Although the snow that constantly bombarded the outside of the Qiang District was not present, the cold very much was, and a hot bath could only do so much against the degree of yin that had built up within her body. After all, even if it somehow took her a whole day to fly from the Central Plains to that random mountain in the south, she would have still remained within it for a minimum of ten days, with that number varying depending on how long she had spent in the cold mountain before the three that she had come across took her out of it.
In that time, with nearly no energy and a damaged body, her Superior Yin-Yang Ascendant physique was unable to counteract the cold, and so she now needed something else to forcefully raise the yang value until it was sufficient to counteract the yin.
For the moment, all that the rest in the bath was able to do was stabilise her condition at the third realm in every single type of energy she possessed, which was the easiest part of the process. With every stage and realm of current strength, the effort needed to go further would increase if she was in the position of a normal person, but with her physiques and the Blood Resuscitation realm of physique energy cultivation, the height of the fourth realm should be enough to push her back into the fifth realm in terms of strength, after which the breakthrough into the sixth stage would be sufficient to bring her back to full strength – hopefully. She was still acting based on assumptions regarding her own state.
Even then, the absent arm would cause her a lot of problems. When she had gotten out of the bath, one of the things she attempted to do was to project her planar energy out of the open meridians at her left shoulder in a manner that replicated the way in which they travelled through the meridians in her body. If such a thing was successful, she could still use techniques with ease, and stabilise energy around the meridians in a replica of her original arm.
Such things were never quite as easy as they might appear on first glance, however. As she had previously observed, it was easy enough to bring out the energy, but the moment that she attempted to stabilise it in a fashion similar to her previous network of meridians, everything collapsed and a dull pain shot through the remnant of her shoulder, as if attempting to warn her not to pursue this further. Obviously, she did not listen to such silly things, but did take the time to understand just what did and did not work.
Complete replicas of the original meridian networks, whether in the state that they first appeared in or the final, most optimised version, would always break down in this exact manner when she attempted to recreate them. Even a single point adhering to the original layout was sufficient.
Something that strayed from either one worked far better, and were nearly entirely stable, but the trouble came with her own lacking experience in regard to alternative meridian networks. She had created her own perfected configuration for the five meridian networks within her body, so she was familiar with what worked well for her, but to prevent the instant collapse of her energy, she had to go against all of that and create something different. In other words, this wasn’t able to make use of her existing knowledge, and required her to contemplate some kind of completely different setup for the sake of the stabilisation of energy.
It had to be mentioned that one of the many reasons that the meridians were such a valuable part of the human body, and why they were so difficult to repair or duplicate like she had managed to do by accident, was that they were one of the best environments for carrying and storing the five energies of the world. An artificial network of meridians would essentially be the best possible item that a blacksmith, inscription master or possibly even an array arranger could create, as they would allow for far more than the rather limited channels that existed within the items made by these three great arts.
With meridians, techniques could be executed, the body could be strengthened, medicinal essence could be spread throughout the body, and the being that possessed them was able to surpass the standard limits of the human body, like those encountered by the people of the many Orbises. To create another, entirely different network that was as good as her previous one without infringing upon the previous positions of the channels that were connected to her former and severed arm, was a rather difficult thing to do. Furthermore, given the way in which she currently wanted to create a kind of permanent technique to stabilise a new arm for herself, it wouldn’t be a good idea to stabilise her arm with a poorly made meridian network given the backlash that could result from breaking that technique.
The experimentation that she had done prior to the morning helped her conclude that it would be possible to implement her attempt in multiple steps. The first would be to create a stable series of meridian pathways through which her energy could be coursed regardless of the presence of an arm, or lack thereof. With those channels, she could still use her techniques and amplify those that were boosted by using two hands at once, such as Obliteration.
After that, she would need to find some way to maintain the meridian network for longer than a few seconds, as they would be unlikely to remain in place without the equivalent of the flesh and blood that typically composed the arm. Her first step would allow for the new meridians to function as they were meant to, and the second would permit them to have some sense of permanence and stability that might be superior even to her original arm, as that might be more difficult to remove via something akin to Reality Severance. Then again, it was able to completely sever the concept of a left arm from her body, so that was less likely.
It would be something that completely ignores her physical state and vitality, so it would still be a little more resistant to certain types of damage, and might have a far greater resistance to attacks than even the Armour Forming inscriptions of the scale armour working together could produce.
Her final step would be to ensure that the new arm was in a constant stable state, which should be the most complicated. When a regular arm moved, the meridians within would shift and the energy within would flow through smoothly enough, especially if one didn’t attempt to use a technique while actively moving her arm in a way that was contrary to the specifications of the technique itself. This was not something that could be replicated via the previous two steps for the simple reason that energy itself couldn’t exactly be moved without affecting itself.
This would likely be impossible for her to achieve within a month, even if the other steps could be completed tomorrow, as she would need to be able to somehow allow the energy stabilising the arm and the meridians to move freely without compromising the stability of the technique. It was a rather complicated thing to attain, which was why most had a number of vulnerabilities during the usage of their techniques, with most either stopping or otherwise compromising the power of their techniques to provide themselves with more flexibility. In other words, she needed to somehow replicate the functionality of a living human arm while going through the layer of complexity that was the limitations of techniques and energy.
