V5C62: Making the Lightless Domain
Wei Yi’s spiritual perception could naturally see something that was occurring only a few minutes of walking away, and as much as her primal side enjoyed viewing something like that, she was getting all the more concerned about herself and her effects upon others.
She had anticipated that Sarah’s request would not conclude without any effects upon either person involved, but she was significantly more on the mark than she had wanted to be. Part of the trouble was that she still lacked an understanding of what was the result of her own body and characteristics, what was due to the other person’s preferences, and what, if anything, was influenced by her mysterious Dao of Lust, which had fortunately not advanced in stage since the last time she took a look at it within the Truth of the Universe’s display.
With her Dao of Law, she could tell if she had incidentally had an effect on the world around her, and judge what to do about it. Sometimes, it was convenient to her, sometimes it was greatly beneficial, and in a few cases it was neither, at which point she would attempt to correct whatever issue it caused. She couldn’t do that with the Dao of Lust, and it was still as bothersome as when she first realised that the possibility of manipulating everyone – well, the women, at least – around her through it was present, no matter how slim or unlikely. When she obtained the vision state of the Eldritch Dao, she was able to seal it because she understood it to a certain extent, but she did not know what the Dao of Lust truly was, and thus had nothing to base any attempts to seal it on.
This lack of knowledge was her greatest foe in far too many regards, aside from just the Dao of Lust and seemingly charming every woman she had some physical interest in, but she would love to know whether Sarah had just awakened to something or whether Wei Yi had affected her mind and body in a way that she had not meant to do.
After all, the distinction between natural effects, like arousing someone based on one’s appearance, and those that she considered to be beyond that label, like the power of a Dao that she hadn’t even wanted to acquire, also needed to be clearly defined, at least in her own mind. If she had not involved a Dao at all, intentionally or otherwise, then is the way in which Sarah seems to have become fascinated with her a negative that she needs to get worried about?
Was the use of Dao in an unintentional manner wrong, either? What if someone had a Dao’s influence, was unaware of it, and ended up affecting the minds of a whole bunch of people in the same way that a convincing speaker, attractive model or an inspiring leader might, perhaps also unknowingly? Is one of those wrong, are all of them wrong, or is everything perfectly acceptable? How could an answer even be obtained when the people that should be best to ask about such a thing, the ones that may fall victim to the influence of some uncontrollable characteristic, already under its effect, and thus unable to display proper judgement?
‘Well, if going on nothing but precedent, then it should be fine, even if it leads to me getting a fourth child in the future… I am concerned, but if I don’t stop giving it as much of my attention, I’ll end up just as distracted as Sarah had been while standing here.’
Her thoughts could pass by a lot quicker, of course, which was why she could go through a short novel’s worth of contemplation in the same time that Sarah Wilson figured out whether it would be a good idea to remain while she was acting in a similar manner to a blushing girl who had just experienced her first kiss, and now couldn’t stop thinking about it. Instead, she looked back at Monique, who did not appear to have realised her distraction.
After Sarah had brought Wei Yi over to this otherworldly demon, Wei Yi had learnt her name, the nature of her otherworldly gift, as well as the things she had been getting up to in the Dimensional Domain. Her gift was one that combined two of her passions from her original world, although one was much more of a passion than the other – exercise, which she did on the weekends to keep herself fit, and painting, which was both her job, hobby, and something that she loved with all her heart, to the point of it consuming much of her life and leaving her with far less contact with others than she may have liked.
Now that she was in the Planar Continents, in a small community of those with similar fates in a range of ways, she had decided to amend that, encouraged to some extent by the otherworldly gift she had.
“I think it’s called Body Artistry, and I think you can see why…” the woman lifted her shirt and showed a number of patterns drawn onto her belly, their meandering lines and random turns and straights making it difficult to find any particular purpose in them.
According to her, they would appear as she trained her body, whether by simple jogging or intensive exercise, but she could also draw them in order to accelerate her physical development. According to some logic that she hadn’t fully understood, there would never be too many of these patterns on her body at once, so she didn’t look like a walking art piece while wearing something even remotely concealing.
It had an effect on her planar cultivation as well, but it was minor enough that she decided it was worth the risk to keep using it actively. Before she knew it, she had gotten to the fourth stage of Planar Pool, having started in the first, so it was lucky that the Ascendant had come along when she had, or else she might have easily climbed onto further realms and had ideas of becoming the world’s leading athlete by violent means, or something similar. The woman did have enough sense to tone down her workout routine once she noticed that her cultivation was rising more quickly than she had thought it would, so it had only advanced by a stage since the first month of her living in the Dimensional Domain.
