A Strange Journey

Sentience, wisdom and knowledge, these were the three aspects of one's mind, forming their intelligence as a whole.

Sentience was the power of the consciousness, wisdom referred to one's innate rational understanding of all things, developed throughout life, whilst knowledge was a person's accumulated memories, information stored within the mind.

By tearing a portion out from his mind in reality, bringing it into the illusion, Yaan aimed to immerse his entire mind in the illusion.

Whilst his consciousness was submerged in the illusion world already, that did not mean that his entire mind was present. When Yaan first entered the illusion, he only had access to just over half of his sentience and a portion of his wisdom, whilst his knowledge was almost entirely missing.

Rui fell into thought and became silent as Yaan recovered. She offered to him a vast array of healing methods, but he declined all. No healing pills, no potions, no spells.

Yaan didn't explain to her that even now, he did not want to embrace a trace of his old cultivation ways in this illusory world.

Still, Rui frowned. His actions allowed her to correctly guess a portion of his thoughts, leading her to think that he was still chasing his self named 'true path'.

But Yaan was not doing so, not like before at least. After gathering more of his memories by absorbing those light fragments of knowledge, Yaan remembered most of everything since he stepped foot in the 4th trial.

It seemed that in dragging out those memories and attracting the worst of the poisons afflicting his mind, he regained the 'strongest' memories, meaning those fragments of knowledge most firmly rooted in his mind. Mainly, these included his most recent memories. His mind had grown much stronger since entering the 4th realm, but older memories were naturally weaker anyway.

Over long periods of time, memories would fade, older fragments of knowledge would only become weaker as time passed by.

Yaan's eye lids drooped and he forced himself to carry on. Rui stared at him, before rolling her eyes and casually tapping the back of his head. A white light spread out, knocking him unconscious.

She actually had no malicious intentions this time, she only knocked Yaan out because he was being tediously obstinate. Although she understood his reasoning now, but that was why it had to be this way.

Yaan wasn't returning to his old path of power if he was forcibly knocked out, then treated whilst unconscious, right?

Actually, he was about an hour away from dying from dehydration, whilst the nearest stream was 11 miles away and filled with a plague. Without Rui's assistance, his chances didn't look good.

For an unknown reason, Rui actually honoured Yaan's wishes. She used only natural resources to treat his injuries and to help him recover, having collected these things from the surroundings during their journey, without Yaan noticing.

It was strange that this Rui, a weakened soul, was able to collect and store physical items from the surroundings.

Yaan slept for two and a half days. When he awoke, Rui provided him with normal water, mortal fruits and some poorly cooked insects. She was clearly not accustomed to cooking like a mortal, it had been too long. At least it was good enough that Yaan didn't get food poisoning.

He ate and drank ravenously, then once he had finished, he clasped his hands.

He understood that since Rui had prepared this feast for him, going so far as to cook the meal using felled logs, that she was accepting his desire to stay away from cultivation, for whatever reason.

They continued walking in silence. Rui was surprised that Yaan didn't ask her a single question, even after a full day.

Actually, he merely knew already what she would and wouldn't answer…there were indeed certain things he wished to ask, only, he didn't trust her enough to voice these queries aloud. And so, he was silent.

Ever since he dragged that portion of his mind into the illusion, Yaan regained some memories, but his intelligence as a whole also improved.

Gradually, his uncertain feelings towards Rui began to fade away as he mentally suppressed them, turning his emotions into a cautious indifference. He could still feel some lingering melancholy in his heart however…this was troublesome.

Rui was too scheming a woman, if he wanted to avoid falling into a trap, then he needed to stay on guard. Emotions would get in his way, but if he wanted to suppress his emotions, he would need to regain more of his intelligence.

Regaining his wisdom and memories would also influence Yaan's mental and emotional state. It was possible that by the time he recovered his entire mind, his melancholic emotional state would vanish by itself.

"You're going to drag more of your mind into this illusion." Rui stated bluntly after some time, glancing down at him as Yaan nodded.

"How much?"

"All of it."