Wei Yi was unable to complete this before the morning, and so she rose from the bed and put her hand into the still-hot bath, siphoning as much heat from within it as she could without pulling upon the heat contained within the stones beneath it, which would certainly be noticed by whoever would come over to clean up the room or rent it after her, depending on the policies of the inn. It wouldn’t be enough to overcome the yin in her body anyway, so she preferred not to cause any trouble.
At some other time, she could have overcome everyone present if she wanted to, but for the moment, the owner’s fourth realm and the third realm of his guards would be sufficient to give her a lot of trouble.
Having paid for the room the day prior, she was free to leave the moment that she wanted to, although she first stopped by the counter at the front to ask the owner about a variety of nearby establishments, all of which came to her mind when she was considering the places where a large quantity of heat or even pure yang may be found. Some of her ideas included the mines where the hot stones were dug out – given the Qiang District’s state as a mining district, there were bound to be a few of those – a training hall with a fire-focused environment, or even some kind of combat arena where the opponents favoured fire-type methods.
The last one was unlikely to be the most effective method, but she wasn’t going to dismiss the possibility of it until she knew there was a better choice available to her.
It turned out that all of these places could be found, if one wanted to look for them. Getting into the mines would be a little difficult, as the majority of those that contain valuable ores would be unavailable to anyone other than those from the Qiang District, or more precisely, the Qiang family. Combat arenas did exist, but most of them were purely for people to work out their differences and potentially kill one another, which would mean that she would either need to annoy a few fire-type cultivators to the point that they wouldn’t mind wasting their time trying to kill her.
There wouldn’t be much of a benefit to such a situation, as the cultivators wouldn’t be interested in preserving her life and playing around with fire to warm her up, which is what she would need from the arena. It did apparently offer a lot of rewards if she put herself up against much more powerful opponents that wanted to kick someone’s ass in a more socially permissible manner than simply running out onto the street and finding a random person, but that would be risky and unnecessarily difficult to make happen in the way that she wanted it to. For that reason, she concluded that the most optimal thing to do would be to seek out the second option she had inquired about, which was a training hall of some kind.
Such thing existed within every district of Yi City, and was popular in all of them as well, including even the Ju District. The only difference between any of the other districts and the district of non-planar methods was that the halls would feature more low-realm methods of training one’s own strength, and a focus on the physical aspects of the body over cultivation.
In the rest of the districts, the halls would be owned in part by outsiders and in part by the family of the district, with some having been stablished by the local residents for training their own familiar or other strong forces, while others would have been put into place by forces that weren’t directly connected to the ruling family of the district that wished to make a profit while creating something that their own forces could also use.
The ones used by the Qiang family would be out of her reach for now, simply due to her not being connected to the district’s leadership, so only the other category was available to her.
Out of those, there would still be several types for her to consider, with some focusing on individual training, others providing a variety of training types and methods, and others being dedicated to instructing those that wished to study from retired and aging experts that were no longer so focused on personally performing any tasks outside of a limited scope of activity within their chosen district.
For her, the one of most interest would be those with private chambers, since her method of absorbing heat by sitting in the middle of it comfortably was unlikely to avoid the attention of various people in most of the other training halls. One of her current advantages was that nobody recognised her, and that she was free to move without the fear of the Greats tracking her down and killing her while she is weak. The moment that she makes enough waves down in the south, there would have to be people that would spread word – gossip was a common thing, and not always in favour of the person being discussed regardless of the way in which they were described to others – and others that would recognise the descriptions of the Ascendant.
She didn’t think that anyone was familiar with most of her cultivation methods, but if it so happened that there were people who did know all of her abilities, closed chambers should still keep her safe from their attention for long enough.
There was only so much that you could perceive from someone walking into a room, then walking out some time later, and given the variety of techniques that were practised, it was impossible for most people to understand what exactly someone was doing within without forcing one’s spiritual perception through the security measures that the vast majority of training halls were nearly obligated to have to earn the trust of their potential customers. Stealthily looking at the cultivation methods of others was always looked down upon if one had no relation to the person they were spying on.
Her killing will was still comparatively weak, but she would still be able to prevent anyone from comprehending the exact nature of her actions within any training room that didn’t have glass walls.
Fortunately, she was able to find several such places from speaking with the inn owner, and a few more from looking about, allowing her to pick and choose some more. The process almost brought her back to the time that she had been in the first realm and searching for a combat arena to fight in and acquire resources with her unusual strength at the time.
In the end, since she did not really need to even consider competition, nor the feasibility of her surviving against unpredictable foes in situations where she couldn’t reveal her strength, her choice was made quickly enough. Out of the places that had a yang or fire-oriented training chamber, only two permitted her enough freedom inside to regulate the intensity and act however she wanted, and one was simply more expensive than the other. It did offer more options in a single chamber, hence the price increase, but that was completely unnecessary for her and so she was not going to waste her funds on it – a far more significant concern given the current inability to use the Dao of Law to manufacture false coins.
With the clothing that she now wore, courtesy of that shop owner that she had encountered but was then unable to come across again, as if she had decided that providing a service for a single customer was enough for the month, Wei Yi noticed that the gazes upon her were a little more favourable than before, although the majority still did their best not to look anywhere but in front of themselves, as was customary here. Due to the slightly more favourable reaction, she concluded that she would have a reasonable chance of acquiring a room in the training hall, at least for the day.
