It has been eight months since they set out for the hidden grounds, and no direct progress has been made. Yi Wei, on the other hand, had progressed a lot. Her cultivation had been advancing until it reached the last stage of the Energy Condensation realm, her hair had grown even further to touch her lower back, her Dawn series of techniques was slowly nearing completion, her attempt to separate the memories of the Thunder Lord from her own was progressing smoothly, and her chest… was not developing as she had hoped. Although her body and behind had clearly grown, making it much more difficult to hide her breasts without the use of some additional effort, it was completely different from what occurred to Yi Bai’s body.

She was of a similar age to Yi Wei, and also turned out to be a late bloomer, as her figure had changed from nearly flat to what could only be described as impressive.

Although it was a little jealousy inducing, it also allowed Yi Wei to understand her progress in removing the Thunder Lord’s influence on her. Unfortunately, that progress was not as great as she had hoped, even though she did gain far more control over herself in most situations.

Her suspicion regarding her lack of growth in certain areas was that the Condensed Formation Body was put together a little lazily, and thus stunted a few very specific venues of development, some of which just happened to include the exact areas she wanted to grow the most. That taught her a lot, albeit a little too late.

Today, she had gotten as far away from the rest of the group as possible, and intended to break through again, to truly become someone in the second realm while also implementing her plan to conceal her incredible body cultivation technique – the Dawn Star Body. It was something she created from her combined understanding of various body skills, and even though it was rather effective when combined with the immense quantity of yang inside of her, its primary purpose was to be as obvious as possible.

Her physical strength, even with Great Light’s training set limit it, was still far beyond anything most cultivators had, and thus it could easily be noticed by anyone who was paying attention. Thus, to obscure it, she needed something to conceal it. Since she was going all out with her dawn skills, why not use that theme for her body technique as well?

It would not be as in-depth as the Condensed Formation Body, which she planned to update later, and it could be used to excuse her physical superiority.

‘For now, I should focus on the present. I don’t have any planar herbs to devour this time, so I can’t try to strengthen my physique or develop a new one – if that is even possible – and I can instead focus on simply breaking through, both in my cultivation and the Dawn Star Body.’

She took a deep breath, bound her hair in a simple ponytail, and activated her cultivation technique.

The dense planar energy of the valley surged to her, rapidly flowing into her physique and filling her dantian. Unlike the instant breakthrough she had the first time she used the Mysterious Characters technique, her progress had been slowing down more and more, and this time, she had to absorb planar energy for almost ten minutes before she felt the energy within her quiver.

Before it progressed any further, she sent all of her cosmic energy into each of the meridians within her body. They formed into small, glowing stars, being barely held in place with a combination of her spiritual will and physique energy. At the same time, she envisioned that blinding dawn within her mind, also executing the incomplete variant of the Dawn Flowing Light to seal the image firmly in her body and surroundings.

The next second, her planar aperture filled to the brim, the energy rapidly condensing back into liquid form, before it shook.

With a dull chime, the cosmic fluid vibrated once, then again and again, until the number of chimes was nine. Matching the beat of her heart, it was about to shake a tenth time, when it instead exploded outward, slicing past her every bone and muscle in its way as it completely filled her body. For a brief moment, it seeped out of her skin, bringing along with it some number of impurities, before it receded once more into her planar dantian. It sat still for a second before bursting out once more, this time in solid tendrils and vague shapes almost as if it had turned into some swarm of living things. A number of these strands wrapped around the stars in her meridians, while the rest repeated their journey to the outside of her body.

This burned away all of the black filth on her skin, instead wrapping her in a layer of cosmic light, almost as if it formed a second skin, but the solidified energy lasted only seconds before it collapsed inward, returning to her planar aperture.

The stars in her meridians quivered as the solid tendrils pulled away, but they remained in place.

‘Alright, that’s-’ her thought was interrupted as the planar energy suddenly expanded a third time, literally cutting through every inch of her insides as it sought a path out.