"You really are stupid." She rolled her eyes. "What do you think will happen to your original body if it completely loses its entire mind?"

"Huh?" Yaan was startled. "You mean it would be dangerous? But this is just an illusion, it's not like-"

"And what is an illusion, exactly?"

Yaan became silent. Despite being regularly praised as a prodigy in the so-called 'dao of illusions', he could not find a single satisfactory answer to this question. If it were anyone else asking, he may have more confidence that he could answer adequately, but this was Rui…

Yaan knew that Rui's dao comprehension surpassed his own by an incomparable margin. Rui may be vicious and scheming, but she was undoubtedly experienced, understanding this world on a much deeper level compared to him. So towards her question, there was only one answer.

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I know more than you…but dao is infinitely deep, complex beyond comprehension, yet so simple it's like a single drop of water…"

'"Uh…alright then." Yaan felt like she was just avoiding the question, so he coughed and returned to the key issue here: "How much of my mind should I bring out so that I can survive?"

"All but the minimum of sentience, an equally light knowledge droplet which can act as an anchor memory of yourself, and the same amount of wisdom, to sustain the fabric of the shrunken mind. Be careful as you do this, there's a high chance that you could permanently damage your mind here."

Yaan nodded slowly, then, a few seconds later, shoved forwards his hands, aggressively pulling in yet another massive portion of the three components of his mind!

Rui stared speechlessly…was he doing it deliberately, being as crazy as possible and immediately ignoring her warning about maintaining his caution?

Truthfully, Yaan just felt more caution towards Rui than he did towards his present actions. Even if this Rui was only an illusion, he still felt a faint sense of danger whenever she looked at him.

This time, Yaan was in a much better state, since he understood what he needed to do. He managed to pull out the remaining traces of the 1-Star astral spirits, the lingering mist of the calamity of insanity pill, and the tens of various poisons which continued to afflict him in the outside world.

Mostly, the astral spirits aimed for his memories. The poisons affected all components, but the majority seeped into the part of the mind which existed in the background; his wisdom. The lingering power from the calamity of insanity pill only showed interest in assaulting the sentience, which was responsible for holding the mind together.

Yaan ignored the poison and the calamity of insanity pill, but the astral spirits were different. When he thrust them into his mind, sure, the pressure was intense…but now, they were trying to destroy his very memories! There was no benefit in having his memories devoured by these damned things!

For a brief moment, Yaan stopped himself. In the end, he closed his eyes.

Psyche power…

Yaan did not possess any measurable amount of psyche power, the mysterious power of the mind. Hardly any Foundation Step cultivators were able to accumulate psyche power, but those who could, usually only cultivated this power as a side endeavour. There was no harm in improving one's intelligence, it even made cultivation of the main path more accessible!

Right now, Yaan had no Yuan Qi, his vitality was that of a mortal child, and his soul…he had no soul force here and now, but even if he did, he had no idea how to proactively use soul force anyway. He realised in this moment that unknowingly, in this form, whilst in this illusion, his mind had become his most powerful asset…

They continue walking, even as Yaan grimaced without respite. Naturally, Rui could understand what he was doing. She didn't even need to waste her power to look, she could tell just from their earlier conversations, and his contorted facial expression.

"So I understand drawing in the calamity of insanity power and the poisons which afflict the mind…but astral spirits? Isn't that a bit pointless? Even in the best case scenario, since you're refusing to cultivate your body, all you could achieve is tearing them off and protecting your memory from being devoured."

"Haha…" Yaan chuckled. "You don't cultivate psyche power, do you Rui? Well, it's not common, it's already amazing that you understand it so well…but you can only truly understand the difficulty of stepping into the first realm of the mind by attempting it yourself…"

Just because Rui was intelligent, did not mean she cultivated psyche power or any mental path. Any cultivator of any path would become more intelligent as they progressed, even though the mind was not their main focus. All four paths strengthened all four aspects, this could be seen from how Qi masters eventually transformed their mortal soul into an origin soul, despite not even dabbling in any of the soul cultivation paths.

