The stone column which held up the signboard was actually a part of the mosaic design on the ground, Han Xuhan realized. It was larger in size compared to his assumptions too, with a width of ten meters or more. Its body was constituted of countless pieces of tiny mosaics attached together, with the bottom end directly inserted into the floor.
Upon close inspection, Han Xuhan noticed nine ring-shaped horizontal patterns on the body of the column, dividing the column into ten segments.
"Take a good look at the floor in front of you," Tun Shi Tian said with a chuckle. "That's our way outta here."
Zhanxian bent down to examine the floor. Here, the mosaic patterns were no longer incomprehensible symbols and pictures. Rather, a neat, circular chart had been constructed with the stone column at its center.
The chart was divided into two major parts, an inner circle and an outer circle. Each circle was again divided into ten identical segments.
The outer ten segments lined up perfectly with the inner ten segments, a seemingly perfect, symmetrical construct....except, three of the outer circle segments, as well as their corresponding inner circle segments, displayed some images and patterns while the fourteen other segments were devoid of any such things.
"That one on the left side is me, the one on the opposite side is you, and the other one is definitely little Zhe," Tun Shi Tian explained, which wasn't really necessary. But the owl seemed to be in a strangely good mood, feeling quite talkative.
Zhanxian recognized the pictures of their avatars drawn inside the three separate outer segments.
A small explosion went off inside Han Xuhan's mind as the clues all connected together.
This was...a mirror image of his dao tower, with Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian's 'apartments' facing each other at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock! The ten outer circle segments represented the ten layers of the Skeletal Monarch Manual!
Hai Yin Zhe's pit, however, was shown here to be situated at 6 o'clock, which did not correspond to the rest of the image. In his dao tower, this pit was situated right in the center of the main hall.
Logically speaking, that pit should be constructed in the middle of this chart, right below the....stone column.
Instantly, he reversed the flow of logic in his mind.
From this new standpoint, he theorized that it wasn't this chart which failed to show the exact mirror image of his dao tower, rather, his dao tower was the one where the anomaly was.
Indeed, the inclusion of the pit during his ascension to the fourth layer was the critical point from where the most troublesome issues had cropped up. His control over Hai Yin Zhe's summon was partially gone. And the new, terrifying entity capable of possessing his body had also shown itself, possibly through that pit.
This pit was the only avenue connecting his dao tower with this burning planet. If the entity originated from this planet, it had obviously made use of the pit. Perhaps, that entity had influenced the development of his dao tower and created this anomalous situation!
Zhanxian obviously wasn't thinking of such complicated implications. While Han Xuhan was reeling from the shock of the discovery, Zhanxian shouted, "Oi little Tian! What the hell are you talking about? I get to go first? What is that even supposed to mean? How do we leave?"
"Hahaha! You stupid idiot! You didn't sense the connection yet? Truly a waste of the resources Master shares with you! Hmph! Concentrate on that part of the circle where your avatar has been positioned. Concentrate hard and try to sense the connection it has with you. You'll realize what I'm talking about, dumbass!"
Both Zhanxian and Han Xuhan were puzzled, but they followed the instructions given by the owl.
As seconds ticked by, Han Xuhan felt his thoughts beginning to wander again. He could sense nothing by concentrating on Zhanxian's image in that outer circle segment. His mind was more concerned about what the implications of this discovery were.
If the ten outer circle segments represented ten layers of his Skeletal Monarch Technique....what the hell did these ten inner circle segments represent? Three of them even displayed some alien symbols. What did these mean?
As his eyes wandered across the floor and his mind wandered across all sorts of theories and puzzles, he felt his senses blurring, his thoughts beginning to run sluggish. This was a familiar sensation.
Just a few minutes ago, he had felt this sensation of being mentally influenced, lost inside a world of patterns, colors, and symbols he couldn't understand. At that time, he had been focusing on the mosaic patterns carved on the ground behind them.
Now, it was Zhanxian who was focusing on a certain part of this grand construct with which the skeleton supposedly had some sort of a connection.
Why was it affecting him?!
Han Xuhan was just a person observing Zhanxian's memories!
What the hell was happening here?!
For perhaps the first time in his life, Han Xuhan found his mind devoid of any thoughts. Not even during his most arduous cultivation session did he ever feel so empty-headed.