Her dantian’s walls cracked and shattered for a second time, launching out another series of bone shards into her body, leaving behind planar aperture walls that were as white and pure as a pearl, seeming like the exact opposite of the dark and mysterious planar energy that continued on its path through her physical form. It severed bone and tendons, muscles and veins, cutting through her skin and eyes as it exited her body yet again. Some part of it severed the thin string keeping her hair in place, causing it to fall down her back like a silky, crimson waterfall.

If not for the absolute destruction of her lungs, this would have elicited a terrifying scream.

This time, the energy did not linger, rapidly returning to its proper place within the dantian, and as it went, the wounds it caused were repaired in an instant by its effects, simultaneously strengthening each part of her.

It flowed back into her abdomen, but it seemed to leave behind a trace of itself as it went, creating a small mist-like barrier around the dantian.

Once it settled, it formed a solid ball of planar energy, resembling a stable portal into the beyond, or perhaps some crystal ball that contained a stable fragment of the night sky.

The stars flowed within it slowly, and they were clearer than ever before, shining even more beautifully than the one hundred and eight stars inside of her meridians, and as she looked up into the sky, she could also tell that the nebulae of her energy were greatly superior to the ones inside reality.

She breathed out a mouthful of turbid air, mixed in with evaporated blood.

‘Now… that’s it. Three individual breakthroughs… suggests that I broke through once, to the second realm, once to complete the ninth perfected stage… then once more as I perfected the realm? How very interesting… It is possible to perfect a realm, so what sorts of things does that do for me?’ Yi Wei wondered, limiting the speed of her thoughts to not risk passing out from overwhelming sensations, ‘I suppose I have nothing better to do than experiment.’

The first things she thought to confirm was the range of her spiritual will. A transparent strand left her body, and slowly reached out to one metre away, then, as it was clear that it could go further, it did.

It crossed two metres, and only once it reached three metres did it stop in place.

‘Oh… Heh, I have the same reach of spiritual will as someone in the Emergent Anchor realm…’ she couldn’t restrain her lips from forming a smile, even as they were still partially covered in blood from her breakthrough process, ‘Additionally, it seems that it is much more detailed in what it is able to detect, though I cannot compare that to a typical Emergent Anchor realm expert…’

She stood up, taking a few breaths, both literally and in terms of time, to stabilise her legs. Once she could stand still, Yi Wei activated the light of the one hundred and eight stars.

Her skin filled with dawn light, and each star released a thin ray of sunlight that was cast in random directions. It was blinding, rather impressive to witness, and incredibly eye-catching and useless. It was exactly what she wanted.

‘Now, I need to see whether my external force has changed… but first, that spectral shield around my dantian… I wonder if it’s effective, or just some temporary phantom,’ she thought, reaching into the pile of things by her side for a knife. In anticipation of the possibility of her breakthrough destroying the things on her body, which turned out to be a perfectly valid fear, or the expulsion of a lot of impurities and filth, which also happened but was then undone by the second and third breakthroughs, she had chosen to undergo this particular session of cultivation in the nude.

Her body was muscular thanks to her consistent training with body cultivation skills and general exercise, though she made sure to limit her muscle growth so as to avoid ending up as a solid chunk of flesh, resulting in toned, strong-looking limbs and body.

It was somewhat scary to sit in the wilderness without anything to cover herself with, but at the same time, it was strangely exciting…

‘I hope that I never say that to anyone by accident… I’m already strange enough without needing to add some perversion into the mix…’ Yi Wei sighed, quickly slipping on her underwear before anyone had the opportunity to chance upon her, ‘Alright, let’s see if that shield is the same as the Active Core realm’s core, or not.’

She relaxed the muscles in her stomach and sank the knife in, going slowly until the tip of the blade reached the spectral barrier. For a brief moment, the iron was unable to go any further, but the instant after it continued a little further.

‘No, it isn’t. If someone briefly jabs at my planar aperture, then it might be able to save me, but it won’t be enough for any serious attack,’ she thought, removing the knife and allowing her physique to recover in an instant. The knife was almost entirely clean of blood, but she still wiped it clean prior to placing it into its sheath. ‘That is unfortunate, but not unexpected. Getting something half a realm early was already impressive but receiving a core two realms early would be far too convenient.’

As Yi Wei had nothing more to test on her body, she put on her robes and took out a spare string to tie her hair.

