"Whoa...am I really in a lucid dream?" Han Xuhan wondered aloud as he took in the bizarre scene in front of him.
"Mm-hmm, the last thing I remember is definitely going to sleep. This has got to be a dream. No, wait a minute, I almost forgot what sort of world I live in..."
Heart mired in suspicion, Han Xuhan gazed at the countless flickering stars shining amidst the infinite stretch of darkness ahead. He couldn't see his own body due to the darkness, but he could still feel his limbs, although the sensation was quite dull. His body felt weightless, as if suspended in space. The whole situation was fishy, to say the least.
"The dao of meta verdicts that no dream in a cultivation world is normal. My actual dreams would never make me feel such clarity. And it would definitely not be so peaceful.
What do I gotta do now? Do I just sit and wait?"
His question was greeted by nothing but silence. Bored out of his mind, Xuhan could only keep wondering what could have caused this anomalous situation.
Could it be someone from the sect, trying to ambush him? But he hadn't really done anything to be targeted...That heavenly tribulation was entirely Yuen Zhou's fault. Who else...
Has that expert who had wiped out Pine Town finally made his move? After an entire month?
Had he been wiped off the face of the planet like that town too?
Not knowing what to do, Xuhan waited. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes stretched into hours. Even though there was no way to tell the time, Xuhan could still guess that at least several hours had gone by.
In the vast, empty space, Xuhan started to panic.
He couldn't move, couldn't see anything except the star-studded sky, couldn't discern where he was...the passing time felt like torture at this point.
Just as he was about to start shouting for mercy, one of the seemingly larger stars ahead flickered abnormally.
His voice caught in his throat, Han Xuhan watched dumbfoundedly as the star slowly got larger and larger.
"Is that thing coming closer or getting bigger?"
Han Xuhan was forced to stand still as the light got large enough to block his vision of the rest of the stars far away. He couldn't even turn his face away from it.
Soon, the light enveloped him, blinding his vision for a moment.
When he realized he could see properly once more, Han Xuhan gasped.
A milky white, semi-transparent globe now separated him from the void he had been stuck in. He could still see the starlight twinkling weakly outside. His original assumption of being approached by a random star was definitely wrong. The globe that had enveloped him was connected to a cylindrical passage ahead, reaching so far in the direction the light had come from that Xuhan couldn't see what was on the other side of the passage.
"Wait, I can see colors?" Han Xuhan instantly looked down...and saw nothing except the round bottom of the white globe.
"Where is my body?!!!"
Other than his sight, hearing, and consciousness, no other part of his body seemed to be present here. Yet he could still feel the sensation of having limbs, but they still felt too heavy to move.
Looking around, he couldn't find any light source inside the globe. So how was he 'seeing' anything here?
To his eyes, this globe he was caged in was as bright as a room illuminated by high-voltage lightbulbs.
"Maybe this really is a dream...that's right. Only a dream could be this illogical. It makes sense that this doesn't make sense anymore.
Maybe if I try hard enough, my brain will produce a Gundam colossus. After all, it's MY dream-"
"I'm afraid not."
A grave, disembodied voice had come from the tunnel ahead and interrupted Xuhan's musings.
Thousands of curses ran through Xuhan's mind as he processed those words. He recognized the voice!
"Yooo...fancy meeting you here, Brother Bondage Boy. So, you outta jail now?" Xuhan asked nervously.
"...."
An awkward silence stretched on between the two parties. Han Xuhan racked his brain trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. It actually didn't require much thinking, now that the most important question- 'who had brought him here' had been answered.
"Heh, I expected you to deny your identity and take up that Shen Kai's name again, if I'm being honest. How come you're so cooperative today, Brother Xuhan?" Brother BB finally replied.
"Ah well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? The only reason I could be here, a place seemingly under your control, is because of that law seal in my dao base. And if I remember correctly, the mechanism behind the leaderboard in there somehow dug out my real name. Granted, nobody saw it at that time. But with you being the boss of that place, it shouldn't be difficult to get your hands on those details," Han Xuhan explained patiently.
For some reason, he always ended up taking the role of a talkative expert whenever this guy was around. Han Xuhan couldn't fathom why.
