"What does that an? Cultivation?"
Fang Ren frowned as he looked at the tiny Qianye on the table.
Qianye nodded vigorously, then ran to another blank space on the table. From the grey halo above its head, another branch sprouted, carving four characters onto the table: Shortcut to Strength.
"Cultivating this will make beco strong quickly?" Fang Ren was startled,
"Heh-ha!"
Qianye nodded emphatically and began to carve a few more words onto the table, naly: Killing Frenzy, Return to the True Self, and Supre Detachnt.
"What do all these an?"
Fang Ren was stunned.
Seeing the blank expression on his face, Qianye quickly hopped onto Fang Ren's head. Its wooden round face suddenly puffed up as if it was holding its breath, then it let out a heavy exhale.
Humm—
The grey halo above its head suddenly expanded, enlarging to a diater of one ter. Slowly, the grey halo began to fall from atop its head, until it reached the ground around Fang Ren's feet, transforming into a grey cylindrical barrier that enveloped him completely.
Whoosh—
Fang Ren only felt a wave of dizziness wash over his brain, and when he reopened his eyes, he found himself surrounded by chaos, a jumble of colors blending together. They constantly devoured each other in an endless cycle, without ever showing signs of rging.
With a glance, there was no heaven or earth, no sun, moon, or stars, and no boundaries.
"This is..."
Fang Ren found himself floating in the midst of chaos, unable to move his body in this space, nor did he feel any force present.
Fang Ren tried to move but realized he could go nowhere.
"Qianye?" he called out.
But then he discovered he could not make a sound after opening his mouth.
Is there no dium for sound transmission here?
Fang Ren was puzzled for a mont, but then why could he breathe? There should be air.
After a few seconds of confusion, he called out again with his mind.
"Qian—ye—"
Boom—
A thunderous boom resounded throughout the world, causing Fang Ren to instinctively cover his ears, but he found that even with his ears covered, he couldn't stop the sound from entering his nerves.
"Is this... my voice?"
Fang Ren was dumbfounded.
As his voice echoed, the multicolored world began to twist together frantically at an incredibly fast pace.
The colors started to weave and devour each other, leading to a violent change. After a long while, all the colors turned into a mass of grey, and apart from the grey, everything else was pitch black.
Fang Ren stared blankly, completely clueless about the situation.
Gradually, under his gaze, a sprout erged from the mass of grey light. The sprout was completely grey, covered in various patterns, similar to those on Qianye's body.
Giggle-giggle-giggle—
The grey sprout started to grow, its roots devouring the mass of grey light, and the main trunk began to grow rapidly, sprouting many branches. The small sprout had already grown to the size of a small tree, but it continued to grow.
Two ters, ten ters, twenty ters, fifty ters...
The small tree grew faster and faster, as if it had gone mad with growth.
In a matter of seconds, Fang Ren was completely dumbfounded as the trunk in front of him turned into what seed like a grey "giant wall." Although it was a circular trunk, his field of vision was like a flat wall blocking all his sight.
After a while, the tree finally stopped growing.
Fang Ren stared dumbfoundedly at its base; he could only see a few of the tree's roots, but each of them was massive and extended into the darkness beyond, his vision following the root fibers and finding no end.
Then Fang Ren looked up and found himself swallowing his saliva in shock; he couldn't see a single branch or leaf above the tree.
Where the heck did this thing grow to...
Swish—
Suddenly, a thin branch flew down from the dark end of the sky, wrapping around Fang Ren's waist.
"Hey, what are you doing..."
The next mont, Fang Ren felt his vision blur as he rapidly ascended like he was on a rocket.
When his vision finally cleared up, he found himself atop a large tree branch, no longer seeing the base of the tree.
"Damn..."
Fang Ren swallowed again, that instant feeling even faster than a rocket ride, everything was a blur, and his head buzzed.
Just as he was beginning to relax, a familiar voice suddenly sounded from behind.
He imdiately turned his head and saw the little Qianye jumping around on the branch, smiling at him like an idiot.
"You little..." Fang Ren sighed and asked, "Where is this?"
"Heh-ha~"
Qianye didn't answer him, turned its head, and ran towards the end of the large branch, making a smacking sound with its steps.
Fang Ren saw it running and imdiately tried to follow, only to find himself weightless, unable to move at all.
With a frown, he closed his eyes and began to use his consciousness to move his body, and to his surprise, he found it quite magical. Without moving his body, he seed to fly, rapidly shifting positions.
He moved quickly, imdiately catching up with Xiao Qianye and asked, "Where are you going?"
"Hei ha~"
Xiao Qianye pointed with one of its spherical arms towards the distant part of the huge branch.
"What's over there?" Fang Ren asked again.
Xiao Qianye blinked then wrote two characters on his hand with its spherical arm. Fang Ren roughly sensed what it wrote, and it seed to be "cultivation."