He found the situation odd, yet he could not form a chain of thoughts long enough to come to a rational decision, no comprehensive realization of his current state taking shape in his mind.
And suddenly, there was something. A small stream, a flow of information foreign to him. Silhouettes, images, colors flickering in and out of focus in hyperspeed, motion blurred, thoughts semi-formed and left hanging, chains of logic spinning in circles.
Han Xuhan felt his consciousness beginning to grow aware, beginning to observe the flow in his mind. This new existence inside the empty void of his thoughts was a...three-dimensional pattern, drawn with dark red ink, its strokes revolving in multiple directions at the same time.
No, no, no, no...this was no pattern, this was a voice, uttering instructions to him, in a language he didn't know but could understand...
No, this was a picture! This was a portrait of a short, malnourished beggar, huddling fearfully...
Wait, this was a portrait of a red skeleton! Strange! Han Xuhan felt like he knew this skeleton. But the skeleton in his memory did not have such a robust bone structure!
"Ghghggghh!!!"
The unintelligible groan hit his struggling consciousness like a lightning strike. The foreign elements crowding his mind disappeared in a flash, and Han Xuhan rediscovered himself watching from the eyes of his first minion, the red skeleton Zhanxian.
The groan seemed to have come from Zhanxian's mouth. As clarity began to flood him, Han Xuhan's mind went into overdrive trying to analyze what had transpired just now.
Did he just take part in the hallucinations Zhanxian had experienced upon observing the image drawn in front of them?
As someone experiencing a memory...that indeed might be the truth. He would see everything Zhanxian was seeing, and he would even experience the hallucinations of his minion which too, were a part of the memory.
But what was that even about? Han Xuhan found himself stumped. And that was when Zhanxian shouted,
"OH YES! I know exactly what to do!"
His befuddlement shot through the roof as Zhanxian leaped forward with all of his strength and landed lightly on the inner circle segment connected to the outer segment which contained his portrait. As Zhanxian crouched down and ran his fingerbones across the surface of this segment, Han Xuhan felt a wave of familiarity pass through his consciousness. The illegible patterns and symbols drawn on here hadn't left any impression on him the first time he had examined them. But now, he could feel a strange affinity with these symbols, as if he was looking at alphabets of a language he could read to some extent, but not understand.
These patterns and symbols were the ones that had appeared in my consciousness just then!
The realization came swiftly, and with it followed the logical conclusion- Zhanxian's hallucination had left both of them with this knowledge, but Zhanxian seemed to have gotten a better grasp of it compared to him.
It took him but a couple of seconds to reach this conclusion. In the meantime, Zhanxian's fingers were rolling on the floor like a pair of spiders, scratching, clicking, knocking on the mosaics which constructed the patterns and symbols.
As an intimate observer, Han Xuhan could sense the urgency and certainty in Zhanxian's movements. What was he trying to do?
It looked almost as if he was trying to solve a puzzle.
Suddenly, one of the mosaics shifted by half a centimeter as the skeleton's fingers prodded it forcefully. Zhanxian's body shook in excitement, and his movement grew more frenzied.
Seconds later, it happened again, in another corner of the 10 square meter segment, this time by coming into contact with one of his toes.
Again and again, the mosaics in the inner circle segment shifted from their original positions, breaking up the original patterns and symbols.
In front of Han Xuhan's astonished gaze, a new, complex pattern was beginning to emerge out of the messy arrangements, encompassing the entire segment.
He couldn't quite place his finger on what this pattern looked like. Was it an alphabet? Or maybe a picture? Or a code? His mind couldn't pin down the exact nature of this otherworldly sensory input.
And then, Zhanxian stopped. Tun Shi Tian hooted. Han Xuhan sensed an odd substance intruding into his mental perception. It rushed towards him from all directions, as if attracted by a powerful force.
Qi!
There was something unfamiliar about it, but it was indeed qi! And the invisible force attracting the qi to his body was Zhanxian's mental influence!
For the first time, Han Xuhan sensed what it was like to cultivate without damaged meridians. The unbridled, reckless consumption of qi, the aggressive guidance of the flow, the smoothness of the cycle all across his body...
If he had to compare their cultivation sessions, Han Xuhan would be the careful king of a country rife with unruly subjects and a harsh environment, working methodically to avoid dangers, while Zhanxian was a tyrant of a tiny kingdom, uncaring and brutal in his decisions.