“How much of your body have you covered with those?”
“Everything that isn’t covered by my most open clothes, which are these ones,” she answered, “I don’t mind the patterns that much, but it’s still a little weird to put them out there… I wasn’t the type to have tattoos back on Orbis, and I don’t think that I want to change that here.”
“I see. What kind of art did you usually do, then? Landscapes, portraits?”
“Landscapes, mostly. Would you like to have a look? You could also meet with Lilian, who-”
“Makes good cakes, right? Sarah had mentioned her already. I don’t have any interest in meeting her specifically, but I will need to speak with every single person living here, so we might as well meet up while she is around. I had once promised to remove the azure lights from all of you, so that you may cultivate freely, and I intend to keep that promise.”
“Remove them… From my understanding, that will weaken the otherworldly gift things, right?”
“That is correct. Their abilities will mostly recover as you reach a higher realm, though, so just think of it as changing from a static, powerful ability to one that can grow to, potentially, an even higher level than the original one.”
“Really?”
“The azure lights are still limited in what they can do, that much I am certain of. However, it is not impossible for you to go beyond the limits of the world, to ascend to a higher level of power. Whether you somehow integrate the power of the otherworldly gift, or simply use your own strength to empower them further, it will almost inevitably bring you greater benefits than simply allowing the azure light to force you onto a path.”
“Well, you’re more of the expert, so I’ll trust you on that. Shall I lead you to my home?” she asked, “I’m pretty much done with my jog anyway.”
“Please do.”
“Ah, Monique! You’re… ah, it’s… uh…”
“Ascendant, or Wei Yi.”
“Right, my apologies. Would you like a cake?” Lilian asked, holding up one such cake while also staring upon it with such hungry eyes that one might assume that she had not eaten within the last decade, despite that clearly not being the case when one looked behind her.
There, in what should have been Monique’s kitchen, were five plates with traces of various crumbs, icing and what not that must have been cleared recently, for everything was still fresh, moist and warm.
“You can have it, if Monique doesn’t want it.”
“No thank you.”
“Alright then, I’ll have this one too!” she exclaimed, immediately confirming the earlier guess by removing a slice of cake and swallowing the whole of it as if she had just breathed in some air in cake form. The visual was slightly more ordinary, but that didn’t stop both Wei Yi and Monique from being slightly concerned about Lilian’s wellbeing.
“Is this the only thing you eat?”
“You mean cakes? No, I eat other things too, it’s just… They’re too good! You have to try even a little bit, and then you’ll understand!”
“I doubt it… but if you are willing to give me a bit, I will try it.”
She almost instantly received a slice of cake, which she had to convince the woman to reduce to just an amount that would fit on a fork, at which point she put the piece of cake into her mouth and, against her better judgement, hoped to feel even a bit of taste upon her tongue. That would make it the first food item that she had tasted since her imprisonment in the Kong Prison Realm had robbed her of the ability to taste food, and it would certainly be a pleasant experience, even if she tended to be able to taste the lips of others quite often.
Of course, even though the cake was made through an otherworldly gift, the cake itself was not an otherworldly item. It might have been the most delicious cake in the world, in the entire universe, but she could not taste a thing.
“As I thought, my sense of taste won’t return just because of this. You can keep the rest of the cake if you wish, although I don’t know what else you would do with it.”
“Oh, there are plenty of people around here that like my cakes. They’ll gladly eat them if I offer them, so the moment that I have had enough – and there comes a time when I’ve had enough, since they are all quite sweet and filling no matter how otherwise delicious they are – I tend to let everyone else have a go. Somehow, they eat far less than I do.”
“That’s because your portions are rather abnormal.”
“No they’re not. How much do you usually eat a day?”
“I didn’t say I was an example of a reasonable diet, for most, but I eat nothing at all. I have no sense of taste, I have an almost constant level of energy thanks to planar energy and physique energy, primarily, and I don’t ever really have the want or need to eat or drink normally, so I don’t do so.”
Lilian’s eyes widened, “You… you can’t be human, can you?”
“I am.”
“But that’s not possible! Everyone loves cakes!”
“That’s your problem… Anyway, how much of an effect does your otherworldly gift have on your production of cakes? Once you lose it, will that ability be completely compromised?”
“I’m decent enough at cakes, I guess, but… wait, don’t you change the subject!”
