CHAPTER
7
On the Way Back
I
Flying on a magical cloud was something Hao Zhen first experienced on his way to the Gentle Green Valley, and now that he was doing it again, the experience didn’t feel any less amazing. If anything, now that he had his memories of his life as Amyas, riding on a tangible red cloud thousands of feet above the ground felt even more magical.
The magical cloud was solid in a cushiony way, and Hao Zhen could feel it shifting and curving slightly under his weight whenever he moved. It reminded him of a mattress—a very soft, incredibly comfortable one. Of course, the only reason he could even pay attention to the way the magical cloud felt was that he was a cultivator. This high in the sky, had he been a graysoul, he’d have been too busy freezing to death to bother with anything else. Even as a cultivator, he still felt a little cold. Moreover, considering how fast they were moving, it was a good thing that there was some sort of invisible barrier around the magical cloud, or else they’d be swept up into the air by the wind.
Or at least, Hao Zhen thought that there was an invisible barrier of some kind around the cloud. He really couldn’t think of any other explanation as to why he could remain sitting without any issues, his clothes and hair perfectly still, even though they were currently moving at what he believed to be hundreds of miles per hour.
Tian Jin was the one currently controlling the magical cloud. None of them had controlled a magical cloud before, but Tian Jin quickly got the hang of it, so they left it to him.
It had already been a while since they left the valley, but it’d still take a bit over two days before they reached the sect. Thankfully, inside Ke Li’s spatial ring was a jade slip with a map of the area around the sect, and after determining their position and in which direction the sect was, they had set off, taking to the skies.
Magical clouds needed a steady supply of spiritual power to fly, and just like they had done on their way to the valley, they were taking turns powering the magical cloud. Currently, Duo Lan was the one channeling spiritual power into the magical cloud while Tian Jin, who had taken the first turn, sat in meditation, recovering his spiritual stamina. Once Duo Lan started getting spiritually exhausted, Hao Zhen would take over.
Spiritual exhaustion was a concept Hao Zhen was still wrapping his head around. As far as he could tell, cultivators couldn’t run out of spiritual power, as the spiritual energy comprising their crux never stopped emanating it. However, in order to control spiritual power, a cultivator had to rouse their soul using their mind, and much like a muscle, the soul couldn’t be stressed continuously for a long period of time, requiring rest after a while. Consequently, a spiritually exhausted cultivator still had as much spiritual power as they always had, but they were unable to use it because their soul had run out of stamina.
What Hao Zhen found confusing was what, exactly, spiritual energy and spiritual power were. Spiritual energy was a substance, so it clearly wasn’t energy in the sense used back on Earth, but he couldn’t really describe it as matter, either. Spiritual power was even more confusing. It was something spiritual energy emanated—almost like pressure—which would imply it was some kind of force, yet it also behaved like a substance. Things only got more complicated when he thought about how besides spiritual energy, there was also spiritual matter, which was what souls were made of, and how just like spiritual energy emanated spiritual power, spiritual matter emanated spiritual aura.
Still, Hao Zhen didn’t have the time to ponder that at the moment. Right now, he was much more concerned about his new spiritual skill.
Assimilating Ke Li’s skill seed had been a fairly straightforward process. Following Tian Jin’s instructions, he had enveloped the skill seed with his spiritual power. The moment his spiritual power came into contact with the skill seed, it turned intangible, so when he then moved it into his chest, it entered his body unhindered. The next moment, almost instinctively, his spiritual power had pulled the skill seed into his soul, and in the blink of an eye, it was inside his crux. After entering his crux, the skill seed hadn’t disappeared; instead, it remained floating inside it. Hao Zhen had then felt as if some connection had been established between him and the skill seed, and through it, he somehow knew all there was to know about Ethereal String Puppetry—how to use it, what it could do, and what its limitations were.
Spiritual skills were divided into six grades, the same way cultivation was, and each spiritual skill could have several forms, which were, essentially, versions and variations of the same spiritual skill, from what he understood. The higher the grade of a spiritual skill, the more forms it could have. Ke Li’s skill seed was a red-grade skill seed, the lowest grade, so Hao Zhen only had access to the first form of Ethereal String Puppetry: One String Puppetry.
And now that he had assimilated the skill, Hao Zhen understood just what exactly Ke Li had done the previous night.
One String Puppetry gave the user the power to create an Ethereal String, which could be attached to virtually anyone or anything. The user would then be able to control whatever was attached to the Ethereal String through their thoughts. If the target was a living being, however, they’d be able to put up resistance, and the higher the level of the target, the harder it was to control them. Because of that, One String Puppetry worked best if the target was at a lower level than that user. In that case, unless the target had abnormally high willpower, the user would be able to perfectly control them without any problems. On the other hand, if the target was at the same level as the user, or at a higher level, the spiritual skill wouldn’t be nearly as effective unless the target had been rendered unconscious, in which case they wouldn’t be able to put up any resistance even if they were at a higher level.