After that, if they had problems with her, she could spend a little more of her limited money.
The time that she needed to spend in an appropriate training room depended entirely on the state of the yin in her body, the intensity of the yang provided by the room, and a number of random factors that she couldn’t really take into account at the moment. Given the extreme number of Dao that she possessed at a stage above Initial Accomplishment, which she was almost certain exceeded that of any other living being in the Planar Continents due to the sheer coincidence that was needed for her to have that many under her best, all of the factors couldn’t really be considered properly, even with Endless Calculation.
Perhaps her attainment in the Fire Dao, courtesy of the Dao of the Elements and the Planar Dao above it, would somehow accelerate the process, or perhaps it would instead slow it down due to her greater affinity with the flames preventing them affecting her as much.
A day would still be beneficial to her, as it would push her current strength higher up to the peak of the third realm, then pave the path to the fourth and fifth realm, and the inevitable step through the half-way point of the fifth realm and whatever comes with it. She hoped that she would be able to get through it with a perfected stage, but given the fact that she had already obtained the highest possible number of searing marks, it should theoretically allow her to endure even without that.
However, some of the thoughts that had been going through her head prior to the Reality Severance executed by the Greats still stuck around within her head, and prompted far more contemplation now that she had little to do. The maximum number of marks, ninety-nine, was not only commonly accepted but also highly reasonable, especially when the quantity of scales on her Subterranean Shell was considered, but she was also the very same person that had recently – speaking from her experience of time rather than the actual time that had passed – introduced the notion that planar energy wasn’t so much a tangible thing when unbound as much as it was a certain allocated portion that could be increased by using anchor energy via something like the Truth of the Universe.
There was a reason to believe that ninety-nine wasn’t the peak, and there was just as much of a reason to believe that it was. In particular, the latter was most sound as there should be no more marks appearing upon her Subterranean Shell, but there was also the fact that the sixth stage would be akin to breaking through to a new realm for her. At that time, a number of curious changes would take place, and some would seem like she did indeed reach the next realm a few stages early, whereas others appeared less sensible until she obtained a few more realms.
It was not at all unreasonable to believe that the sixth stage and its false breakthrough into a new realm could somehow introduce the presence of more searing marks upon the core. What was more concerning was that there was no room at all for the marks, meaning that one would either fit in really oddly, or that there was something that she had not yet understood about the overall structure.
She did not stay still as she was thinking, which would simply be foolish while she really did need to hurry up, and proceeded to the training hall that she had learned about, taking some time to listen to the conversations of other people on the way. A random word could always provide her with enlightenment on the current topic, as there was a lot to be learned from coincidental connections that allow for one to realise something that they had not previously considered, but even if nothing of the sort occurred, there were still things that she needed to learn about the Qiang District.
For one, she was really curious to know whether there was a chance for her to come across the Qiang Patriarch in a private space without needing to outright break into the Ancestral Hall like she had done in the Bai District, even if that incident happened purely by accident.
Having a chance to chat would be incredibly useful in advancing her agenda in the Qiang District, as all that she really needed was a chance to heal and the spatial stabilisation node, which would likely not do much in the district right away due to the lack of spatial realm to connect it to. The Patriarch wouldn’t need to worry about any travel to and from the various lands connected by the Kong Prison Realm’s gateways for some time, and there would certainly be no chance of the Greats learning about the spatial stabilisation node’s usage through the activation process, given that the most striking part was opening the gateway and connecting the Yi City Web.
In short, if she got to talk to him, she was almost certain that she’d be able to work out a deal, even if it was one that would need to be reconsidered for a long time once the nodes were connected to Paragon and the Kong Prison Realm. This was the case with most of the Patriarchs, but the trouble usually arose in finding a chance to talk to them.
Most of the Patriarchs were old and highly focused on pursuits important either to them or their district, and so they wouldn’t make too many public appearances. With the subdued natures of the southern people, this would apply even more to the Qiang Patriarch, so to come across him-
“- he’d address the recent issues with the mines? That Qiang Patriarch?”
That line of thinking promptly stopped as she quietly slowed down and pretended to have some purpose to being near a pair of people that were chatting with one another as they sat on a bench and snacked on some local product. She didn’t hear anything before this, but the two sentences were more than sufficient to inform her of the exact value of such a possibility, meaning that any information that she could obtain on the topic would be incredibly valuable in taking advantage of the situation.
“It’s bad enough, then. Some say its planar beasts that have stopped the miners from continuing on as usual.”
“Maybe the mines have finally dried up? We’ve been sitting on them for a million years by now, so it was quite amazing that there was still anything left within them,” the first man spoke after he had a bite of the local food, “I’d not be surprised, although I don’t know what we’d do if that happened. Most of the things I sell need those materials.”
“The very array keeping the snow away needs them, so it isn’t only your problem. The western nations have been eyeing this district, I’ve heard, so if we suddenly lost the ability to maintain our equipment…”
“Yeah, wouldn’t be good,” the man suddenly stood up and turned away, “I need to go. Later.”
“Mhm.”
Thus, the two parted uneventfully, with the second person staying behind to finish off what he was eating before he also headed off.