“Maybe after I remove the azure light from your body. It seems to be somewhere in your right palm, so give it here,” Wei Yi instructed, and Lilian gave it to her before she was able to give it much thought, allowing the Ascendant to hold her hand tightly once she began to reconsider, “This will hurt a little, but far less so due to the position within your body. If you scream, you might want to keep it down a little, but otherwise I don’t care what you do or do not do.”
Then, without any further delay, she activated the Purifier’s Seal and focused it upon the odd spot in the woman’s hand. So far, her method of detecting the azure lights had proven to be extremely reliable, and as she used it once more, she confirmed that it still was. Right away, the chosen parameter for the Purifier’s Seal was detected, and a point in the woman’s hand visibly heated up.
A point of azure light emerged from her skin, and was warded off the moment after via the Truth of the Universe. To the eyes of the other two, it seemed like a vast blast of power forced that azure thing away, and since it was a misunderstanding that not only she had, but that was also quite beneficial to her image, so she didn’t bother correcting it at all. For any of the otherworldly demons to figure it out would be rather unlikely, but even if they did, it would take decades of study and contemplation in order to reach a similar level to her own, so the conflict with the Great Leeches would be near conclusion by that point.
Furthermore, it was hardly her fault if others misinterpreted her actions, so she wasn’t too concerned about negative consequences from this.
“Is… is it done? Do I not have that azure light thing anymore?”
“No, you no longer have an azure light. You might say that your otherworldly gift is now lightless, and so your cakes will be slightly less tasty until you either cultivate to a higher realm, or figure out exactly what had been making them taste good and replicate it on your own,” Wei Yi explained.
“Oh… oh no, I need to run! Sorry, Monique, I’ll speak with you later!” the woman exclaimed and ran off without another word.
Thus, Wei Yi and Monique were left alone within the latter’s residence.
“What?” the latter had to ask, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“I suspect, although I may be wrong, that she is rather worried about the state of her cakes, and so- oh, she’s just now feeling the burn in her hand. She could’ve stuck around and let me heal her a little, but I suppose I forgot to mention that…” Wei Yi muttered, “Presumably, once she verified how good or bad her cakes will now be, she will either return or stay there and improve her craft until it reaches some old standard.”
“You can… right, you should be able to see that all the way from here with your abilities. Is it time for me to go through the same thing, then?”
“Yes. Come here, and don’t mind me getting near your breast. The azure light is residing there.”
Although she acted completely nonchalant about this, her energy was being used up quickly with each instance of azure light separation and then banishment, with the Truth of the Universe characters devouring her energy as quickly as Lilian had devoured the cakes. Using her nascent rift and rapid recovery from the other cultivation paths, she was able to sustain semi-rapid usage of the azure light repulsion array, but since she was about to use it for the third time in just an hour, with her characters still needing more energy than her planar pool was able to fit.
She could remove the azure light from Monique’s otherworldly gift, but if she wished to go through the entirety of the Dimensional Domain’s residents and make all of their gifts lightless, then she would spend another day just on that and recovering energy.
‘There are people I can catch up with here, so it isn’t that bad, but using my time a little more actively would be preferable after this. If I waste too much time, the Great Leeches will recover and attack again, so I should strike before they have the chance to do the same,’ she concluded while activating the Purifier’s Seal and seeing her Arm scatter into naught while the azure light hidden within the otherworldly demon’s body emerged.
Once more the characters arranged themselves into the array, and once more the azure light was sent off to some unknown place.
The moment that her Arm had scattered and the array within her body had begun to calm, Monique put a hand on her chest and clenched her teeth, clearly trying to restrain a cry of pain. She managed it, albeit barely, and all that did emerge was a bit of smoke from within her body, caused by the melting of flesh.
“… Ow. That was… not pleasant.”
“It isn’t meant to be. I am literally melting the otherworldly gift, alongside your body around it, and extracting the azure light, before I then banish it with one of my methods. If they weren’t so much of a problem, I wouldn’t need to get rid of them, and they could just be called an innate physique or something of the sort – aside from the two being entirely different, of course, but that is beside the point,” the Ascendant said, “You’re going to need to experiment with your otherworldly gift as well, but it shouldn’t impede you much if you just keep jogging every now and then, regardless of the effect.”
“I may do more if it isn’t dangerous to me anymore. Well, we originally came here to look at my paintings, right?”
“That’s correct. Are you in the condition to show them to me?”
“Yes, I should be… there’s a strange feeling, like something’s pressing down on my heart just a little bit. Is that normal, or have I got some kind of heart condition from this?” Monique asked, grasping her chest.
