Shrinking Space

A woman with short hair, gray eyes, and blonde hair was looking at the flickering red barrier that covered a certain island. The woman was called Daoist Cloudmaster, a perfection cultivator who came to catch the transmigrator.

Technically, there were many transmigrators worldwide, but many perfection cultivators focused only on the puppet because, from their view, it was the most powerful transmigrator, possibly having the most knowledge about the outside.

Cloudmaster and other perfection cultivators were waiting for others to arrive; they would not attack with fewer than 1,000 present.

But as they were waiting, the puppet broke through their space blockade and teleported to a strange island.

Honestly, even the island's existence was a big shock to Cloudmaster. She had lived for a few trillion years and had extremely detailed information about the world map; however, she had never seen this island. It was as if it was always hidden in the corner of her eyes; it was as if she always ignored it unconsciously. But the moment the puppet stepped on it, she finally saw it. It was very simple, made of grassland, with a weird-looking door in the middle.

She and many other perfection cultivators followed the puppet and surrounded the island.

What was very unexpected was what happened next.

The puppet suddenly exploded into terrifying blood energy, completely isolating the island from the outside world. When this happened, she and all other perfection cultivators no longer hesitated; even a fool could tell that the puppet was trying to prevent them from seeing and interfering with what was happening inside.

They all started attacking the blood barrier, but astonishingly, it perfectly defended against the attack of hundreds of perfection cultivators for over half an hour!

Finally, it stopped flickering and disappeared! What was left was an island and a door.

The perfection cultivators landed one by one, cautiously observing the door; they were all old monsters who had survived for countless years; none were careless enough to open the door.

After a few minutes, a total of 350 perfection cultivators arrived; then, they began talking about their next act.

"We need a guinea pig; a soul transformation cultivator would do," said a perfection cultivator with two heads on his shoulder.

Some very old perfection cultivators have two heads, one male and one female; the human species is said to have had two heads a few tens of trillion years ago; over time, the two heads separated, becoming two different sexes.

Everyone nodded; the two-headed cultivator snapped, and a soul-transformation cultivator appeared. He was the first supreme elder of the Brown dynasty.

The perfection cultivators needed a guinea pig; who could be a better guinea pig than him?

"Open the door," the two-headed cultivator released his pressure on the first supreme elder.

The poor supreme elder was crushed by that pressure, falling on the ground, nearly passing out; it was so heavy that he failed even to blink or open his mouth.

Bang! With a loud bang, his eyes and heart exploded from the massive pressure. Blood streamed from bloody holes in his eyes.

Still, as a soul transformation cultivator, his body was not essential for his survival; even if it was completely destroyed, he could simply change it. At the soul transformation level, the physical body is completely optional; most still wear a physical body but wouldn't be any weaker without one.

The first supreme elder's body began to burn, basically melting from the pressure. The message was simple: The two-headed cultivator was, by his actions, ordering him to exit his body.

The first supreme elder was extremely bitter about his fate; it was such humiliation and needless cruelty that it left him even more terrified of his future fate than he was before.

After coming out of his body, he could finally speak.

"Senior, please, spare my life! I was forced to…"

Before he could finish, the two-headed cultivator interrupted. "Enough! Just open the door," the two-headed cultivator ordered.

Swallowing, the supreme elder felt a bad feeling creep over him as he observed the door. It was a white and black door with a red 'Do Not Disturb' sign.

Opening it may result in his death, but not opening it would definitely result in his death. So, as a rational person, he stopped hesitating, went forward, and opened the door.

Surprisingly, it was not locked!

"Don't you see the damn writing on the door? I'm going to make an example out of you!" A man in armor with a mustache appeared and came out of the door. Unsheathing his sword, he wanted to rush at the first supreme elder.

The first supreme elder felt strange; the man in front of him had the aura of a mortal, with absolutely no energy circulating in his body; he could kill the ant in front of him with no effort. But he didn't; his experience was screaming at him that it wasn't so simple; he wasn't dumb either; he lived for a long time and wasn't careless.

So, he shouted, "Please! Save me!"

This was his only choice; he knows how the perfection cultivators are; even if he did everything they wanted, they would still kill him in the end. Asking for help from this mysterious person is a shot in the dark, but it is at least something.

"What help? Don't tell me! They forced you to knock?" The knight with the mustache looked at the perfection cultivators, most of whom were hidden from sight; still, the knight looked at them as if he were seeing them clearly.

The first supreme elder nodded frantically.

"This is just too much! So many people found this damn door? I can't let any of you go! Otherwise, if the word gets out, I'll have to spend all my free time opening the door for you! If you had brought corpses, it would have been something, but to just open the door without knocking, with no corpse, and even force others to do it for you … It is too much!" the knight said, shouting.

The two-headed cultivator observed from afar; he didn't react at all because the situation was too strange. The knight looked and felt like a mortal, but he obviously wasn't; he could clearly see him even though he was using his perfection spell to hide. Feeling the danger, he wanted to teleport away.

But he couldn't; the space was completely locked. Then, he noticed something terrifying! The space was shrinking!

"Even perfection spells don't work?" The two-headed cultivator tried piercing the space to run, but it was just not working; the space was reinforced by a mysterious force and was sturdy.

He wanted to attack the mysterious knight, but He, the door, and the soul transformation guinea pig were all gone.

The space shrank faster and faster; gradually, all the other perfection cultivators around also dispelled their hiding spells and came together, trying to cast a collective spell to find a way out of this situation.

