Path of the Ascendant

For some time, Wei Yi did not move, simply letting the water wash her naked form. Her crimson robes were somewhere in the grass, likely being penetrated by a number of newly growing trees, but they wouldn’t be able to obliterate every trace of fabric, so she could pick them up and let them recover whenever she wanted.

She wasn’t interested in doing so at the moment. The water would be comfortable even to the ordinary person, its temperature being close to perfect, so she enjoyed the pause as much as it was possible to.

Soon, she would need to return into action. There were still more Primordial Deities out there, and likely not even the heavens knew whether she would be able to beat them as she did Primordial Nature. Her power did grow, but she did not expect that every one of them would have as exploitable a weakness as the manifestation of the Wood Dao. Furthermore, the more time passed, the greater the energy density and allocation of the world would be, and thus the natural energy available to the Primordial Deities would also grow.

It also had to be noted that her winning strike was facilitated by a power of Kong Shi Meng that he claimed to be unable to repeat more than once after this, meaning that she would need to find some other source of burst force until she was able to push herself into the eighth realm.

‘Stop that. Right now, it’s quiet, so I should relax… I’ll only have a little longer anyway…’

“Wait a minute, did her dick get larger? I though humans stopped growing after twenty or so, while she was forty already-”

“Long Hua, you could have just remained quiet. I was having a nice time relaxing, even if you did land rather loudly, but now you’ve taken me out of it,” Wei Yi said, opening her eyes and lowering her gaze to look upon the dragons. Her hair had broken loose at some point during the battle, resulting in half of her vision being covered by crimson strands, but she didn’t bother to move those out of the way for now.

The majority of the time, she wore her hair in a simple ponytail, and just as the fall of rain upon her skin felt unusually pleasant, so did the touch of her wet hair. Furthermore, there was no need to be worried about any inconvenience relating to her hair, as it would always be perfectly tidy and clean.

“I don’t mind having some fun out here. With how long we’ve been underground, fucking in a field is bound to be a nice change of pace,” Long Hua shrugged, “Would be a good way to celebrate.”

“I want something calm, and even in the calmest of acts, sex is an inherently stimulating experience… Still, your note regarding my size is noteworthy, for all the reasons you probably didn’t intend,” she turned to the other dragons, who didn’t hide their attention upon her lower regions at all, “You’ve seen me before, so tell me – can you notice any major changes?”

“You seem just a little larger. In every way, I mean, not just…” Long Tao muttered.

“There’s a branch-like pattern on your right arm, looking a bit like a scar. If it is, it’s very nice, and if it’s deliberate, it could have done with a bit more work,” Li He said.

“Your balls grew noticeably.”

“Trust me, I can tell, Long Hua… How has your sex drive not calmed down after everything you’ve been doing in my lands? Don’t answer that, by the way, since I know that you still have sex on your mind. As for the pattern…” she looked upon her right arm, noting the branch-like patterns that began between her fingers, and spread up to her elbow, spreading out to cover her skin quite densely. It was just subtle enough to be overlooked on first glance, and the vague shapes of leaves between the branches were even harder to perceive. Frankly, she was quite glad about that.

Although one could not say that these marks were strictly negative, same as with her very own dick and balls, the latter was enough of an oddity for her to not desire another one. Even if it was incredibly pleasant, these marks upon her body were entirely unnecessary and rather concerning.

Nothing of the sort appeared when she had taken the grey dust of Primordial Earth. As such, she had to presume that the source of this oddity was her particular choice to grab the Primordial Deity’s insides and hold onto them with her arms. If her left arm wasn’t composed entirely of smoke and energy, she expected that she would be finding similar patterns upon its surface. Of course, the quantity of energy also needed to be taken into consideration.

She knew that her Wood Dao had leapt up to the Full Success stage, for she had gained a vision state and the Truth of the Universe was able to display it to her, unlike her Dao of the Heavens, and her cultivation stage had leapt up with the added contribution of her old dantian bone shards. However, it was the power over nature – the element of wood, specifically – that she found most intriguing.

