"It seems brother is indeed capable, as the wheel of fortune has brought you to this most sacred grotto. Within each gate lies an aspect of the profound inheritance left by a legendary body cultivation immortal. Choose your gate wisely, for the path you embark upon may offer no second chances. Prepare yourself, for numerous trials await within each gate, testing your worthiness to claim this sacred legacy. Merely stepping foot through the gate is the first trial. Now, it is time for you to determine your destiny."
Saying so, the fat cultivator bowed humbly at Yip Chor, to which Yip Chor customarily mirrored. A gesture of respect.
A smile of satisfaction graced the corpulent cultivator's face as he observed Yip Chor's response. With a nod of approval, he turned on his heel and strode purposefully toward the gate marked with the symbol of the heart. Displaying his immense strength once more, he pressed against the colossal iron gate, its surface adorned with intricate runes that pulsated with ancient power. As the cultivator exerted his force, the runes came to life, casting a mesmerising glow. The gate responded to his touch, parting like liquid stone, allowing him to sink seamlessly into the depths below. Yip Chor watched in awe, his eyes widened with disbelief.
With eager anticipation, Yip Chor found himself drawn to a gate adorned with the monstrous creature's head. Pushing against the weight of the gate, he strained in vain as the iron barrier remained stubbornly unmoving. Unfazed, he resorted to various strategies; projecting resonances against the door in attempts to manipulate its lock, using his spectral vision to seek any hidden mechanisms. All of his endeavors fell short.
His determination waned as he tried each gate in succession, only to be met with similar indifference. He was incapable of passing even the initial entry requirements. Each futile attempt further fuelled his dejection, culminating in his retreating to the center of the room. Yip Chor collapsed onto the cold stone floor, a deep sense of melancholy washing over him. He had ventured so far, yet was denied the promise of discovery. It was indeed a cruel irony.
He was not a cultivator in this foreign world, yet he had stumbled upon this mysterious crypt. This place was tailored for cultivators, their path ingrained with defined progression. His sister's tales of cultivation had always suggested a clear direction, a gradual ascendancy to power through the mastery of secret techniques and sacred teachings. Yip Chor, on the other hand, was unsure of how to progress on his path. His journey was dictated by elusive concepts and abstract notions. His only guidance seemed to be an instinctual desire to grasp those fleeting concepts. But where could he find them, and what would their acquisition entail?
In his desolate solitude, Yip Chor's form seemed to hold an ephemeral quality, a skeletal figure bound by the most basic principles of existence. A recollection of Quinfan's words resonated within him. "Bones you are, and with bones you deserve to reside."
A flicker of realization sparked within him. He had not yet attempted to breach the entrance to the catacombs. The thought of violating the sanctity of the final resting place seemed a taboo, but his desperation drove him to it. His excitement was swiftly extinguished as the formidable entrance remained unyielding to his efforts. It appeared that even the bones refused his intrusion.
Still, he resolved not to leave this place empty-handed. This opportunity was too precious to be squandered. He began to scrutinize the inscriptions on the walls. With painstaking precision, he etched them into stone reliefs, conjuring them within his internal realm. Each mark was replicated with exactitude, organizing the reliefs to mirror their placement within the crypt.
Then, he began walking backwards, inscribing the meticulous recording of the tales that adorned the walls leading to the gates. His retraced path brought him back to the water, where he once again submerged himself, continuing his recording. The eerie darkness of the underwater abyss was strangely comforting.
He eventually arrived at the midsized landing that marked the change in gradient upwards. As he looked around, his attention was drawn to a small shaft in the corner of the room behind some coral that seemed to plunge into the abyss. He moved over and decided that it would be worthwhile exploring it. The sediment accumulated over the years had narrowed the shaft, forcing him into a tight dive. His fear of confined spaces gnawed at him, yet he soldiered on, motivated by curiosity.
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His journey soon became an arduous endeavor. The claustrophobic passage and his fear of being abandoned by his companion spurred him to drastic measures. Emotions surged within him; frustration over his current predicament, the lingering bitterness of his past. In a cathartic burst of resonance, he dug through the sediment, carving out a passage reminiscent of his own grave.
