While the three guardians were figuring out a plan of action, Mei Chao Bing was still in the southern chasm. He had gotten even closer to the end of the chasm by now. The place gave him an eerie feeling.
He hadn’t noticed at first, maybe not surprisingly. The whole chasm was filled with vengeful spirits so naturally, it wouldn’t be a place where you could find any peace. He hadn’t realized that it got worse and worse the closer he got to the end though.
By now, his hand and feet had turned cold despite him being a cultivator. It wasn’t due to the temperature even though it was indeed low at the bottom of the chasm. No, his breath didn’t leave any visible traces in the air and there was no sign of frost anywhere on the ground or walls and that was how cold it should have been for the temperature to have any effect on a nascent soul stage cultivator like him.
This meant that it wasn’t a physical coldness that made his body react like this but a spiritual coldness that you needed to watch out for. After all, even though the coldness itself might not be a physical phenomenon, his reaction was. And if this continued without him noticing, his movements would slow. When an especially powerful spirit appeared, that might mean the difference between life and death.
Curiously enough, he couldn’t see any spirits right now as if there weren’t any left on this last stretch of the path. He didn’t believe that this was the case. It just didn’t seem to make sense. This was where the cultivators back then had tried to flee, running ahead of the rip between the dimensions that blue butterfly had caused. Surely, some should have made it to the very end. If not in life, then they should have tried to get out of the chasm at the endpoint after their death. And yet, there was not a single one around.
Mei Chao Bing slowed his steps, his eyes narrowing while he grabbed the magical box more tightly and also pulled out the sword again that he had put aside after not needing it for so long. His intuition told him that there was something he needed to be ready for. Even if he couldn’t see it or hear it, he wouldn’t ignore that feeling in his gut.
One step after the other, he approached the furthest point where the two walls of the chasm came together and only a thin crack maybe reaching the width of a hair remained. Mei Chao Bing stared at it, trying to see if there was anything odd about this place.
He noticed more rubble on the ground, surely created by the last cultivators who tried to make it out. Other than that, he couldn’t spot anything. The chasm was dark everywhere but this place … even with his heightened senses, he couldn’t see more than vague silhouettes.
Mei Chao Bing took a shallow breath and focused more on his spiritual sense. Faint sounds came back but they weren’t what he was used to. They seemed discordant as if the spiritual energy had warped into something … different.
His brows furrowed. This seemed to have started earlier as well but he hadn’t paid it too much attention, thinking that it had to be an illusion created by how eerie this place was. Now, he was sure that he wasn’t imagining this though. No, the spiritual energy here really wasn’t normal.
Mei Chao Bing glanced at the magical box in his hand and finally took a step backward. Yan Hong Min had said that this box could store any kind of energy but he wasn’t sure if he should really believe that.
Yes, the confidence of Yun Bei Fen’s second senior martial brother came from a deep understanding of the theory behind all these inventions. But at the end of the day, he still seemed to do test runs and would refine his inventions afterward.
This magical box certainly hadn’t come from nowhere. No, if he wasn’t wrong, then Yan Hong Min should have started out with this idea, then created a smaller and less capable prototype before he finally went on to strengthen it until he ended up with the one that was now in his hands.
If this was right, then that also meant that Yan Hong Min’s assuredness that this box could store any kind of energy at all was based on his tests. And he could have only tested this with spiritual energy and the energy found in nature. The kind of twisted energy he currently had in front of him … he’d rather not try to find out what it could do to the magical box. In fact, he didn’t want to know what it could do to him either. He didn’t think himself invincible after all.
Mei Chao Bing put the magical box back into his spatial bag and then slowly retreated. If this had been any other time, he might have stuck around to investigate further and maybe even tried to solve the issue. Even if he died, it would be alright as long as it could get rid of this distorted energy and maybe prevent worse. Right now though, he couldn’t do that.
He had a task to fulfill. He needed to fill up this magical box and then return to the border town. He still needed to infiltrate the other side after Yun Bei Fen’s first senior martial brother returned, find out what his Master and the demonic practitioners were planning, and thwart said plan. He couldn’t die here.
Not to mention … blue butterfly was around somewhere. He might be unable to see her but he knew that she wasn’t far away. If he truly went up against whatever was up here, he didn’t think she would stay hidden. No, she wouldn’t be able to square that with her conscience. But if she came out, then not only would he die but she might as well. And letting that happen naturally went against his own conscience.