"Be that as may, I'm actually not your brother BB. That person was taken away by a higher faction's emissary, to a higher-grade world. It's me, your friend Qian Yun."
Han Xuhan didn't respond for quite a while before starting to laugh out loud.
"You know what, Brother Bottled Brainworm? Your humor definitely got an upgrade. Last time we had a chat like this, you proved yourself to be quite a disgrace to all the gentlemen cultivators out there by refusing to explain your motives. I mean, who does that?
"And now, you want me to trust your words again? Nice try. Try harder next time. Maybe cook up a good story to sell the lie. I love good stories. Your current one is terrible; zero point five stars...out of ten."
"Wait, I thought brother BB was short for Banished Brat."
"Of course not. It means Beleaguered Bastard."
"....What proof do I need to give you in order to make you believe my words?" Brother BB finally gave up and asked.
"Don't be such a clown, fellow cultivator! Look, I won't believe you regardless of the clues you feed me. So can we just skip this part of the conversation and get to the point? I am open to discussions, just not pointless ones. Tell me what's going on here. I promise to cooperate."
"Okay, if that is what you wish; have it your way." The voice from the other end of the tunnel sighed.
"You're now trapped within a realm separate from the rest of the world, a courtesy of the law seal in your dao base. Really, you should have done your best to destroy the seal even if it meant crippling your own cultivation. Now you're at the mercy of whoever is in charge of the Holy Land of Laws, and that's me."
Brother BB stopped speaking to let the weight of his words sink in Xuhan's heart.
"How did I get in here, exactly?" Han Xuhan asked curiously, not letting any trace of fear crawl into his tone.
"I summoned you, or more accurately, a certain aspect of your existence, like your soul, through the seal. It's very easy. Happens to be one of major functions of the seal. This was one of the way to keep the new disciples of the Holy Land in line as well as weed out any imposters."
Han Xuhan found himself having flashbacks of Yuen Zhou's lecture. She had mentioned the ancient Law Manipulators taking up a great number of safety precautions while passing on their legacy. He had been curious to know what those precautions were.
Could this be something similar?
What a terrible way to find that out!
But just as he was about to speak, another thought jolted his mind.
He hadn't been the only one whose dao base was infiltrated by the seal. Sect master Xuan Zi had assured him that the seal wasn't a threat...
A cloud of doubt rose in Xuhan's mind as he played with the strings of information he had on his hand. He felt that he was just one question away from being able to formulate a rough picture.
"Brother BB, did you summon Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou as well?"
"As far as I can tell, the law seals in their dao base no longer function. I'm certain that they have found a way to deal with the issue. In fact, your martial sister Yuen Zhou dealt with hers just a few hours ago. Missed the opportunity to summon her by just an hour. Frankly, it was a surprise to me that you didn't deal with something this risky even faster than them. Did your sect master not deal with the issue himself? Or did you hide it from him?"
The veil of schemes became slightly more transparent as Han Xuhan connected the dots.
Of course, now it all made sense in a more logical way. Mu Ran wouldn't lack the means to deal with the seal. As for Yuen Zhou...a few hours before was the time when she had somehow summoned the heavenly tribulation to make breakthrough during their lecture on law manipulation!
Sect master Xuan Zi had told him that removing the seal was something only a heavenly tribulation could naturally do, more specifically, the tribulation between the physique transformation realm and the soul reformation realm.
Yuen Zhou definitely hadn't reached that level of cultivation yet. Which meant that she had to artificially summon a tribulation, and that's where the lecture came into the picture.
But why use such a high-profile method? It had attracted the attention of all the elders and the sect master himself. She could have just gone outside the sect to some deserted place and pulled the stunt. Or was there a more indistinct agenda involved?
Shelving those thoughts for another day, Xuhan focused on the issue at hand. Brother BB had started speaking again.
"Now that we're clear on the fact that you are in fact, at my mercy here and I can keep you locked up here until your main body dies, I'll get to the point. If you agree to work for me, there would be no need to go through such drama. Simply swear a heavenly oath and I can let you off."
Han Xuhan started howling in laughter as soon as he heard the offer.
"What's so funny, brother Xuhan?"
"It's definitely fun to see how confident you are of yourself while lying like that. If you actually had that much power over me, we wouldn't have spent so much time on small talks, neither would you be patient enough to answer so many of my questions. Let's go through your strategy after summoning me here.
