Bai Jingshen's world had turned completely white. No up or down could be felt. Right and left felt like they where the same direction. Even the pain he felt in the last few seconds of breaking through his world's barriers vanished completely. In fact, this white void couldn't give him any feedback which would prove, if he was even still alive.
Slowly some blurry pictures began to appear. They seemed like memories, but he instinctively felt something was off about them. These vague shadows felt a bit unfamiliar.
Bai Jingshen saw a beautiful scenery unlike anything he ever saw before. Glorious pavilions seemed to slowly glide around majestic mountain peaks. These peaks looked like handcrafted by mother nature personally, forming a bridge between heaven and earth. His sight zoomed in on the biggest of these pavilions, slowly making it's way through the immortal mist shielding this building from prying eyes.
At the center of this pavilion Bai Jingshen could make out the blurry silhouettes of two people. They resembled a young man getting trained by supposedly his father or master. Bai Jingshen couldn't be more familiar with the magical arts this pair was using. Even in death he would recognize his sect's White Illusion Arts.
Suddenly the image began to shift. As if time accelerated, Bai Jingshen could followed the young man as he went out to adventure. He watched him enter secret realms, fight his enemies, and find new friends. Multiple years seemed to pass in an instant, until the scenery slowed down again and Bai Jingshen observed as the young man found the love of his live. At this point the man wasn't so young anymore. He made a name for himself, and Bai Jingshen could vaguely deduce, that his sect seemed to be rather feared.
So it didn't come as a surprise to Bai Jingshen to see that, while the man he had been following was living happily with his beloved, their sect seemed to encounter trouble more and more often. Slowly Bai Jingshen could deduce, that their enemies gathered into an alliance.
Then one dark night, chaos broke out. Through the blurriness, Bai Jingshen couldn't detect what actually happened, but their enemies attacked like thunder and rolled over the outer perimeters of the man's sect. The core sect members came to the split section decision to grab their sect's important treasures and fight for a way out before their enemies could corner them.
In the chaos the man didn't understand what it meant, when his master, who seemed to be their strongest cultivator, gave the most important treasures to his disciple. But he would come to realized why this happened.
The Alliance obviously expected their break-out attempt beforehand and managed to block their way on a mountain path. Suddenly time for Bai Jingshen came to a crawl and for the first time, he could see the despair filled eyes of the man who's life he had been following. As well as the determined eyes of his master. On top of that an immense aura could be felt and Bai Jingshen had no need to guess, to know that this master was burning his cultivation while charging at his enemies to fight for a way out.
Only under the urgings of the other sect members closed the man his eyes and escaped. He and his beloved where chased down for months until they finally reached an even more imposing looking sect, than the sect practicing the White Illusion Arts.
Together they where led into a grand hall and bowed deeply to a man on a high up throne. Even though this man also seemed blurry to Bai Jingshen, he felt like an immense aura form him. This man felt like he had absolute power. Everything seemed to be in his grasp and for a moment Bai Jingshen was even suspicious, if this man knew if his observation.
Suddenly Bai Jingshen was startled as for the first time in this experience, bits and pieces of the conversation being held reached his ears. The White Illusion Art's user seemed to say "father-in-law", pleading for help for his revenge. But his father-in-law didn't appreciate his son-in-law's attitude at all. Bai Jingshen could here harsh words about the man being "not worthy". After a while the man and his beloved closed themselves of in a lonely courtyard, mourning for the fallen for three years.
Startled, Bai Jingshen noticed that this story made a jump at this point. The man and his beloved appeared in what looked like a treasury and took something away, bevor all the pictures vanished.
Bai Jingshen suddenly felt himself twisting and turning in the white void. What, he felt? As if to answer Bai Jingshens question a massive headache assaulted him, making him think that the white void had it's good points after all. But at least his situation now let him know, that he felt his body again. On top of that he could even hear a low growling, which turned louder and louder. Although Bai Jingshen wished he could just lay down and sleep for a while, his instincts, honed in years of battles, forced his eyes to shoot open.
After opening his eyes, Bai Jinsgshen saw a beast not far from him. It dindn't resemble anything he knew. Overall the beast didn't look to threatening, save for the menacing horn on it's forehead. Feeling his headache slowly reside, Bai Jingshen sprang into movement. He kicked himself off the earth he had been laying in. Not being able to properly gauge his unfamiliar opponent's strength, Bai Jingshen took a defensive position. He already felt his body's coordinated to be worse than he was used to, so he scanned his surroundings for the best possible escape route.
