Chapter 169: Daydream
Chapter 169: Daydream
Li Si fell silent, then revealed his hand.
“It’s worth it, but I can’t give you a hundred thousand portions. I only have one hundred twenty thousand, nine hundred thirty-two portions left myself. I need to keep some in reserve, so I can only give you fifty thousand portions. Take it or leave it.”
This time, it was Shendanzi’s turn to be torn. He tugged at the few remaining strands of beard on his chin, then suddenly gritted his teeth. “Eighty thousand portions, and I’ll throw in a special pill formula for you, little brother. This formula helps resist the Mist’s corruption. To be honest with you, I’m currently stockpiling these spirit pills myself.”
“Deal, but I have many questions. You need to answer them for me.” Li Si thought for a moment, then finally agreed.
“Of course, this old man will hold nothing back.” Shendanzi was slightly excited. In truth, the Spirit Nourishing Pills Li Si refined, while precious, weren’t of much value to him. What he needed was the Radish Exuviae used to make the Spirit Nourishing Pills. That stuff, as a residue of the Great Medicine, was just too wasteful when used only for refining spirit pills.
Great Medicine residue could always be directly used to refine immortal pills.
But there was no need to mention that.
Right then, Li Si and Shendanzi made a fair trade, honest and square. The former provided eighty thousand portions of Radish Exuviae, and the latter obtained two pill formulas. The first was an immortal pill formula that had drifted out from the Land of Infinite Vastness, called “Free and Unfettered Wandering.” The second was a formula to resist the Mist’s corruption, named “Dream-Passing.”
“This Free and Unfettered Wandering Immortal Pill’s main effect is to help cultivators at the True Immortal level and above protect their Immortal Spirit for reincarnation and rebirth. But besides that, it can also be used to resist soul-altering poison, and it’s especially effective against enemies attempting possession. Also, it’s not like those below the True Immortal level can’t take it; it can also ignite the Soul Lamp and strengthen the spirit.”
“As for the Dream-Passing Spirit Pill, it was developed by my Heaven-Mending Sect’s seniors after they escaped the Mist, based on the Mist’s corruption. The Mist is mysterious and unknowable; no one knows where its source lies. When a Mortal Realm begins to have sporadic appearances of Dark Mist, it basically means the Mist isn’t far off. After that, at most several tens of thousands of years, the entire Mortal Realm will be swallowed, then become part of the Illusory Realm.”
“And if a person stays in the Mist for too long, their thinking becomes sluggish, they feel drowsy, and Daydreams subtly appear. Once you fall into a Daydream, it’s hard to get out, or by the time you do, you’re no longer yourself, but a Void Monster.”
“Many powerful True Immortals, even Great Luotian Immortals who managed to escape, ended up turning into Void Demon Corpses because they drifted in the Mist for too long, unable to find a new foothold, and thus fell into Daydreams. This Dream-Passing Spirit Pill can be used to deal with Daydreams. Maybe the effect isn’t perfect, but it at least offers a slim chance of survival.”
After explaining the effects and origins of the two pill formulas, Shendanzi continued, “In the previous Mortal Realm, our Heaven-Mending Sect was very powerful, considered the top sect. When the Mist came, we fought hard against it, but in the end, we suffered heavy losses. Finally, fifteen True Immortals led the way, taking thousands of disciples on a large Immortal Artifact, broke through the Illusory Void, entered the Mist, and searched for a new Mortal Realm.”
“This process lasted about a hundred thousand years. They were really lucky—they found this Mortal Realm and took root here. Then they carefully hid for tens of thousands of years before gradually developing. To avoid drawing attention, they even changed the name to Shendan Sect. Some True Immortals from our sect flew up to the Land of Infinite Vastness; they transcended, but we didn’t truly escape the nightmare, because in less than a million years, the Mist came again. This time, we weren’t even prepared.”
Hearing this, Li Si asked, “You mean all disasters start with the Mist?”
“I don’t know, but that’s how it seems now.”
“What’s the relationship between the Mist and the Illusory Realm?” Li Si pressed.
“The Mist is the Mist, the Illusory Realm is the Illusory Realm. The Mist doesn’t refer to space; it’s just a substance with very strong corruption, or maybe some kind of medium. It drifts within the Illusory Realm, while the Mortal Realm corresponds to the Illusory Realm.”
“Can the Fortune of Heaven and Earth dissolve the Mist?”
“Yes and no. Because the Mist is too vast, endless, and brings endless Void Monsters. How much Fortune of Heaven and Earth can there be? As one wanes and the other waxes, it’s doomed sooner or later.”
“What about the Land of Infinite Vastness? Do they have trouble with the Mist there?”
“I don’t know, but wandering Great Luotian Immortals have said the Mist’s origin might be the Land of Infinite Vastness itself, so those Great Luotian Immortals should have a way. But don’t ask me what the Land of Infinite Vastness is like—all the information I have says the competition there is fierce. Many Great Luotian Immortals even choose to flee back.”
“What about the Land of Infinitesimal?”
“Never been, don’t know.”
“Then do you know about Spirit Cultivators?”
“I know a bit. When I was young, I was even close friends with a Spirit Cultivator disciple—secretly, of course. Back then, True Cultivators and Spirit Cultivators clashed repeatedly over cultivation directions, like mortal enemies. I don’t know why, but when our Heaven-Mending Sect came to this Mortal Realm a million years ago, our techniques didn’t distinguish between True Cultivators and Spirit Cultivators.”
