A castle with seven floors stood at the center of a hundred-by-hundred-meter black space. Pink glowing vines wrapped around the golden walls of the castle like a python squeezing against its hard-earned prey. Pink tulips bloomed from wayward stems attached he'd to the main vine. The castle wasn't solid. Enough focus and Long Wei saw through it into the various rooms. All of them were empty.
At the base of the castle was a pond. In the pond was a crystal clear liquid he knew far too well. It was spirit qi be exact. Cultivators above the Nascent Soul Realm had a special way of storing the spirit qi they gathered using cultivation techniques that governed this process.
A cultivator's constitution also affected the method. Long Wei could gather Qi in two ways. One, through the usual way, letting spirit qi sink into his pores and pass through his meridians towards his Mindscape. Second, he could use the Void Dragon Arts to deposit Qi into his Mindscape. He used a combination of both. The first method strengthened his veins further and the second method meant he could absorb large amounts of qi in large bursts. Perfect for his endless Mindscape.
The pond was tiny, even for someone less talented than him. It was only five meters squared. Come to think of it, even her Mindscape was tiny. The weakest technique in the Imperial Expanse guaranteed a thousand-meter squared Mindscape. Why was hers so small?
The babbling of water drew his attention to the boundaries of her Mindscape. The blue-colored liquid seeped through the boundaries, almost as it if it didn't exist. Extreme coldness accompanied the water. A few minutes in and the water flooded her Mindscape.
This phenomenon interested Long Wei. He'd never heard of any form of qi seeping through the Mindscape Barrier as of it didn't exist. Even he had to use a different method to achieve the same effect. But this didn't conform to anything he knew. Once the liquid entered her Mindscape it didn't seep out. It chose to gather instead.
Alresia's Nascent Soul struggled against the onslaught of waves slamming against her Heavenly Palace. It drew symbols in the air, pushed qi into it, and formed barriers to protect the Palace. But none of its actions worked. The water was relentless. It slammed into the Palace. And as more water seeped in, it rose. A few moments ago it was still at the ground level of her Palace, but it was already on the sixth floor.
Long Wei observed. Although the water crashed into her Palace and practically tore through the foundation of her Heavenly Palace, no damage was done. He wondered why that was. Through basic cultivation logic, once any uncontrolled substance found its way into the Mindscape, it would damage everything in its path. At least before the God Realms, a cultivator's Mindscape was their weakest point.
The water submerged Alresia's Nascent Soul. Its basic functions stopped instantly. Thereafter, the liquid filled her entire Mindscape. Not even a moment later, the liquid froze, creating a massive block of ice that stretched from each boundary of her Mindscape.
He kept his sight on the Mindscape with one eye and zoomed in on the activity within her meridians with the other eye. Like moths to flames, the harmful qi seeped into the girl's meridians automatically. The block of ice on her Mindscape lit up and churned a burst of transparent energy into her meridians. Once this new energy melded with the harmful qi. A miracle happened before his eyes. The harmful qi absorbed the energy, but instead of the energy becoming like the qi, it purified it. Toxic substances bubbled out of the spirit qi. Before long it was purified.
The process went on and on. Each loop melted the ice in her Mindscape till there was only a bit hovering over the pond near the Heavenly Palace. Just as the last bit melted, it sucked out the spirit qi in the pond, growing to the same size again. The process never stopped until only a little qi was left in Alresia's pond. Long Wei assumed the moment the liquid dried up all the qi within one's qi storage, the pendant picked that up as life-threatening. The reason was pretty simple. If she tried using spirit qi even after her qi storage was dried up then she'd be using her blood essence. A tactic that was bound to damage her foundation and possibly kill her.
Just as Alresia's qi storage dried up, a burst of deep purple qi gushed from the bottom of her pond, grinding away the glowing liquids hold over her pond and eventually her Mindscape. Long Wei focused, but regardless of how hard he tried, he couldn't see the energy anymore. Disappointed, he threw his inquisitive gaze at the purple mass of energy that hovered over Alresia's pond. Its presence was dark and ominous. Dark clouds rose above the skies of her Mindscape and crackled with lightning. Her Mindscape throbbed to the deep bass of the thunder roar that followed right after three flashes of bright purple lightning struck her Heavenly Palace.
Long Wei scrambled through his memories. He found what he wanted. Mansa Musa, a legendary God Emperor that ruled the richest Expanse within the Myriad Realms, was the first to observe this phenomenon within his Nascent Soul Realm daughter. He spent a few years researching what he saw, but he never came to understand what it was, even with his highly advanced cultivation base. It was only an entire Chaos Cycle after, with the aid of his researchers, alchemists, and formation experts that they found the meaning of what he saw: The Dormant Heavenly Yin-Physique.
Nassira Musa, his daughter, only awakened its true power after ascending to Godhood. The trigger for the phenomena, as the ancients discovered was intense emotional distress. He didn't know whether the statement was accurate, but he felt it had some truth to it. He didn't know if he could classify the current situation as 'immense emotional distress'. If only he spent a bit more time researching it then he would have known the particulars.
Though, the revelation drummed against his heart.
Assuming, his analysis was correct, then this girl would prove to be a massive boost to his cultivation base. If he ripped out the Yin-Physique seeds and roots etched within her then he could make a pill. Not that he could make pills, but that still left the God Alchemists at the Palace. Or he could have a Divine Formation Master set up a Divine Foundation Extraction Formation, directly extracting her entire cultivation foundation of all. Or he could turn her into a cultivation cauldron. That was more simple.
As long as he absorbed bits of her yin qi, using a yin-to-yang conversion technique. But he couldn't sully his manhood. Dual Cultivation with such a peasant would be an utter waste of time and energy. It would take him years to extract her yin seeds through that method and he didn't have the patience. He preferred one of the former options. The girl wasn't qualified for the latter, be it in talent, beauty, or background.
Heat licked the ends of his spine. Blood sloshed through his veins, stretching his veins. Letting his thoughts wander too far off while using his Heaven Shrouding Eyes was a mistake. A big one. chaos ripped his focus apart forcing him four steps back with blood oozing down the corner of his lips.
He coughed, slamming a spirit qi-covered fist right at the center of his sternum. Soothing qi flowed into his meridians, some to his eyes and others through to his Mindscape. He made certain to guide the qi through his meridians according to the Void Dragon Art's soothing scripture. His thoughts gradually stilled, before reverting to normal. Slapping his thigh, he cursed under his breath.
Without wasting a second, he pulled Alresia out of the liquid and pierced his hand right through her sternum, splattering thick globs of blood everywhere. The pendant around her neck glowed and she disappeared. Long Wei shook the blood off his hand.
He flipped his palm over and revealed a small strand of purple energy in his palm. Although brutish, piercing the position of one of her Nine Heaven Nodes and sending a trickle of Void Qi into her Mindscape was the quickest method for him to get that strand.
"Alresia of the Pink Pavilion? A shame you met me today," Long Wei chuckled, wiping away the blood around his lips, his lips curved upwards, " Now for that technique. It's pretty simple."
Long Wei sat down and closed his eyes, ready to put all the pieces of information he learned so far into one coherent technique that could help him utilize the liquid and the purple energy's unique properties to make a technique that would push him to the top in the trials. A second barely passed and the ground shook underneath him. He spread his spiritual sense far ad wide, picking up the tide of the ugly little devils chasing three large groups of cultivators toward his position.
"Fuck! Can't I just cultivate in fucking peace!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, utterly disgusted that lowly beings came to cause a ruckus just when he wanted to do something productive.