Unlike the grey dust, which was the only power she could exert in whichever way she could think of, her affinity with the Wood Dao seems to have been raised significantly. With a random movement of her finger, she felt as if she could will a forest into being, or force a pack of beasts to perform some particular action without any question. In reality, it would likely be quite different, for her realm had not gotten anywhere near to the eighth or ninth realm yet, but she was nearly sure that there was a slightly different use for that power.

“Now-”

“Do you think your balls will produce more-” Long Hua’s words were cut off by a vine snapping onto her head and in between her lips, being bitten through a moment later but effectively stopping her.

“This does work, to a certain extent. From now on, Long Hua, if you talk about sex things when we are nowhere close to having it, or not even planning to have it, then you will get lashed by a vine in some way,” the Ascendant declared, and just to prove that she could, she made another vine spring out of the ground and slap the dragon’s ass, “Really, I don’t know if dragons go into heat, but that should finish eventually, shouldn’t it?”

“Sorry…”

“You’re not, but I’ll leave you alone if you do stop.”

Long Hua nodded, though Wei Yi quickly shifted her attention to a change within, yet without – the Kong Prison Realm, a place anchored to her Endless Monolith yet theoretically existing elsewhere. Some of the power from Primordial Nature had clearly gone there, and with it the stability of the spatial realm had been increased enough to allow Yi Shi Ming to finish its expansion. She could sense it clearly.

The borders that had once been so clear now grew by fifty miles in all directions, for a total of an additional one hundred miles of diameter. The Four Cardinal Beasts array formed an inner wall, and the outer portions were untouched by its effects, but were very much affected by the energy of Primordial Nature, as well as its contribution to the Ascendant’s own power. Just as the battlefield around her had already grown into a small forest, obscuring a large portion of the rain from falling on her directly – prompting her to will the Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival to be delivered to her by the root of a nearby tree – so were the outer reaches of the Kong Prison Realm flowering with untold thousands of all kinds of flora.

Fortunately, none of the plants were in the same state as the creations of Primordial Nature, and so they were safe to keep around. Many were medicinal herbs of the sixth and seventh realms, so it would be a terrible shame to get rid of them.

The planar energy density in the spatial realm also grew, reaching a step beyond the level of the Planar Continents, but remained beneath the boundary of easy eighth realm accessibility. For that to be reached, either the Ascendant would reach the eighth realm, allowing some of her excess power to flood into the Kong Prison Realm and invigorate it further, or the level of the spatial realm would need to be elevated with additional planar stones and spatial metal until it reached the necessary level of maintaining such a quantity of planar energy on its own.

“Can one of you go over to Chu Su’s location and tell him that the threat to his district is gone?”

One of the dragons was about to nod when all of them suddenly looked behind the Ascendant, though she turned a moment after as she noticed the presence of Kong Shi Meng as well.

As usual, he was able to move without any outward signs of motion, and even the knowledge of his apparent method was not enough for Wei Yi to feel it. His presence was noticeable, however, so once he was by her side, finding him was significantly simpler. It helped that her energy had grown stronger as a result of the confrontation, and the state of her dantian had also improved, granting an improvement in the perception of energy as a whole.

“Who-”

“Is that-”

“The red hair-”

“T-The-”

The dragons spoke out at once, and silenced themselves as a result, looking to the significantly calmer Ascendant for guidance or some form of explanation. She glanced at Kong Shi Meng for a moment, finding something odd about him at first, but speaking when she couldn’t confirm anything.

“Horny dragons, this is Kong Shi Meng, the Master of Yi City. Kong Shi Meng, these are the horny dragons that know your dragon friend.”

“I can speak with them later. For now, I need to confirm what the outcome of your fight with Primordial Nature was. You appear to have been victorious, but I must confirm the state of the Primordial Deity first.”

“I killed it.”

The expression on his face had always been frozen, but now it seemed to be even more still than usual. Aside from the slight degree of training this would offer her in comprehending the subtlest of expressions, it did make her a little more convinced that he was the true Kong Shi Meng – or at least a human, and not some kind of entity attempting to pose as the old Master of Yi City to obtain something from the world or her. Any entity like that would have to have a less natural reaction to this.