"If this place is, as you say, a frequently used, separate realm where disciples of the Holy Land could be controlled and examined, the number of hours I had to wait after being summoned here don't make sense. Who has that much time to waste? Why didn't you appear sooner? It's not as if you were literally travelling through the stars to get here. Why would it take you hours to finally talk to me?
"I don't think I need to explain that the waiting part was a likely a simple intimidation technique. Since the moment I have appeared here, you've done everything in your power to make me feel less and less safe. From telling me repeatedly that I was at your mercy and indirectly hinting that my martial siblings backstabbed me and finally hammering in the final nails through sheer bullshit, all of these would be totally unnecessary if you really were that powerful as you describe yourself to be. We've seen perfectly well how you conduct business back inside the Holy Land, when we were at your mercy.
"So let's just ignore all of those little mischief on your part, fellow cultivator. I'm a magnanimous man. I'll just treat it as a childish prank. Now why don't you tell me about this deal you're trying to offer me? And do change the conditions of the deal slightly if you want me to accept it. Equal parties, equal benefits, hmm?"
Brother BB fell silent. Han Xuhan patiently waited. He wasn't actually sure if the other party had more insidious cards to play, but this was the best he could achieve right now.
"Fine. The deal is very simple. You supply me with cultivation resources, I'll trade for those with cultivation manuals, information about higher level worlds, training methods for law techniques, anything that you can think of along those lines, provided that they're of same value. Just like the deal we made back inside the Holy Land, remember?"
Han Xuhan snorted in disbelief.
"You lack cultivation resources? How am I even supposed to provide a soul reformation level cultivator with resources? I mean, I'm rich, but not that rich!"
"I told you I'm Qian Yun. You only need to provide me with resources for a few cultivators in the physique transformation realm. How you do it is none of my business. All I care about is efficiency and speed. In turn you get all of those perks I just told you of. Do we have a deal?"
Staring suspiciously at the tunnel ahead, Han Xuhan contemplated the choice for a long time before answering.
"Can't see why I should refuse. We do, fellow cultivator."
"Whoa...am I really in a lucid dream?" Han Xuhan wondered aloud as he took in the bizarre scene in front of him.
"Mm-hmm, the last thing I remember is definitely going to sleep. This has got to be a dream. No, wait a minute, I almost forgot what sort of world I live in..."
Heart mired in suspicion, Han Xuhan gazed at the countless flickering stars shining amidst the infinite stretch of darkness ahead. He couldn't see his own body due to the darkness, but he could still feel his limbs, although the sensation was quite dull. His body felt weightless, as if suspended in space. The whole situation was fishy, to say the least.
"The dao of meta verdicts that no dream in a cultivation world is normal. My actual dreams would never make me feel such clarity. And it would definitely not be so peaceful.
What do I gotta do now? Do I just sit and wait?"
His question was greeted by nothing but silence. Bored out of his mind, Xuhan could only keep wondering what could have caused this anomalous situation.
Could it be someone from the sect, trying to ambush him? But he hadn't really done anything to be targeted...That heavenly tribulation was entirely Yuen Zhou's fault. Who else...
Has that expert who had wiped out Pine Town finally made his move? After an entire month?
Had he been wiped off the face of the planet like that town too?
Not knowing what to do, Xuhan waited. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes stretched into hours. Even though there was no way to tell the time, Xuhan could still guess that at least several hours had gone by.
In the vast, empty space, Xuhan started to panic.
He couldn't move, couldn't see anything except the star-studded sky, couldn't discern where he was...the passing time felt like torture at this point.
Just as he was about to start shouting for mercy, one of the seemingly larger stars ahead flickered abnormally.
His voice caught in his throat, Han Xuhan watched dumbfoundedly as the star slowly got larger and larger.
"Is that thing coming closer or getting bigger?"
Han Xuhan was forced to stand still as the light got large enough to block his vision of the rest of the stars far away. He couldn't even turn his face away from it.
Soon, the light enveloped him, blinding his vision for a moment.
When he realized he could see properly once more, Han Xuhan gasped.
