Thus, on that day, the Ascendant’s Arbiters, the ones that would restore the natural order of the world where all would reach to the peak and ascend to the ninth realm as they had done long ago, before the Greats existed, were founded.

Due to their somewhat strained reintroduction that day, the Great Earth twins, Great Dark and Great Light, weren’t initially so keen to join this faction as subordinates, even with Luo Lia Kun and his other previous allies, as well as their children, attempting to persuade him to join in, but when they considered that they were currently within the fortress that was under the full control of Wei Yi and Yi Shi Ming, they didn’t have the opportunity to deny her offer. In addition, while they weren’t thrilled with Wei Yi in particular, given that they currently had no clue what she had truly been like in the Deadly Martial Colosseum, all of their other previous allies were here, as was perhaps one of the best chances to remain hidden from the Greats for long enough to make a difference.

As such, they figured that it would be best for them to remain inside for the time being, see how things develop, and figure out exactly what had happened back in the Yi District as well as the exact approach that Wei Yi would take in the future when it comes to resolving the problem of the Greats, freeing the city, and then keeping it out of the control of other similar forces seeking to claim the position that the Greats would open up. Additionally, they still had a few questions to answers.

Before getting to that, they were allowed to either find a place for themselves in the fortress or the prison realm, since Wei Yi had a few other things to take care of first.

She shared with both parts of her faction’s domain their new name, mission statement, and repeated request to check out Paragon and find some place to stay. In particular, those that could set up a store or a workshop in the Planar Continents were encouraged to do so.

Then, she claimed the primary defensive building slightly to the side of the central plaza as the faction’s headquarters, placed some killing will banners on it to allow the people of the prison realm and fortress to recognise it from afar, and quickly designated a few different rooms and chambers for various purposes. Naturally, they needed a planning room for whatever operations and tasks they intended to undertake in the future, as well as an archive for important information so that it wouldn’t need to be revealed by words over and over again, and a few bed chambers for those that would need to remain near that area for most of the day.

When she found a sort of guard barracks, she naturally brought out some of the strongest warriors acting as guards and protectors within the Kong Prison Realm and allowed them to settle within it, instructing them about some basic locations that they should patrol and monitor on the outer walls of the fortress.

After that, she also designated which building was intended to be residential, commercial or used for some other distinct purpose, so that it would be possible for them to be occupied by others without requiring direct supervision, since that would just be a waste of time. Nobody had any money from the Planar Continents to begin with, not unless she had given it to them, so making them purchase or otherwise rent property would just be a complete waste of time. That could be implemented at a later point, with any potential travellers or visitors from the Continents, but before then, this would do.

In essence, she did as much as she could to allow Paragon to be used for the moment, since she had something else that she wished to occupy herself with for now.

As any person did, Wei Yi had her own needs to take care of, and while she could technically handle it in a number of ways, she wished to confirm whether or not her old acquaintances would have any issue with the major change to her body since the last time that she had seen them. If they did, while she would be rather disappointed especially in the case of some of the more beautiful and capable sexual partners, but if they had no problem with it, she would be able to visit them even more frequently now that there was a permanent and stable link to the Kong Prison Realm within Paragon. She was slightly concerned that certain people – the two from Meng Chu’s previous faction in particular – would get even more obsessed with her if they weren’t displeased with the change, but evading them was easy.

On the topic of the prison realm, she did consider changing the name to something more positive, since continuing to live within something called the Kong Prison Realm was hardly an optimistic prospect, but she did not yet have a good name, given that her previous one took quite a long time to come up with. Something like the Ascendant’s Realm did come to mind, and Yi Shi Ming did not object to a change in the name, but that didn’t seem to be good enough for several reasons.

One was that she didn’t create the realm, so taking complete credit and ownership for it when even Kong Shi Meng, the one that hated the surname Kong, chose to title his techniques with that very name, seemed unnecessary and unsuitable. The other was that she did want to have a more decent name than that, but her imagination was really running out now.

Putting up a request for some ideas could work, but then she would need to have enough organisation in the fortress to make such a thing viable.

Since her mind had thought of the two vice-leaders under Meng Chu, she decided to head to them first, detecting them significantly more quickly than before with her greatened spiritual perception and the enhancements provided by her new core, which, in the prison realm, mixed with the border of the cosmos around it and stabilised the space to an extent. The chains in the background were visible to keen eyes, but hardly prominent.