“Can Spirit Cultivation techniques suppress the Mist?”
“No, but they’re very effective against Void Monsters in the Mist. It’s a pity—a million years can bury the truth. People are always short-sighted and repeat the same mistakes again and again.”
“At first, every cultivation sect placed special importance on the Soul Cultivation System, selecting the most suitable people for targeted training. This was the early form of Spirit Cultivation Sects. The Soul Cultivation System’s original duty was to deal with Void Monsters. But over millions, even tens of millions of years of waiting, this system division creates problems. Even if everyone knows the truth, they can’t withstand reality’s cruelty. Eventually, it evolves into confrontation between Spirit Cultivators and True Cultivators, looking down on each other, despising each other, viewing each other as enemies, even killing each other.”
Shendanzi sighed deeply.
Li Si thought of the men and women in his old home. Were they all fools? Didn’t they understand the greater truths? No, they knew very well, yet they insisted on fighting to the point of mutual destruction.
It was bewildering.
“Do you think the large-scale disappearances of Spirit Cultivation Sects were man-made?”
“Yes, and I suspect it’s related to Jiuxuanzi, the founding master of the Jiuxuan Spirit Sword Sect. Don’t look at me like that—our Heaven-Mending Sect did escape from the previous Mortal Realm, after all. We have experience. You know, the biggest reason for our previous Mortal Realm’s collapse and fall was indeed the Mist’s corruption, but another reason was the chaos caused by Deities and Demons.”
“These ‘Deities and Demons’ were Great Luotian Immortals who fled the Land of Infinite Vastness. To seize benefits, they’d do any wicked thing. Like this millennium tragedy in the Mortal Realm—the Mist’s corruption shouldn’t be this fast; it should be gradual, with tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years of transition. But because that Jiuxuanzi stirred trouble, actually using the Seven Emotions Great Medicine to enter demonic state, directly polluting the Mortal Realm, hundreds of billions died because of it. The cultivation world was severely weakened all at once.”
“And his claim of ‘not destroying the world, only taking the World’s Spirit’ is nonsense. He’s already wrecked the Mortal Realm like this—what difference does destroying it or not make? Now the Mortal Realm is in ruins; what can we use to block the Mist’s corruption, to resist the Void Monsters?”
“Instead, Deities and Demons like Jiuxuanzi can fight their way back to the Land of Infinite Vastness. This old man is fed up!”
Shendanzi’s words resolved many of Li Si’s doubts, but also raised new ones. “If that’s the case, why are you so set on sacrificing the Dao Foundation Immortal Body?”
“Little brother, do you think I want to? Venturing into the Mist isn’t something one True Immortal can do alone. Last time, our Heaven-Mending Sect had fifteen True Immortals holding the fort to succeed. This time, it’s just me. What can I rely on for a long journey? Without resources, how can I escape?”
“So I hope to get dividends this way. Another reason is, I need to drag the Jiuxuan Spirit Sword Sect and Floating Cloud Sect into this. In short, there’s hope for the future, because right now it’s just the edge of the Mist seeping into the Mortal Realm. There are at least a few thousand years before more Mist arrives. So as long as we can hold our basic position, guard it for a few hundred years, we should almost have saved enough for the journey.”
“Can’t we block the Mist?” Li Si felt regretful; he still wanted to ultimately save this world.
“No, really no, little brother. Right now, the Mist has only corroded a corner of this Mortal Realm, so no overly powerful Void Monsters have appeared, and certainly no Void Demon Corpses. But if the Mist covers the entire Mortal Realm, Void Demon Corpses will directly dig holes and crawl in. If those things enter the Mortal Realm, just one head can be tens of thousands of miles wide, their whole bodies covering hundreds of thousands of miles. Some even more special ones can cover tens of millions of miles. Do you think you can fight that?”
“Those are corpses left behind after Great Luotian Immortals die, drifting in the Mist for countless years, who knows what kind of mutations they’ve undergone? Can you handle that?”
“Even a Great Luotian Immortal would be useless. So there are only two ways out: first, fly up to the Land of Infinite Vastness; second, flee.”
“Once you advance to True Immortal, you can fly up, right?” Li Si asked again.
“Right. Even now, we True Immortals, if our Dao Foundation Immortal Body is intact, can fly up. But the catch is, Ascension consumes the Fortune of Heaven and Earth. Normally, just fifty portions of Fortune of Heaven and Earth are enough to fly up. But based on past experience, if a True Immortal has less than two hundred portions, they’ll have a very hard time in the Land of Infinite Vastness. I don’t know the specifics.”
“Also, Ascension requires a senior to guide you. You have to report your Daoist title. This should be to avoid another kind of danger. And getting a Daoist title isn’t like saying from today you call yourself ‘Kaoshanzi’—it requires a senior in the Land of Infinite Vastness to bestow a guiding Daoist title, a kind of credential. Only when you get this guiding Daoist title can you receive the senior’s guidance during Ascension. Otherwise, who knows what the consequences might be?”
“And now, because of that Jiuxuanzi, he cut off this Mortal Realm’s connection to the Land of Infinite Vastness. So, should we fly up or flee?”
“It’s hard. Ordinary mortals toil for seventy years, suffering from illness and hardship. We cultivators escape the mortal world, yet we suffer even more hardships in this world. Everyone envies immortality, thinking it brings endless freedom, not knowing the dangers within. Without great perseverance and great fortune, one can’t go far.”