Path of the Ascendant

The death was fast and, in comparison with how much blood Yi Wei typically saw during her breakthroughs, not particularly brutal. It was almost strange how someone like that, with such a high opinion of themselves, died so easily. Had her face remained intact, it too would have likely sported an expression of surprise and confusion, but it had not, and few cared to treat her body with any degree of respect. After they allowed Yi Wei to take away some of the pill materials in the woman’s pockets, the rest of her items were taken and split across whoever wanted them. Curiously enough, there was no trace of the Fairy of Dust technique.

Her body was later thrown into the depths of the forest and buried by someone who was injured and had little else to do with their time. Just like that, someone in the Emergent Anchor realm, a member of the middle-class of the Yi family, was thrown away and forgotten.

 

For a month, things were calm. The camp Yi Henghua had occupied was transformed into a secondary market and a space for the remaining five to live.

It was on the 24^th of the next month that a commotion had begun. A group with Yi Zheng at the front returned to camp and announced that a second area with an illusory array was found. For whatever reason, it was far simpler than the previous one, and they were able to break through it without much difficulty, finding the eye of the array quickly.

However, there were nothing there other than a simple stone obelisk, with no clear use or value to it.

The moment that they returned, it was clear to everyone that they were unable to make it work, though few understood as much about the matter as Yi Wei did.

‘So, this confirms that most people can’t use the Lock Obelisks,’ she thought while she listened to their report. Her clothes had been fixed up since the previous discovery, and she had taken a little bit of her spare time to learn to take slightly better care of her appearance, in addition to carving out a comb out of some wood to practise her control over her planar energy, which had diminished somewhat after its transformation to crystal. ‘That, or no-one had the correct approach to using it.’

Yi Zheng’s group reported everything they had attempted so far, listing over a dozen methods which all proved unsuccessful. After making sure that it was clear that they weren’t incompetent, they asked for help.

It was decided that only those with some experience in blacksmithing, inscription and arrays should go, as the rest would be unlikely to know how to solve this conundrum.

Since Yi Wei had knowledge of all of those, and claimed to specialise in arrays, she was selected to go with the rest of the group. They were given a number of resources, both old and new, put together from the various materials found within the Kong valley, and given some time to create something with them that they could then apply in their investigation.

After several hours of preparation, they set out, with Yi Tai of all people at the front.

Despite his rather plain countenance and brief words, it turned out that he had received a great quantity of training in the field of arrays, their creation and destruction.

He proved this quickly when they arrived at the fourth site, which happened to match the location Yi Wei expected it to be in, and rapidly deconstructed the array… with a precision bombardment of boulders.

‘I can see why he isn’t well known for his skills. Simply imagining this method being used on a smaller array would make any regular array master let out a cry of pain,’ she thought, following him into the middle of the array, ‘Does he make formation arrays by piling up those boulders until they do whatever he wants to do with them?’

“Is that it?” the man asked, pointing toward the small stone pillar.

“That’s right,” the person who had returned with them from the previous trip answered, “We’re not sure what it is, but we have noticed that planar energy is thicker around it, suggesting that it does have some function.”

Yi Tai performed some semblance of a nod, “Then you can go one at a time. Try once, then retreat.”

After that, via vague gestures and glances, he decided upon their order via some sort of curious methodology, putting certain individuals in a higher realm behind those in the lower realm.

For whatever reason, out of the thirteen array masters, Yi Wei was placed last, whether because he considered her to be the worst, the best, or perhaps there was some other reason behind his decision. Nonetheless, that’s where she was placed, and the number of people she had to give the opportunity to examine the Lock Obelisk first ended up being thirty-nine.

In that time, she had the chance to decide upon her course of action. She knew that for her to suddenly reveal the ability to activate the Lock Obelisk would raise a few questions, and even if all of that was waved away, it would be difficult to not pay attention to the appearance of an additional symbol on her wrist, which had otherwise seemed to go unnoticed. At that point, if she entered the hidden grounds and walked through a door that no-one else can enter, then it would be incredibly obvious that she had received something beneficial from the grounds, or that she had otherwise claimed something from within.