“You should be fine. The otherworldly gift had been rather close to the heart, so I must have affected it as a result. It should get better within a short while, but to make it happen even faster…” Wei Yi put her right hand on her chest this time and applied the physique ability of Vitality Siphon to move over some of her overwhelming and overflowing lifeforce into the otherworldly demon, focusing it upon the region within which the otherworldly gift resided.
There was little difference, but Monique’s expression clearly changed to that of relief, so there had to be some benefit for the woman. As such, the Ascendant waited until she could be certain that there was nothing more to be achieved with lifeforce, then stopped providing it and moved her hand back, making sure to heal the slight mark she left upon her skin with the tip of the star metal gauntlet. As of late, she had stopped bothering to put up a protective barrier to stop others from being hurt by it – and didn’t need to do so with herself, as there were always claws on her left hand and the gauntlet was usually present on the right, which meant that she had adjusted to touching herself or any personal belongings in such a way as to not damage them – and it showed, what with the number of people she had already poked with the tip of her claws.
“That did feel significantly more comfortable. Alright, let me show you some of my work, and then… Is that a cake? Did Lilian leave one of her cakes? Oh no, now we will also need to deal with all of this…”
“Later.”
The Ascendant prompted her towards the small art gallery that she had detected within the house long ago, while quietly putting up a small illusion array around the cake so that it would distract the otherworldly woman from it. She was perfectly fine with her doing anything with the cake later on, whether it would be used well or wasted completely, even if it was something she found unpleasant (with her frequent glances into people’s minds, she came across plenty of things that fit that label, and a few had included various baked products) but ideally not now.
Rather than wasting her time while she recovered her energy and refilled the Truth of the Universe, she would prefer to look at a bunch of paintings, learn the kind of art that her world had led her to create, and study the nature of the people that she now had under her leadership thanks to the existence of the Dimensional Domain.
Also, it would grant her the perfect chance to consider changing the name to the Lightless Domain instead, as it would suit the new nature of the nation far more.
The small art gallery was located on the other side of the residence, which was large enough for her to be able to label it as a small mansion, which was the case with most homes within the Domain. There was plenty of space and only around a hundred people residing there, so there were no issues at all with taking up as much empty space as possible. On the contrary, the more they occupied, the easier it would be to connect the three districts it sat between even without the use of her spatial gateways.
While she and the Kong Prison Realm were still around, there was no need to worry about such a thing, but only temporarily. After enough time passed, the spatial gateways would become the main methods of transportation for all those that do not want to waste days traversing the dangerous wilds, and then they would be rather crowded and busy at almost all times of the day.
Having an alternative route, on which one may access the services of a group of people with incredible abilities and ideas rarely seen in other parts of the Planar Continents, would certainly be beneficial to many travellers, merchants, warriors and whoever else chose to travel between districts. There were plenty of people like this, and eventually they would allow the various cultures of the otherworldly demons to merge to a certain extent with that of Yi City’s various districts, ideally allowing the better parts of both to remain while the rest was forgotten about over time. Since she had less experience with the world of Orbis, she couldn’t say that she found most aspects of its culture preferable, but perhaps she had not yet seen the better parts.
Wherever those better parts were, she had a hard time deciding whether the paintings before her fit that label. If nothing else, they were certainly made well and without major flaws.
Monique had chosen to paint a series of images, and most were depicting green rolling hills and trees, with a soft blue sky above and some mountains or lakes in the distance. Focus was put on the individual blades of grass to the same extent as on the distant features, allowing every part of the image to contain sufficient detail. It did certainly look pleasant enough, that much she could say with certainty.
Wei Yi had never spent too much time looking at art, whether it was painted, sculpted, or something else, and so she had little to compare this to. This was made even more challenging by the fact that almost all paintings in the Planar Continents would involve planar energy, materials, and the great arts to some extent, as there was very little reason to be interested in a painting otherwise. Most of the time, the effects of a painting would be far inferior to a specialised item of a great art, but their added aesthetic appeal allowed them to be popular in the homes of those that could afford them.
It was hard to say whether this should be taken into account when judging the images, and so she could find little more to do than provide a shrug as a reaction to the paintings presented to her. If nothing else, their creator seemed to like them.
“This one was based on what I had seen when I had come to in this world! Look, the grass was being blown about in the wind and looked gorgeous! I had tried to memorise exactly what it looked like, but I couldn’t quite get all the details right… I think. Obviously, since I don’t remember it all, I can’t remember what it was that I had gotten right or wrong…”
“Uh-huh. Why have you never painted anything from your world?”