While the three guardians were figuring out a plan of action, Mei Chao Bing was still in the southern chasm. He had gotten even closer to the end of the chasm by now. The place gave him an eerie feeling.
He hadn’t noticed at first, maybe not surprisingly. The whole chasm was filled with vengeful spirits so naturally, it wouldn’t be a place where you could find any peace. He hadn’t realized that it got worse and worse the closer he got to the end though.
By now, his hand and feet had turned cold despite him being a cultivator. It wasn’t due to the temperature even though it was indeed low at the bottom of the chasm. No, his breath didn’t leave any visible traces in the air and there was no sign of frost anywhere on the ground or walls and that was how cold it should have been for the temperature to have any effect on a nascent soul stage cultivator like him.
This meant that it wasn’t a physical coldness that made his body react like this but a spiritual coldness that you needed to watch out for. After all, even though the coldness itself might not be a physical phenomenon, his reaction was. And if this continued without him noticing, his movements would slow. When an especially powerful spirit appeared, that might mean the difference between life and death.
Curiously enough, he couldn’t see any spirits right now as if there weren’t any left on this last stretch of the path. He didn’t believe that this was the case. It just didn’t seem to make sense. This was where the cultivators back then had tried to flee, running ahead of the rip between the dimensions that blue butterfly had caused. Surely, some should have made it to the very end. If not in life, then they should have tried to get out of the chasm at the endpoint after their death. And yet, there was not a single one around.
Mei Chao Bing slowed his steps, his eyes narrowing while he grabbed the magical box more tightly and also pulled out the sword again that he had put aside after not needing it for so long. His intuition told him that there was something he needed to be ready for. Even if he couldn’t see it or hear it, he wouldn’t ignore that feeling in his gut.
One step after the other, he approached the furthest point where the two walls of the chasm came together and only a thin crack maybe reaching the width of a hair remained. Mei Chao Bing stared at it, trying to see if there was anything odd about this place.
He noticed more rubble on the ground, surely created by the last cultivators who tried to make it out. Other than that, he couldn’t spot anything. The chasm was dark everywhere but this place … even with his heightened senses, he couldn’t see more than vague silhouettes.
Mei Chao Bing took a shallow breath and focused more on his spiritual sense. Faint sounds came back but they weren’t what he was used to. They seemed discordant as if the spiritual energy had warped into something … different.
His brows furrowed. This seemed to have started earlier as well but he hadn’t paid it too much attention, thinking that it had to be an illusion created by how eerie this place was. Now, he was sure that he wasn’t imagining this though. No, the spiritual energy here really wasn’t normal.
Mei Chao Bing glanced at the magical box in his hand and finally took a step backward. Yan Hong Min had said that this box could store any kind of energy but he wasn’t sure if he should really believe that.
Yes, the confidence of Yun Bei Fen’s second senior martial brother came from a deep understanding of the theory behind all these inventions. But at the end of the day, he still seemed to do test runs and would refine his inventions afterward.
This magical box certainly hadn’t come from nowhere. No, if he wasn’t wrong, then Yan Hong Min should have started out with this idea, then created a smaller and less capable prototype before he finally went on to strengthen it until he ended up with the one that was now in his hands.
If this was right, then that also meant that Yan Hong Min’s assuredness that this box could store any kind of energy at all was based on his tests. And he could have only tested this with spiritual energy and the energy found in nature. The kind of twisted energy he currently had in front of him … he’d rather not try to find out what it could do to the magical box. In fact, he didn’t want to know what it could do to him either. He didn’t think himself invincible after all.
Mei Chao Bing put the magical box back into his spatial bag and then slowly retreated. If this had been any other time, he might have stuck around to investigate further and maybe even tried to solve the issue. Even if he died, it would be alright as long as it could get rid of this distorted energy and maybe prevent worse. Right now though, he couldn’t do that.
He had a task to fulfill. He needed to fill up this magical box and then return to the border town. He still needed to infiltrate the other side after Yun Bei Fen’s first senior martial brother returned, find out what his Master and the demonic practitioners were planning, and thwart said plan. He couldn’t die here.
Not to mention … blue butterfly was around somewhere. He might be unable to see her but he knew that she wasn’t far away. If he truly went up against whatever was up here, he didn’t think she would stay hidden. No, she wouldn’t be able to square that with her conscience. But if she came out, then not only would he die but she might as well. And letting that happen naturally went against his own conscience.
