True Intent

The first thing he did after stopping his cultivation was to think hard about how he wasn't discovered. It was a mistake on his part to swallow so much aura without a care in the world, but no one seemed to have noticed he was the culprit.

After a short while, he received an order from the higher-ups of the academy, the classes were suspended for a few days.

Wu Xue was happy since it brought him time to do what he urgently wanted to.

Suddenly, he remembered the strange candle of before, it had the effect of distorting other's perceptions. It was in his storage ring during his cultivation.

He thought it needed to be lit to work, but he suddenly thought that might not be the case. He used his acute soul sense and began to sense the world around him. It was very weak, but he could feel a gloomy unknown energy coiling around his residence.

It was a bit similar to the power of a curse, but it had no evil feeling attached to it. It was more like a gloomy veil. Wu Xue was shocked since he only noticed this energy after focusing deeply.

He took the candle out of his space ring and began to examine it. He felt it had something familiar but different inside.

A spark lit in his mind and he channeled his literary power, but this time it carried the power of Causality Artistic Conception, instead of the common Order.

Although Order contained all of the myriad laws and he could use it to spy on causality just as well, it could spare him his energy if he used just what he needed.

But again, he had ridiculous amounts of spare energy, so he didn't have to worry too much about it.

The reason he used Causality instead of Order was to confirm his feelings. That candle carried something almost identical to his Causality Artistic Conception.

Because everyone's artistic conceptions were different, he was sure a cultivator had something to do with that candle.

He pondered hard and couldn't understand what a cultivator was doing in that place, that world certainly was hostile to cultivators since they couldn't absorb its aura.

Unless, of course, they could rebuild their natal acupoint like Wu Xue.

Wu Xue understood the reason he wasn't discovered and was eager to ask for its origins from his "dear" student.

But after pondering for a moment, he found it was tiring enough and he was more interested in cultivating immediately, so he postponed the matter.

He stored the candle and sat crosslegged on his cushion.

He began to adjust his state for a few minutes and finally began his ambitious plan.

He was bordering a breakthrough in his Order Artistic Conception, he could advance with no difficulty. He just focused for a few hours and a new world was presented to him.

His soul seemed to have exited his body and he was floating between the stars and galactic streams. Each star was a law, each galaxy was a law, and each galactic stream was a law. Everything was a law, but everything was a single Law, Order.

Wu Xue felt his mind explode and his consciousness fragmenting, but he didn't panic, it was just a phenomenon caused by too much information entering his mind. As long as his comprehension ability could keep up, he wouldn't turn into a vegetable and be absorbed by the knowledge. As long as he didn't feel timid and didn't hesitate, he wouldn't fail.

Many failed to understand Order and mistakenly called it Chaos because they were unable to comprehend it properly because of its immensity. Therefore they knowingly limited their own minds to protect themselves and only see part of the truth of Order.

Wu Xue sat cross-legged on the vacuum and floated aimlessly for an unknown amount of time. Time stopped having meaning somehow and only Wu Xue's thoughts flowed.

A year, two years... Wu Xur stopped caring about the passage of time... no, he never really cared. All he could wish at that moment was for it to be forever.

An alarm rang in his head and he promptly noticed signs of his consciousness being devoured by the knowledge, he was almost turning into a vegetable.

But he didn't care, he continued to do what he wanted to do. He knew he could die, but there was no hesitation. He wanted knowledge, he wanted power...

Greed was dominating his mind, and he knew it. He was slowly sinking into darkness...

He ignored it as if it wasn't a problem.

When he was about to be fully absorbed by the knowledge, he understood what he had to understand and everything vanished, he returned to his residence.

Just a few seconds. He only needed to be a few seconds late to have died.

A fountain of sweat formed on his forehead, his whole body was soaked and he could feel his heart beating crazily.

His perception of the world around him changed tremendously when he successfully understood the Order True Intent. He could weakly feel the strings of law and causality that kept the world stable without even focusing.

At the same time, his three pillar cultivation bases began to change as well. The Order Artistic Conception that was integrated into them began to evolve into the Order True Intent. His literary power, with his imitation inner literary path of imitation, began to evoke it as well.

As a consequence, his cultivation base began to show strong signs of increasing, but he didn't have enough aura around him anymore, so he had no way to advance his Realms.

Instead, he used the fact that the Order True Intent gave him more control over himself and began to actively abolish his cultivation partially.

It caused him great pain, but every time he recessed one small Ream, his cultivation bases turned more refined, it was much faster than the slow grind he was familiar with.

When his Qi Cultivation receded to the Second Layer of the Qi Vortex Realm, it was already at the limit of his refinement, he could feel the danger approaching and the alerts the world was giving him.

His body cultivation returned to the stage of Pure Marrow, and his other treasures were locked again. However, his body was much stronger than before despite receding his Realm. His Marrow was pure white, and his blood began to show signs of overflowing vitality.