With her spiritual will, she scouted her surroundings and confirmed that no-one was spying on her, and then released her planar energy into a small sphere above her hand. A small chunk broke off her planar energy sphere and flew to her skin. However, when it passed beyond her body, it broke down into a fluid form, shaping itself into a perfect ball under her command.

‘That is within my expectations, at the very least. External force always lags behind internal force, so because I now possess solid planar energy, my external energy has become fluid.’

She transformed it into water and cleansed her body with it, effectively giving herself a bath without all of the fuss of drying herself afterward. After all, no matter how powerful one’s planar energy was, unless they were able to stabilise it in the external world, it would still remain energy.

Yi Wei stretched for a few minutes to get the dull pain leftover from the breakthrough out of her muscles and cleared the area of any obvious signs of her presence. It wouldn’t be dangerous for people to know where she’s been, but she did have to hide her many cultivation sites, as it wouldn’t make much sense for someone who has broken through such a large number of times to still remain within the first stage of the second realm. At the same time, she relied on cosmic energy, and the more of it collected in one place, the easier it would be for someone to detect it.

She didn’t want that risk, so she collected all of the energy for herself and made her way toward the main camp of Yi Jiazhi’s group.

Her area of exploration had been the same for the past month, so she was very familiar with the path there and back and could make the journey in half of the time she could when she first had to travel through the thick forest. With the additional benefit of her strengthened cultivation realm, she was able to travel several kilometres in just a dozen minutes.

 

Before she even entered the camp, she was able to tell that the atmosphere was strange. Most of the group stood in a circle, looking out to the forest, and they all radiated faint killing intent that was vaguely directed outward and also at one another.

It wasn’t immediately clear what was happening, so she slowed down and entered their sight calmly.

The moment a certain someone caught sight of her, they ran out and pointed a finger at her, “Yi Wei! Is this what you were planning all that time ago?”

“I would love to answer that, but I’d need to know what you’re accusing me of first,” she responded, approaching the camp calmly with her hands by the side as to not appear to be threatening, since a number of people were looking at her with a suspicious degree of hostility despite her typical inconspicuous appearance.

“You’re trying to conceal your crimes? Don’t tell me you don’t know what happened to Yi Shizhi?”

She frowned for a moment as she tried to recall that name, “Are you talking about that black-haired man who had seven different knives on him? What happened to him?”

“He was killed by-” Yi Bai began, but Yi Jiazhi interrupted her only to repeat the exact same thing.

“He was killed by someone during his explorative efforts, and I, Yi Kong and Yi Chu stumbled upon their body in the woods. You were the one that suggested that we split up into the smallest groups possible, so it must obviously be your fault!”

‘What kind of logic is he operating on? His intelligence hasn’t increased at all since we first met, and he’s still trying to talk with me every time we meet, though he’s clearly getting more and more annoyed at time goes on. I wonder what that’s all about… First, though, I’ll clear this nonsense up,’ she shook her head, “First off, he headed to the north-west, didn’t he? That is the exact opposite of the direction I went in. Second of all, what realm was he on?”

“The third one, naturally.”

“And how do you think I killed him? Was he stabbed repeatedly in the dantian, ruining his cultivation, before being beaten to death, somehow?”

“Ugh… no. He was attacked with planar energy of the third… realm… You might have used talismans!”

“Where do you suppose I picked up those? I am on the second realm, and am also a servant. I do have some materials on me, but, as you should be able to tell, this talisman paper cannot be used for any talisman over the Planar Pool realm,” she explained, taking out two stacks of talisman paper, both containing thirty-six sheets, “Supposing that I could somehow create a talisman using the energy of the Emergent Anchor realm, it would be one, at most. How many wounds does Yi Shizhi’s body have? How many different attacks killed him?”

“That-”

“It was three, at least,” Yi Bai stepped in, “And this motherfu- person hasn’t yet said that the energy used was of the earth element.”

“Thanks, Yi Bai. Why were you wasting my time in the first place, then? I don’t use any energy of the earth element, nor can I somehow synthesise it, so how would I be able to attack someone with it thrice?”

