Chapter 2: The Two Principles
Size...
It was no different from the other formation beads, perhaps just a little larger, but the difference was negligible.
Color...
The color of a wasted pill is usually ashen white, and the beads from this discarded formation disk set were crescent white.
Yet this particular bead evoked a feeling that was difficult to describe. If one insisted on pointing out the difference...
Its whiteness was purer.
Weight and texture...
Song Yan held a formation bead in his left hand and the “strange bead” in his right, weighing them up and down, sometimes gently rubbing their surfaces.
This odd bead seemed lighter and felt coarser to the touch, more like an unpolished piece of jade.
When he probed it with his spiritual sense, he found no fluctuation of spiritual energy within.
A discarded artifact?
The strange stone bead looked perfectly intact, with no damage—perhaps the problem lay within.
Song Yan knew nothing about artifact forging.
He tossed it casually into his storage pouch.
"I’ll take this down the mountain for Xiao He to play with; she loves anything round and shiny."
After searching all around, he found six formation beads in total.
The Small Gathering Spirit Array only required five to function, but it was customary to forge a few extra spares.
In any case, it was enough to get the formation running properly.
He just didn’t know if his amateurish, imitative repairs would actually allow the formation disk to work.
“We’ll know after trying.”
Resolute, Song Yan walked out of the junkyard.
There weren’t so many tedious formalities—after handing over the spirit stones, he could leave at any time, without disturbing the steward’s meditation.
Song Yan didn’t bother bidding farewell to Steward Xu and left on his own.
...
Dongyuan Sect, Outer Gate.
Green Leaf Peak.
Cave-dwelling number Xuan-39, nothing more than the residence of an ordinary outer sect disciple.
Song Yan sat cross-legged on a stone bed, manipulating a formation stone similar in size to the disk’s inscription stones, examining it closely.
With the subtle flow of spiritual energy, he carefully chipped away at a part of the formation stone, bit by bit.
“Hoo…”
A short while later, Song Yan let out a long breath.
“That should do it.”
He didn’t have much spiritual power left, but still managed to gather a wisp and let it trickle along the lines of the formation disk.
The lines in the center of the disk lit up inch by inch, illuminating the entire array.
“Good, it really works!”
Delight overtook Song Yan—his efforts hadn’t been in vain.
After all, it was something salvaged from the Fireworks Quarter’s refuse heap, already discarded as trash. To bring it back to life with simple repairs was pure luck.
He had been scavenging for over half a year, and such fortune could be counted on one hand.
His understanding of formations was only the most rudimentary.
Perhaps it was because he had crossed over and lived two lifetimes—Song Yan’s spiritual sense was slightly sharper than most people’s.
Even that slight edge made all the difference.
He’d found he could learn things quickly; whether refining basic Qi-nurturing pills or dabbling in formation basics, neither had taken him long to grasp.
Of course, both were relatively simple in themselves.
He knew well that with his talent and aptitude, if he truly delved into alchemy or formations, his already slow cultivation speed would plummet further.
So, with alchemy, he stuck to the simplest Qi-nurturing pills, just to supplement his resources.
With formations, he only learned enough to get by, understanding the basics of operation.
All the rest of his time was devoted to cultivation.
Having finished everything, Song Yan didn’t attempt a breakthrough immediately.
Today’s pill-refining and array tinkering had left both his spiritual energy and mind fatigued; forcing a breakthrough now would be courting disaster.
He picked up a spirit stone in his left hand to slowly recover his energy.
Almost subconsciously, his gaze fell on that strange bead...
It lay silently in his palm, without the slightest ripple of spiritual energy.
What on earth was this thing?
Song Yan probed it with his spiritual sense. Aside from a masterless spiritual seal, there was nothing at all.
From the look of it, this should be an artifact—or a fragment of one.
A masterless seal meant the original owner was either dead or had deliberately severed their connection with it.
Song Yan’s spiritual sense swept over it carefully and found that the energy within the seal was incomplete, now slowly and minutely recovering.
“It seems someone already broke the seal before, but in the end still discarded it.”
Song Yan felt no disappointment—nine out of ten things he salvaged from the Fireworks Quarter’s trash heaps were useless, and that was perfectly normal.
Still, he’d brought it back.
Breaking the seal was just a minor effort; he might as well see what it was. If truly worthless, he could give it to Xiao He when he next went down the mountain.
About an hour later, Song Yan’s spiritual energy was mostly recovered.
Crack.
He watched regretfully as the spirit stone in his hand dimmed, turning a dull grey and splitting from the edges.
“There are… sixteen spirit stones left.”
The forty-two stones he’d earned today from selling pills—thirty must be set aside for next month’s alchemy materials and other expenses.
Adding the four he had left, that made sixteen remaining.
These were hard-earned, saved one by one, refined pill by pill.
“Wealth comes and goes... comes and goes…”
He consoled himself as he drew out the strange stone bead.
Gathering his energy, he began to break the seal.
It was a basic restriction—judging by its complexity, even a first-stage Qi refining cultivator could open it.
“Which artifact apprentice’s failed work is this?”
Puzzled, Song Yan broke the seal.
...
He carefully infused spiritual energy, but it was like casting a stone into the sea—no response.
...
Nothing happened.
He swept it again with his spiritual sense—still nothing.