While a number of things had changed within the prison realm since she had entered it for the first time, one thing that hadn’t was the constant tendency of those two to shirk responsibility and find some new place to hide and attempt to copy the behaviours of rabbits.

Had they been a male and female pair, one capable of having children, it wouldn’t surprise most people who knew them if they had a family of four or more even in their young age, given that it took Wei Yi’s excessive understanding of the female body in order to convince them to stop going at it so frequently, and instead switch to begging her for release instead. This kept them mostly pacified while she was able to remain near them for prolonged periods of time, such as when she had been trapped in the prison realm, but when she had begun to spend most of her time outside of the prison realm, they had mostly returned to their old behaviours.

In fact, the more they had to spend without her precise ministrations, the more lustful they became, and so Meng Chu had reported that he was considering some drastic measures either to deal with them, or to replace them with someone that had some semblance of control over themselves and wouldn’t lose their minds quite as quickly.

This time, Dugu Wei and Qiu Sheng had chosen the latter’s office, since it had a comfortable bed.

When Wei Yi entered that room, those two were on that aforementioned bed, and they nearly failed to notice her entrance, although when they did realise her presence a short time later, they did so simultaneously, looking at her with hungry eyes.

“Wei Yi! You’ve come back…” Dugu Wei frowned, sniffing at the air for a few moments, “What is that smell?”

For a moment, she felt as disturbed as when she had first discovered them having sex in their room, although she didn’t back down and asked, “What, has everyone around me started to gain the same abilities as Zhi Qiu Ya? Wait, have either of you even gone out for long enough to meet someone that isn’t inside of your brothels?”

“Can you use less words? It is hard to focus…”

“Uh… Still as horny as before?”

“Of course! You’ve left and we’ve not been able to relax at all, even though we’ve been constantly practising…” Qiu Sheng replied, her breathing heavy and wet.

“You call this practising? Actually, no matter, I have a solution for this. You two still want to sleep with me, is that right?” the question was hardly necessary, but they nodded immediately, their heads nearly colliding due to their proximity, “In that case, there’s something that I need to introduce to you.”

They might have already noticed a trace of it, or perhaps Dugu Wei had been referring to something else, but they were certainly not prepared for what they saw when Wei Yi opened her robes and lowered the underwear that she had specifically requested from Fu Zan through an anonymous commission, since she didn’t intend to advertise her genitalia to the rather innocent and ignorant man since it would cause too much trouble, amongst a list of other issues.

Those two would have leapt onto her if not for her immediately correcting their misconception that they were in any position of authority, eventually deciding to just go all out with everything she had.

 

She had ended up being within that room for long enough to force her to test whether she could still slow down time within the prison realm without disturbing anyone going through the gateway, and eventually confirmed that while there were some slight oddities and discomfort resulting through the temporal distortion, it was fine for most.

As such, she didn’t hesitate to make full use of that ability and get everything out of their systems once and for all, simultaneously making use of this to satisfy herself and her various ideas on a pair of very willing – and soon collared in killing will due in part to how subservient they quickly became – participants that managed to temporarily equal her level of energy despite a vastly inferior cultivation, body, physique and everything else that might typically lend strength and energy to a person during any circumstance.

Nevertheless, they only had so much energy to spare, so in a few hours, they were entirely exhausted, covered in various fluids, and very much done for the day.

They had fallen unconscious, so she didn’t hesitate to cleanse herself with her physique energy, then repeat the process after she left the room so that the air that had built up inside of it wouldn’t keep travelling with her. She did intend to reveal more of her abilities now that the gateway between the prison realm and the Planar Continents was open, so she might have done so anyway.

Afterwards, she really wasn’t interested in visiting any more people that could jump onto her with just as much eagerness, as her new equipment also had a certain limit that she couldn’t bypass even with the extreme speed of regeneration that she possessed, not to mention her own mental exhaustion.

Instead, she headed over to the shop that Fu Zan and Miyu now occupied, with the two otherworldly demons having decided to live together for now as Miyu had no opportunity to earn any funds or had any need for a vast living space, while Fu Zan did appreciate the large amount of books that were placed all over the place for her to study. Also, he got a free model for some of his new attempts to recreate the clothing of the world he originated from, one that didn’t appear to care at all that a man was looking at her with little clothing on while she would immediately cover herself if even a glimpse of Wei Yi appeared in her vision.