While their conversation did mostly seem to be based on rumours and speculation, with it ending a little too quickly to obtain anything more precise, that was good enough for her. With a topic to be discussed, as well as the suggestion that it would be brought up soon, she would only need to stick around the district for a while to hopefully come across the Qiang Patriarch. At that point, whether he noticed her or she manages to approach him, the objective of coming across him would be fulfilled, and she would have the chance to move along smoothly.
For that reason, she continued to pay attention to various conversations that she walked past, and soon found out that the estimated time for the Qiang Patriarch’s appearance was the next day, meaning that she wouldn’t need to wait long at all. This was essentially as good as she could have hoped for.
‘In that case, I should get as much done today and be prepared to somehow attract his attention tomorrow, using a greater degree of strength than I’ve been able to showcase today in order to prevent him from thinking that I am currently incapable of fighting back if necessary. I don’t know the exact nature of the Patriarch, after all, so if he is the type to randomly kill someone off if he doesn’t like the way they look at him, I should give him enough reason to be wary of me to prevent that,’ Wei Yi thought while heading towards the south, where the training hall was located, ‘I will have no real option to use the Kong Prison Realm and the Arbiters in my favour, after all, so it is only personal strength that can be displayed.’
The borders of the Qiang District were actually far closer to the Absolute Frost than the Chao District was to the Glass Wastes, to the point that the southernmost wall of the district was exactly five steps away from the border of the region. If one took five steps to the south, their body would instantly freeze unless they possessed truly transcendental methods, as only a few things in the world were able to endure the absolute cold.
Hence, learning that the training hall with a focus on fire and yang was located near the southern wall was very interesting, to put it mildly, but even before she got there, she had a few ideas regarding why someone would make such a decision.
Yang and yin were all connected, just as the five elements, the five forms of energy, and plenty of other elements that she wouldn’t bother mentioning if she had to explain this to another person, and so the great quantity of yin that was present to the south could naturally be used for the sake of amplifying the internal yang, if only through the method of making one feel far hotter in the same temperature due to the outside being significantly colder. It wasn’t too significant so long as she still obtained a sufficient quantity and intensity of yang, so she wasn’t going to spend too long thinking about it.
In this case, given the rather large size of all districts, a short time still meant quite a few minutes, as she had entered from the west of the Qiang District and then headed over to the north for her place of rest for the night. Now, she had to go all the way down to the south in an environment where a good portion of the district was not organised in the slightest.
Given the fact that it had started out as a mining district, perhaps it wasn’t much of a surprise that the roads and streets of the Qiang District had been built essentially at random, with some crossing and others never coming anywhere near one another for the majority of the district’s length. Furthermore, to the east, most of the region was occupied by the mines that obtained all of the resources that the district used, so the roads built atop solid soil and stone were replaced with wood and bridges that hung above large pits, with some still being excavated near the surface whereas others snaked deep into the earth and only released the occasional sound of metal hitting stone to the surface, which made the place rather difficult to live near if one wasn’t a miner that had gotten used to the noise.
On her route, she only had to go past one of the pits, mostly because that mine had expanded far further to the west than most of the others, but that was enough for her to understand that it would not be a good idea to stick around for much longer.
If there was one benefit, it was that the bridges were straighter than the roads, out of necessity.
The training hall at the southern end of the district was built with a wooden shell on the outside, looking like most of the structures of the southern region, but with her current spiritual perception, she was confident enough that it was only a shell. Inside, many layers of metals and stone protected the people on the outside from any mishaps on the outside, as well as stopping those on the outside from spying on the inside.
This was good enough for her, and she had spent enough time getting over there, so she headed straight into the building and managed to obtain a room right away, getting into it quickly.
As her chamber was devoted purely to fire, it was already as hot as in the north when she entered, and it didn’t take long for her to figure out exactly how to best take advantage of the chamber and to make the most of the eight hours that she had within the room. Her focus was to acquire as much yang as she could without burning herself and destroying her body further, and while it required a little bit of experimentation to get things just right for herself, she was able to prepare things in less than five minutes, removing her robes quickly after so that they wouldn’t be damaged too much in the process.
Her scale armour stayed on, not only because it was a pain to remove it, but primarily due to the potential that it had to greatly assist her in the process of absorbing the flames. Even though it was star metal, it would still heat up and gather some of the thermal energy as it was exposed to heat, and so it would give her a little bit of additional yang to process and absorb, which would also do a lot to prevent her skin from simply burning. Instead, it would boil and melt if it would be affected at all.
The Ascendant’s current state made it rather difficult for her to be absolutely certain about any particular aspect of her current strengths and weaknesses, as she did technically possess all of the power she had in her prime, it was just dulled by the damage to the body. She should still be able to regenerate quickly, endure absolute heat or absolute cold, and more, but without experiencing it first-hand, she didn’t want to make any assumptions about herself when she did not need to. This was best left until a time that she had the guarantee of security from any source, whether it was her perfect state or any outside force that she could trust.
With the room prepared and the flames burning in the centre, the air being distorted by the intense heat, she stepped in and began to absorb the heat. It filled her body relatively slowly, but it was able to get deep into her, and target that cold that had set in after her long time inside of the cold mountain.
Slowly, she was feeling better.
