64: Gift

Jiang Xun stepped onto the altar.

The sky overhead was still a deep midnight blue, with sparse stars that had yet to fade.

Morning light spilled over from the sea of clouds in the east, dimly illuminating the broken bluestone surface of the altar.

The patterns worn down by time appeared as a dull grayish-white in the light.

Stepping beside the depression in the center of the platform, he crouched down and ran his fingers over the carvings on the stone surface.

The edges had been smoothed over, yet one could still feel the force used when they were first chiseled.

"It's ready."

He stood up and looked at the three people below the altar.

"Inject spiritual energy into the altar," Jiang Xun said. "Start from the outer ring, counter-clockwise."

Yan Qingning moved first.

She raised her hand, her fingers pressing lightly against the air.

A stream of ice-blue spiritual energy surged from her palm, flowing like water into the carvings of the altar's outermost ring.

The carvings lit up.

Inch by inch, starting from where her fingertips pointed, the light slowly spread along the path of the carvings.

White Fox Jiu moved as well.

Her spiritual energy was pale gold, carrying the unique eeriness of the fox clan.

Golden spiritual energy flowed from her fingertips, merging into the other half of the carvings.

The two forces met and ran parallel within the carvings, neither interfering with nor merging with each other, like two streams of different colors flowing side-by-side in a stone trough.

The carvings were fully illuminated.

It was a moon-white glow, very ethereal.

The outermost patterns of the entire altar traced a complex circle in the morning light.

Light flowed across the stone surface, casting flickering shadows on the faces of the four people.

The altar was dilapidated; it required a massive amount of spiritual energy to operate and could not sustain itself, so it would go dark the moment the supply stopped.

Fortunately, they were both high-level Cultivators who could withstand the drain.

White Fox Jiu spoke, her voice tinged with doubt.

"I've tried to activate this teleportation array before, but it's been broken for who knows how many years. Can you really use it?"

"It's not broken," Jiang Xun said.

"It just needs to be decrypted."

"Decrypt?" Bai Ci tilted her head to the side, looking utterly confused. "How?"

Jiang Xun did not answer.

He raised his right foot and stepped lightly on the edge of the depression in the center of the altar.

Then, keeping the sole of his foot against the stone, he began to walk in a slow, steady circle along the glowing outer carvings.

Three laps to the left.

His steps were strange, each landing on a specific spot, precisely pressing the sole of his shoe over certain turning points in the carvings.

The light on the stone surface quivered slightly with his steps, like the surface of disturbed water.

Then he stopped and changed direction.

Two laps to the right.

This time his pace was faster, yet remained precise.

When his final step landed and his right foot returned exactly to the edge of the depression,

The entire altar shuddered.

The light from all the carvings on the stone surface surged violently at the same instant!

The paths of light spun frantically!

The spiritual energy that had been flowing slowly along the carvings was now drawn by an invisible force, tracing a pattern on the stone so complex it was dizzying!

In the center of the pattern, the stagnant water in the depression began to boil, bubbling up as the surface reflected the spinning light like an open eye.

"That's... decrypted?" Bai Ci's mouth hung open, her eyes wide.

Was it really that simple?

"Mm-hmm." Jiang Xun jumped down from the altar, landing lightly.

White Fox Jiu stared at the now fully formed teleportation array on the altar, her expression complex.

Over the past few centuries, she had scouted this mountain dozens of times and carefully inspected this altar every single time, yet she had never discovered such a mechanism hidden within these carvings.

She looked at Jiang Xun, her golden vertical pupils constricting slightly.

How did he know about such a secret?

Jiang Xun had actually forgotten a little and intended to try a few more times; he hadn't expected to succeed on the first attempt.

However, puzzles in open-world games were always a matter of perspective.

You couldn't expect players to be too brilliant, so open-world puzzles were naturally as simple as possible.

But these two simple steps might have required dozens of hours of prerequisite quests to discover.

In the center of the altar, a beam of white light shot up into the sky!

The pillar of light was so thick it would take two people to encircle it, piercing straight into the deep blue sky.

The space around the pillar began to warp, like a bubble being crumpled by an invisible hand.

A low hum echoed in the air, drilling directly into the brain and making one's scalp tingle.

"Close your eyes," Jiang Xun said.

No sooner had he spoken than the white light swallowed everything.

Whiteness instantly filled their entire field of vision.

It was blindingly bright.

Their bodies felt as if they were being pulled and falling at the same time, with nothing but the whistling wind and that brain-drilling hum in their ears.

Time became a blur.

It might have been a moment, or it might have been a long time.

When Jiang Xun felt solid ground beneath his feet again, he opened his eyes to see a completely different world.

Black.

As far as the eye could see, everything was black.

Fine, uniform black sand covered the earth, stretching all the way to the horizon.

It was like a black desert.

There was no sun and no clouds, yet there was light.

Jiang Xun looked up at the pitch-black deep space.

Something was drifting down from the sky.

It wasn't rain or snow, but ash.