His soul cultivation returned to the Soul Eyes stage, but it was much stronger than before as well. He could feel his potential was terrifying.

When his breath stabilized, he opened his eyes and began to laugh like crazy, "I can't believe it, it's so much faster...

"It was impossible for me to do it before... True Intent is amazing!

"I can spare an unimaginable amount of time by doing this... But there's still one problem...

"My masters probably want me to find a solution by myself..."

He thought hard but couldn't think of a way for him to escape a Dao's Rejection without relying on his masters. Without this ability, he wouldn't dare to refine his Realms further without increasing them.

Although he knew his masters would save him if he was stubborn and did it without a plan, they would punish him as well.

He suddenly had an idea, "I don't need to confront a Dao Rejection, as long as I 'die' before it strikes me down, I can survive. It's just what my masters did before.

"I need to find a way to die and then revive, and it has to be a complete death with my soul fragmenting...

"It's extremely more difficult to revive the soul than to revive the body, but it's not impossible, as long as I arrange a formation to do the job in the place of my masters...

"But I still lack the necessary skill to do it, should I ask for help in the end?"

Just as he was hesitating, he heard a sigh and a golden plate full of runes appeared floating beside him.

He examined the plate and a flux of information entered his mind from it, it was a formation plate with the effect of reviving the soul.

Without a doubt, it was given to him by his masters, who saw he was in no way giving up his intention of bordering death again and again.

Wu Xue was happy and sad. Happy he had the tool to help him, and sad he needed great amounts of energy to work.

He would need to infuse energy into the formation plate for a few months before it is usable, it immediately nullified the time he spared with his new method.

"Alas, there's nothing easy when it comes to cultivation," he muttered with a bittersweet smile and got up from his cushion.

He spent a couple of days resting and doing nothing besides trivial things, but he inevitably got bored.

"Since I have nothing to do for now, what about looking for my pupil?" Wu Xue muttered and disappeared from his room.

In the females' dormitory, in Jasmine's room, the girl was trying hard to advance her literary path further.

Her literary heart had fully formed and was on the verge of condensing, she just lacked some enlightenment.

"You surprise me with your talent..." Wu Xue's voice reached her ears, surprising her.

She looked around in panic but didn't see Wu Xue. The reason for her panic was that she was wearing pajamas, and she would feel embarrassed to be seen by others like that.

"I'm not into entering a girl's room without permission," Wu Xue's voice calmly sounded again, "So, please come to the library."

Jasmine sighed in relief and began to change clothes. After a while, she was wearing a set of white plain clothing, her hair was tied into a simple ponytail.

She looked at a mirror and felt she changed, she began to care less about her external appearance, although she was never the kind of girl that obsessed with it.

After a sigh, she left the dormitory and went to the academy's library.

Wu Xue was on the first floor, reading miscellaneous books about the world's records, but a pile of books beside him showed a variety of knowledge and art.

"Professor," Jasmine greeted and sat beside him, "Why did you call?"

"Because of some sort of anomaly, we didn't have the opportunity to see each other in the classes," Wu Xue said with a different face, as if it had nothing to do with him, "I was curious about your progress."

"Did I disappoint you?" Jasmine asked with a nervous heart but a calm face.

Wu Xur smiled and said, "You did well."

"...Thanks for your praise," Jasmine sighed in relief.

"Do you have any idea about your inner literary path?" Wu Xue asked.

"...I don't know," Jasmine shook her head, "It's difficult to decide."

"Yes, that's the reason very few mortals ever reached the step of condensation without external help," Wu Xue nodded and didn't look surprised, "You don't need to feel bad about your struggle, it's normal for it to happen.

"You might spend years without being able to advance further."

Jasmine had a gloomy look after hearing it.

"But!" Wu Xue suddenly closed the book in his hands and smiled, "You are lucky to have me as your professor, and you are even luckier to be my pupil."

Jasmine's eyes sparkled, she understood what he meant.

"There's a way to speed things up, but it's dangerous," Wu Xue looked at her with sharp eyes, "Are you willing?"

Jasmine took a deep breath and nodded with a determined expression.

"Great!" Wu Xue laughed, "There's no danger at all, I was just testing you."

He pointed his finger at her and used it as a pen, writing the word 'Heart' in the air with his literary power.

Immediately, Jasmine felt something was different about Wu Xue's power, but she was unable to guess what it was.

"The inner path comes from the truth buried in the heart," Wu Xue said to her, "Explore the depths of your life and discover the truth hidden within."

The floating word entered her body in a blink and Jasmine felt the world around her darkening, she lost consciousness.

Wu Xue held her body to avoid her falling from her seat and supported her, "I wasn't particularly hopeful, but you are more talented than I expected.

"Fate is marvelous."