A milky white, semi-transparent globe now separated him from the void he had been stuck in. He could still see the starlight twinkling weakly outside. His original assumption of being approached by a random star was definitely wrong. The globe that had enveloped him was connected to a cylindrical passage ahead, reaching so far in the direction the light had come from that Xuhan couldn't see what was on the other side of the passage.
"Wait, I can see colors?" Han Xuhan instantly looked down...and saw nothing except the round bottom of the white globe.
"Where is my body?!!!"
Other than his sight, hearing, and consciousness, no other part of his body seemed to be present here. Yet he could still feel the sensation of having limbs, but they still felt too heavy to move.
Looking around, he couldn't find any light source inside the globe. So how was he 'seeing' anything here?
To his eyes, this globe he was caged in was as bright as a room illuminated by high-voltage lightbulbs.
"Maybe this really is a dream...that's right. Only a dream could be this illogical. It makes sense that this doesn't make sense anymore.
Maybe if I try hard enough, my brain will produce a Gundam colossus. After all, it's MY dream-"
"I'm afraid not."
A grave, disembodied voice had come from the tunnel ahead and interrupted Xuhan's musings.
Thousands of curses ran through Xuhan's mind as he processed those words. He recognized the voice!
"Yooo...fancy meeting you here, Brother Bondage Boy. So, you outta jail now?" Xuhan asked nervously.
"...."
An awkward silence stretched on between the two parties. Han Xuhan racked his brain trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. It actually didn't require much thinking, now that the most important question- 'who had brought him here' had been answered.
"Heh, I expected you to deny your identity and take up that Shen Kai's name again, if I'm being honest. How come you're so cooperative today, Brother Xuhan?" Brother BB finally replied.
"Ah well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? The only reason I could be here, a place seemingly under your control, is because of that law seal in my dao base. And if I remember correctly, the mechanism behind the leaderboard in there somehow dug out my real name. Granted, nobody saw it at that time. But with you being the boss of that place, it shouldn't be difficult to get your hands on those details," Han Xuhan explained patiently.
For some reason, he always ended up taking the role of a talkative expert whenever this guy was around. Han Xuhan couldn't fathom why.
"Be that as may, I'm actually not your brother BB. That person was taken away by a higher faction's emissary, to a higher-grade world. It's me, your friend Qian Yun."
Han Xuhan didn't respond for quite a while before starting to laugh out loud.
"You know what, Brother Bottled Brainworm? Your humor definitely got an upgrade. Last time we had a chat like this, you proved yourself to be quite a disgrace to all the gentlemen cultivators out there by refusing to explain your motives. I mean, who does that?
"And now, you want me to trust your words again? Nice try. Try harder next time. Maybe cook up a good story to sell the lie. I love good stories. Your current one is terrible; zero point five stars...out of ten."
"Wait, I thought brother BB was short for Banished Brat."
"Of course not. It means Beleaguered Bastard."
"....What proof do I need to give you in order to make you believe my words?" Brother BB finally gave up and asked.
"Don't be such a clown, fellow cultivator! Look, I won't believe you regardless of the clues you feed me. So can we just skip this part of the conversation and get to the point? I am open to discussions, just not pointless ones. Tell me what's going on here. I promise to cooperate."
"Okay, if that is what you wish; have it your way." The voice from the other end of the tunnel sighed.
"You're now trapped within a realm separate from the rest of the world, a courtesy of the law seal in your dao base. Really, you should have done your best to destroy the seal even if it meant crippling your own cultivation. Now you're at the mercy of whoever is in charge of the Holy Land of Laws, and that's me."
Brother BB stopped speaking to let the weight of his words sink in Xuhan's heart.
"How did I get in here, exactly?" Han Xuhan asked curiously, not letting any trace of fear crawl into his tone.
"I summoned you, or more accurately, a certain aspect of your existence, like your soul, through the seal. It's very easy. Happens to be one of major functions of the seal. This was one of the way to keep the new disciples of the Holy Land in line as well as weed out any imposters."
Han Xuhan found himself having flashbacks of Yuen Zhou's lecture. She had mentioned the ancient Law Manipulators taking up a great number of safety precautions while passing on their legacy. He had been curious to know what those precautions were.
Could this be something similar?
What a terrible way to find that out!
But just as he was about to speak, another thought jolted his mind.