Just when he was thinking of where to run, Bai Jingshen heard a female voice coming from the forest behind the beast.
"Fluffy? Did u find something? Don't approached if it's dangerous!"
Bai Jingshen could only make out that the voice sounded a bit flustered, but he realized, he coulnd't understand the spoken language at all. He knew he needed to make a decision now, but since the approaching voice sounded rather young, Bai Jingshen decided to meet with its owner.
Bai Jingshen didn't have to wait for long until he saw, as suspected, a young woman appearing between the trees. Even the experienced Bai Jingshen was slightly stunned when he spotted this woman. Not because she was overly beautiful, but because she looked nothing like what he expected. This woman had her red hair tied to a ponytail, which reached to her shoulders. Her face looked above average to Bai Jingshen's standards, but was clouded with a look of concern, which made one just want to her a hug and comfort her right now. Her body was youthful and athletic. Bai Jingshen was sure about that, s this woman only wore, what he would later come to learn was called a white sports bra and sports shorts. Her long, slightly muscular legs ended in unfamiliar, closed, comfortable looking shoes.
As the woman came nearer, Bai Jingshen admonished himself for his lapse in concentration, but he was slightly relieved as neither the woman nor the now less growling beast showed any intention of attacking during his obvious flaw. Even early on in his life, Bai jingshen learned how to feel some of his enemies intention from the slightest fluctuation in the energy around him.
Wait, energy? Bai Jingshen suddenly realized how little energy there actually was in his surroundings. Also, it felt totally unfamiliar to him. Was this the legendary immortal Qi? Even though it didn't match Bai Jingshen expectations, maybe he was just at a place with low concentration of Qi. Inwardly Bai Jingshen was excited when he thought about finally reaching the Immortal Realm. Now though he had to stay calm and deal with the situation at hand, as the young woman made her way over, standing next to the beast.
"Hey! What are you doing here? Was this weird aura your doing?", began Kayleen to ask, but the young man standing in the forest in nothing than a white robe and ancient looking shoes just slowly shook his head.
While slowly cupping his hands, but still keeping his guard up, Bai Jingshen tried to communicate: "Young lady, please don't mind me. If you could kindly tell me where we are, it would be much appreciated." He decided to be as polite as possible in this supposed immortal realm, but the more he took in his surroundings the less he felt, that something here could threaten him.
Kayleen was stunned as the young man spoke a langue she couldn't understand. Even though it felt slightly familiar. She could only ask her Ai assistant: "2213, can you translate that language?"
"Sorry Kayleen, but we don't have the authorization." Came an apologetic voice from her bracelet. Luckily Kayleen couldn't make out Bai Jingshen's thoughts from his calm face, who know though his situation got 1000 times more complicated, as Kayleen was communicating with her backup.
On the other hand, Bai Jingshen was able to read Kayleen's face like an open book and saw her struggling to make a decision. This was indeed so, as the young redhead only thought of one conclusion, when she didn't have the authorization for translation. The man she found in this wood was most likely a refugee. Kayleen was sure because she worked voluntarily as a psychiatrist in one of New Haven City's free hospitals. She had to deal with refugees before and knew they sometime where just thrown in the middle of nowhere for the local guards to find them.
During normal times Kayleen wouldn't hesitate to call New Haven City's guards, for Bai Jingshen to go through the correct procedures and even get his own ID bracelet. Normally the treatment refugees would get was alright, as ever since the exploration of the New World commenced, there couldn't be enough workforce. But right now weren't normal times, as a few days ago the headquarters of Reed's Androids, the leading producer of military grade androids and robots in their Mhalor's Light Republic, lost their flagship product, which they worked on for over a hundred years.
As consequence of this, security measures throughout the whole republic drastically went up. Countless people were mobilized in massive search efforts and even the tiniest tip would be rewarded with a lifetime of riches. Even the guards in New Haven City were on high alert, in fact Kayleen was surprised they haven't arrived at the scene yet. After thinking about it, Kayleen thus came to a decision to bring the young man to a hospital she knew first. She would ask her friends there to treat him as a refugee for now and deal with other matters later.