Forest of Eternal Night

Feng Chao, a heavenly immortal cultivator, had died.

Utilizing the last bit of Qi left in his soul, he had mounted a suicide attack to destroy the Calamitous World-Devouring Demon Beast once and for all.

Yes, without a doubt, he had died. Perished. Extinguished.

So what's with this unique sense of being… there?

"Ugh…"

The fog obstructing Feng Chao's consciousness, an aftereffect of a long slumber, slowly lifted off, allowing the gears in his head to move once again. Heavy eyelids covering his sight pried open, revealing an endless patch of darkness.

'I'm still… alive?'

No. Impossible. What he had used was the most forbidden among the forbidden arts. Let alone resurrection or zombification, even reincarnation would be impossible, as the cultivator's soul itself would perish, the price to pay for mutual destruction with its target.

Could this be the afterlife?

That didn't seem correct either. In the first place, the concept of 'afterlife' was too sketchy. If there really was something like that, would humans bother to cultivate Dao, to go against the heaven, flaying their skins and breaking their bones just to achieve immortality?

'Anyway, the most important thing is to assess the situation.'

It seemed that he still had an intact, corporeal body, so the most logical step to do was to try out his limbs. There was a slight pain when he curled his arms up but aside from that, there wasn't any form of trouble with his overall mobility.

'This surface I'm lying on… it felt like grass.'

Dense, fluffy patch of wet, cold grass, to be exact. At first, the pitch-black darkness made him worry about being trapped in an abyssal space, but thankfully it was still somewhere with a solid ground. While testing the limit of his body, he slowly got back up to his feet. At the same time, his eyes, which were starting to get used to the low visibility, finally managed to see something.

Surrounding him were thin curved pillars of dim, pinkish light that seemingly stretched from the ground up to the sky. When they reached a certain height, the light would bent horizontally and sometimes split out, forming even thinner branches.

Feng Chao's brain lit up for a moment. He forced his still-groggy feet to move closer to one of the pillars until it was within his arm's reach. The tip of his fingers touched at the empty area around the pillar of light. Instead of phasing through, they were stopped by an invisible solid object.

'I see!'

From the roughness of the surface, he could deduce that what he was touching was a tree's bark. The pillars of light, on the other hand, were moss. Light-producing moss growing at the side of the trees, that was the source of this eerie ambiance.

Perhaps the darkness of this place was caused by these trees as well. There was a record in the previous dynasty about a forest with foliage so thick, it blocked the sunlight from reaching inside. When someone entered that place, they would be disoriented inside the absolute darkness, unable to tell the time of the day, until they finally died from exhaustion or devoured by the beasts living inside. In the end, a group of cultivators burned down the entire place at the request of nearby settlements who feared that the forest would overtake their land.

What was the name of that place again? It seemed to be called the Forest of Eternal Night.

'Although, there was no mention about how it looked inside that forest. It was just a myth, after all.'

He didn't know of this place was that so-called dangerous place, but since there was nobody else to consult it with, he would just borrow that name temporarily.

'Alright, then…'

"Aa- gohoh!"

Feng Chao opened his mouth and tried to speak, but he ended up coughing instead. It was only then that he realized how parched his throat was. His lips were also dried out and cracked all over the place. When he had stayed quiet they were still fine, but the moment he moved them, some spots began to bleed out.

Ah, this sense of pain… after experiencing death once, being able to feel pain again was quite novel.

'Not good, if I left it like this, my throat would get damaged sooner or later…'

Alright, now that he was definitely sure that he was still alive, he had to figure out how to keep it that way. First and foremost, he would need the most basic of all basics: source of food and clean water. The latter, of course, was his priority number one at the moment.

Feng Chao sat cross-legged on the grass, entering the empty mindset for cultivation. By moving his body just now, he could ascertain that this was not his body from the past, neither his mortal body nor his spiritual form. Such a drastic change would only mean that he was brought back to the world by reincarnation, not resurrection.

'I couldn't feel any Qi flowing within me, but since my soul was still the same, that means my divine sense would still be intact.'

Divine sense was the ability to sense the flow of Qi in the world. It was the one gate that every aspiring cultivator had to proceed through, the most basic prerequisite to cultivate Dao.

Cultivation by itself didn't require a specific talent. With enough effort, any lack of talent could be easily compensated. Acquiring divine sense, on the other hand, was a matter of fate. It couldn't be taught, it was just a matter of whether someone could or could not. The most a master could do was to impart helpful tips for the pupils.

On the other hand, once someone was able to sense Qi, they would never be able to forget that sensation anymore. Thus, Feng Chao naturally could also use it.

Divine sense wasn't just limited to sensing Qi. Cultivators could also use it to extend the reach of their physical senses, or going the other way around by enveloping a thin layer around their body to heighten their sensitivity. Feng Chao's aim was his ears. Since his sight hadn't acclimated with this perpetual darkness, it would be faster to search for water by listening to the sound they made.

'...Found it.'

It didn't take long before Feng Chao heard a faint splash in the distance. Using the sound as a guide, he pushed through the dark, his arms stretched forward in order to make sure that he wouldn't crash into something. While he was quite eager to wet his throat, he still maintained caution, only stepping forward when he was absolutely sure that there was still ground beneath his feet.

Time didn't seem to exist in this maddening world. He only noticed that his legs were starting to get sore by the time he reached his destination.

"Puhah!"

Just a single gulp of the cold water was enough to quench his thirst. He took a few more for good measure, and then splashed some on his face to wash off the grimy feeling that had been bothering him for quite a while.

Alright, now that he was feeling much better, he could start thinking about what he should do next.

"I'm still curious about this body that I'm inhabiting. I wonder if I could start a fire here so I can have a better look."