Although the snow that constantly bombarded the outside of the Qiang District was not present, the cold very much was, and a hot bath could only do so much against the degree of yin that had built up within her body. After all, even if it somehow took her a whole day to fly from the Central Plains to that random mountain in the south, she would have still remained within it for a minimum of ten days, with that number varying depending on how long she had spent in the cold mountain before the three that she had come across took her out of it.
In that time, with nearly no energy and a damaged body, her Superior Yin-Yang Ascendant physique was unable to counteract the cold, and so she now needed something else to forcefully raise the yang value until it was sufficient to counteract the yin.
For the moment, all that the rest in the bath was able to do was stabilise her condition at the third realm in every single type of energy she possessed, which was the easiest part of the process. With every stage and realm of current strength, the effort needed to go further would increase if she was in the position of a normal person, but with her physiques and the Blood Resuscitation realm of physique energy cultivation, the height of the fourth realm should be enough to push her back into the fifth realm in terms of strength, after which the breakthrough into the sixth stage would be sufficient to bring her back to full strength – hopefully. She was still acting based on assumptions regarding her own state.
Even then, the absent arm would cause her a lot of problems. When she had gotten out of the bath, one of the things she attempted to do was to project her planar energy out of the open meridians at her left shoulder in a manner that replicated the way in which they travelled through the meridians in her body. If such a thing was successful, she could still use techniques with ease, and stabilise energy around the meridians in a replica of her original arm.
Such things were never quite as easy as they might appear on first glance, however. As she had previously observed, it was easy enough to bring out the energy, but the moment that she attempted to stabilise it in a fashion similar to her previous network of meridians, everything collapsed and a dull pain shot through the remnant of her shoulder, as if attempting to warn her not to pursue this further. Obviously, she did not listen to such silly things, but did take the time to understand just what did and did not work.
Complete replicas of the original meridian networks, whether in the state that they first appeared in or the final, most optimised version, would always break down in this exact manner when she attempted to recreate them. Even a single point adhering to the original layout was sufficient.
Something that strayed from either one worked far better, and were nearly entirely stable, but the trouble came with her own lacking experience in regard to alternative meridian networks. She had created her own perfected configuration for the five meridian networks within her body, so she was familiar with what worked well for her, but to prevent the instant collapse of her energy, she had to go against all of that and create something different. In other words, this wasn’t able to make use of her existing knowledge, and required her to contemplate some kind of completely different setup for the sake of the stabilisation of energy.
It had to be mentioned that one of the many reasons that the meridians were such a valuable part of the human body, and why they were so difficult to repair or duplicate like she had managed to do by accident, was that they were one of the best environments for carrying and storing the five energies of the world. An artificial network of meridians would essentially be the best possible item that a blacksmith, inscription master or possibly even an array arranger could create, as they would allow for far more than the rather limited channels that existed within the items made by these three great arts.
With meridians, techniques could be executed, the body could be strengthened, medicinal essence could be spread throughout the body, and the being that possessed them was able to surpass the standard limits of the human body, like those encountered by the people of the many Orbises. To create another, entirely different network that was as good as her previous one without infringing upon the previous positions of the channels that were connected to her former and severed arm, was a rather difficult thing to do. Furthermore, given the way in which she currently wanted to create a kind of permanent technique to stabilise a new arm for herself, it wouldn’t be a good idea to stabilise her arm with a poorly made meridian network given the backlash that could result from breaking that technique.
The experimentation that she had done prior to the morning helped her conclude that it would be possible to implement her attempt in multiple steps. The first would be to create a stable series of meridian pathways through which her energy could be coursed regardless of the presence of an arm, or lack thereof. With those channels, she could still use her techniques and amplify those that were boosted by using two hands at once, such as Obliteration.
After that, she would need to find some way to maintain the meridian network for longer than a few seconds, as they would be unlikely to remain in place without the equivalent of the flesh and blood that typically composed the arm. Her first step would allow for the new meridians to function as they were meant to, and the second would permit them to have some sense of permanence and stability that might be superior even to her original arm, as that might be more difficult to remove via something akin to Reality Severance. Then again, it was able to completely sever the concept of a left arm from her body, so that was less likely.
It would be something that completely ignores her physical state and vitality, so it would still be a little more resistant to certain types of damage, and might have a far greater resistance to attacks than even the Armour Forming inscriptions of the scale armour working together could produce.
Her final step would be to ensure that the new arm was in a constant stable state, which should be the most complicated. When a regular arm moved, the meridians within would shift and the energy within would flow through smoothly enough, especially if one didn’t attempt to use a technique while actively moving her arm in a way that was contrary to the specifications of the technique itself. This was not something that could be replicated via the previous two steps for the simple reason that energy itself couldn’t exactly be moved without affecting itself.
This would likely be impossible for her to achieve within a month, even if the other steps could be completed tomorrow, as she would need to be able to somehow allow the energy stabilising the arm and the meridians to move freely without compromising the stability of the technique. It was a rather complicated thing to attain, which was why most had a number of vulnerabilities during the usage of their techniques, with most either stopping or otherwise compromising the power of their techniques to provide themselves with more flexibility. In other words, she needed to somehow replicate the functionality of a living human arm while going through the layer of complexity that was the limitations of techniques and energy.