“…” he struggled to come up with something, but as soon as he could not, he immediately switched topics, “Then, onto our regular sparring session. Yi Wei, your features have gotten even more impressive since last time, and it feels like your aura has strengthened, as if you will soon have a breakthrough. Would you mind sparring with me as to stabilise your cultivation?”

The rest of the group looked to him disapprovingly.

‘You were just accusing me, and now you’re trying to chat to me casually again?’ Yi Wei showed a look of disgust, as did the vast majority of the people looking at him, especially Yi Bai, who already disliked him.

Nevertheless, she agreed, as she was one step away from deciphering every possible function of his strange energy, allowing her to either confront him about it, or find an excuse to get away from him.

Her speed of understanding the technique was a little disappointing, admittedly, but she blamed that on her lack of knowledge in mental techniques and skills targeted at ones other than the self. It did end up providing a lot of information regarding that type of abilities, and she was confident in being able to analyse them much more quickly in the future, but it was still unfortunate that her speed of analysis was so lacking when it came to new and unknown skills.

Over time, she involved more and more dawn light in her fighting style, and now that she also had the Dawn Star Body, she used it to overwhelm Yi Jiazhi a second time while pretending that it somehow enhanced her Dawn abilities. Currently, it did not have such an ability, and instead she just used more strength whenever any of the stars within her body were lit.

When their training concluded, she finally completed her comprehension of his skill, so she approached him and whispered to him, “Hey, could we speak in private?”

She could tell that he got some sort of strange idea based on the look in his eyes, but he nodded, and after some conversation with a few other members of the party, Yi Jiazhi followed her to a spot outside of the camp, and took over as they ascended to a small hill.

Midway there, she called out, “You’ve been trying to charm me for some time, haven’t you?”

He stopped in the middle of his step. His foot descended to the ground slowly, but he did not turn around.

“I would just like to be sure of one thing – what was the intended effect? How did your particular technique work?”

“Will you speak about it?”

“To others?” she watched him nod his head, “If you don’t want me to, then I will not. I am simply interested in techniques in general, and I have been trying to understand it for some time – in fact, since I haven’t revealed it after knowing about it all this time should give you the confidence that I won’t mention it to anyone after today.”

She made sure not to promise not to speak of it in the distant future, when she not only understood the matter in full and perhaps when they were done with the exploration and search. If possible, she would eventually prefer to reveal to anyone that hadn’t yet figured out that Yi Jiazhi was influencing minds.

“… It is just meant to amplify any existing feelings you might have had or developed towards me, causing you to become attracted to me far more than you otherwise would have. Seems to not have had an effect on you, though…”

Charming techniques could be split into two types: those that modified one’s feelings, exaggerating some and dulling others to influence their mind into a certain direction, and those that were able to create completely new ideas and thoughts, potentially leading to a complete alteration of one’s mind. Naturally, the first was far more common, as it was not too difficult to amplify or diminish what is already present, but far, far more difficult to create something out of nothing, or even to transform one emotion into another.

It was believed to be so complicated, in fact, that any technique that could do such a thing was automatically labelled as something of the fifth, the Marked Core realm, and those that could transform thoughts were considered to be no lesser than the Active Core realm, regardless of the type of energy required.

The notable difference from the mental influence on jade slips was that the slips would directly deliver knowledge to the mind, whereas the techniques of others couldn’t do so. Hence, a jade slip could have greater effects despite requiring a lower realm to produce.

Yi Jiazhi turned around, “Now, unless you had something else to say-”

“Actually, I was also curious what you intended to do here if I had fallen to your… charms,” Yi Wei asked, although she was also eager to explore some things on her own.

He looked at her and was bewildered, as if she had said something incomprehensible, “Maybe that’s why I failed to do anything… Aren’t you a mature woman already? I thought that you had finally fallen for me and that we’d finally sleep with one another. With your beauty growing with every day, I was getting rather excited, too…”

With a shake of his head, he returned down the path they initially used, intentionally bumping into Yi Wei on the way. She, meanwhile, stood in place for almost half a minute before a dull red shade appeared on her cheeks.

