Ming Shin quickly checked the perimeter around the place with his consciousness and soon tried to think of the place where he got trapped by the dark mist. He was practicing 'death step' when he was accidentally pulled into an illusion.
As he was probing around for nearly half a day, he found a swamp which seemed not so deep after sweeping his consciousness. But there seems to empty beneath it.
'Wait, empty? How can it be empty? How is the swamp even existing then?' he thought. He cautiously approached it and put a single feet in it. He seemed to be sucked in with huge pressure. If not for his strength and perfect bones, he would be crushed to pieces already.
He soon found himself on the damp ground and there was only darkness all around. Nothing can be seen and he could rely solely on his consciousness.
He then realized that the swamp must be some sort of illusion. It is so powerful that even with the current power of void soul, he could not see reality.
As he was carefully mapping out the possible routes while moving in a safe path, he suddenly found an object immersed in darkness emitting gloomy atmosphere. He could determine that whatever it was had horrible power.
He was thinking whether to approach or not. But this was the first clue ever since he was sucked it. If he ignored it, he was not sure if there would be anything else possible to figure out his solution.
The darkness seemed to be riled up and formed heavy pressure seeing someone approaching. The silver pendant abruptly glowed in this poor lit environment and resonated with something in the dark.
Being attentive to the smallest details, Ming Shin could determine that the pendant reacted to that thing immersed in the pitch black fog. With the decrease in distance between him, the dark mist seem to be vaporized making the object more clear.
It was a blue arrow which was glowing and giving off a chilling atmosphere. Before he could even process the thought, the arrow came at him with such speed that he was stuck to the ground.
Without void soul, he would have just seen it as the arrow just fading away along with the darkness. But in the short moment, he can see that it was absorbed by the pendant.
Beads of cold sweat ran down his face. The situation was so perilous that his meagre strength amounted to nothing in front of a dead weapon for who knows how long it has been here.
As he tried calling out to the arrow, it appeared in front of him. It was a bit tainted with darkness but he had a feeling that with enough stay within the pendant, it can restore the purity and peak power of its hey day.
During his visit to Juuko few weeks back, he secretly observed how Meng Kai was doing? She appeared to be diligently practicing archery. Knowing that she was doing her best, he did not disturb her and left silently.
'Probably the next time I see her, I can give this arrow as a gift for her hard work' he thought. After examining the arrow for some time, he let it recuperate within the pendant.
Ming Shin probed around vigilantly and found crushed human bones, dried up blood and rotting meat. Judging from the disgusting smell and the texture of bones, it should only be a few years old.
'Wasn't it that time when Jin Hao and two others were said to disappear in a hole? And it was said that it was protected by a huge formation, which is being cracked slowly by the tribesmen under the guidance of an elder' he was gloomy looking at these remains.
He sighed and made sure to dig the surrounding soil and burying the bones and whatever was left. They were probably affected by the darkness? If so, will anyone be crushed like this? He pondered about it.
Getting nowhere near a possible answer, he let the thought go and explored more forward. He had previously already taken two different paths when it was divided to other routes. The path suddenly seems to go even downhill.
After resting in the dark when he felt tired while keeping a tad bit of vigilance, he woke up after some time. Replenishing himself, after a very long time he could determine through his consciousness that all the paths seem to merge here.
Going towards his left, watchful, he found a human skeleton which was face down and pointing its right hand in one direction. The black sea within his mind was riled up making him restless. There seems to be a connection.
Is this the Boundless Saint's skeleton? How many hundreds of years has it been? Is it still not dissipated to ash? He cursed the boundless saint again remembering the atrocities he committed.
Its good that such a vile human...no, a vile creature was finally exterminated. Feeling that he also played a small part in it (even though it was the credit of void soul), he felt that he took some responsibility on behalf of humanity and nodded to himself with appreciation.
As he was immersed in his thoughts, a crystal like structure was radiating within his consciousness. Slowly moving in that direction and probing with his hands under the skeleton, he found and black and red colored bead.
He suddenly realized that he read something like 'Saint Crystal' in the fragments of memory. These Saint crystals are formed when one becomes a saint. A Saint crystal requires at least one rule to be mastered and with it, the boundary can be broken.
More like, the heavens do not tolerate a creature mastering a rule similar to it and cannot contain them. Hence it excludes them out of its realm and this is called ascension.
There are people who can comprehend more than one rule, but that requires intense suppression of the realm and hiding means from the heavens.
'Looking at the red and black saint crystal, it seems Boundless saint had mastered two heavenly rules and he could still fight a strong person without ascending. What a strong bastard he was?' he sighed. Looks like my realm and mind is too small to comprehend such power.
He cannot even probe the Saint Crystal with his cultivation now. It would be no different from poison instantly mushing his brain. He did not bother with the skeleton anymore and put away the saint crystal in the spatial pouch.
'Hmm? There seems to be only path which is even downwards from here? And the Boundless Saint also seemed to reach something with his hand in this direction. Probably a way to exit?' he was excited.
He found what he came for and reached his conclusion. Seeing the Boundless Saint skeleton, it makes sense that whatever was left of his soul was trying to pull me within the formation and devour my soul occupying the body.
With the help of Saint crystal, he could have slowly improved his cultivation with the retreat here. Well, everything was for naught and ended being a wedding dress for Ming Shin.
After a few steps downwards, he found hard to move forward slowly. There seems to be a force which was imprisoning him here. No, he could move forward albeit even slower than a snail.
Ming Shin tried to run boundless scripture to exceed his limits and proceed forward. It proved to be instantly fatal to him. As soon as he ran the scripture, he was repulsed and crushed even more by the force violently.
Dreaded by the sudden changed, he immediately stopped running the scripture and found the force slowly recede away and returned to the previous pressure. It seems there is something below which loathes boundless scripture.
Looking back at the skeleton, he thought "Well, I loathe him too". Boundless Saint must be coughing up blood even in his grave. His only fault was to try seize Ming Shin's body and it spelled the doom for this thousands of year legacy.
Even after inheriting the scripture he found, he was still cursed after being looted of all his possessions, even his Saint crystal.
Ming Shin was crazy enough to use this pressure to train himself. Throughout these days, he observed that his dark injuries and some meridians which were still healing, were being nourished by the silver pendant.
He had an insane idea to strengthen himself before leaving for Henji town. He knew that there were many Foundation strong elders and clan lords in such small town, let alone other higher places which have even more strong men.
He needs to have enough strength to cope up with sudden situations and his spatial pouch, the silver pendant and mostly various other life saving treasures and heavenly skills. To protect himself and his secrets while searching for his mother, he lunged forward like a lunatic.