Rui's eyes lit up and she immediately asked:

"You're using pain?"

"Right, pain…endless pain…more than you can tolerate…enough that you want to die…then 10,000 times more…"

"Hmm…" Rui didn't critique him for this insane method. As a notorious demon herself, she understood that demons must be ruthless to themselves if they wanted to get anywhere in this world.

They continued walking. Rui gathered food easily by using a minimum of her power.

A month passed by. It was beginning to grow hot again, and looking around, the trees and atmosphere were becoming increasingly dark and gloomy.

"Dark forest…" Yaan muttered. "In the end, I still came back…"

He felt dazed, because he had not been monitoring the direction they were travelling. To think that after walking randomly for so long, he would end up travelling back towards this place…

Over the past month, Rui became increasingly certain that Yaan was telling the truth; this world was an illusion created by a stupidly powerful formation. And yet, she didn't seem at all perturbed by this fact. This seriously confused Yaan, filling him with all sorts of doubts.

"The difference between reality and illusion isn't so far like you might think."

Yaan paused, then nodded. He knew this was true, after all, didn't he create illusions whilst practising his sword arts, illusions which were real enough to maim and kill his enemies? Could those illusions really be considered 'fake'…?

But then, what about an illusion like this, an illusion countless times more shocking than the small playthings he could produce?

"When I leave this illusion, what will happen to you?" Yaan suddenly turned towards Rui and asked.

"I'm not sure. But I'll find that answer once our journey ends. As for you…well, just try to remain calm. Don't do anything so crazy that you ruin everything you've worked for."

Her expression was cold, but her words were almost caring…

Yaan was dazed, both by her bizarre answer, and by the fact that she seemed to be showing care towards him. He couldn't find a single reason for her to act this way.

'Rui, caring about me? She must gain something from my survival…no, it's not just my survival. Why is she following me, going along with all of my whims? Strange, too strange…'

No matter how he thought about it, he was unable to make sense of Rui's actions.

As they traveled, Yaan felt increasingly dazed and confused, but not because of Rui. He tore out a fragment of his own mind once every ten days. Ten days was approximately the period of time he needed to recover naturally, and ready himself for another round.

Six months flew by. Today, the duo were having an unusually personal conversation, but they were not merely trying to get to know one another.

Yaan realised that he had a chance in this illusion. He had encountered many things since he last spoke to Rui on Heavenly Path Mountain, but he was still unable to awaken her soul. Even if he had the ability to do so, would he dare, knowing that she intended to use him as a medicine for her recovery?

No, he would not, not until Yaan could be certain that he had the ability to protect himself from her. But in this illusion, that worry was non-existent.

"So you found this inheritance a few hundreds miles south of here? A massive inheritance opening once every 10 years…from 1,800 years ago…and to focus on the body tempering side of the Fiend Transformation technique…" Rui looked slightly dazed for a moment.

Yaan glanced up at her, surprised to see this look even so much as flash across her face. Rui was forever cold and unreactive, just could cause her to feel so shocked…?

The conversation went on after she quickly recovered.

"But why did you leave the Heavenly Path Sect? Was it because of that beast tide you mentioned, the one that killed almost everyone? Or because your dantian was crippled and you were worried your status as a fiend would be unveiled?"

Yaan's expression didn't change as he spoke, continuing to walk as he faced ahead.

"After seeing everyone he cared for being slaughtered so viciously, teacher's dao heart went into turmoil. I don't know what you did, but you made him jump from a cliff and kill himself. I had to leave because I no longer had teacher's camouflage, and your power was drained too severely. Even now, years later, the ring has no reaction."

"I killed your teacher?" Rui looked down at him and blinked. Yaan didn't look at her, but just lightly nodded.

"Do you hate me? Or do you only hate the 'real' version of me?" She asked, perhaps out of sheer curiosity.

"I…don't hate you. Despite everything, I don't think I will ever 'hate' you, no matter how you wrong me. Feeling hate towards such pure coldness…it just feels meaningless."

Rui looked away from him and became silent for a long time.