images changed, now showing only bloody corpses around the woman, and on top of them, beasts marched;

Spirit and Saint beasts, even ones from races that usually detested each other, eliminated all nearby humans, razing the few settlements that had grown up around the hill, and now it was them, and not the humans, the ones to pay homage to the black-skinned woman, later laying around, almost as if they also meditated;

*

By the last of the images, Bai Qi was gasping for air and unable to maintain himself straight. The pressure had increased to one comparable to a Warrior King's aura, and still, there was no sign of an end to the darkness-submerged path he was on.

For many lesser cultivators, such strain would already be deadly, but Bai Qi still could continue for a bit, so he did.

He couldn't retreat even if he wanted. After all, if not him, then who would know that such tests would end exactly the moment one decided to quit?

----------------------------------------

"Isn't this enough? He already crossed over twice the distance any of the [Palace] people have, and he still stands!" Zhen Jian asked with a loud growl, his gaze not leaving the surface of the water mirror, in which he had observed how Bai Qi's body started failing its owner, first making the latter hunker down. And by now, forcing him to crawl forward in place of walking.

"But there is more for him to learn, and the more he does, the more he will understand the gift I plan to grant him." The [Little Fairy] or [Flying Fairy], later known as the [Goddess Fairy], Tianwan Fei Xian responded almost in an offended tone, as if Bai Qi's current hardships were a blessing.

"Enough! He is not me! He is just a cultivator you lured here with the promises of a legacy while also playing on his feelings toward the girl who is now about to fail the last test!" Seeing how Bai Qi started bleeding from his ears and eyes, Zhen Jian forced himself to turn away from the water mirror and face the so-called fairy, the remanent spirit of the woman that had captivated him so much that he had proposed to her to do her worst to test him.

"Oh, no, you are wrong. We may be long dead and nothing but a strand of consciousness from our originals, but I would never fail to distinguish between you and someone else." Fei Xian's irritation was almost palpable, far from the faked-up tone from before. Yet, she would compose herself nearly immediately as she whispered, barely loud enough for the opposing ghost, as some would call them both, to hear, "He will not fail."

----------------------------------------

Once again, Bai Qi forced his battered body to continue. By now, he crawled, bleeding from all his facial orifices, but he didn't give up. By this point, it was more of an attempt to survive no matter the odds than any motivation like saving Xie Ru or even obtaining the promised legacy. Or maybe it was a mix of all? Yet, while fighting back his pain and nearly tasting the soil that now covered the path, Bai Qi inwardly smirked,

***

No one could say if the timing should be considered sheer luck, the observer's desire, or just a whim of the heavens. But as Bai Qi regained some vigor thanks to his thoughts, the area around himself suddenly illuminated, the darkness dispersed by a pink-hued glow.

As it did, he was also liberated from all the pressure he had been feeling, allowing him to regain his ragged breath and stand up. Furthermore, the light he now basked in started healing and revitalizing him, the opposite of the weighty, straining darkness from before.

The sudden string of images that assaulted him as he took his first step on the now visible soil-like path was also different, far from the mind-stressing and incomplete form from before, but a perfectly complete explanation, one that, at last, allowed Bai Qi to grasp at some of the reasons behind all of this tests.

*

One could see a group of cultivators, roughly dressed and armed with bad-quality weapons, but still, a far cry from the ones in the first images, breaking through the beasts that defended the black-skinned woman.

At the lead of this group of seventeen, there was a man that Bai Qi had already seen before in one of the visions, one of the last people in the groups that meditated near the woman before the beasts' return. And the first, or maybe only one, to receive the same glimmer as the human women.

Nearly seven feet tall, standing at least a whole head above the most towering of his companions, muscular as if muscles were the only thing that qi reinforced in him, and with a face that denoted nothing but yearning, he ignored the continuing battle and rushed to fall to his knees, just some inches short of reaching the unmoving woman.

The images didn't allow Bai Qi to understand any of the words that the man would shout and cry out, but his movements, from him pointing to the scars that adorned his body to the slightly greyish hair of his, all while he constantly touched his heart and indicated at where the woman one should be, they explained the story by themselves.

As did his expressions of anger as he kowtowed with such strength that his forehead cracked the stony surface of the hill on which all of this was happening.

*

"The first man I shared my blessing with, and the same one who claimed to have seen my true self;

The first man to understand the duality of the Yin and Yang natures. To comprehend while my aura lingered only on the females of his species;

The same man that then explained that meditating near my cocoon wasn't enough to every other male of the villages that adored me as a goddess;

The same man that came to me, imploring my forgiveness for missing how greedy some of the cultivators could be, asking me to stop the massacre that started in response to them attempting to take my blessing by force;

The one that I hated, a first for me, and the same one that I found myself loving, which was even more of a surprise to someone like me..." Visions would be replaced by the voice, explaining further with every step that Bai Qi took, following the straight path toward the source of the pink-hued glow.