3 Firmament of Consciousness

Gradually, Leng's awareness drifted through the so-called dream world and entered a peculiar whirly white sphere, which sent him to another place surrounded by nothing but the black itself, it had an enormous squarely castle and a twisted tower erected, he couldn't see the top at all. This startled him, sending shivers down his spine as he realized it was not a dream but a reality that was occurring.

'What's going on?! Where the hell am I! Can the heavens not let me rest for a while!!' He cursed inwardly, stomping the transparent ground.

'Now what the hell! Why is my body like this!!' His whole body was a foggily grey figure and in a form that was comparable to gas, the only part that was standing out was his black eyes. The castle had shining red tone with intricate designs of all kinds of creatures and walls made up of various jade stones.

He was examining his body, moving his gas hands, and body, flying around, jumping, kicking, etc.

'Mm..this form is not so bad, ah but what is this?!' He thought while gazing at the structure in front of him. He slowly inched toward it and touched the red door.

Bang Bang Bang

Loud sounds resounded that sent waves throughout his soul palace. His dark eyes were blinded by a bright light that came out from the gradually opening red doors, presenting him with a huge sparkling hall, supported by spaced out white pillars by the side.

Leng entered it and surveyed his surroundings, amazed by the otherworldly features of this place. He noticed at the far end of the hallway, there was a platform that had an item on. As he got closer, he saw that it was a book. When he reached it, Leng was surprised by the strange book's appearance. It looked plain, the complete opposite of this place, with one ancient word on it.

He picked it up and tried to understand what that meant, but to no avail.

'If I am not wrong, this should be my consciousness but how did I get access to it?!' In this world where cultivation was prevalent, even mortals had some clues about how it worked. To his knowledge, being able to access your own consciousness palace a feat only very powerful cultivators could do. That would be cultivators of Qi condensation realm, who were also known as mortal powerhouses, respected by masses and ruler of many Kingdoms, Empires and Great Mortal sects. It was impossible for a mortal to enter consciousness palace, without reaching that realm. If people knew what Leng was able to do then he would be sought after by all remarkable powers for grooming or be killed if they saw him as a threat.

'I could see where it would led me if I tell this to anyone or this gets exposed. I don't want to get into any entanglement with freaks so, I am just going to keep shut and live a quiet life.' H mused inwardly, examining the book. He flipped the first page and saw some words that he didn't understand and had an annoyed expression. Without his notice, his eyes color changed to a light shade of grey, that helped him in understanding what the page was saying.

Leng was suspicious about being able to understand it now but he didn't think much about it since the job got done and he also had no clues about how that happened. After he read the first page, his mind got filled with much information, the obscurity, and complexity of just this one page overwhelmed him. 'Is this the so-called cultivation art that countless mortals sought after, the name is so domineering too, Above Heavens.'

He thought about how Heaven was an unmatched, unrivaled entity but he couldn't imagine what above it would be like. He felt his horizon broaden, the only reason he was believing these words was because of the now rare phenomenon of Heaven Destroying anything that had its name on it without worth. Countless tried, causing their death, be it strongest mortals, cultivators, beasts, or the most powerful group. No one escaped, the tales of Heaven related incidents were all around the world. Even a person living under a rock knew about it. The one to govern all. As he thought more about it, his gassy body shivered in excitement. He sat down on the platform and turn to 3rd page, which had exquisitely written obscure words. This took him some time to understand, even with the greyish eyes help. It talked about the cultivation process from Body Refinement to breaking through Qi condensation. He was completely baffled to see what the process contained and also astonished.

'What? A Dual Cultivation technique!? That so in such eye-opening details.' Dual Cultivation, as the name suggested was done with your partner through the joining of bodies and the exchange of Yin-Yang, improving each other's powers, abilities, qualities, etc. But it had its own flaws, the cultivation base would be weak in a longer run, plus a ton of impurities.

Leng had no knowledge about this but he did hear the name, it was a popular technique between low potential body refiners/cultivators. Unbeknownst to him, the book only stated this technique cause of his true desire, it was a mysterious book with vast power, able to suggest anything to its supreme peak based on the only one user, who was Leng.

He was contemplating whether to try it or not, worrying about the bad reciprocation but went with positive since this could be the thing that would change his life for the better. He was a young man with the desire to enjoy his life and carefreely pass his time with his women, but he knew he was too weak to achieve that, which infuriated him a lot. Even for body refinement, he needed a manual, that only prestigious mortals had, others had to use whatever they could, copy or randomly train their body, many died or became disabled due to it but people still tried, some going too far and some staying where they should. There were some specific methods that were noted among the normal masses for body refining but that was it, it had a severe limitation. Leng only tried the practices that he could recover from with reward. But because of that, he was only at 1st layer out of 12 in Body Refinement. For a 16-year-old this was great, and monstrous considering his minimum tries. The most powerful in his village was only at 4th layer, she was the unmarried Village Chief, who he had his eyes on. She came from the previous village chief household. They were the most powerful in the village currently. The man was gutsy enough to go for other women while having a childhood sweetheart from the second most powerful household, she was one of the few who knew about his unparalleled talent.

Leng speculated how trying shouldn't bring any harm and decided to practice it with Lanbin. Just then, some new words began to form at the bottom of the page, saying 'Test of Worthiness'.

'Ah really, why couldn't it be free! Uww..' he lamented with fake teary eyes. But was inwardly prepared for the upcoming blow, that came too sudden but expectedly.

"AHHHHHHHHH..W-ah.HHH." His miserable shouts were echoing through the consciousness palace, every inch of his gassy body was in utmost misery based on mortal standards, he was surprisingly holding on. Just one thought was running through in his mind," THIS COULD BE THE CHANCE, I CAN'T LET IT GO!!' The pain came lightning-fast and went away the next second, that one second felt like years to Leng. It tested if his body and soul could handle the Dual art, but the accumulated pain was only thrown at the soul so no changes happen outside for safety and secrecy purposes. If he failed the test, only some restrictions would be placed on the art for 1st page. That he would have to unlock using his own, earned strength. It was a compatibility test.

Now, Leng was resting on the platform, cursing whatever caused him that horrendous pain. He was also happy, he could now practice the 1st page. During his rest, he unconsciously returned back to his body, resulting in him opening his eyes.

'ah.I am back?! So, it was real huh.' His brain had all the refining/cultivating process ingrained, supporting the fact that the previous events really happened.