Han Xuhan felt an incomparable rush of power as he experienced this new approach to cultivation.
So it can be done like this too!
Incredible! This was truly incredible! He didn't know if one could get addicted to cultivating, but he was willing to bet he was surely infatuated with this experience now!
As Zhanxian's reserves filled up, the channels dug across his bones began to radiate a red glow, as if molten lava was running through Zhanxian's body.
Zhanxian glanced downwards, and Han Xuhan saw a stream of red qi spreading from his feet, across the grooves of the new pattern carved on the inner circle segment. The grooves were soon filled up to the brim.
Standing on top of the glowing pattern, Zhanxian uttered a series of incomprehensible sounds. Inside the vast cavern, his shout reverberated. The golden glow of the burning lotus flowers overhead dimmed. The remaining qi in the air churned restlessly...
Is this a...breakthrough?
On top of the pattern he was standing on, a fiery projection took shape, mirroring the pattern, surrounding their body.
Walking a couple of steps back, Zhanxian looked up and gasped audibly.
The incomprehensible pattern finally made sense to Xuhan's mind somehow.
This was a depiction of a humanoid skeleton, but not quite similar to Zhanxian's body. This skeleton had a short, thick tail made of bones, a skull that had two faces at its front and back, a ribcage that contained twice the number of bones compared to what was natural, and each limb sporting two sets of the same bones attached together.
The red projection became taller and taller, the light radiating from it reaching higher and higher and then finally shooting through the mass of darkness that blocked their sight overhead.
Tun Shi Tian dived up and away from the stone column, which had begun to vibrate faintly, creating a soft, deep hum throughout the cavern.
The qi which was occupying the pattern beneath his feet flowed towards the other end of the inner segment where the base of the column lay, and then began to crawl upwards through its mosaic-filled body.
The advancement stopped right below the lowest of the nine horizontal rings, the flow of the qi stabilizing around the lowest segment of the stone column, just like it had inside the inner circle segment.
A crimson glow flashed from the bright red base of the column, so brilliant that Han Xuhan lost his vision for a moment.
"And here we are!" Zhanxian's familiar voice shouted somewhere in the chaos.
The stone column which held up the signboard was actually a part of the mosaic design on the ground, Han Xuhan realized. It was larger in size compared to his assumptions too, with a width of ten meters or more. Its body was constituted of countless pieces of tiny mosaics attached together, with the bottom end directly inserted into the floor.
Upon close inspection, Han Xuhan noticed nine ring-shaped horizontal patterns on the body of the column, dividing the column into ten segments.
"Take a good look at the floor in front of you," Tun Shi Tian said with a chuckle. "That's our way outta here."
Zhanxian bent down to examine the floor. Here, the mosaic patterns were no longer incomprehensible symbols and pictures. Rather, a neat, circular chart had been constructed with the stone column at its center.
The chart was divided into two major parts, an inner circle and an outer circle. Each circle was again divided into ten identical segments.
The outer ten segments lined up perfectly with the inner ten segments, a seemingly perfect, symmetrical construct....except, three of the outer circle segments, as well as their corresponding inner circle segments, displayed some images and patterns while the fourteen other segments were devoid of any such things.
"That one on the left side is me, the one on the opposite side is you, and the other one is definitely little Zhe," Tun Shi Tian explained, which wasn't really necessary. But the owl seemed to be in a strangely good mood, feeling quite talkative.
Zhanxian recognized the pictures of their avatars drawn inside the three separate outer segments.
A small explosion went off inside Han Xuhan's mind as the clues all connected together.
This was...a mirror image of his dao tower, with Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian's 'apartments' facing each other at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock! The ten outer circle segments represented the ten layers of the Skeletal Monarch Manual!
Hai Yin Zhe's pit, however, was shown here to be situated at 6 o'clock, which did not correspond to the rest of the image. In his dao tower, this pit was situated right in the center of the main hall.
Logically speaking, that pit should be constructed in the middle of this chart, right below the....stone column.
Instantly, he reversed the flow of logic in his mind.
From this new standpoint, he theorized that it wasn't this chart which failed to show the exact mirror image of his dao tower, rather, his dao tower was the one where the anomaly was.