Deciding to try out the spiritual skill, Hao Zhen took out an item from Ke Li’s spatial ring: the small wooden puppet he had noticed yesterday when emptying the ring. It was about the size of a forearm and shaped like a human being, and as far as Hao Zhen could tell, it was fairly well-made. The wood it was made of was light gray, and the puppet had the symbol of the Blazing Light Sect—a white sun—emblazoned on its chest.
Hao Zhen then channeled his spiritual power into the skill seed inside his crux, upon which he felt the connection between himself and the skill seed being strengthened. Next, all it took was a thought to conjure an Ethereal String. He did it instinctively, as if he had known how to do so all his life.
The Ethereal String, which took the form of a thin white line visible only to himself, extended out from his chest and attached itself to the puppet. The next moment, Hao Zhen instinctively understood everything that he could do with it. Ethereal String Puppetry only gave him the power to control the target into doing things that they would be able to do themselves, which meant that it only worked if the target had moving parts.
Hao Zhen couldn’t have the puppet float or fly around using Ethereal String Puppetry, but he could freely move all of its limbs. Through his connection to the puppet, he also realized that it was much more complex than he had originally assumed. On each of its limbs were joints, and even its fingers were articulate, so it could grab onto things. More importantly, the puppet had hidden blades in its arms, which Hao Zhen could fully control, releasing and hiding them at will.
Now that he understood how Ke Li’s spiritual skill worked and what the puppet could do, the puppet’s presence in Ke Li’s spatial ring made a lot more sense.
Over the next few minutes, Hao Zhen practiced controlling the puppet’s limbs with his thoughts, and once he got the hang of it, he started having the puppet walk back and forth. Before long, he had the puppet doing cartwheels, handstands, and flips. At one point, Duo Lan opened her eyes, and noticing what he was doing, revealed that the puppet was called a Blazing Light Puppet, and that it was a magical artifact mass-produced by the sect’s artificists—cultivators who specialized in crafting magical artifacts—for users of Ethereal String Puppetry.
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Using Ethereal String Puppetry came naturally to Hao Zhen, almost like breathing. Spiritual skills weren’t really something that required a lot of practice. They were different from spiritual techniques, which were specific ways spiritual power could be manipulated, requiring practice to master. Then again, even among spiritual techniques, there were ones that could be almost instantaneously grasped, like Spiritual Sight.
As fun as it was to control the Blazing Light Puppet, however, Hao Zhen knew that the true utility of Ethereal String Puppetry didn’t lie in controlling inanimate objects, but people. The skill wasn’t meant to be used to control actual puppets, but to control living beings as if they were puppets. Unfortunately, at least for the time being, there weren’t any living beings he could practice the skill on. For a moment, he considered asking Tian Jin and Duo Lan for help but ultimately decided against it. He didn’t know them nearly well enough to ask them to serve as practice targets for his spiritual skill.
In any case, he figured that the puppet could come in handy in the future. It was much more agile than he was, and if he used it properly, he reckoned that it could be quite the deadly weapon with its hidden blades and small form.
After a while, Hao Zhen returned the Blazing Light Puppet to Ke Li’s spatial ring and lay down on the cloud, watching the white clouds floating above, so close he could almost touch them. He then started thinking about everything that had happened so far, going through the recent events, then pondering on his plans going forward.
Du Qing wasn’t the only thing he was concerned about. His head was filled with questions. How had he regained his memories? Why did this world share so many similarities with cultivation novels? What was his role in all of this? He couldn’t think of any answers. Everything was a mystery. He did have some suspicions, however.
Hao Zhen stole a glance at Tian Jin, who had his eyes closed as he sat in meditation.
Although Hao Zhen couldn’t be certain of it, he believed that Tian Jin was connected to all of this. If his assumption that this world treated Tian Jin as if he were some sort of protagonist was correct, then there had to be something special about Tian Jin to warrant such treatment. There was also the fact that Hao Zhen had regained his memories of his previous life after Tian Jin sent him flying with a punch last night. He doubted that was a coincidence.
One of the possibilities he came up with was that since Tian Jin’s spiritual skill had the power to negate magical things, maybe what happened was that there had been some sort of magical seal in his mind, in which his memories of his previous life were sealed, and that this seal had been destroyed when Tian Jin used his spiritual skill on him.
That was the answer that made the most sense, but he currently had no way of confirming it. First, he’d have to look into whether magical seals were indeed a thing, and if so, whether they could be used to seal memories. There was also the fact that this theory only raised more questions: Who, exactly, had sealed his memories of his previous life, and why had they done so? Not to mention when and how that happened.
For a moment, he considered telling Tian Jin about what was going on and asking him whether he knew anything about it, but he quickly decided against it. As far as he could tell, Tian Jin wasn’t a bad person, but Hao Zhen wasn’t willing to take any chances. He didn’t know what the significance of remembering his previous life was, and until he better understood the situation, he didn’t plan on revealing what had happened to anyone.