He and Wei Yi were obviously aware of what was happening there, but since Aimi Miyu wasn’t yet understanding or admitting to her own feelings, whatever the details of them were, they had no reason to press her on them. Wei Yi in particular had no interest in provoking any degree of romantic interest in herself, so if Miyu could avoid realising just what she felt until the war against the Greats was over, or until Wei Yi perished in it, that would be fine for her.

Obviously, dying wouldn’t be very enjoyable, but it could give her the rare and prized opportunity of questioning the heavens about their many faults.

When she came to the shop this time, she found Fu Zan working on a painting, of all things.

It depicted a strange landscape, with one side being covered in trees, grass, bushes and all kinds of natural life, while the other was filled with tall grey and blue rectangular and featureless towers that soared into the sky with no clear purpose or reason behind it, nor any method to keep them standing like that. The colours weren’t particularly varied, nor masterfully used from her perspective, although she was hardly an artist in any usual meaning of the word, nor had she seen many paintings before. It just didn’t look quite right.

Meanwhile, Miyu… was posing for the painting, despite it lacking any human life within it at all, and she was doing so with a surprising amount of effort and dedication, as if this would result in some magnum opus being produced as the first painting of a tailor.

“Uh, Fu Zan…”

“I did tell her, but she said that she wanted to do it anyway,” he replied immediately, “How did that thing you were doing go?”

“Well enough, and, speaking of which, how would you feel about moving this place to Paragon, a desert fortress built by one of your fellow otherworldly demons? It looks nothing like what you are drawing, but it should come together if given enough time and effort from all of you. Having a tailor on hand would be highly useful,” Wei Yi stated.

“Moving this place? To what?”

“Paragon. It is a fortress on the outside of the prison realm, in the middle of a large desert, although it has a few arrays to resolve the temperature situation which I will activate soon.”

“Outside? I’m in! Where do I go? Where do I sign u-”

“Don’t ruin your painting,” she stopped him from flailing about and prevented any of the paint droplets from landing on the canvas, “If you want to leave, there are gateways in the centre of Beast’s Rest, and in the centre of the prison realm, if you’d like to see the Endless Monolith before witnessing the world outside for the first time. There’s no rush, really, since you can leave at any time you want and…”

Wei Yi would have continued if not for the fact that he had already begun to run in the direction of the city’s centre, completely disregarding the half complete painting and Miyu, who only seemed to realise that she couldn’t even pretend to be painted only when he ran out of the building.

That also appeared to be when she noticed that the Ascendant had entered the room, for she suddenly made herself look very small, carefully checking everything about herself to make sure she was looking her best. Her behaviour became only more obvious when she glanced up at Wei Yi to confirm that she was appreciating the minor things she had done, although she looked away swiftly in a vain attempt to prevent this action from being noticed. It was cute, in its own way, but it would hardly go beyond that for anyone if she couldn’t communicate her actual thoughts to people.

“Hey there…” Miyu tried to start the conversation after several minutes of fidgeting with herself, “I see your, eh, hairstyle has changed! It looks great!”

“I see that you have managed to sleep since the last time we spoke. Have you been doing your homework?”

“Yes, of course! I’ve read everything and studied everything with the most focus I could possibly dedicate to it all, so, uh… Congratulations on the fourth realm! That’s right, isn’t it? I didn’t mess up? It’s called Active Core, right?”

‘… I guess she could be compared to a younger sister, naively trying to prove herself to a sibling, although that brings up unfortunate memories that I would rather not provoke for the sake of a silly otherworldly demon that does, admittedly, have a high reading speed, amongst other things,’ Wei Yi thought, casually nodding, “That is correct, although if you hadn’t been busy pretending to be painted, you might have seen part of the breakthrough process.”

“I could’ve… I mean, what was that about pretending? I was definitely-”

She didn’t even let the otherworldly demon finish her sentence before taking the canvas, making sure to grab it by a dry spot, and flipping it around to show her exactly what was painted on it.