He hadn't been the only one whose dao base was infiltrated by the seal. Sect master Xuan Zi had assured him that the seal wasn't a threat...
A cloud of doubt rose in Xuhan's mind as he played with the strings of information he had on his hand. He felt that he was just one question away from being able to formulate a rough picture.
"Brother BB, did you summon Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou as well?"
"As far as I can tell, the law seals in their dao base no longer function. I'm certain that they have found a way to deal with the issue. In fact, your martial sister Yuen Zhou dealt with hers just a few hours ago. Missed the opportunity to summon her by just an hour. Frankly, it was a surprise to me that you didn't deal with something this risky even faster than them. Did your sect master not deal with the issue himself? Or did you hide it from him?"
The veil of schemes became slightly more transparent as Han Xuhan connected the dots.
Of course, now it all made sense in a more logical way. Mu Ran wouldn't lack the means to deal with the seal. As for Yuen Zhou...a few hours before was the time when she had somehow summoned the heavenly tribulation to make breakthrough during their lecture on law manipulation!
Sect master Xuan Zi had told him that removing the seal was something only a heavenly tribulation could naturally do, more specifically, the tribulation between the physique transformation realm and the soul reformation realm.
Yuen Zhou definitely hadn't reached that level of cultivation yet. Which meant that she had to artificially summon a tribulation, and that's where the lecture came into the picture.
But why use such a high-profile method? It had attracted the attention of all the elders and the sect master himself. She could have just gone outside the sect to some deserted place and pulled the stunt. Or was there a more indistinct agenda involved?
Shelving those thoughts for another day, Xuhan focused on the issue at hand. Brother BB had started speaking again.
"Now that we're clear on the fact that you are in fact, at my mercy here and I can keep you locked up here until your main body dies, I'll get to the point. If you agree to work for me, there would be no need to go through such drama. Simply swear a heavenly oath and I can let you off."
Han Xuhan started howling in laughter as soon as he heard the offer.
"What's so funny, brother Xuhan?"
"It's definitely fun to see how confident you are of yourself while lying like that. If you actually had that much power over me, we wouldn't have spent so much time on small talks, neither would you be patient enough to answer so many of my questions. Let's go through your strategy after summoning me here.
"If this place is, as you say, a frequently used, separate realm where disciples of the Holy Land could be controlled and examined, the number of hours I had to wait after being summoned here don't make sense. Who has that much time to waste? Why didn't you appear sooner? It's not as if you were literally travelling through the stars to get here. Why would it take you hours to finally talk to me?
"I don't think I need to explain that the waiting part was a likely a simple intimidation technique. Since the moment I have appeared here, you've done everything in your power to make me feel less and less safe. From telling me repeatedly that I was at your mercy and indirectly hinting that my martial siblings backstabbed me and finally hammering in the final nails through sheer bullshit, all of these would be totally unnecessary if you really were that powerful as you describe yourself to be. We've seen perfectly well how you conduct business back inside the Holy Land, when we were at your mercy.
"So let's just ignore all of those little mischief on your part, fellow cultivator. I'm a magnanimous man. I'll just treat it as a childish prank. Now why don't you tell me about this deal you're trying to offer me? And do change the conditions of the deal slightly if you want me to accept it. Equal parties, equal benefits, hmm?"
Brother BB fell silent. Han Xuhan patiently waited. He wasn't actually sure if the other party had more insidious cards to play, but this was the best he could achieve right now.
"Fine. The deal is very simple. You supply me with cultivation resources, I'll trade for those with cultivation manuals, information about higher level worlds, training methods for law techniques, anything that you can think of along those lines, provided that they're of same value. Just like the deal we made back inside the Holy Land, remember?"
Han Xuhan snorted in disbelief.
"You lack cultivation resources? How am I even supposed to provide a soul reformation level cultivator with resources? I mean, I'm rich, but not that rich!"
"I told you I'm Qian Yun. You only need to provide me with resources for a few cultivators in the physique transformation realm. How you do it is none of my business. All I care about is efficiency and speed. In turn you get all of those perks I just told you of. Do we have a deal?"
Staring suspiciously at the tunnel ahead, Han Xuhan contemplated the choice for a long time before answering.
"Can't see why I should refuse. We do, fellow cultivator."