“Haven’t I?” Monique asked rather calmly at first, but when she took another careful look at every one of her creations, her eyes widened ever so slightly, “Wait, I swear I would have made something… I couldn’t have forgotten to make a painting of the Great Shard, or of…”
“This does happen occasionally.”
“W-What does? Memory problems?”
“Those too. Something about the process of being thrown into another world is, surprisingly enough, not ideal for you. That tends to lead to certain memories and ideas seeming to exist, but completely fading from the mind until you suddenly cannot recall them at all when prompted. One woman I knew had lost her name entirely, and she perished not long afterwards…” seeing that the otherworldly demon was clearly misunderstanding, she clarified, “The death wasn’t directly related, so don’t worry about that. I’d advise you to spend some time remembering everything that you think should be obvious, like that Great Shard, and encourage others to do the same.”
“Could we still remember things like this if we have forgotten them? I mean, there’s only so much that needs to be remembered about most towers and monuments, but if we have nothing, then we have nothing.”
“You have something, however. There is still some memory of the thing itself, and so it has not vanished from your mind entirely. Unlike the name of the woman I had mentioned, you know the name of the thing that you recall, and that it is located in a particular nation with a particular style. Even if the actual thing cannot be remembered, create something in its spirit.”
“Would that be good enough, though?”
“It will bring your thoughts back to the world you have lost, and even if the images of old are not returned to your mind, at least the others will be able to bring their minds back as well. Perhaps when you put many images together, things you have lost will return to you, or perhaps they will serve as inspiration for those of this world and allow you to share your ideas and culture with the Planar Continents even if the key monuments cannot be displayed or replicated.”
“… Yeah, that might be good. I’ll get to painting right away! Please, don’t stop me, or else I will lose this inspiration!”
‘Eh… Sure, I’ll just go then… Everyone has to run off when I help them, don’t they?’
V5C62: Making the Lightless Domain
Wei Yi’s spiritual perception could naturally see something that was occurring only a few minutes of walking away, and as much as her primal side enjoyed viewing something like that, she was getting all the more concerned about herself and her effects upon others.
She had anticipated that Sarah’s request would not conclude without any effects upon either person involved, but she was significantly more on the mark than she had wanted to be. Part of the trouble was that she still lacked an understanding of what was the result of her own body and characteristics, what was due to the other person’s preferences, and what, if anything, was influenced by her mysterious Dao of Lust, which had fortunately not advanced in stage since the last time she took a look at it within the Truth of the Universe’s display.
With her Dao of Law, she could tell if she had incidentally had an effect on the world around her, and judge what to do about it. Sometimes, it was convenient to her, sometimes it was greatly beneficial, and in a few cases it was neither, at which point she would attempt to correct whatever issue it caused. She couldn’t do that with the Dao of Lust, and it was still as bothersome as when she first realised that the possibility of manipulating everyone – well, the women, at least – around her through it was present, no matter how slim or unlikely. When she obtained the vision state of the Eldritch Dao, she was able to seal it because she understood it to a certain extent, but she did not know what the Dao of Lust truly was, and thus had nothing to base any attempts to seal it on.
This lack of knowledge was her greatest foe in far too many regards, aside from just the Dao of Lust and seemingly charming every woman she had some physical interest in, but she would love to know whether Sarah had just awakened to something or whether Wei Yi had affected her mind and body in a way that she had not meant to do.
After all, the distinction between natural effects, like arousing someone based on one’s appearance, and those that she considered to be beyond that label, like the power of a Dao that she hadn’t even wanted to acquire, also needed to be clearly defined, at least in her own mind. If she had not involved a Dao at all, intentionally or otherwise, then is the way in which Sarah seems to have become fascinated with her a negative that she needs to get worried about?
Was the use of Dao in an unintentional manner wrong, either? What if someone had a Dao’s influence, was unaware of it, and ended up affecting the minds of a whole bunch of people in the same way that a convincing speaker, attractive model or an inspiring leader might, perhaps also unknowingly? Is one of those wrong, are all of them wrong, or is everything perfectly acceptable? How could an answer even be obtained when the people that should be best to ask about such a thing, the ones that may fall victim to the influence of some uncontrollable characteristic, already under its effect, and thus unable to display proper judgement?
‘Well, if going on nothing but precedent, then it should be fine, even if it leads to me getting a fourth child in the future… I am concerned, but if I don’t stop giving it as much of my attention, I’ll end up just as distracted as Sarah had been while standing here.’