“That… That Fu Zan! I-I had been-”

“He also told me that he had plainly informed you that he was not going to be painting you, and, for the moment, I trust him more than you, especially since both of you are rather poor liars,” Wei Yi said, putting the painting back before anyone had a chance to damage it, “What did you want a painting of yourself for, anyway?”

“I… I had wanted to… give it to you… as a friendly present!” although Miyu managed to produce that explanation, her face looked like it was on the verge of tears.

While it made it highly obvious that she hadn’t wanted Wei Yi to know, and that she was not telling the full truth, it did effectively discourage any attempts to tease her, since there were few enough simple yet pure people like her in the world that pushing her too far would simply not be worth it.

It would be difficult for her to remain that way the moment that she needed to be confronted with any kind of ordinary fight in the Planar Continents, or the many brutal truths of the world, and it was a miracle that she had managed to remain this way even in the other world, which apparently had its own range of terrible things within it, natural and manmade alike. Fortunately for her, or as fortunate as sheer ignorance could be said to be, Wei Yi had no intentions of bringing her out to any kind of battle or tense confrontation, and instead wanted to keep her in the Kong Prison Realm until such a time when she was freed from the azure light inhabiting her otherworldly gift, as she would then be able to stand a chance against foes. Even then, she would allow the otherworldly demon to remain where she preferred to be, since she would be unlikely to be particularly effective in battle anyway.

Seeing that Wei Yi was not going to raise further questions, Miyu’s expression and body relaxed, with her attention moving to the corner of the room.

“Uh, Wei Yi?”

“What is it?”

“Do you have some spare time today? I… I realise that I don’t know you very well, but I’m going to be working for you, so… could we go out and have a drink and something to eat together? Maybe spend some time playing games from Orbis?”

Besides the offer to play games, the setup for the rest was obvious.

“I am not going on a date with you, Miyu. Please focus on yourself, and if there is ever something that you do want to express, you do know that you can just do so straightforwardly? All of this obfuscation merely makes it more difficult for everyone else to understand you, and I would hardly say it does so to your benefit.”

“…” the Antanorden woman had clearly wanted to reply to a number of things at once, but, as it turns out, trying to speak several different words and sentences at once didn’t result in much more than opening and shutting the mouth repeatedly with various confused sounds emerging from it.

Still, for her to manage to endure the mention of a date without going on a tirade of her not being swayed by Wei Yi’s succubus magic, or whatever it was that she had been convinced was occurring at first, seemed to be somewhat of an achievement, even if it was purely accidental. The Ascendant was tempted to give her a brief round of applause, but it would clearly not benefit the situation, so she didn’t do it.

After a few moments of this uncertain partial silence – a complete silence of coherent words, perhaps – she seemed to finally figure out what she wanted to say.

“I… I’m sorry. It’s difficult to speak my mind, sometimes…”

‘Who are you and what have you done with Miyu?’ Wei Yi asked mentally, not that she suspected that the woman had actually been replaced at any point in their conversation, or even before, “That’s fine, but whenever certain things are spoken about, you just run away. Something like that is hardly helpful, either for you or for the person you are speaking to.”

“… I understand. I will attempt to improve… Still, couldn’t we… you had already said no, didn’t you? Sorry…”

“Stop apologising already. Either change, or don’t. However, you are correct if it was on the topic of a date. I do not intend to go out on any dates, any time soon, so if there is something that you want to talk about, we do it here, and without the need for food and drink. I can’t taste it, after all.”

“Right… When you are here, could we play something?”

“Alright, I’ll ask – what is it with you and games? Back on Orbis, was that something you did often, or is it just due to you missing the forms of entertainment that your world had?”

“Both… I had played quite a few games back then… and I worked for a game company as well, although it was as an accountant rather than a game developer…” Miyu answered, tapping her index fingers together while she continued to speak nervously, “Actually, that might have been why I can identify things like I can… That old man said so too…”

“Old man? Game developer? There’s a link between your previous status and your otherworldly gift?”

Wei Yi had never heard of that kind of occupation, nor did she know why a company would focus on games of all things, nor why they would need more than a man or two to come up with a new idea once a decade, but before that, the mention of an old figure from the previous world intrigued her significantly. A number of otherworldly demons have mentioned encountering one on the last day of their lives within their world, so if there was yet another example such as this, it would be very interesting to learn about it.

