159: Chapter 159 Mental Barrier

After stepping into the teleportation light gate, the sensation underfoot changed from hard stone slabs to a strange smoothness.

It was not the smoothness of stone—no matter how smooth stone is, it still has texture, pores, and tiny indentations left by the polishing of time.

But this thing beneath his feet had no texture, no bumps or hollows; it was as smooth as stepping on a layer of solidified oil.

Lin Xuan looked down.

Beneath his feet was transparent, like a huge, boundless piece of glass, and beneath the glass was endless darkness—not the black of night with starlight, but a pure, impurity-free black, thick as ink poured into an abyss.

He stared at the darkness for a few breaths, feeling as if the darkness was also staring back at him, looking up from beneath the glass at the soles of his feet.

A slight sense of dizziness welled up from the soles of his feet, like the instinctive unease one feels when standing on the edge of a bottomless abyss looking down.

He shifted his gaze and looked up. Above him was also transparent, with a pale purple halo spreading out in circles, like ripples on water stirred by the wind, rippling from the center outward until they vanished at the edge of his vision.

The brightness of the halo was low, just enough to illuminate a range of several dozen zhang around him.

There were no walls around him. No stone pillars, no dome, no reference points whatsoever.

He stood in a Void Realm, with endless transparent space in every direction, extending into the invisible distance.

There was not even sound—it was not quiet, but a more thorough silence.

Here, the sound of his own breathing became exceptionally loud; every inhalation sounded like the hissing of airflow rushing from his nasal cavity into his trachea, and every exhalation was like a drum beating beside his ears, thumping and thumping, making his own temples throb slightly.

He tried to take two steps.

The transparent ground beneath his feet rippled as he stepped—pale purple halos spread outward from where his soles contacted the ground, dissipating once they reached ankle height.

The sensation was solid; stepping on it gave a clear sense of resilience, not like it would shatter.

He stopped and looked around. From the moment he entered through the teleportation light gate, he had felt the spirit control tower in his Sea of Consciousness trembling gently.

It was not the rapid vibration from when he encountered danger before, but a slower, rhythmic swaying, as if someone inside the tower was striking an ancient bell—the bell had no sound, but it had rhythm.

Clear light emanated autonomously from the tower's body, enveloping his entire Sea of Consciousness, as if a fine mesh were woven outside it.

Lin Xuan discovered that he was not the only person in the Void Realm.

In the distance, about a hundred zhang away, there were several blurry figures standing on the transparent ground, motionless.

He narrowed his eyes to see clearly, but those figures were wrapped in a thin layer of light screen—the light screen was very faint, so faint it was almost transparent, but it certainly existed.

The light screen flowed slowly, like transparent flowing water, distorting each person's figure slightly, so that only a blurry outline could be seen.

They must be other Cultivators who entered the second stage after him, separated into different areas by the Formation.

The figure closest to him stood about fifty zhang away; judging by the outline, it looked like a man in a long robe, head lowered, hands hanging by his sides, the entire person frozen in place like a wax statue.

That cold Formation prompt sounded again.

It was exactly the same as in the first stage—it had no source, coming from all directions simultaneously, every syllable precise to the millimeter, without any inflection.

"Second stage, Heart Mirror Platform. This platform reflects the obsessions, fears, regrets, and greed in your hearts. Those who hold fast to their original heart pass; those swallowed by the Heart Demon are expelled from the Secret Realm."

After the last word fell, Lin Xuan felt the transparent ground beneath his feet vibrate slightly—not the shaking of an earthquake, but the sensation of glass being suddenly tapped, with the vibration traveling up from the soles of his feet.

Then all sound in the Void Realm was extracted.

Even his own breathing disappeared.

It was not that he stopped breathing—his chest was still heaving, he could feel the air moving in and out of his nasal cavity, but the sound had been extracted.

That silence was not "quiet," but a stuffy, bloated feeling as if his ears were blocked by something, with a slight pressure on his eardrums.

He could hear his own heartbeat, but the sound of the heartbeat did not come from his chest; it rang directly in his brain, thumping and thumping, as if something was tapping on the inner wall of his skull.

The pale purple halo in the Void Realm suddenly contracted.

All the light collapsed toward the center in an instant, as if an invisible giant hand had grabbed all the light into a ball, gripping it very tightly.

That cluster of purple light compressed in the Void Realm into a fist-sized ball of light, hovering a hundred zhang away, blindingly bright.

Then it exploded violently.

It was not an explosion—it was blooming. Like a lotus flower blossoming from its bud, purple light surged over the sky and earth, drowning out his entire field of vision, wave after wave.

Lin Xuan closed his eyes, then opened them.

He was standing in the small courtyard of Emerald Bamboo Peak of the Sanyang Sect.

That crooked tree was still leaning in the corner of the wall.

The scorch mark on the trunk that he had whipped out with the startling thunder whip was still clearly visible—that scorch mark was from a mistake he made while practicing whip techniques a year ago; a palm-sized piece of bark had been struck off the tree, and from then on, no new bark grew in that spot, leaving the charred wooden layer exposed, its color turning from black to dark gray after being weathered by wind and rain.

At this moment, that scorch mark was still there, exactly the same as in his memory, even the direction of the wood splinters curling at the edge of the scorch mark was not a hair off.

He looked down at his hands. His five fingers were slender and strong, with distinct knuckles, and faint purple thunder patterns flowed beneath the skin—these were the hands of a Cultivator, not the hands that typed on a keyboard in his previous life.

He was wearing the standard dharma robe, and the startling thunder whip hung at his waist.

This was a certain day in the small courtyard of Emerald Bamboo Peak.

An ordinary day.

The air held the unique scent of Emerald Bamboo Peak—not the fragrance of flowers, nor the scent of grass, but that cold, clean aura from the bamboo forest behind the mountain, mixed with the slightly bitter, refreshing scent of Spiritual Plants drifting from the medicine garden.

The wind blew from the direction of the mountain behind, the bamboo leaves rustled, and the dead branches on that crooked tree swayed gently with the wind.

Then the courtyard gate was pushed open.

Not knocked—pushed.

The courtyard gate was made of wood, the hinges lacked oil, and when pushed open, it made a sharp creaking sound, like someone scratching a stone slab with their fingernails.

It made one's teeth ache just listening to it.

The person who entered was Chen Hao.

Lin Xuan watched Chen Hao walk into the courtyard, his heart feeling as if it had been gently squeezed by an invisible hand.

Chen Hao was still the same—his face always wore that silly smile, the corners of his mouth turned up, revealing two canine teeth.

This kid was a little less than half a head shorter than Lin Xuan, but his shoulders were very broad, and he took large strides when walking, energetic and hurried, as if he were about to go fight someone at any moment.

He was wearing the red dharma robe of Flame Peak, with only the bottom button of the collar fastened, the collar turned down to reveal an unhealed burn scar on his collarbone.

Chen Hao was carrying two jars of spirit wine in his hands; the jars were made of earthenware, the mouths sealed with red clay, and the red clay was stamped with the mark of Flame Peak.