His perseverance paid off as he broke through to a small open space. A sense of relief washed over him as he climbed up another shaft. The anticipation of unexplored territory fuelled his ascent, and he finally broke into
Suddenly, his frantic efforts bore fruit. He broke through into a small enclosed space—a ten by ten-foot vacant space with another shaft leading upwards. Resurfacing above the water level, he realized this shaft was likely meant for maintenance or ventilation, not traversal. This realization kindled a spark of hope in him, hope that he might find a way out into one of the inheritance rooms. He crawled up this shaft, his feet finding purchase on the tight walls. Finally, he reached a branching point with each branch running horizontally. He decided to take the branch to his right. After more crawling, he arrived at a square stone with holes bored in it. His 3rd eye told him there was an empty space beyond.
He began vibrating this stone barrier with his hands in an attempt to crumble it but it was too dense. A foreboding sense of hopelessness entered his mind. Surely he had not come this far, only to be held back by a block of stone! He realised that he had crawled forward with great pain, if he were to have to back away, it would be even harder, as he would have to navigate in a backward crawl. No, forward was the only way. Surely Bone was harder than stone, Thinking so, he pulled out one of his phalanges from his bag and placed it on the stone. He began vibrating the stone at a single point, which after hours of work, allowed him to chisel a few of the ventilation holes away to create a hole big enough to squeeze his skull through. Once his skull was through, the rest of his body could follow through the matrix, and he plopped through, onto cobbled stone. After sending his vision outwards, he found a set of stairs winding upward. He felt a twinge of excitement. Ascending, he found himself in a solemn chamber, home to a dozen crypts. He realised this might be the area behind the large round door.
Fighting off a rising wave of moral repulsion, he unlatched each crypt in a search for treasure, revealing the mummified remains of ancient humans adorned in simple silk garments. The room yielded nothing of value except another stairway heading upwards. With a brief apology to the disturbed souls, he continued his ascension.
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Yip Chor discovered a large space at the top of the stairway. He turned to his right and saw a coffin in the centre of the room. The room appeared to be empty save for this coffin. Approaching the coffin, he saw that it had something inside. A massive owl's head, the size of a fully grown man, lay in the coffin. It had been preserved uncharacteristically well, to the point where it still looked alive. Yip Chor realised with a start that this head most likely belonged to the giant bird-man who slayed that beast!
He put his hand on the owls beak, he suddenly felt something powerful calling him from inside his soul realm. Drawn inward, Yip Chor retreated to a beautiful sight. His spiritual landscape was illuminated as his body and universe star was shining with unparalleled brilliance. A new concept, vibrant and pulsating, floated before him—a tantalizing mystery waiting to be unfolded. Consumed by curiosity and eagerness to decipher the enigma, he absorbed the concept into his soul gene, and it manifested as a complex pattern on the floor of the stone pillar. It did not stop there however, the concept entwined itself not just with his soul gene which drew it's pattern on his soul stone, the concept was also infused with his fate wheel and life wheel in equal parts, seeming to increase their density. A distant, resonating ancient bell echoed in his soul realm twice, signifying the extraordinary power of the newly assimilated concept.
Curious at what this concept was exactly, he began investigating his soul stone which revealed a convoluted pattern woven across a square meter of flooring. This concept structure was far more complex than those of elemental notions such as fire, earth, water, air, or even the various vegetation concepts that adorned his soul stone. Much like the organic vegetation concept, this new structure seemed to hold branches that intertwined seamlessly with the elemental concepts. Intriguingly, it seemed to fray at the edges of the concept, as if it should be larger than it was.
Yip Chors's hand accidentally slipped on the beak of the bird man's colossal head and touched some feathers. A new branch of the same concept manifested. Yip Chor moved his hand again, and the complexity of the concept and the frayed edges seemed to expand in complexity. With a measure of excitement, Yip Chor began running his hands all over this large bird's feathered head, until no further concepts manifested themselves. He touched the bird man's eyeball on a theory, and the concept in his soul gene continued its growth. He realised what he needed to do.
Stepping back, he bowed and said a prayer to the Colossal head, and then, without ceremony stuck his fist into its eyeball