Indeed, the inclusion of the pit during his ascension to the fourth layer was the critical point from where the most troublesome issues had cropped up. His control over Hai Yin Zhe's summon was partially gone. And the new, terrifying entity capable of possessing his body had also shown itself, possibly through that pit.
This pit was the only avenue connecting his dao tower with this burning planet. If the entity originated from this planet, it had obviously made use of the pit. Perhaps, that entity had influenced the development of his dao tower and created this anomalous situation!
Zhanxian obviously wasn't thinking of such complicated implications. While Han Xuhan was reeling from the shock of the discovery, Zhanxian shouted, "Oi little Tian! What the hell are you talking about? I get to go first? What is that even supposed to mean? How do we leave?"
"Hahaha! You stupid idiot! You didn't sense the connection yet? Truly a waste of the resources Master shares with you! Hmph! Concentrate on that part of the circle where your avatar has been positioned. Concentrate hard and try to sense the connection it has with you. You'll realize what I'm talking about, dumbass!"
Both Zhanxian and Han Xuhan were puzzled, but they followed the instructions given by the owl.
As seconds ticked by, Han Xuhan felt his thoughts beginning to wander again. He could sense nothing by concentrating on Zhanxian's image in that outer circle segment. His mind was more concerned about what the implications of this discovery were.
If the ten outer circle segments represented ten layers of his Skeletal Monarch Technique....what the hell did these ten inner circle segments represent? Three of them even displayed some alien symbols. What did these mean?
As his eyes wandered across the floor and his mind wandered across all sorts of theories and puzzles, he felt his senses blurring, his thoughts beginning to run sluggish. This was a familiar sensation.
Just a few minutes ago, he had felt this sensation of being mentally influenced, lost inside a world of patterns, colors, and symbols he couldn't understand. At that time, he had been focusing on the mosaic patterns carved on the ground behind them.
Now, it was Zhanxian who was focusing on a certain part of this grand construct with which the skeleton supposedly had some sort of a connection.
Why was it affecting him?!
Han Xuhan was just a person observing Zhanxian's memories!
What the hell was happening here?!
For perhaps the first time in his life, Han Xuhan found his mind devoid of any thoughts. Not even during his most arduous cultivation session did he ever feel so empty-headed.
He found the situation odd, yet he could not form a chain of thoughts long enough to come to a rational decision, no comprehensive realization of his current state taking shape in his mind.
And suddenly, there was something. A small stream, a flow of information foreign to him. Silhouettes, images, colors flickering in and out of focus in hyperspeed, motion blurred, thoughts semi-formed and left hanging, chains of logic spinning in circles.
Han Xuhan felt his consciousness beginning to grow aware, beginning to observe the flow in his mind. This new existence inside the empty void of his thoughts was a...three-dimensional pattern, drawn with dark red ink, its strokes revolving in multiple directions at the same time.
No, no, no, no...this was no pattern, this was a voice, uttering instructions to him, in a language he didn't know but could understand...
No, this was a picture! This was a portrait of a short, malnourished beggar, huddling fearfully...
Wait, this was a portrait of a red skeleton! Strange! Han Xuhan felt like he knew this skeleton. But the skeleton in his memory did not have such a robust bone structure!
"Ghghggghh!!!"
The unintelligible groan hit his struggling consciousness like a lightning strike. The foreign elements crowding his mind disappeared in a flash, and Han Xuhan rediscovered himself watching from the eyes of his first minion, the red skeleton Zhanxian.
The groan seemed to have come from Zhanxian's mouth. As clarity began to flood him, Han Xuhan's mind went into overdrive trying to analyze what had transpired just now.
Did he just take part in the hallucinations Zhanxian had experienced upon observing the image drawn in front of them?
As someone experiencing a memory...that indeed might be the truth. He would see everything Zhanxian was seeing, and he would even experience the hallucinations of his minion which too, were a part of the memory.
But what was that even about? Han Xuhan found himself stumped. And that was when Zhanxian shouted,
"OH YES! I know exactly what to do!"
His befuddlement shot through the roof as Zhanxian leaped forward with all of his strength and landed lightly on the inner circle segment connected to the outer segment which contained his portrait. As Zhanxian crouched down and ran his fingerbones across the surface of this segment, Han Xuhan felt a wave of familiarity pass through his consciousness. The illegible patterns and symbols drawn on here hadn't left any impression on him the first time he had examined them. But now, he could feel a strange affinity with these symbols, as if he was looking at alphabets of a language he could read to some extent, but not understand.