This was something she could avoid if she ensured that they were unaware of the key symbols on her wrist. At that point, if she entered any sort of portal or doorway and none could follow her, she could just say that she had fallen into some sort of trap, and even wound herself intentionally to prove it.

Unfortunately, if she doesn’t activate the obelisk on her own, she could have to wait for quite a long time before getting the opportunity to try doing so without any observation. Depending on how persistent Yi Tai proved to be, and how important he believed this find to be, it could take between a week and several months for him to finally conclude that this obelisk, whatever he might assume it to be, won’t be cracked by them and that it isn’t relevant to the hidden grounds.

‘As a result, I’m in a bit of a conundrum. If I want to get this over with quickly, which, frankly, I would prefer, as I’ve spent a little too much time here, then I will endanger my chances of getting the items within the Kong Holy Space. If I decide to do things slowly, I might wait out another year here…’ she frowned as she stood behind the first person in the queue, ‘The best option would be one that lets me activate this obelisk, while also drawing attention to literally anything else in the area, so long as it isn’t the Lock Obelisk.’

There wasn’t much she could have done had this occurred in any other forest, or even in some random location within the Kong valley. However, they just happened to be standing in the eye of an array.

An illusory array, to be exact.

‘If I do this correctly, I won’t need months, but just one more rotation of experts. At that point, I should be able to activate the obelisk and let everyone else work with it a few times before making the obelisk sink into the ground on its own, at which point it will be impossible to tell who caused it to activate, nor why. Ordinarily, they could figure out that something is wrong, but if they think the array is inactive, they won’t have a reason to suspect foul play…’

To make an illusion that acted exactly like the real thing, it would take a lot of time and effort. To make something that doesn’t react to any stimulus, however, is far easier, especially when the opposite has already been set up for her.

She pretended to try out a number of methods, some of which had been used by previous array masters, and others which she had randomly taken out of ‘The Introduction to Formation Array Arrangement, Understanding and Mastery’, then retreated with an exasperated look on her face. As if to seek inspiration, or simply to vent her frustration at her own inability, she went into the woods and returned by the time that most of the people who had gone ahead of her had a second opportunity to test some theories.

A number of experts went in front of her, Yi Tai included, but not one noticed something amiss about the obelisk.

Yi Wei approached it again, casually holding her hand over it while projecting a large field of blood planar energy around the pillar, as if she was trying to interact with it via a sort of planar manipulation technique. In truth, the instant the blood covered the surface of the pillar, she had already sent the violet energy into it, and was just waiting for the inscription of the key to finish.

Once it did, she emulated a failure and went back to think of more tests and experiments to fake.

An inscription master stepped forward and began experimenting in his own ways. Everyone passively watched from the side, hoping to see the moment that success is found, but this attempt, just like each one prior, ended in disappointment.

So did the next person’s effort, as did the next.

As far as Yi Wei could tell, her illusion worked, as everyone endlessly worked on the empty air where the obelisk had stood earlier. For someone with the Third Eye, it appeared to be rather amusing, but she knew better than to expose her emotions in a manner that could shatter the illusion for someone. After she witnessed enough people examine and fail to discern the truth from illusion, she found an excuse to leave, claiming that she needed a little more time to consider a good method, and walked around the forest, occasionally checking that the array nodes were still intact.

 

Several hours passed, and just as people were running out of things to do other than exploding the entire area with powerful techniques, they finally saw it.

The Lock Obelisk shuddered and sank down, disappearing beneath the earth.

Before anyone had the opportunity to react, it was gone from their sight, and nothing could return it to the surface. Not even the impeccable technique and method of Yi Tai, who threw quite a number of rocks at it, managed to achieve success.

The ground around it seemed far tougher than anything else, and no matter how much energy they invested into it, they couldn’t break it either.