Depending on the nature of these old figures, they might play a significant part in the entire process of transmigration and reincarnation that the otherworldly demons seem to experience, and it might reveal part of the mystery about their otherworldly gifts.

Finally, the link between occupation and the ability that one acquired after appearing within the Planar Continents, or the Kong Prison Realm in certain instances, was also rather intriguing, since it seemed to differ from person to person. Fu Zan and Miyu apparently had a link between their past and their current ability, and Kong Shi Meng might have also had a similar connection, but the Martial God of the Crimson Side seemed to get an ability opposite to his personality.

In general, the more that she and the other otherworldly demons could understand about their gifts and abilities, the greater the chance of the azure light being either removed or negated in some way, and the possibility of completely preventing random people from ending up in the Planar Continents also existed. In fact, it would be an ideal scenario, since the Continents could then obtain full autonomy and independence from the other world – or worlds – that seemed insistent on directing souls towards them, flooding the world with all kinds of unique abilities, gifts and traditions that should have never occurred.

Obviously, it couldn’t just be said that all of them were purely negative, but it was rather frustrating to simply be a pawn in the hands of another group that simply repeated the path of their own world, as best as they were able to due to the differences between the people, energy and technology.

Kong Shi Meng had done a decent job of minimizing unnecessary interference, attempting to unify the people of the world without outright obliterating past history and events, but some were far less interested in aiding the path of the Planar Continents rather than simply forcing it into whatever they want. Yi Henghua and Chang Fang He clearly had their own ideas of how the world should work, and they didn’t permit dissenting opinions, nor could they even be bothered to see the Continents as a proper world at all, instead thinking it to be a simple grain of sand amidst a vast desert.

Frankly, she had no idea whether this was true or not, and she didn’t intend to blindly theorise with nothing to go off of, but she did know that it didn’t matter.

To her, to the people of the Planar Continents, to those living in Yi City and the Daoist Continent, to those that have spent all of their lives there in an effort to better the world or to better themselves, or simply to gain power and wealth, or even just to waste their lives away with meaningless activities, this world was real and whole. It was complete, as any world could be, and even if there were millions of realms above it, all of which had more energy, more power, more wealth and more of whatever anyone wanted flooding them, it wouldn’t make the Planar Continents insignificant. After all, if there was this degree of exponential perpetuity, why would any of those worlds be the top either? How large or powerful would a realm need to be to truly be worthwhile in the eyes of those otherworldly demons?

Perhaps there was an answer out there, one that would satisfy her and the people of the Planar Continents, but so far not a single one of the otherworldly demons had successfully brought anything other than their memories of fiction. Their myths did not affect this world, no matter what they were.

“Well, before I went to sleep, as I was going back to my apartment, an old man had been sleeping on the stairwell. He woke when I approached, and I offered him enough cash to get a better place to sleep, and he said that I was very attentive and accurate, since I gave him just enough to get a room in a place nearby…” Miyu said, “I didn’t really think so, since I’d just given him the spare change that I had, but… This happened afterwards…”

“An old man did that? Did you see him walk away, down the stairs?”

“I was tired, so I went straight to my place. Wait… you don’t think that the old man was a god that had come to judge me, do you? Do you think I passed?”

“For f- How do you come up with these things? A god? Just randomly chatting with mortals for some reason? Actually, that doesn’t sound too unlikely, but still, can you ever not jump to conclusions?” Wei Yi sighed, “Anyway, my other two questions.”

“Well, a game designer designs games. Our company worked on visual novels, mostly, so they didn’t really get to do much work,” Miyu said a list of meaningless terms that weren’t assisted much by a glance at her memory, where some incomprehensible sights came to Wei Yi’s attention, “As for that last thing… I don’t know, really…”

“That’s fine, I didn’t expect you to. If you can make any of those things in this world, go ahead. If you can effectively substitute certain elements, that’s fine too. I should be around more often in the near future, but if you really want to show me something, or just speak to me in general, just find Yi Shi Ming and ask her to call me over. I can’t guarantee that I will always be free, but I won’t tell you to go away unless you start doing this every few hours. That’s not an invitation to do so daily, either,” Wei Yi warned, turning to the side in preparation to leave, “Anything else?”

“No, no… I… I enjoyed your company-”

The otherworldly demon’s words were cut off as Wei Yi shut the door behind herself, although she had still heard her perfectly.