“I… had not been observing the situation after assisting you for a moment, but when did this happen?”

“After I managed to pierce its body with your aid, I stuck a hand in and took its energy. It didn’t seem like it would work at first, but once it came into contact with my dantian, everything went very smoothly, and now I have a part of its power and a new stage,” she explained as simply as possible, as she was unlikely to be able to present a new perspective on most things to someone that had fought the Primordial Deities so many times. The necessary parts were provided, and anything else was unnecessary, maybe unhelpful, even.

“That shouldn’t quite be possible… The energy of the Primordial Deities is not the same as the typical energy cultivated by all, in part preventing their own development, and in part ensuring that they will be unable to devise a cultivation method for themselves,” Kong Shi Meng said, his voice still marked with clear uncertainty.

“Still, I managed it.”

“Apparently so.”

“I also did the same with the grey dust from Primordial Earth, and a bit of Primordial Energy’s energy, but I guessed that the latter was more of a coincidence due to the Primordial Deity being focused on planar energy itself, making it more vulnerable.”

“… Yes, so did I. It appears that this may require further investigation.”

He stopped and looked to the north, right in the direction of Paragon and the spatial realm primarily anchored there.

“I believe a change occurred with the Kong Prison Realm. While the other Primordial Deities still linger away from the world of men, it might be wise to inspect the situation and clear up any issues that might have arisen in your absence.”

“Do you also want to take a look? It’s been a while since you’ve been there – for long, anyway.”

She was referring to his apparent appearance in the Kong Prison Realm during the battle with the Great Leeches, wherein he assisted in the sealing of the spatial realm’s outer walls. From her understanding, his entry and departure followed one another shortly, as he appeared there purely to prevent the Kong Prison Realm from being breached during her absence, and so he might not have had the opportunity to examine the things there in any great detail.

It also had to be noted that she did also want to test him just a little. Until she could have absolute certainty about his identity, every test had the chance of unveiling some mistake in the disguise of an entity completely opposite to him, and potentially saving Yi City. Hence, she said little about the Kong Prison Realm itself, and let him react as he would.

“Following you will not impact my ability to oversee the rest of the Western Continent, so I can follow you if you wish.”

“Then… let me try something, actually. If it works out, then I have a new transportation method for myself and everyone who is a little less fast,” Wei Yi said, looking in a random direction that was devoid of people or dragons, raising her only hand of flesh and blood.

Just like how she would use her Dao, she attempted to invoke that other power that she gained from the Primordial Deity. Simply using it was easy enough, as she could do it nearly subconsciously, much like she did right then by thinking about her clothing at the same time. Although Yi Shi Ming had the ability to see her naked at any time, and likely did see her in such a state on many an occasion due to her hardly being shy about her sexual activities in the Kong Prison Realm, it didn’t feel right to return to her land without a thing on her body when there was something only a few metres away.

A few of the nearby tree branches curved and picked up the Crimson Robes, placing them upon her body and letting her simply insert her arms into the sleeves and return to her original attempt.

With a number of plants and random flora, she willed that a gate be formed before her, although it wasn’t as much the physical shape that she was concerned with as the functionality and spatial properties of it. She wanted to create a gateway to the Kong Prison Realm, even if it would be temporary and last for just long enough to bring her and the dragons through. It wasn’t even really necessary, as the Chu District gateway was not far from her, but she wanted to try it.

Provided that all Dao converged into the Great Dao, a powerful enough force of the Wood Dao – of the Branch of Fitness, from what she could tell as a result of Primordial Nature’s ramblings – should be able to interact with space and form a full gateway. In theory, the properties of wood might even allow it to be stabilised permanently.

It was easy enough to form the gateway’s physical form, but the next step was the more challenging one. She needed to connect this place with the Kong Prison Realm, and before she tried her usual approach, Wei Yi attempted to replicate the phenomenon of Kong Shi Meng’s movement technique in a different manner to his own. He moved the people within a cloud of planar energy, but if it was possible to trick reality in that regard, could she not also manifest a passage in a place that should not have one? Speaking purely theoretically, there should be no reason why she couldn’t pull something like that off.