Wei Yi was unable to complete this before the morning, and so she rose from the bed and put her hand into the still-hot bath, siphoning as much heat from within it as she could without pulling upon the heat contained within the stones beneath it, which would certainly be noticed by whoever would come over to clean up the room or rent it after her, depending on the policies of the inn. It wouldn’t be enough to overcome the yin in her body anyway, so she preferred not to cause any trouble.
At some other time, she could have overcome everyone present if she wanted to, but for the moment, the owner’s fourth realm and the third realm of his guards would be sufficient to give her a lot of trouble.
Having paid for the room the day prior, she was free to leave the moment that she wanted to, although she first stopped by the counter at the front to ask the owner about a variety of nearby establishments, all of which came to her mind when she was considering the places where a large quantity of heat or even pure yang may be found. Some of her ideas included the mines where the hot stones were dug out – given the Qiang District’s state as a mining district, there were bound to be a few of those – a training hall with a fire-focused environment, or even some kind of combat arena where the opponents favoured fire-type methods.
The last one was unlikely to be the most effective method, but she wasn’t going to dismiss the possibility of it until she knew there was a better choice available to her.
It turned out that all of these places could be found, if one wanted to look for them. Getting into the mines would be a little difficult, as the majority of those that contain valuable ores would be unavailable to anyone other than those from the Qiang District, or more precisely, the Qiang family. Combat arenas did exist, but most of them were purely for people to work out their differences and potentially kill one another, which would mean that she would either need to annoy a few fire-type cultivators to the point that they wouldn’t mind wasting their time trying to kill her.
There wouldn’t be much of a benefit to such a situation, as the cultivators wouldn’t be interested in preserving her life and playing around with fire to warm her up, which is what she would need from the arena. It did apparently offer a lot of rewards if she put herself up against much more powerful opponents that wanted to kick someone’s ass in a more socially permissible manner than simply running out onto the street and finding a random person, but that would be risky and unnecessarily difficult to make happen in the way that she wanted it to. For that reason, she concluded that the most optimal thing to do would be to seek out the second option she had inquired about, which was a training hall of some kind.
Such thing existed within every district of Yi City, and was popular in all of them as well, including even the Ju District. The only difference between any of the other districts and the district of non-planar methods was that the halls would feature more low-realm methods of training one’s own strength, and a focus on the physical aspects of the body over cultivation.
In the rest of the districts, the halls would be owned in part by outsiders and in part by the family of the district, with some having been stablished by the local residents for training their own familiar or other strong forces, while others would have been put into place by forces that weren’t directly connected to the ruling family of the district that wished to make a profit while creating something that their own forces could also use.
The ones used by the Qiang family would be out of her reach for now, simply due to her not being connected to the district’s leadership, so only the other category was available to her.
Out of those, there would still be several types for her to consider, with some focusing on individual training, others providing a variety of training types and methods, and others being dedicated to instructing those that wished to study from retired and aging experts that were no longer so focused on personally performing any tasks outside of a limited scope of activity within their chosen district.
For her, the one of most interest would be those with private chambers, since her method of absorbing heat by sitting in the middle of it comfortably was unlikely to avoid the attention of various people in most of the other training halls. One of her current advantages was that nobody recognised her, and that she was free to move without the fear of the Greats tracking her down and killing her while she is weak. The moment that she makes enough waves down in the south, there would have to be people that would spread word – gossip was a common thing, and not always in favour of the person being discussed regardless of the way in which they were described to others – and others that would recognise the descriptions of the Ascendant.
She didn’t think that anyone was familiar with most of her cultivation methods, but if it so happened that there were people who did know all of her abilities, closed chambers should still keep her safe from their attention for long enough.
There was only so much that you could perceive from someone walking into a room, then walking out some time later, and given the variety of techniques that were practised, it was impossible for most people to understand what exactly someone was doing within without forcing one’s spiritual perception through the security measures that the vast majority of training halls were nearly obligated to have to earn the trust of their potential customers. Stealthily looking at the cultivation methods of others was always looked down upon if one had no relation to the person they were spying on.
Her killing will was still comparatively weak, but she would still be able to prevent anyone from comprehending the exact nature of her actions within any training room that didn’t have glass walls.
Fortunately, she was able to find several such places from speaking with the inn owner, and a few more from looking about, allowing her to pick and choose some more. The process almost brought her back to the time that she had been in the first realm and searching for a combat arena to fight in and acquire resources with her unusual strength at the time.
In the end, since she did not really need to even consider competition, nor the feasibility of her surviving against unpredictable foes in situations where she couldn’t reveal her strength, her choice was made quickly enough. Out of the places that had a yang or fire-oriented training chamber, only two permitted her enough freedom inside to regulate the intensity and act however she wanted, and one was simply more expensive than the other. It did offer more options in a single chamber, hence the price increase, but that was completely unnecessary for her and so she was not going to waste her funds on it – a far more significant concern given the current inability to use the Dao of Law to manufacture false coins.
With the clothing that she now wore, courtesy of that shop owner that she had encountered but was then unable to come across again, as if she had decided that providing a service for a single customer was enough for the month, Wei Yi noticed that the gazes upon her were a little more favourable than before, although the majority still did their best not to look anywhere but in front of themselves, as was customary here. Due to the slightly more favourable reaction, she concluded that she would have a reasonable chance of acquiring a room in the training hall, at least for the day.