Grayish-black, fine ash, like burnt paper scraps, drifted down silently, landing on the black sand and quickly blending in until it was indistinguishable.

And at the end of his vision...

...was a massive dragon skeleton.

It was indescribably large.

The curve of a single rib was like a mountain ridge stretching across the landscape.

The skeleton was pure white, covered in the same black as the ground.

The skeleton's skull hung low, one dragon horn broken.

Its hollow eye sockets were facing the direction of the four.

"Is this..." White Fox Jiu's voice was a bit dry, "the Cangwu Secret Realm?"

Yan Qingning did not speak.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then frowned.

"The Laws here."

She opened her eyes, her voice carrying a rare gravity. "They are very ancient. So ancient... they seem like a fragment cut directly from another era."

Jiang Xun nodded.

He raised his hand and pointed toward the distant skeleton.

"What we are looking for is over there."

Yan Qingning naturally took his hand, intending to fly him over.

But Jiang Xun shook his head.

"Flight is forbidden here."

White Fox Jiu tried as well; as soon as her toes left the ground by thirty feet, she felt an invisible force pressing down from all directions, forcing her back to the ground.

That power came from the space itself, from its ancient and inviolable Laws.

"Indeed, I can't fly."

She withdrew her feet and stepped barefoot onto the black sand; the grains were fine and felt cool as they slipped between her toes.

"It's fine." Yan Qingning summoned a Flying Boat from her Storage Pouch.

The boat wasn't large, about thirty feet long, with four oars extending from each side.

On the boat was a small pavilion with gauze curtains hanging from the eaves, dangling still in the windless environment.

Jiang Xun looked at it and felt it was very similar to Elder Zhuo Shen's cloud ferry.

"We'll row across." Yan Qingning pulled Jiang Xun onto the boat first.

White Fox Jiu and Bai Ci followed.

Once the four were aboard, the oars on both sides of the Flying Boat began to swing automatically.

The oars slid across the sand, the boat's hull brushing against the black grains. The eight oars moved alternately like spider legs, propelling the ship forward at high speed.

It moved quickly, leaving a long trail on the ground.

White Fox Jiu and Bai Ci found a bench in the pavilion and sat down.

Jiang Xun also leaned against the gunwale, watching the scenery outside.

Bai Ci looked up at the ash falling from the sky and suddenly whispered.

"Master, why do you think... the ancient Cultivators disappeared?"

White Fox Jiu leaned against the railing, her bare feet resting on the deck, the Golden Rings on her ankles swaying gently with the boat's motion.

"What else could it be?" she said lazily. "They were too weak, so they disappeared."

"Weak?"

Yan Qingning suddenly spoke, her voice carrying a hint of a smile. "Opening such a vast space is something even current Ascension Realm Cultivators cannot achieve. How could the ancient Cultivators be weak?"

As she spoke, she turned to look at Jiang Xun.

"Husband, what do you think... was the reason?"

Jiang Xun was taken aback.

Over the past few days, Yan Qingning had been calling him "Husband" in front of White Fox Jiu.

Every time she called him that, he felt a bit uneasy.

It felt as though she was intentionally saying it for the benefit of the two outsiders, White Fox Jiu and Bai Ci.

White Fox Jiu wrinkled her nose, clearly displeased, but she said nothing and also looked toward Jiang Xun.

She seemed to want to hear something different from him.

Helpless, Jiang Xun recalled the world's lore and spoke.

"Small Worlds like this are not created out of thin air."

He organized his thoughts and tried to summarize briefly.

"They are... split off from the Great World. A piece is cut from the complete World Origin and then refined into an independent space."

"This is no different from stealing the Origin of the Great Dao."

"Naturally, the Heavenly Dao would not allow such a thing to happen."

He looked at the massive skeleton in the distance, his voice softening.

"So, the downfall of the ancient Cultivators was due to their greed—or you could call it heavenly retribution."

Bai Ci's mouth fell open.

"Doesn't that mean..."

Her charming eyes widened. "In the past, our world was incredibly vast? More than just the Eight Desolations and Five Domains?"

"Perhaps," Jiang Xun nodded.

In the world's lore, on the periphery of the world—perhaps in outer space—there were thousands of Small Worlds, large and small, circling around.

They were like tiny planets hidden in spatial rifts; some still held ruins of ancient Cultivators, while others were completely desolate.

Jiang Xun loved finding such instances to scavenge for gear.

The hongmeng fish pendant he wore had been found in one such Small World instance.

"Tch!"

White Fox Jiu suddenly sneered.

"Then the previous Demonic Path Cultivators were much more impressive than those ancient ones. The Demonic Path dared to openly excavate the World Origin."

"I didn't see any heavenly retribution then. In the end, they were just too weak!"

Yan Qingning smiled and looked at Jiang Xun.

"It's a good thing the Demonic Path has declined now, or else retribution might have come crashing down on their heads."

Jiang Xun gave a couple of dry laughs in response.