These patterns and symbols were the ones that had appeared in my consciousness just then!
The realization came swiftly, and with it followed the logical conclusion- Zhanxian's hallucination had left both of them with this knowledge, but Zhanxian seemed to have gotten a better grasp of it compared to him.
It took him but a couple of seconds to reach this conclusion. In the meantime, Zhanxian's fingers were rolling on the floor like a pair of spiders, scratching, clicking, knocking on the mosaics which constructed the patterns and symbols.
As an intimate observer, Han Xuhan could sense the urgency and certainty in Zhanxian's movements. What was he trying to do?
It looked almost as if he was trying to solve a puzzle.
Suddenly, one of the mosaics shifted by half a centimeter as the skeleton's fingers prodded it forcefully. Zhanxian's body shook in excitement, and his movement grew more frenzied.
Seconds later, it happened again, in another corner of the 10 square meter segment, this time by coming into contact with one of his toes.
Again and again, the mosaics in the inner circle segment shifted from their original positions, breaking up the original patterns and symbols.
In front of Han Xuhan's astonished gaze, a new, complex pattern was beginning to emerge out of the messy arrangements, encompassing the entire segment.
He couldn't quite place his finger on what this pattern looked like. Was it an alphabet? Or maybe a picture? Or a code? His mind couldn't pin down the exact nature of this otherworldly sensory input.
And then, Zhanxian stopped. Tun Shi Tian hooted. Han Xuhan sensed an odd substance intruding into his mental perception. It rushed towards him from all directions, as if attracted by a powerful force.
Qi!
There was something unfamiliar about it, but it was indeed qi! And the invisible force attracting the qi to his body was Zhanxian's mental influence!
For the first time, Han Xuhan sensed what it was like to cultivate without damaged meridians. The unbridled, reckless consumption of qi, the aggressive guidance of the flow, the smoothness of the cycle all across his body...
If he had to compare their cultivation sessions, Han Xuhan would be the careful king of a country rife with unruly subjects and a harsh environment, working methodically to avoid dangers, while Zhanxian was a tyrant of a tiny kingdom, uncaring and brutal in his decisions.
Han Xuhan felt an incomparable rush of power as he experienced this new approach to cultivation.
So it can be done like this too!
Incredible! This was truly incredible! He didn't know if one could get addicted to cultivating, but he was willing to bet he was surely infatuated with this experience now!
As Zhanxian's reserves filled up, the channels dug across his bones began to radiate a red glow, as if molten lava was running through Zhanxian's body.
Zhanxian glanced downwards, and Han Xuhan saw a stream of red qi spreading from his feet, across the grooves of the new pattern carved on the inner circle segment. The grooves were soon filled up to the brim.
Standing on top of the glowing pattern, Zhanxian uttered a series of incomprehensible sounds. Inside the vast cavern, his shout reverberated. The golden glow of the burning lotus flowers overhead dimmed. The remaining qi in the air churned restlessly...
Is this a...breakthrough?
On top of the pattern he was standing on, a fiery projection took shape, mirroring the pattern, surrounding their body.
Walking a couple of steps back, Zhanxian looked up and gasped audibly.
The incomprehensible pattern finally made sense to Xuhan's mind somehow.
This was a depiction of a humanoid skeleton, but not quite similar to Zhanxian's body. This skeleton had a short, thick tail made of bones, a skull that had two faces at its front and back, a ribcage that contained twice the number of bones compared to what was natural, and each limb sporting two sets of the same bones attached together.
The red projection became taller and taller, the light radiating from it reaching higher and higher and then finally shooting through the mass of darkness that blocked their sight overhead.
Tun Shi Tian dived up and away from the stone column, which had begun to vibrate faintly, creating a soft, deep hum throughout the cavern.
The qi which was occupying the pattern beneath his feet flowed towards the other end of the inner segment where the base of the column lay, and then began to crawl upwards through its mosaic-filled body.
The advancement stopped right below the lowest of the nine horizontal rings, the flow of the qi stabilizing around the lowest segment of the stone column, just like it had inside the inner circle segment.
A crimson glow flashed from the bright red base of the column, so brilliant that Han Xuhan lost his vision for a moment.
"And here we are!" Zhanxian's familiar voice shouted somewhere in the chaos.