“Tch…”
A waste of time.
Mocking himself, Song Yan was ready to put the bead away.
At that moment, an immense force seized him, wrenching his spiritual sense as if something was tearing it apart!
An excruciating pain, as if his soul itself was being split open.
“What?!”
He tried to withdraw his spiritual sense, but it was too late. Before he could react, he was sucked in.
His consciousness remained clear, yet it felt as though he were plunging into an endless abyss.
A suffocating sense of dread made him grasp for something, but his awareness blurred until, at some point, he sank into “water.”
Bang!
Though he was sinking into water, it felt as if the worlds had inverted.
Song Yan “floated” up from the “ground”!
He collapsed onto the inky surface, gasping for breath.
“What is this place…”
Steadying himself, Song Yan looked up.
He was standing in a realm as dark as ink—a void with no end in sight, only black and white swirling in primordial chaos.
From time to time, ancient black-and-white characters would surface from nowhere, then fade away, the cycle repeating endlessly.
...?
Song Yan looked himself over. He was still dressed in the outer disciple’s robe of Dongyuan Sect.
But the image was vague, indistinct—when he touched it, his hand passed through a phantom.
“Is this my spirit outside my body…”
The thought made Song Yan laugh at himself.
A sudden ascension overnight?
Daydreaming.
He guessed this was merely a manifestation of his spiritual sense within this space.
He no longer dwelled on how a mere “ant” like himself could leave his body, but began to explore the space.
“It’s probably not a storage space…”
He’d never seen a storage realm this vast, and besides, he’d already tried outside—nothing could be put in.
Unable to leave, he simply set off walking forward.
Soon he was startled to find he could traverse vast distances in a single step, moving with astonishing speed.
“Huh?”
He tried floating in the air.
“It actually works?”
Here, it seemed, he could do anything he wished...
But the space was monotonous.
After a while, flying lost all sense of reality, and Song Yan quickly tired of it, returning to the ink-black ground.
He reached out, trying to grasp the shifting black-and-white characters, but caught nothing.
“How do I get out of here…”
Just then, in the void before him, the pace of emerging characters increased, growing denser until, in a flash, they coalesced into a black stone stele.
With enormous strides, Song Yan reached the black stele.
On its inky surface were carved ancient characters, pure and flawless white.
The small characters at the top seemed to be a title or note, but they were blurry and he could not make them out, so he ignored them.
Reading the inscription, Song Yan’s heart leapt.
It appeared to be a secret technique for cultivating spiritual sense.
The inscription was not long—just over three hundred and eighty words—each one a gem. Song Yan read it silently and quickly committed it to memory.
Buzz—
As Song Yan was still immersed in this nameless incantation, dots of black gathered on the white sky above, rapidly coalescing into a massive black stele which plummeted towards him.
?!
Startled, Song Yan tried to defend himself, but in this space, there was no spiritual energy to draw upon—only his spiritual sense could be projected.
Before he could think, the giant black stele crashed down. Song Yan instinctively projected his spiritual sense, meeting the stele head-on.
Hiss.
To his surprise, his spiritual sense sharpened into a blade, cleaving the black stele in two, which then dissolved into ink within the space.
“Huh? What…”
He was still wondering when a second black stele formed and fell with a thunderous crash.
No time to hesitate—again, he focused his spiritual sense and cleaved the stele.
Now, however, his spiritual sense was nearly spent.
To wield it as a blade was clearly taxing.
But the black steles seemed tireless, forming again above his head.
“Again?!”
Instinctively, Song Yan tried to dodge. Only now, so close, did he realize how immense the stele truly was.
...
In that instant of facing death, he felt his movements and reactions slow to a crawl; all sound faded away, receding like the tide.
BOOM!!!
Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a deafening roar.
Space, stele, ancient script...
Like bursting bubbles, everything ruptured in an instant, the scenes before his eyes receding like a tide, vanishing into boundless void.
...
“Hiss…”
The pain was excruciating.
Song Yan awoke on his stone bed, head splitting.
The destruction of his spiritual sense by the black stele had left him utterly drained, the moment of its annihilation still vivid in his memory.
Frowning deeply, he gazed at the stone bead still clutched in his hand.
The cave-dwelling fell into absolute silence.
...
“This thing must not be revealed to outsiders...”
By now, Song Yan realized he had stumbled upon a treasure.
If nothing else, a technique specializing in spiritual sense was exceedingly rare—he, Song Yan, had never even heard of such a thing.
For this alone, the stone bead was a true treasure.
But why, after showing signs of being probed many times before, had it still been abandoned in the Fireworks Quarter, nearly consigned to the Incineration Furnace?
...
Song Yan had endless questions about the stone bead.
But now, his mind was too weary; the pain from his soul being torn left his brain blank.
He tried to refine it with spiritual energy, but as before, it was like water sinking into the sea—he could only tuck it into his storage pouch.
Only after everything was done did his heart relax; a wave of exhaustion and sleepiness swept over him.
He did not resist—Song Yan simply fell into a deep sleep.
No one would pay attention to an ordinary person.
Especially someone like Song Yan, an outer sect disciple barely scraping by on the very edge of cultivation.
Unbeknownst to him, something major had just happened in the outside world, at Dongyuan Sect.