Of course, practise oft differed from theory. Despite her best attempts to make it work, the energy in the gateway and in the Kong Prison Realm fluctuated without much success.

“Huh. Fine, a more standard approach then…”

Adding a bit more of her energy into the mix, she former a more stable foundation for the standard form of a spatial gateway that she forced open with her power, empowering it with the plentiful wood-type aura of the region.

With her connection she had to the Kong Prison Realm, she forced a spatial gateway to form within the air, stabilised by the additional energy imparted into the physical structure, smoking crimson and flowing silver forming around the edges to herald the connection of two foreign spaces. As soon as the opening formed, the dragons rushed through, understanding that the gateway would not linger for long, and the Ascendant followed them, glancing at Kong Shi Meng as she expected him to use his standard method.

However, he simply walked forward, taking very slow steps forward until he made his way through the gateway, at which point he looked back at the Ascendant, as if in response.

“Ah, Wei Yi, I…” the voice of the spatial spirit reached them instantly, the mother of the Master of Yi City appearing beside them in a similar manner to Kong Shi Meng’s own movement method, but she stopped when she laid her eyes upon her apparent son. Aside from mirroring her own reaction to seeing the man, Wei Yi noted that she looked similar to what she must have looked like when she first saw Yi Shi Ming in the Kong Prison Realm, appearing right out of her own memories to greet her.

‘Right, she hasn’t been paying attention prior to now, so we will see how she responds. If something is outwardly wrong… I don’t even know what to do. He is clearly powerful, so it may be that I will not be able to take him on even if a confrontation is necessary,’ she noted, waiting for her response.

Yi Shi Ming looked forward, right at her apparent child, her mouth slightly open while her expression was frozen in her typical look nowadays – the corners of her lips raised just a little in a welcoming smile, her eyes flooded with ancient melancholy. The latter was changing, and doing so quickly as tears appeared in the corners of her eyes, though it was hard to say exactly what emotion overtook what was there before. Perhaps not even the spatial spirit herself could assess such a thing, for which she could not be blamed in the slightest.

Her son, Kong Shi Meng, could not be said to be much clearer, a degree of surprise being the only evident thing.

“Mother… I wasn’t sure that I’d still be able to see you.”

“I… I could say the same…”

‘I suppose I wouldn’t have much to say in their place either…’ Wei Yi thought, glancing at the dragons with just the right amount of killing intent to prompt them to disappear as promptly as possible. With their excessive lust, anything they might do would be worse than having them leave.

The dragons departed quickly enough, and mother and child were left with only the Ascendant for audience, not that they seemed to notice. Even now, both looked at one another as if they weren’t sure that they were real, and it made perfect sense for both of them. Kong Shi Meng couldn’t have known that the Kong Prison Realm would remain intact after his departure, and so confirming that his mother was preserved as its spatial spirit was naturally stunning. Yi Shi Ming knew that his otherworldly gift had ended up with Wei Yi, and so it was very likely that he had met his end somewhere beyond the scope of her awareness.

“So, have you been well?”

“I suppose so. What about you?”

“I… There are some things that I cannot say right now, so… uh…”

‘Right, I don’t think that they will be able to manage much like that,’ the Ascendant adjusted her robes and stepped forward, “I am going to guess that you will need some time to manage, well, everything. Can I speak with Yi Shi Ming for a while?”

“… That might be best. I had not thought that I would be this unprepared, but… I shall wait near the centre.”

He did not use his previous method this time, either, walking simply and directly towards the centre of the spatial realm. It was an incredibly slow method, to the point that it had to be looked at by both of the others present at the scene for a short while. The incongruity between his ability and chosen mode of transportation did eventually lose its significance in their thoughts, and it wasn’t significant enough to be able to directly draw any conclusions right now.

Once the man was out of reach, Wei Yi turned and spoke first.

“I’d ask if you noticed something amiss, but if he is in the ninth realm as his dantian suggests, or higher, it may be that I cannot even block his attempts to listen to us,” she said, not bothering to put up any barrier, “Let’s instead talk about what you’ve managed with the Kong Prison Realm. Has the expansion gone well?”