"Indeed."

The atmosphere suddenly fell silent.

There was only the rustling sound of the oars brushing the sand and the faint pitter-patter of ash landing on the boat.

After a long while, Yan Qingning suddenly spoke, her voice as light as casual conversation.

"White Fox Jiu."

"If you found that scholar from back then... what would you do to him?"

White Fox Jiu did not answer immediately.

She looked at the distant skeleton, her golden vertical pupils gleaming with a dark crimson under the sky's light.

"Naturally..." she said, word by word, "I would torture him mercilessly."

"How would you torture him?"

"I'd break his limbs and keep him by my side every day," White Fox Jiu said with a tone of longing and anticipation. "I'd make him wish he were dead... yet keep him from dying."

A chill ran down Jiang Xun's spine.

It wasn't a metaphor; a real chill crawled from his tailbone all the way to his neck, making his hair stand on end.

Yan Qingning suddenly turned her head to look at Jiang Xun.

She was smiling.

"Husband," she asked softly, her voice carrying a certain inquiry.

"Tell me... if I encountered such a man, what should I do?"

Jiang Xun's throat bobbed.

"With me here, you won't encounter one," he said.

His voice was steady, but his palms were already slick with a thin layer of sweat.

Yan Qingning smiled.

She said no more.

The Flying Boat soon neared the massive skeleton.

Up close, one could truly feel its immensity; the shadow cast by a single rib could cover the entire boat.

The skeleton was white as jade, its surface so smooth it could reflect a person's image, showing no signs of having weathered thousands of years.

In the center surrounded by the skeleton was a vast, smooth platform.

The platform was circular, roughly a thousand feet in diameter, its surface covered in a thick layer of ash.

The Flying Boat slid to the edge of the platform and stopped. The four jumped off and stepped onto the platform.

The ash was soft, crunching slightly like snow under their feet.

White Fox Jiu looked at Jiang Xun.

"Where is the three lives mirror?"

Jiang Xun did not speak.

He raised his foot and used his toe to lightly brush away a line in the ash on the platform.

Beneath the ash, a metallic glint appeared.

It was dark gold, very heavy and old, yet still smooth.

"It's right beneath your feet," Jiang Xun said.

White Fox Jiu was stunned.

"Beneath my feet?"

She looked down at where her bare feet stood and used her sole to wipe away the surface covering.

Layer after layer of ash was pushed aside.

What was revealed beneath was not stone, but a mirror surface reflecting her own image.

The mirror was as smooth as water, reflecting her face.

The entire mirror lay flat in the center of the platform, a thousand feet in diameter, like a massive, sleeping eye.

White Fox Jiu's hand froze in mid-air.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, watching her golden vertical pupils as her breathing gradually grew heavy.

Just then...

Yan Qingning suddenly moved.

Without a word, she reached out and grabbed Jiang Xun's arm, pulling him toward her.

The movement was lightning-fast, and the force was so great that Jiang Xun stumbled a step before regaining his balance.

The sudden turn of events made the hearts of White Fox Jiu and Bai Ci tighten.

Both looked up at the same time, staring at Yan Qingning.

Yet Yan Qingning smiled.

The corners of her mouth curled into a cold arc.

"Finally..." she spoke, her voice as light as a sigh, "we've arrived."

"Senior, those words..."

White Fox Jiu slowly stood up straight, her aura beginning to surge, "...what do they mean?"

Standing beside Yan Qingning, Jiang Xun could feel her fingers tightening around his arm bit by bit.

He knew.

Yan Qingning had endured for too long.

She had been waiting.

Waiting for the right moment—a moment when she could completely crush this "covetousness."

And now, that moment had come.

"I said I would..."

Yan Qingning looked at White Fox Jiu, her voice calm as if suppressing something, "...give you a gift."

"Now... it's time."

Her hand brushed the mask on Jiang Xun's face, gentle and restrained, until her fingers hooked onto the knot of the mask's strings.

As White Fox Jiu stood barefoot on the mirror, the Golden Rings on her ankles began to vibrate, emitting a rapid ringing sound.

"I think," she said, her voice turning cold, "it would be better to first consider how to operate this Ancient Treasure beneath our feet."

No matter how slow she might be, White Fox Jiu realized that the gift Yan Qingning spoke of would be anything but simple.

It occurred to her that this woman, Yan Qingning, might have had ill intentions from the start in bringing her along.

However, she wasn't entirely unprepared herself.

"No need."

Yan Qingning interrupted her, her fingers tightly gripping Jiang Xun's arm. "Don't you just want to find that scholar?"

"I will now..."

Before she could finish her sentence,

The entire mirror suddenly shuddered.

The mirror surface rippled with circles of waves like water!

Immediately after, an indescribably terrifying surge of energy erupted from the depths of the mirror!

It was as if something that had slept for thousands of years... had awakened.

Standing beside Yan Qingning, the corner of Jiang Xun's mouth beneath the mask twitched slightly in relief.

Finally... it was here.