Long Wei opened his eyes to an unfamiliar landscape. He sat with crossed legs on the highest cliff within the general area, giving him an omniscient view of a sea of green forests spread far into the horizon. Three suns hung in the air, focusing immense light and heat onto the poor planet. He dusted himself and did a quick check of the things he could do. First, he tested his spatial ring. Pulling a few bits of qi from his dantian, he guided it to the purple ring on his right hand. It blinked. Nothing came out.
"So no external artefacts can be used, that's pretty clever. If I need one, I might need to find an artificer or a craftsman," Long Wei thought, "Next should be qi. Can I absorb it? "
He went to work immediately. The utmost focus was needed for this step, just in case the qi within the planet was harmful to him. Focus allowed him to break the connection between his senses and the harmful qi instantly. He drew in the qi from the surroundings, gathering it into a ball in front of him, before syphoning it. He hissed. Sweat drenched his face. He stopped drawing in the qi.
"The qi is pretty harmful. But how? The plants and trees are green. Which usually means an abundance of harmless qi, " He thought. "The suns? "
The three suns hung in the air, seemingly detached from the ecosystem. Besides the intense heat he felt the moment he opened his eyes, nothing else was special. Aside maybe from the fact that the trees were still green and luscious in the heat. Under normal circumstances, this place would have been a sprawling desert. Not those green pastures full of life and abundance.
Could his Void Dragon Arts convert the harmful qi into something harmless? He wasn't leaving this area till he took stock of all he could do. If he couldn't absorb the qi in any shape or form, then it meant he had to keep a constant check on the amount of qi he sued throughout the twenty-eight days.
Closing his eyes a second time, he switched his breathing pattern according to the Void Dragon Arts manual. Three vortexes formed. One above his head, another in front of his dantian and the other behind him. He pushed the technique to its peak performance. Large amounts of spiritual force shot out of the vortexes, grabbing onto the rogue strands of spirit qi in the air. The moment it did, his Nascent Soul leapt up from its cross-legged position within his Heavenly Palace. It stretched out a hand, reversing the flow of spiritual force. The harmful qi in the atmosphere flew into the vortexes. His Nascent Soul made a flurry of hand symbols, each symbol aided in the purification and guiding of the harmful qi.
Each strand of harmful qi had an ugly brown colour, that stunk like rotten waste. But within seconds, the brown colour became white. The Nascent Soul worked hard purifying the strands of qi, and after it did, it guided them towards the hilt floating in front of it. The hilt was the primary stage of his Sword Soul, which was a seed required to embark on the true path of the sword. Dragons had an innate affinity to four weapons, namely the body, the Halberd, the Spear and the Sword. As long as they infused time and energy into arts related to one of those four weapons, they were destined for utmost greatness. Only the process was a long and arduous one. Even with his immense talent. He couldn't fully mature his Sword Soul from the illusory state to the tangible one.
Saint Realm cultivation was the hardest step within the mortal realm. Long Wei needed a lot more than raw qi to break through. He needed to claim a Saint Status. And in order to do that he needed to establish his name within a series of mortal planes, stealing their fate and attaching it to his name. A goal, which he was very far from achieving. He estimated it would take him four to five years to complete the requirement under normal circumstances. Meanwhile, he could continue Strengthening his base strength by diverting the qi that would have gone towards his qi cultivation to his Sword Soul Cultivation and leaving the leftover bits in his qi storage. Only, after three years of trying, he only managed to complete half the hilt. It would be best if he paired his break through with a matured Sword Soul, Strengthening his future combat strength to the highest level possible within the mortal realms
His Nascent Soul trembled after a few minutes of purifying the qi and injecting it into his Sword Soul. He cut the circulation of the Void Dragon arts instantly. His chest heaving up and down, from the bone-cracking exertion he went through to forcibly cut the connection.
"This qi...I'm not strong enough to purify it using the Void Dragon Arts, at least at a pace that that could warrant careless use of qi for the next twenty-eight days, " Long Wei drafted a qi expenditure budget, "Truly a survival test. "
Long Wei admired the three suns hanging in the air one last time. He stood up and began exploring the area he landed more closely. He didn't dare spread his spiritual sense more than a few meters away from him. The toxicity in the environment held faint traces of Devouring Qi, a type of qi on the Destructive Qi spectrum that only lost out to Flaming Qi in its ability to destroy things. The further he spread his spiritual senses the less dense it was and the less protection it had against that kind of qi. The shorter the distance, the more dense it was and the more protection it had against the qi.
At first glance, the top of the cliff seemed like a vast stretch of grasslands that was chopped off in the distance. But as he waded through the tall grass, rivers and forests appeared from nowhere, blocking his path forward. He wove around it, walking an extra few kilometres of distance just to see the clearing, stretching a few kilometres south. His spiritual sense did little to aid him. Earlier, he tried spreading it farther than he did previously, hoping to pick up the anomaly. But he didn't.
He still ended up walking from a grasslands to forests, and from forests into deserts and then back to the grasslands. No massive shift in Qi alerted him to what happened. Each environment felt too real to be an illusion. He consulted his Heaven Shrouding Eyes. And unfortunately, they only proved useful when determining whether the odd environments that popped out of thin air were illusions or not. Anything more required far more qi than he could reasonably give without endangering his ability to rack up points and kill Dong Meirong.
He didn't take more than two steps when another forest appeared in front of him. It was a little different than the rest.
Forest of lights.
That was the first thought that popped into his mind the moment he saw the dark and dreary sprawling trees covered with small dots of light. From his perspective, it looks no different than a light posse of fireflies clinging to the trees. Oddly, the generous amount of light given by the spots did little to illuminate the forest. As if the trees made certain to absorb most of it.
Long Wei stepped back a bit. Was advancing forward the logical choice on his side? Or should he reroute and save as much qi as possible.
He chose to reroute.
Turning back, shock tore through his being- almost. The lavish grasslands he left behind him morphed into another Vicious Forest, engulfed in an oppressive atmosphere that sent shivers through his draconic bloodline.
To his left, a battlefield drenched in bubbling acidic blood that rose into the air, sizzling the atmosphere and leaves that fell in its general direction.
His left?
It was empty. Void. Absolutely nothing existed there, only a pure white expanse that spread out to only the Transcendents knew.
The patch of grass he stood on had long morphed into a single grey rock floating above clear waters, with four deadly places awaiting him in each of the Cardinal directions. He chose the Forest of Lights. It felt the least straining on his bloodline. The other three places made it scream in comparison.
He leapt from the grey rock, floating towards the self-named Forest of Lights. Just as he landed in the forest, twelve thick roots launched towards him at a speed he could barely comprehend. Instantly, they wrapped around him. The roots handled him gently and pulled him into the forest.
Things happened so fast, Long Wei barely had time to process. The roots dragged him through a squishy barrier he likened to blubber. Putrid stench locked his nose for an instant as he passed through. Whatever membrane he sieved through. He didn't want to go through it again. He pushed down the instinctive urge to scream. The ride came to an end in less than a second and the roots left their grip on him. Twisting his body midair, he landed on his knees on the floor of another unfamiliar environment.