252 - The Compass

The compass had signs of aging from the faded lacquer, but was otherwise in good condition. The shape was a square with circular center. The tin pin in the center looked like it was still working, pointing to the north magnetic pole. The compass was often used in feng shui and geomancy.

"You went into the dream world?" Li Yun wasn't sure if Shang Cang had entered a meditative dream state or a realm like the woods.

Shang Cang nodded. "But rather than my grandfather, what I saw was a landscape based on the stories he had narrated to me. My father had a similar dream but grew out of the stories a long time ago. He doesn't remember anything now."

"What was it like? A lucid dream, or like you were really there?"

"At first, I thought it was a lucid dream, but it felt more real the more I enter."

"How were you able to enter the dream?" 

"My grandfather told me that two conduits are needed to enter the dream world. The first is a portal, usually contained within an artifact, and the second is someone to activate the artifact."

"So you need an artifact to enter the dream world?" Li Yun asked as he thought about the statue and ancient cloth. If the compass had a portal, was Shang Cang's soul able to travel into the other realm? "How do you activate the qi field?"

"I am not sure. But ever since I was a kid, I had difficulty sleeping. My grandfather had taught me a chant to help me sleep. It's now a habit that I say it before I sleep."

Li Yun thought about Shang Cang's dantian. It was slightly bigger than the average person, so the chant had been helping him to grow without him knowing. After a certain period of time, his dantian had grown stable enough to activate the qi field.

Shang Cang's narration of his experience in the dream world gave Li Yun some confidence that it wasn't too dangerous. He did not try to enter the statue to avoid going back to the woods. As for the cloth, there were too many unknowns to experiment. However, the world of the compass didn't look too frightening. He was also more prepared than the last time.

"Do you think I could hold onto your compass for a moment?" asked Li Yun.

Shang Cang passed the compass to Li Yun, who inspected the carving. Judging by the bone script, it was likely created over three thousand years ago. If that was true, the compass would be the oldest known compass in China, far older than the Han Dynasty's geomantic compass.

Using Qivi, he saw a brief flash of the artisan craving the scripts into the compass. The artisan was in a wooden shack, so likely a location in the southern region of the country.

"I'm going to take a nap, try to wake me up in thirty minutes?" Li Yun asked.

"Wait, you're going to nap now?" Shang Cang thought it was strange as Li Yun approached the empty bed and sat down.

"Well, you can't really enter the dream world without dreaming," Li Yun only needed some time. It was likely he was going to pass out if he used Spirit Detection. "If I don't wake up within an hour, contact my girlfriend."

Shang Cang wasn't even an option, but he agreed as Li Yun closed his eyes. While using Qivi, Li Yun entered the dream realm and then activated Spirit Detection. Suddenly, Li Yun felt his spiritual body entering another world. In front of Li Yun stood a vast grassy plain with strange large animals roaming about and a large tree. 

"This is the realm from inside the compass?" he thought. 

Li Yun inspected his surroundings. The world inside the compass was much more stable than the world that Li Yun had entered. He couldn't freely control the environment as he had done in his own dream.

He took one step toward one of the large animals. Although he was several yards, only one step was needed for him to appear in front of it. The large gazelle-like creature was twice the size of the typical creature, towering over Li Yun as it bent its head to graze on the grasses. Li Yun was a hair length away, but they didn't notice him. Instead, they continued grazing on the grasses as though they couldn't feel his presence. Li Yun moved his hand over the gazelle and simply passed through it as though he was a ghost.

Li Yun turned his attention back to the tree. According to Shang Cang, every time the tree disappeared from his view, the dream resets back to the beginning. Li Yun experimented by heading toward the opposite direction. With a single jump, he moved several meters into the air and into the opposite direction of the tree. Much like the dream, his body felt weightless. As predicted, his body reappeared back into the beginning. 

He turned back to the tree and jumped back to the tree. On top of the tree was a single red flower, which Li Yun assumed was one of the artifacts. His fingers lightly touched the tree, but it appeared to be solid, unlike the gazelle. Li Yun jumped to the top and grabbed the item. The lantern-shaped flower looked like it had a tiny candle inside.

Red Lantern Flower collected. 1/9 collected.

The lantern flower disappeared. Li Yun wondered where it had disappeared to, or if it would appear in the real world somehow.

From there, he saw the stone tower in the distance. He jumped in the air several meters. Unlike the dream realm, there was an active energy meter that drained his energy as he jumped and he couldn't fly like in the dreamworld. The feeling was a mixture of heaviness like in reality and light-weightless like in the dream realm. It took him several jumps to arrive at the tower. 

Shang Cang had explained how tiring it felt to climb on the stairs up the tower. For Li Yun, it was a simple leap to the top. Inside the rooftop floor, he saw a short iron sword located at the top of the tower. There was an aura around the sword that was similar to the red lantern. The moment he touched the sword, it disappeared.

Receive Tower Iron Sword

2/3 collected. 

From the tower, a snowy mountaintop appeared in the backdrop. After arriving at the base of the mountain, he couldn't feel the chilliness that Shang Cang had encountered. He understood why Shang Cang couldn't get to the top. The further up the mountain, the more treacherous the terrain and unforgiven wind. Li Yun felt that the chill was unnatural, as typical cold weather didn't normally affect him.

Li Yun fought through the wind, with only the upward slope as the only means of navigating. The blizzard of snow rained down like hail, restricting Li Yun's view. He could barely see past his arm length. Even worse, the whistling sound of the wind had an unusual vibration that blocked much of his cognitive mapping ability. Luckily, there wasn't any strange creature chasing him.

"S***!" He internally cursed to himself as he finished his last thought. "Why did I have to think about strange creatures?"

A growling sound appeared in several locations, and it appeared that he had been surrounded.

Winter Wolves - Enemies