"All in one: Pierce!" They cast the collective spell of pierce, but it also failed to break out.

"This spell is beyond the perfection realm!" Cloudmaster noticed and nearly wet herself; only rank 10 true immortals can do such a thing.

"Everyone, push out! Don't let the space shrink further!" the two-headed cultivator shouted.

Over time, the space shrank further and further until finally, it was too small to accommodate 300 people. But it continued to shrink; as perfection cultivators, they all had spells to shrink their own bodies, but no matter how much they shrank their own bodies, the environment around them also shrank by as much.

After a few minutes, over 350 perfection cultivators were squeezed into a space less than an apple's size.

…

The knight with the mustache picked up a circular shining object from the ground and put it in his pocket.

The first supreme elder didn't notice anything; from his perspective, a ball fell from the sky, but nothing more.

"Go away! I spare you because you were forced to do what you did!" said the knight.

"But, they would kill me! I seek refuge!" The first supreme elder fell on his knees, begging.

"Don't worry about them! They are here with me!" he pointed at the ball; then, without waiting, he left and closed the door.

The first supreme elder looked at the door, dumbfounded.

…

In short, the light and dark inheritance was a small world completely separate from the main world; it was not intended as a sanctuary, but because of its unique characteristics, Jack chose it as his destination this time.

Jack wrote the back story of this inheritance and designed it with great detail, much more so than some other inheritances.

Its creator was Master Two Life One Death, abbreviated as TLOD; Master TLOD was an immortal who mastered the Dao of life and death and crafted the life and death complete law. Before leaving, he left behind an inheritance for future generations; as with all inheritances, it was hidden, only visible to transmigrators. To enter the light and dark inheritance, one must have some preliminary knowledge about the way of life and death; after all, the prerequisite for even entering the door was to die.

Dying is the easy part; any mortal can die. The hard part is coming back to life after death. It is doubtful that anyone besides very old rank 8s or rank 9 cultivators can accomplish it without outside help. Jack, of course, took the easy path, using equipment to overcome these difficulties.

The door led to the workshop of a man called Wizard Tlod.

Tlod was the lord of a piece of land, usually called Penland. Its population was around 25,000, mostly farmers.

The Penland was part of the only kingdom in the world called the Firespirit Kingdom. The royal family of Firespirit Kingdom was said to have descended from a fire dragon, but those may just be nonsensical legends. The kingdom was friendly with magical power; there was no burning of those suspected of supernatural arts, no discrimination, and nothing bad; it was the opposite; wizards were respected and rewarded generously.

Among the kingdom's wizards, Master Tlod was unique. He was not interested in the usual spells; he researched a special topic: life-and-death magic.

In the Firesprit kingdom, it is widely understood that after death, people would be born with new bodies; they may be reborn as kings, princes, beggars, or even non-human beings, such as ants, beetles, cockroaches, or even non-living things, such as stones, cups, etc. Because of this deep, widely spread belief, unlike in many other places, there was no protest over social inequality; everyone knew that eventually, they, too, would be reborn as kings and princes; they may be poor now, but in their next lives, things would eventually change.

However, there were doubters, such as Wizard Tlod; he was experimenting with the dead, trying to find out what exactly happens to one's soul and body after death; because of this, he had been buying dead bodies for years.

Research on dead bodies, however, had negative effects on his reputation. In today's nobility circles, his name is down to mud, and nobody is willing to meet him in a personal setting. Research on soul, blood, life, and death is frowned upon.

Because of this, Master Tlod stopped buying corpses out in the open. Of course, from time to time, some hungry commoners would bring dead bodies of their relatives to sell, but most times, he would reject them.

A few days ago, Master Tlod's servant brought a few dead people in coffins, but astonishingly, the dead people in question came alive.

…

Jack looked at the face of the man who was sitting beside him; it was Master Tlod, the wizard in charge of Penland.

"Lord Tlod, we have no idea what happened; it may be the blessing of your castle; we came back to life after coming here," said Jack. Now, he cannot use his cultivation; the inheritance grounds have suppressed all of his powers, so he has to be careful with his words. If Tlod orders their death, Jack really cannot resist.

But Jack wasn't that worried. Even though Tlod was obsessed with life and death research, he was not evil; he didn't even think of capturing Jack and his party to experiment on them. His usual research, researching human corpses, looked very evil, but his aim was to discover the truth and expose lies; his intentions were good, even though his means were at least questionable. He never killed someone for their corpse; all corpses he bought died of natural, unrelated causes.

"Jack, I can pay you if you allow me to run a few experiments," Master TLOD suggested.

"Lord Tlod, we are happy to help," Jack smiled.

…

Lord Tlod tested Jack and his group's bodily functions; the results were completely normal. Jack and his group were all ordinary humans, completely alive.

Jack was not surprised by the results; the participants in the inheritance would temporarily lose their cultivation and turn into normal humans.

Even though the results were completely normal, with nothing even remotely eye-catching, Tlod was not satisfied; when they first arrived, he checked, and they were entirely dead, but a day after, they all came back to life.

"Jack, please stay here with me; I can give you and your friends a house, money, books, and even wizard training!" Master Tlod suggested. He wanted to observe them longer to see if anything would happen.

Jack, whose story was that he lost his memory after coming back to life, nodded; it was what he wanted anyway. "Thanks, my lord; we accept your proposal!"