Feng Chao groped around the area with the glowing moss nearby, wanting to see if he could grab a branch or two off the trees. It took him a few tries before he could find one that was within reach. Unfortunately, the branch was too damp to be used. He wasted quite some time to gather a few more, but all of them were more or less in the same condition.

"With how dark this place is, I guess it's easy for dew to form, huh…"

Starting fire with secret art was an option, but even if he had the know-how, he still didn't have any Qi within that body, so it was impossible-

"Wait, I got it!"

Using one of the branches, Feng Chao began scrapping the glowing moss off the tree barks. The moss usually only give off dim, purplish light, but when more than one growth was gathered together, the resulting light was surprisingly strong enough to illuminate a small area. He then rolled another branch over the patch of moss that he had collected.

It was a makeshift torch made out off glowing moss!

"It's still weaker than an actual fire, but it'll have to do for now…"

He rushed to where the water was, this time having a means to show the layout of the land. It turned out to be a gentle, shallow river, while the splashing sound came from a small waterfall a few distance away that supplied the flow of the water. The ground, as he had deduced, were covered in thick patches of dark-colored grass, the likes that he hadn't seen before.

"Hmm? Interesting. This doesn't seem to be a normal grass, is it? Is it a spiritual plant? But their number is too many for a spiritual plant… eh, wait, I got distracted again!"

Right, right, he made this light not to conduct biological survey, but to see his current form!

"Let's see… hmm…?"

By moving the torch closer to the surface of the water, he could make out a faint image of how he actually looked like. What welcomed him was the silhouette of a young man… no, a boy. His cheeks still had traces of baby fat, while his hair was left in a messy state, disheveled and overgrown down to his waist. Apart from that, he looked like some kid from a backwater village, the kind of face that you would see with a stupid grin and a missing tooth.

Feng Chao unconsciously let out a sigh. He suddenly missed his spiritual body. With a pair of phoenix eyes, fair, white skin, perfectly-sculpted chin… he was the picture of perfection. To be suddenly downgraded to this state was a misfortune indeed.

Then again… his mortal body back then wasn't as handsome as that, although still a notch better than this kid over here. When someone achieved the rank of immortality, they were free to create a spiritual body as they wished. Naturally, everyone wanted to make the greatest human specimen to ever walk the earth. His 'perfect' adonis spiritual form was actually just a normal everyday man in the world he lived in, nothing to bat an eye for.

Nevermind, he can just make a new spiritual body later on. Brooding over appearance was really a silly thing to do for a cultivator.

Next, he took off the dirty robe that he was wearing, revealing his current physique in its entirety. It was then that he understood why it took him quite a while just to find some branches. He was a shorty! No, more like, the body he was inhabiting was still really young. Based on the face and height, Feng Chao surmised that the kid was no older than nine.

Why would a kid barely weaned off his mother's milk wander into this dark woods? Did he have a death wish?

"I couldn't sense any trace of memories as well… damn, this is a disaster!"

He continued feeling the muscles in his body while grumbling about his untimely reincarnation to whoever was responsible. When he finished, he concluded that the kid was… relatively normal. Very normal, even. As expected of the kid next door.

He wasn't talented at all, but it wasn't as if he didn't have any potential either.

If Feng Chao hadn't awakened his consciousness with memories intact, this kid most likely will lead a normal mortal's life. Growing up, finding love, making a family, and finally dying of old age without knowing a single thing about cultivation. After all, even descendants of famous sects weren't guaranteed to be able to awaken their divine sense, let alone an average mortal like the kid. It was just a flip of the coin whether he would be able to or not.

"But I can use divine sense, so the biggest hurdle is already passed, more or less."

He was able to cultivate. Would he do it?

Of course. Why not?

Feng Chao still had a lot of questions. Why was he reincarnated? No, in the first place, why was still there a world to reincarnate in? He was pretty sure that the entire world had been devoured by that beast. There were two possibilities for this. One was that he was reincarnated in a different dimension, a totally different reality separate from his own, or-

"The world was reformed once again."

Another cycle of genesis. A world born anew. His previous world had to start from something, so what would stop reality from starting another one? That seemed to be a more plausible explanation than that different dimension hypothesis.

"If so, is this still the same world? Does the same rule still apply? How long had it been since then? Can-"

'Can I see those guys once again?'

If he could reincarnate, perhaps those noisy fellows could as well? That bit of hope suddenly appeared in Feng Chao's heart.

"No, no… let's not jump to conclusions here. Take one step at a time…"

He was stranded in this unknown land. Alone. Without any tools or abilities to back him up. Before he could answer those big questions, first he had to ensure his survival by consolidating the base of his power first. Thus, he had to cultivate!

"Even though this body is just average, a far cry from my previous life, what I have now compared to before is this immense wealth of knowledge, gathered after hundreds of years of study as a heavenly immortal."

With him were numerous cultivation techniques from various sects, as well as mastery of secret arts that he had perfected over his long studies. If he couldn't rely on talent, then he would replace it with knowledge and hard work!

Having finished his inspection, he put on his robe once again. The rough texture reminded him of his old days as a poor pupil of an immortal, climbing up and down the mountain in order to cultivate his body and mind. Unknowingly, a smile crept up on his face.

"I'll survive. I'll get stronger. And then, maybe I'll find out the truth one day."

The most pressing matter, finding a source of water, was already achieved. Next would be to find food! With a renewed vigor, Feng Chao did a fist pump while formulating necessary plans.

Ah, actually, speaking of pressing matter.

"Ah, phew…"

Feng Chao mentally added another thing to the list of firsts that he had done in this new world: taking his first piss...