Then, he accelerated towards the end of the branch.
As he approached the end, Fang Ren saw an arched stone gate with a spinning blue vortex at its center. At the very top of the gate were so twisted characters.
Because the characters were so warped, Fang Ren couldn't understand the first two, but the last one seed to be "gate."
Xiao Qianye hopped down from Fang Ren's palm, ran to the gate, turned around to look at him, and his originally silly smile turned serious. It pointed at the spinning vortex with one spherical arm while continuously murmuring "hei ha hei ha..." which Fang Ren couldn't understand at all.
"You want to go in?" Fang Ren asked with a furrowed brow.
"Hei ha hei ha!"
Xiao Qianye suddenly jumped up, waving its two spherical arms vigorously, looking serious.
"Do you actually want to enter or not?" Fang Ren asked, unable to understand what it was trying to convey.
Xiao Qianye hung its head as if in thought for a mont, then seed to co up with an idea, hopped onto Fang Ren's head in two or three leaps, and one of its spherical arms shone brightly as it gently tapped the top of his head.
As the light faded, Fang Ren's gaze beca distant.
At that mont, in his consciousness, a series of hair-raising voices bombarded his brain. The voices scread and howled, piercingly sharp, more like demons than human cries.
Fang Ren instinctively covered his ears, feeling as if his brain would be penetrated by the noise. However, the sound originated from his consciousness, and no matter how he covered his ears, he couldn't block it out.
Before him was a blood-red world, with blood flowing like rivers and seas, the sun hanging high but without light. Above the crimson seas, the carcasses of various creatures writhed, countless and endless, as if alive, constantly slaughtering and devouring each other... The image was extrely gory.
The howling of the wraiths in his ears grew louder and more nurous, the noise directly causing his spirit to tremble. It was the oppression from the killing of billions, a fear beyond all else.
Just as his spirit was about to descend into madness, the gore-filled scenery abruptly stopped, and then, lines of text began to float before his eyes.
Biting down on his teeth, Fang Ren was imnsely shaken inside, "Is this the Asura Path?"
He lifted his head to read the floating text. Although it was still sowhat twisted and contorted, this ti he could recognize all the characters.
"The Path of Asura begins with the cultivation of the heart through slaughter, traversing endless killing challenges to reach the state of 'No Self, No Sentint'..."
"Followed by refining the fruit of the path with blood and desire, 'Return to the True Self', finding a hint of compassion, to reach the state of 'True Self, True Sentint'..."
"Finally, the backlash against the spirit, annihilating the self to enter the Peak, stepping onto the supre path of killing, to the state of 'Ultimate Severance of Sentint'..."
Reading these three sections, Fang Ren vaguely understood that this was perhaps the so-called Asura Path, with its three realms.
This Taoist principle seed extrely brutal.
But right now, he didn't care about that at all. All he cared about was how to quickly improve his cultivation level to do whatever he wanted, rather than being squeezed by the world's rules at every turn, slaughtered by the private desires of officials.
Looking at the simple first two sentences of the Asura Path, Fang Ren felt it didn't matter; as long as he could beco stronger, that was all that mattered.
But the last sentence of the third line made him hesitate.
Ultimate Severance of Sentint?
If he really beca emotionless, wouldn't Qing'er cry her heart out?
As he hesitated, the three lines of text before him suddenly vanished, and a new line appeared: "To tread the Asura Path, one must first descend into Purgatory!"
After reading it, Fang Ren woke from his consciousness and looked at Xiao Qianye standing sternly at his feet, finally understanding what the little guy had been trying to tell him earlier. It was a warning of the perilous journey ahead, of becoming dispassionate and heartless.
"Is this the only way for to cultivate the fastest right now?" Fang Ren asked, seated on a tree trunk looking at the little one.
Munch munch—
Xiao Qianye nodded seriously.
"Ultimate Severance of Sentint... does that an cutting off all emotions and desires?" Fang Ren asked.
The little one nodded again.
"But if I sever all emotions and desires, wouldn't it be aningless if I don't love Qing'er anymore?"
The little one thought for a mont, then took his hand and wrote three characters with its spherical body: "Cultivate Second Realm."
"But can only cultivating to the second realm get to the Chongshan Realm within two years?" Fang Ren asked.
Xiao Qianye confidently thumped its little spherical chest with its arm and wrote on Fang Ren's hand: Can.
"Then I won't worry about it anymore."
Saying that, Fang Ren began to fly into the gateway, directly entering the vortex of the stone gate.
Xiao Qianye stood outside the gate, blinked its eyes, and soon a line of text appeared over its head:
[The Asura exists in heaven but is not the god of heaven, possessing God's Power but lacking a heart of sentint, hating all living beings, lost in search for sothing, falling into slaughter... a lonely and incomplete god.]
Xiao Qianye saw this line of text, imdiately jumped up and tore it to shreds, and ate each character into its belly.
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