“It has, thanks in part to the energy you had been able to obtain from a recent battle. It provided me not only with the raw energy necessary to facilitate the Kong Prison Realm’s expansion, but also gave me the ability to improve some of the natural Laws present in this place… Are you sure we shouldn’t-”

“Focus on the spatial realm. Clearly, you can talk about that just fine, and when we’re done, maybe you’ll figure out how to speak with him, or if there is something amiss with him. At that point, if you want me to leave the two of you alone, I can do so for a day at most. After that, I will need help with containing another Primordial Deity, so I suppose that if you choose to do this after all of them are out, then you have all the time in the world,” the Ascendant said, lowering her head slightly as she muttered, “Although I cannot guarantee how long the world will last if I don’t manage to take care of the Primordial Deities, and if I cannot draw upon Shi Meng’s energy when I attack them…”

The mother of the Master of Yi City glanced towards the figure of Kong Shi Meng, who still walked slowly towards the realm’s centre, then looked back.

“Very well, I will focus on this for now. The original Kong Prison Realm was meant to emulate the outside world to a certain extent, but it was not complete in the majority of ways, so everything we grew in here was somewhat lacking. With the addition of the wood element, it should permit for anything living to receive significant benefits, including the people living here.”

“Were they previously affected negatively? They seemed to be just fine.”

“It wasn’t so much that they were being harmed, but instead that they could not benefit as much as if they were in the Planar Continents, growing within a complete space. Incidentally, the wood element…”

“I got it from Primordial Nature.”

In what was easily the greatest change in expression since they met, her eyes widened, mouth opened, and her body shook for the briefest of moments, with this in particular being suppressed far earlier than the other two. Wei Yi knew that she wasn’t more shocked by this than Kong Shi Meng’s reappearance, but instead that the shock from before combined with this one to manifest such a response from the stoic spirit.

Then again, beating the Primordial Deities was also incredibly strange, for Kong Shi Meng was also incapable of handling them beyond sealing them with his own power and some other items.

“How did you manage to steal its power? Did you trick the Primordial Deity, or did you have some kind of method to… no, what exactly did you manage to accomplish? What did you do to take any amount of power from an entity as powerful as that?”

“I just stabbed it a bunch. You know, no big deal.”

“No, it is a very significant deal. My son had been unable to deal with them, so if we use your method-”

“Not sure that’s actually possible. You see, my method is a little specific, in that it requires me to absorb the energy of the Primordial Deity directly, and from what I can tell, that is not a very normal thing to do. I don’t know if anyone else had tried it, but their energy and that of regular cultivators should be completely incompatible.”

“Indeed, it should be… But you say that you managed to do it without issue? If so, perhaps others… No.”

“No?”

“Even in the best circumstances, it shouldn’t be possible for anyone other than you to interact with that energy. Since this spatial realm is bound to you, and was partly processed by you on the way to me, I was able to control it, but if I was a normal cultivator, then even that wouldn’t have been enough for me,” Yi Shi Ming said, “Right, when I think about it, I recall that it was highly out of the ordinary, but I used it since I was focusing entirely on improving the spatial realm. I have likely missed some significant details, for which I apologise.”

“It’s fine, though, why would I have no problem with it? Is it my Dao? My cultivation method? It can’t be, given that it has a similar foundation to Kong Shi Meng’s technique, and he didn’t manage it. Also, my energy wasn’t able to take care of the Primordial Deity’s power until it neared my dantian.”

“The otherworldly gift also shouldn’t be of assistance, then, as Ah Shi Meng had it… I do not know.”

“In that case, let’s put that off for now and focus back on the spatial realm, which I have been trying to do for a while now…” Wei Yi sighed, looking towards the outer portions of the spatial realm, “What kinds of things would you do with that space? Aside from moving the medicinal herbs and the like over there, of course.”

“Well…”

All of a sudden, a cry from the depths of the Kong Prison Realm reached her with ease, “Wei Yi, my animal features vanished! What do I do?”

“I guess I’ll address Zhi Qiu Ya’s problem first. You can tell me on the way.”