Nevertheless, he believed that even if he couldn’t directly ask Tian Jin for help in figuring out what was happening, he would at least do his best to stick around Tian Jin for the time being in hopes that the other boy would lead him to the answers he sought. Considering how much of a trouble magnet Tian Jin was, this would be dangerous, but Hao Zhen needed to know what was going on. Now that he had regained his memories of his previous life, he couldn’t just pretend that nothing had happened and return to his old life. There was something going on, and he was confident that Tian Jin was the key to finding out what exactly it was.
There was also Duo Lan. Hao Zhen didn’t know what exactly was the deal with her. If it hadn’t been for Tian Jin, he’d have probably assumed that she was the one with protagonist status, in light of what her life had been like since she had entered the Outer Court.
If his theory was correct and Tian Jin was a protagonist of some sort, then Hao Zhen reckoned that he was supposed to be a minor character. Duo Lan’s role, on the other hand, wasn’t as clear. She could be a rival, a love interest, or even another protagonist. After all, even if cultivation novels usually only had a single protagonist, it didn’t mean that the same would apply to this world.
Hao Zhen groaned in dismay. There were just too many questions, too many unknowns, and virtually zero answers. Coming to the conclusion that agonizing over the situation wasn’t doing him any favors, he decided to do something productive and start cultivating instead. Now that he had his memories of his life as Amyas Auclair, he understood much better just how essential power was to cultivators, so he persevered.
Hao Zhen took out the three cultivation method jade slips from Ke Li’s spatial ring and went through them one by one. Soon, however, he came to the conclusion that trying to comprehend them would be a waste of time. It’d take too long. Maybe if he had a week, he’d be able to memorize enough of one of them to use it as his cultivation method, but they’d only be in his possession for two more days. They’d be turning Ke Li’s spatial ring in after returning to the sect, and since he was unsure whether the elders would know what cultivation methods Ke Li was supposed to have, he had already decided that it would be better not to take any risks and leave them all inside the ring. Unlike the jade slip containing Du Qing’s instructions, which there was no way the elders could know about, the sect most likely kept track of jade slips with cultivation methods.
With a sigh, Hao Zhen returned the jade slips to the spatial ring and simply focused on reciting the incantation of the Blazing Light Method, the cultivation method given to all outer disciples when they joined the sect. He then felt a connection form between himself and the spiritual power being emanated by his crux. Keeping the mental chant going, Hao Zhen used his spiritual power to pull ambient spiritual energy—the ownerless magical energy that permeated the world—into his soul, assimilating it into his crux. Because of how sparse ambient spiritual energy was, however, this was perhaps the most inefficient form of cultivation. If he had spiritual stones, this would be a different story, but he had already used up his monthly allotment. He wasn’t talented enough to get his hands on more, either, having only barely managed to pass the entrance examinations.
Talent. Hao Zhen furrowed his brow.
Cultivators could potentially live for thousands of years and become powerful enough to split mountains in half by simply swinging their sword, but to reach that level, you needed talent. And talent was something that Hao Zhen was rather deficient in if the last two months were any indication. He was still stuck at the first level of the Red Spiritual Realm, and would remain stuck there for quite a while. On the other hand, Duo Lan and Tian Jin, who had entered the sect together with him, had long since broken through to the second level.
Hao Zhen had read cultivation novels in which the protagonist was someone from Earth who had transmigrated into a world much like the one he was now in. In all those novels, the protagonist always got some sort of special power or ability that allowed them to quickly rise to prominence. In his case, however, he had nothing—no special power, no talent, and no background.
Thinking of that, Hao Zhen couldn’t help but chuckle wryly.
Overall, he was a pretty darn unfortunate transmigrator, no matter how he looked at it.
II
Over the next day, they took turns channeling their spiritual power into the magical cloud, and even though they had one less person to help power the magical artifact, between the three of them they managed to make it work. They spent most of their time in silence, either resting to recover their spiritual stamina or cultivating, though they ended up having to limit their cultivation time because cultivation also used up spiritual stamina. Or at least Hao Zhen had to do so. As Tian Jin and Duo Lan were both second-level redsouls, they had much more spiritual stamina, so they weren’t as affected.
It was on the morning of the second day that Tian Jin broke the silence. “We should be arriving at the sect in a couple of hours.”
Hao Zhen, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened his eyes to look at Tian Jin, then stared off into the distance. Hearing Tian Jin’s words, he felt a pit in his stomach. In just a couple of hours, they’d need to report Ke Li’s death to the elders of the sect, and whether they’d be able to get away with their lie would be revealed. If they didn’t… Hao Zhen shook his head. Worrying about that any further would do him no good.
About five hours later, Tian Jin pointed out the Blazing Light Mountains in the distance—the mountain range in which the Blazing Light Sect lay. Shortly afterward, Tian Jin started slowing down the magical clouds, and only a few moments later, Hao Zhen caught sight of the Blazing Light Sect: tens of thousands of buildings sprawled throughout the mountain range, roughly divided into three areas, which he assumed were the three courts of the sect: the Outer Court, the Inner Court, and the Core Court.
They had arrived.