‘Oh. Right. That is what he would want, isn’t it? Then, this, in combination with my absolute lack of positive thought regarding him, doesn’t it suggest that any sort of relationship with him hasn’t ever crossed my mind?’ Yi Wei had to conclude, ‘Well, I can’t say I liked his personality from the very beginning, so that isn’t much of a surprise. With other thoughts overshadowing any possibility of positive interaction with him, I doubt I would have been interested in him even if I didn’t have the Thunder Lord’s memories bothering me. Additionally, they might have negated certain interests while inducing others, so I cannot yet be certain about my personal preferences…

‘I need to be careful about this. If I bind my attraction to certain people, or lack thereof, to the Seventh of Meng, and it then turns out that those feelings belong to me instead of him, then I will be facing a lot more difficulty later on, as I’d need to reverse my stance on those things and adapt to them… Sheesh, thanks, Thunder Lord Meng, you perverted bastard.’

She sighed, casually breaking a nearby tree in half with a kick to vent a little bit of her frustration.

As she also returned to the camp, she ran into Yi Bai, who was clearly attempting to hide behind a tree but failing miserably thanks to her ‘assets’, which stuck out beyond the thin wooden log.

‘At least I can find one advantage to not being as endowed,’ the small smile that appeared allowed her to hide her earlier embarrassment as she approached, “Hey, have you got any reason for hiding behind there, or is it just for… fun?”

Yi Bai leapt out from beyond the tree and grabbed her shoulders, “Did that guy do something?”

“Eh… well, I promised not to say anything, but- let me finish before butting in, okay?” Yi Wei said, casually putting her finger on the other woman’s lips, “You see, I try to keep my promises, but I am able to tell you, without any particulars, that a certain suspicion you had was indeed correct. I’m not going to say what that was, but… I’m sure you have no~ idea what I could mean, right?”

The blond woman nodded quickly, stepping back, “I knew it. It was a charm technique, right? Thanks for your efforts!”

Without any further words, she ran off, leaving Yi Wei standing in the middle of the forest with a raised finger. A blush crept back into her expression as she realised what she just did, ‘Why did I just… Her lips were so soft, and moist…’

 

Once she had ‘foiled’ Yi Jiazhi’s plans, he completely lost interest in her, and completely stopped any attempts to interact with her. He switched his sparring partner to someone in the same realm, leaving Yi Wei and Yi Bai to partner up as they had originally intended. To his credit, he didn’t attempt to get his revenge, or do anything else of the sort, instead choosing to forgo communication with her entirely. This was rather convenient for her.

She had learned of the location of Yi Shizhi’s death from another member of the party and decided to test out a small theory.

‘According to what I know about the circumstances regarding his death, his killer was either an intelligent beast, or a human. The former would mean that he had simply wandered into its lair, but the latter could have two implications. The first would be that he had also entered an area he shouldn’t have, and the only area of the sort in the region would be the hidden grounds! Naturally, the other possibility is that one of the other five teams has decided to get a little bit overly competitive, which could be for the same reason, or just to cull the competition… That is a little less likely, considering the fact that the family is a little more peaceful than, say, the Chen family, which encourages all-out war between its heirs, but for all I know, the treasure within the hidden grounds may be worth it…

‘Working off the first assumption, however, if I assume that he was killed due to being too close to finding the grounds, or some clue leading to them, then I have to investigate there myself. If I am able to be the first into the hidden grounds, I can benefit far more than anyone else would, then pretend that I didn’t take anything more than a few useless items.’

The Yi family would have preferred her to think a little more about them and a little less about herself, but she didn’t exactly feel bad about it. She had almost no method of surpassing her status as a servant and obtaining the resources someone in the higher rank of the family would have, so why shouldn’t she take a few things for herself before letting the rest of the family take their share of the reward, especially if there turned out to be a number of defences in front of the hidden grounds which she would then have to clear on her own.

After all, if she is doing all of the work, then why not take the things she needs as compensation?

‘Here comes that overly optimistic thinking of mine. Knowing my luck, even if I do find something, it will fill my mind with unnecessary images, explode my body a few times, then reveal that a second consciousness has nested inside of some article of clothing.’

She felt a chill go down her spine, almost like a warning from the world itself. Perhaps it was a good idea to stop attempting to predict the future.