After that, if they had problems with her, she could spend a little more of her limited money.
The time that she needed to spend in an appropriate training room depended entirely on the state of the yin in her body, the intensity of the yang provided by the room, and a number of random factors that she couldn’t really take into account at the moment. Given the extreme number of Dao that she possessed at a stage above Initial Accomplishment, which she was almost certain exceeded that of any other living being in the Planar Continents due to the sheer coincidence that was needed for her to have that many under her best, all of the factors couldn’t really be considered properly, even with Endless Calculation.
Perhaps her attainment in the Fire Dao, courtesy of the Dao of the Elements and the Planar Dao above it, would somehow accelerate the process, or perhaps it would instead slow it down due to her greater affinity with the flames preventing them affecting her as much.
A day would still be beneficial to her, as it would push her current strength higher up to the peak of the third realm, then pave the path to the fourth and fifth realm, and the inevitable step through the half-way point of the fifth realm and whatever comes with it. She hoped that she would be able to get through it with a perfected stage, but given the fact that she had already obtained the highest possible number of searing marks, it should theoretically allow her to endure even without that.
However, some of the thoughts that had been going through her head prior to the Reality Severance executed by the Greats still stuck around within her head, and prompted far more contemplation now that she had little to do. The maximum number of marks, ninety-nine, was not only commonly accepted but also highly reasonable, especially when the quantity of scales on her Subterranean Shell was considered, but she was also the very same person that had recently – speaking from her experience of time rather than the actual time that had passed – introduced the notion that planar energy wasn’t so much a tangible thing when unbound as much as it was a certain allocated portion that could be increased by using anchor energy via something like the Truth of the Universe.
There was a reason to believe that ninety-nine wasn’t the peak, and there was just as much of a reason to believe that it was. In particular, the latter was most sound as there should be no more marks appearing upon her Subterranean Shell, but there was also the fact that the sixth stage would be akin to breaking through to a new realm for her. At that time, a number of curious changes would take place, and some would seem like she did indeed reach the next realm a few stages early, whereas others appeared less sensible until she obtained a few more realms.
It was not at all unreasonable to believe that the sixth stage and its false breakthrough into a new realm could somehow introduce the presence of more searing marks upon the core. What was more concerning was that there was no room at all for the marks, meaning that one would either fit in really oddly, or that there was something that she had not yet understood about the overall structure.
She did not stay still as she was thinking, which would simply be foolish while she really did need to hurry up, and proceeded to the training hall that she had learned about, taking some time to listen to the conversations of other people on the way. A random word could always provide her with enlightenment on the current topic, as there was a lot to be learned from coincidental connections that allow for one to realise something that they had not previously considered, but even if nothing of the sort occurred, there were still things that she needed to learn about the Qiang District.
For one, she was really curious to know whether there was a chance for her to come across the Qiang Patriarch in a private space without needing to outright break into the Ancestral Hall like she had done in the Bai District, even if that incident happened purely by accident.
Having a chance to chat would be incredibly useful in advancing her agenda in the Qiang District, as all that she really needed was a chance to heal and the spatial stabilisation node, which would likely not do much in the district right away due to the lack of spatial realm to connect it to. The Patriarch wouldn’t need to worry about any travel to and from the various lands connected by the Kong Prison Realm’s gateways for some time, and there would certainly be no chance of the Greats learning about the spatial stabilisation node’s usage through the activation process, given that the most striking part was opening the gateway and connecting the Yi City Web.
In short, if she got to talk to him, she was almost certain that she’d be able to work out a deal, even if it was one that would need to be reconsidered for a long time once the nodes were connected to Paragon and the Kong Prison Realm. This was the case with most of the Patriarchs, but the trouble usually arose in finding a chance to talk to them.
Most of the Patriarchs were old and highly focused on pursuits important either to them or their district, and so they wouldn’t make too many public appearances. With the subdued natures of the southern people, this would apply even more to the Qiang Patriarch, so to come across him-
“- he’d address the recent issues with the mines? That Qiang Patriarch?”
That line of thinking promptly stopped as she quietly slowed down and pretended to have some purpose to being near a pair of people that were chatting with one another as they sat on a bench and snacked on some local product. She didn’t hear anything before this, but the two sentences were more than sufficient to inform her of the exact value of such a possibility, meaning that any information that she could obtain on the topic would be incredibly valuable in taking advantage of the situation.
“It’s bad enough, then. Some say its planar beasts that have stopped the miners from continuing on as usual.”
“Maybe the mines have finally dried up? We’ve been sitting on them for a million years by now, so it was quite amazing that there was still anything left within them,” the first man spoke after he had a bite of the local food, “I’d not be surprised, although I don’t know what we’d do if that happened. Most of the things I sell need those materials.”
“The very array keeping the snow away needs them, so it isn’t only your problem. The western nations have been eyeing this district, I’ve heard, so if we suddenly lost the ability to maintain our equipment…”
“Yeah, wouldn’t be good,” the man suddenly stood up and turned away, “I need to go. Later.”
“Mhm.”
Thus, the two parted uneventfully, with the second person staying behind to finish off what he was eating before he also headed off.