No-one had the opportunity to present the idea of using more extreme measures before a light, bright and violet, burst out of the ground, soaring upwards into the blue sky. Elsewhere, three more beams identical to this one emerged, and all of them slowly met in the middle of the valley, where they merged into a single stream of light that descended upon the ground.

“What?” a clear hint of confusion appeared on Yi Tai’s face as he looked into the distance, “They activated on their own? Without us? How? Why? Did someone get to the others first? What activated this one?”

He looked so distraught that Yi Wei decided to offer a slightly more helpful theory, “It could have been something to do with timing, or perhaps it followed a similar rule to the previous illusory area, which began the arena fights once enough people arrived. For all we know, we weren’t meant to do anything with these to begin with.”

Yi Tai looked at her in silence for a few seconds before turning away, towards the descending beam of light, “Maybe. We will have a lot of competition, then.”

‘We might. We had already come across some mercenaries and assassins, and we had no clue that they were even there before they showed up in the depths of the illusion and left just as quickly. Now that there is such an obvious beam here, presumably pointing towards the entrance to the Kong Holy Grounds, as everyone is assuming it is, then anyone in the valley will rush towards it immediately, because something this bright would have to be important,’ she thought, scanning past the light with her spiritual will only to find it to be an illusory light, “We should probably hurry before the main camp rushes off.”

“… Indeed. We are leaving. Pack up now.”

That’s what they did, rushing to pick up everything they could before stuffing it in bags and giving the largest and heaviest packs to the servants, as well as their strongest members. Although this treatment was a little unfair, anyone who struggled to carry their equipment was permitted to pass it on to another who was having fewer difficulties. Under the encouragement of certain individuals, primarily Yi Wei, they rushed as far away from the location as they could.

The reason for this hurried action was primarily motivated by one thing – making great modifications to arrays that one is not equipped to modify, mainly because of one’s lacking cultivation, can occasionally lead to disastrous circumstances. Such circumstances include, but are not limited to, enormous explosions, sudden planar phenomena – explosions – and other, rarer scenarios.

Indeed, the reaction she expected did occur.

Just as the last members of their group left the area of the illusion, the planar energy in the area suddenly froze. Then, without any warning, it flew into the array eye at great speed, condensing into one point in just a few seconds.

Then, it exploded. Endless planar energy, thickened to the point of appearing as purple light and gas, expanded at twice the speed it had gone at previously, scorching the area in its immense temperature.

Compared to an array of the same level that had been designed specifically for an offensive purpose, its power was lacking in every way, but it was still beyond the attack power of any cultivator amongst them. Had a regular person been standing at the edge, they would have been critically burned at best, and instantly killed at worst.

“W-What was that?” someone less familiar with arrays questioned.

“Array meltdown via structural instability,” Yi Tai answered, “The period of time in between the construction of the array and its activation might have weakened it…”

 

They returned to the main camp with great haste, and just in time, as everyone was already getting to leave, with most tents having been emptied. It was decided that even if the beam of light was irrelevant, or a distraction, repositioning the tents would be beneficial, as it would be far easier to access any specific point within the Kong valley from the middle of it instead of a location on the side of it.

Before they left, Yi Wei removed the arrow spear she had previously taken from Yi Fenwu from its hiding spot and placed it on her back as if it was a typical spear.

That action, somewhat predictably, drew the attention of its former owner, who suddenly blocked her and leaned down in such an exaggerated fashion that her cleavage was beyond obvious, “Hey, honey. Would you like to give that thing on your back to me? It just so happens that I’m missing one of my arrows, and that looks exactly like what I need. You wouldn’t want to make me beg, would you? Or, do you like seeing a girl-”

“Yi Fenwu, as someone who was severely injured due to your ‘accidental assault’, I would like to keep this with me, in order to be able to better defend myself in the future,” Yi Wei looked right into the woman’s eyes with a serious expression, mostly to keep her eyes off of her breasts and to seem a lot more serious while doing it, “If you have another low-grade artefact for me to use, I’ll take it instead.”

Somehow, her expression didn’t sour, although she did straighten her back, “Well, that’s fair. I can see why you might not want to give this up… Alright, you can hold on to it for a while…”

Yi Fenwu smiled ominously and walked off to take charge in her part of the camp.

‘I have to say that I don’t like this too much… whatever this is. In theory, I am one step away from claiming whatever is stored inside the Kong Holy Grounds, so if there was ever a time for something to go wrong, then it would be-’

“Yi Wei, I’d like to talk with you,” the voice of her group leader interrupted, having approached her silently, “It’s about this group’s problem.”

‘Besides his attempts to influence the minds of others, the only significant issue I can think of are the few deaths that had mysteriously occurred. After we had formed a larger camp with the other groups, it became a little more difficult to keep track of everyone… was there another mysterious death?’ Yi Wei thought, “Alright.”

She followed him to a shaded spot to the side of the large hill where the camps were placed, and through ever thickening woods. Just as she began to consider the possibility that he had decided to try influencing her mind again, or perhaps decided to get rid of her entirely, they stopped.

Before her, a small emptied area within the wood was lit by the dimming sunlight, and within stood a group. Out of the eleven people there, nine were from groups other than Yi Jiazhi’s.

For someone who paid a decent amount of attention to the events around her, it wasn’t difficult to make a number of guesses regarding the situation. For one, it would be far too strange if Yi Jiazhi was the only person to suffer from mysterious assassinations, if those were indeed what they were, as that would indicate that every other group leader had decided to sabotage him together, or at the very least that they ignored the strange occurrences for some other reason.

“After you had departed with that group the previous day, I have finally acquired enough information to believe that you are innocent,” Yi Jiazhi stated, nodding along to himself as if he was saying something intelligent, “As a result, I shall allow you to join this investigation.”

“Are you sure that you hadn’t just been treating me as a suspect due to our previous encounter?”

“… Shut up,” he muttered, turning to the group in front of them, “I hadn’t told you, but our group had lost a total of five people. These people also suffered from the same issue.”

“I’m from Yi Zheng’s party. We have already lost three people,” one man, standing near the back, stated, before looking over her closely, “We were told that you have a certain talent for resisting mind influencing abilities, and unfortunately, our group has also heard rumours of a certain red-haired, flat-chested girl that is incredibly fast for her realm. You should be able to assist us.”

“Investigation? You’ve decided to team up and find the killer, or killers?”

“That’s right,” a woman to the right, with a large scar going down her face, almost exactly down the middle, “I am one of Yi Guanyu’s, and we’ve suffered three strange losses in the month since we left the illusory array. That is unacceptable.”

“Indeed. I’d been with Yi Tai most of the time, and we’ve lost a total of nine without any clear explanation. Even if some were due to ancient arrays and old beasts who caught them unaware, for all of them to have been committed by someone using the element of earth seems a little too… coincidental. Don’t you agree? Also, I’m Yi Meng, just so that you know. Everyone else is just saying their piece, but not introducing themselves,” another woman, who was nearly as tall as her group’s leader, complained, before adding, “Though I do think that it is strange that the number of deaths before we met your group is only one lower than after.”

“What kind of idiot would target their own group?” someone from Yi Wei and Yi Jiazhi’s party retorted, “Though… having said that, all of our teams have lost at least someone, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Yi Guanyu’s team member stated, “Three people since we came out of the illusory array, which is, frankly, horrible, but all of them seemed to be perpetrated by the same person. Same wounds, same energy, the only difference is the number.”

“You’ve noticed the same thing?” a man from Yi Fenwu’s team wondered, “Three attacks for Planar Pool cultivators, and five for Emergent Anchor.”

“Three?” the woman from Yi Guanyu’s group questioned, “Our people only sustained two and four wounds, respectively. Do you think that he or she could have advanced by a stage and gotten even stronger?”

“We’ve been here for two years, so it would have been strange if they hadn’t done anything after all this time,” Yi Meng said, “Since he won’t introduce himself, that guy is Yi Sheng, by the way.”