While their conversation did mostly seem to be based on rumours and speculation, with it ending a little too quickly to obtain anything more precise, that was good enough for her. With a topic to be discussed, as well as the suggestion that it would be brought up soon, she would only need to stick around the district for a while to hopefully come across the Qiang Patriarch. At that point, whether he noticed her or she manages to approach him, the objective of coming across him would be fulfilled, and she would have the chance to move along smoothly.
For that reason, she continued to pay attention to various conversations that she walked past, and soon found out that the estimated time for the Qiang Patriarch’s appearance was the next day, meaning that she wouldn’t need to wait long at all. This was essentially as good as she could have hoped for.
‘In that case, I should get as much done today and be prepared to somehow attract his attention tomorrow, using a greater degree of strength than I’ve been able to showcase today in order to prevent him from thinking that I am currently incapable of fighting back if necessary. I don’t know the exact nature of the Patriarch, after all, so if he is the type to randomly kill someone off if he doesn’t like the way they look at him, I should give him enough reason to be wary of me to prevent that,’ Wei Yi thought while heading towards the south, where the training hall was located, ‘I will have no real option to use the Kong Prison Realm and the Arbiters in my favour, after all, so it is only personal strength that can be displayed.’
The borders of the Qiang District were actually far closer to the Absolute Frost than the Chao District was to the Glass Wastes, to the point that the southernmost wall of the district was exactly five steps away from the border of the region. If one took five steps to the south, their body would instantly freeze unless they possessed truly transcendental methods, as only a few things in the world were able to endure the absolute cold.
Hence, learning that the training hall with a focus on fire and yang was located near the southern wall was very interesting, to put it mildly, but even before she got there, she had a few ideas regarding why someone would make such a decision.
Yang and yin were all connected, just as the five elements, the five forms of energy, and plenty of other elements that she wouldn’t bother mentioning if she had to explain this to another person, and so the great quantity of yin that was present to the south could naturally be used for the sake of amplifying the internal yang, if only through the method of making one feel far hotter in the same temperature due to the outside being significantly colder. It wasn’t too significant so long as she still obtained a sufficient quantity and intensity of yang, so she wasn’t going to spend too long thinking about it.
In this case, given the rather large size of all districts, a short time still meant quite a few minutes, as she had entered from the west of the Qiang District and then headed over to the north for her place of rest for the night. Now, she had to go all the way down to the south in an environment where a good portion of the district was not organised in the slightest.
Given the fact that it had started out as a mining district, perhaps it wasn’t much of a surprise that the roads and streets of the Qiang District had been built essentially at random, with some crossing and others never coming anywhere near one another for the majority of the district’s length. Furthermore, to the east, most of the region was occupied by the mines that obtained all of the resources that the district used, so the roads built atop solid soil and stone were replaced with wood and bridges that hung above large pits, with some still being excavated near the surface whereas others snaked deep into the earth and only released the occasional sound of metal hitting stone to the surface, which made the place rather difficult to live near if one wasn’t a miner that had gotten used to the noise.
On her route, she only had to go past one of the pits, mostly because that mine had expanded far further to the west than most of the others, but that was enough for her to understand that it would not be a good idea to stick around for much longer.
If there was one benefit, it was that the bridges were straighter than the roads, out of necessity.
The training hall at the southern end of the district was built with a wooden shell on the outside, looking like most of the structures of the southern region, but with her current spiritual perception, she was confident enough that it was only a shell. Inside, many layers of metals and stone protected the people on the outside from any mishaps on the outside, as well as stopping those on the outside from spying on the inside.
This was good enough for her, and she had spent enough time getting over there, so she headed straight into the building and managed to obtain a room right away, getting into it quickly.
As her chamber was devoted purely to fire, it was already as hot as in the north when she entered, and it didn’t take long for her to figure out exactly how to best take advantage of the chamber and to make the most of the eight hours that she had within the room. Her focus was to acquire as much yang as she could without burning herself and destroying her body further, and while it required a little bit of experimentation to get things just right for herself, she was able to prepare things in less than five minutes, removing her robes quickly after so that they wouldn’t be damaged too much in the process.
Her scale armour stayed on, not only because it was a pain to remove it, but primarily due to the potential that it had to greatly assist her in the process of absorbing the flames. Even though it was star metal, it would still heat up and gather some of the thermal energy as it was exposed to heat, and so it would give her a little bit of additional yang to process and absorb, which would also do a lot to prevent her skin from simply burning. Instead, it would boil and melt if it would be affected at all.
The Ascendant’s current state made it rather difficult for her to be absolutely certain about any particular aspect of her current strengths and weaknesses, as she did technically possess all of the power she had in her prime, it was just dulled by the damage to the body. She should still be able to regenerate quickly, endure absolute heat or absolute cold, and more, but without experiencing it first-hand, she didn’t want to make any assumptions about herself when she did not need to. This was best left until a time that she had the guarantee of security from any source, whether it was her perfect state or any outside force that she could trust.
With the room prepared and the flames burning in the centre, the air being distorted by the intense heat, she stepped in and began to absorb the heat. It filled her body relatively slowly, but it was able to get deep into her, and target that cold that had set in after her long time inside of the cold mountain.
Slowly, she was feeling better.