“That makes sense. I’m Yi Wei,” she presented herself, “However, I don’t think that this is the best time to be doing this, especially since we might be about to enter the hidden grounds, and then return to the district. Unless, of course, your group has been around for longer than this, or you’ve made some new discovery?”

“We have,” Yi Jiazhi said, looking over to Yi Meng, “She’s figured something out, apparently.”

“I have. The planar energy in use against every assassination target might not actually be earth-type energy. After a lot of experiments, I managed to get the residual energy to react in a fashion that is more reminiscent of either fire or water energy, rather than earth, and I have good reason to believe it is not what it appears to be, and is instead either fire or water. Perhaps it could even be both, with the killer using something to store the other form of energy before combining it with their own to create false earth planar energy.”

“And I have observed that the wounds were all made by the same weapon. Whoever this person is, they favour a dagger or a short sword as their tool of choice,” Yi Sheng added.

“Interesting. Are there any suspects, or a list of everyone who uses either water or fire techniques?” Yi Wei asked while thinking to herself, ‘If this person uses a dual fire and water-type technique, then it isn’t impossible for them to lack any talismans or forms of energy storage, which these people would look for due to their current assumption. However, it is clear that they are either unaware of dual-type techniques, or are not speaking about them in front of me, so I have to suggest it subtly…’

“We are putting together a list, but one thing that we weren’t sure about was your technique.”

‘And here I have the perfect opportunity!’ she realised, “Well, you and me both. I used to cultivate a metal technique, but shortly before going on this expedition, I acquired a new technique that perfectly merged with my previous one. It still seems to have the metal element, but it is a lot more like water now.”

“Interesti- Wait, could this be… dual elements?” a man, formerly from Yi Henghua’s group, guessed quickly, “Is it actually real? Release some energy, right now!”

The request was somewhat impolite, but Yi Wei chose to ignore it and released some of her blood-like energy into the world. Although it appeared to be in liquid form, it was actually a gaseous mist that closely resembled actual blood. She could, had she chosen to, have summoned it as actual fluid and have passed it off as the gas version of her planar energy, but if anyone in the clearing was familiar with other types of dual-type planar energy, it would take more effort to hide the truth from them in that situation.

The man immediately leapt forward and examined the planar energy closely, and moments later, he half nodded, and half shook his head. “I can’t fully identity it here, but there does appear to be a trace of both elements in there. Then, doesn’t it mean that the perpetrator could be cultivating a similar skill? Shit, that makes things so much worse… can you still use your metal energy?”

“I…” Yi Wei hesitated – she was capable of switching her form of planar energy at will, and thus she had never considered whether she could do it without the advantage of her mysterious characters – and frowned, “I admit, I have never tried. Let me do so now.”

She focused on the energy before her and tried to extract only the metal from the viscous gold and crimson fluid whilst ignoring the characters. It was difficult to simply focus on the task, and not to let her mind resort to the endlessly shifting symbols in the middle of her dantian, as she had gotten so used to that casual action of drawing upon their power that her mind was barely able to imagine doing a number of things without it, especially when it was uncertain whether those things were even possible for the regular person.

In the end, after a minute of standing still, with her eyes closed, she resorted to sealing away the memories of using the characters and significantly lowering the quantity of planar energy she was dealing with from a large blob of blood to one small droplet of it. Even then, she found herself unable to do anything with it at all, not without relying on the characters, so she gave up.

“There’s your answer. I’m not sure if this is due to the lack of proper training, the proper technique or simply because it is impossible, but it would be far more likely for the person in question to use earth-type techniques, rather than fire or water,” she concluded.

The others nodded, with the man who was examining her planar energy speaking up first, “Makes sense. Our list is going to go down the drain, but whatever, that’s worth it. Narrowing it down to one of five from every group is much better than the two out of five that we had before, not to mention that they would have been the wrong ones. We’ll need to repeat the search in a different manner, as to not attract attention.”

“Then, let us split up and do this properly, since we’ll need to be leaving soon,” Yi Jiazhi said, “We only had a few minutes, so make sure to remember one another’s faces before we leave.”