Her thoughts could pass by a lot quicker, of course, which was why she could go through a short novel’s worth of contemplation in the same time that Sarah Wilson figured out whether it would be a good idea to remain while she was acting in a similar manner to a blushing girl who had just experienced her first kiss, and now couldn’t stop thinking about it. Instead, she looked back at Monique, who did not appear to have realised her distraction.
After Sarah had brought Wei Yi over to this otherworldly demon, Wei Yi had learnt her name, the nature of her otherworldly gift, as well as the things she had been getting up to in the Dimensional Domain. Her gift was one that combined two of her passions from her original world, although one was much more of a passion than the other – exercise, which she did on the weekends to keep herself fit, and painting, which was both her job, hobby, and something that she loved with all her heart, to the point of it consuming much of her life and leaving her with far less contact with others than she may have liked.
Now that she was in the Planar Continents, in a small community of those with similar fates in a range of ways, she had decided to amend that, encouraged to some extent by the otherworldly gift she had.
“I think it’s called Body Artistry, and I think you can see why…” the woman lifted her shirt and showed a number of patterns drawn onto her belly, their meandering lines and random turns and straights making it difficult to find any particular purpose in them.
According to her, they would appear as she trained her body, whether by simple jogging or intensive exercise, but she could also draw them in order to accelerate her physical development. According to some logic that she hadn’t fully understood, there would never be too many of these patterns on her body at once, so she didn’t look like a walking art piece while wearing something even remotely concealing.
It had an effect on her planar cultivation as well, but it was minor enough that she decided it was worth the risk to keep using it actively. Before she knew it, she had gotten to the fourth stage of Planar Pool, having started in the first, so it was lucky that the Ascendant had come along when she had, or else she might have easily climbed onto further realms and had ideas of becoming the world’s leading athlete by violent means, or something similar. The woman did have enough sense to tone down her workout routine once she noticed that her cultivation was rising more quickly than she had thought it would, so it had only advanced by a stage since the first month of her living in the Dimensional Domain.
“How much of your body have you covered with those?”
“Everything that isn’t covered by my most open clothes, which are these ones,” she answered, “I don’t mind the patterns that much, but it’s still a little weird to put them out there… I wasn’t the type to have tattoos back on Orbis, and I don’t think that I want to change that here.”
“I see. What kind of art did you usually do, then? Landscapes, portraits?”
“Landscapes, mostly. Would you like to have a look? You could also meet with Lilian, who-”
“Makes good cakes, right? Sarah had mentioned her already. I don’t have any interest in meeting her specifically, but I will need to speak with every single person living here, so we might as well meet up while she is around. I had once promised to remove the azure lights from all of you, so that you may cultivate freely, and I intend to keep that promise.”
“Remove them… From my understanding, that will weaken the otherworldly gift things, right?”
“That is correct. Their abilities will mostly recover as you reach a higher realm, though, so just think of it as changing from a static, powerful ability to one that can grow to, potentially, an even higher level than the original one.”
“Really?”
“The azure lights are still limited in what they can do, that much I am certain of. However, it is not impossible for you to go beyond the limits of the world, to ascend to a higher level of power. Whether you somehow integrate the power of the otherworldly gift, or simply use your own strength to empower them further, it will almost inevitably bring you greater benefits than simply allowing the azure light to force you onto a path.”
“Well, you’re more of the expert, so I’ll trust you on that. Shall I lead you to my home?” she asked, “I’m pretty much done with my jog anyway.”
“Please do.”
“Ah, Monique! You’re… ah, it’s… uh…”
“Ascendant, or Wei Yi.”
“Right, my apologies. Would you like a cake?” Lilian asked, holding up one such cake while also staring upon it with such hungry eyes that one might assume that she had not eaten within the last decade, despite that clearly not being the case when one looked behind her.
There, in what should have been Monique’s kitchen, were five plates with traces of various crumbs, icing and what not that must have been cleared recently, for everything was still fresh, moist and warm.
“You can have it, if Monique doesn’t want it.”
“No thank you.”
“Alright then, I’ll have this one too!” she exclaimed, immediately confirming the earlier guess by removing a slice of cake and swallowing the whole of it as if she had just breathed in some air in cake form. The visual was slightly more ordinary, but that didn’t stop both Wei Yi and Monique from being slightly concerned about Lilian’s wellbeing.
“Is this the only thing you eat?”
“You mean cakes? No, I eat other things too, it’s just… They’re too good! You have to try even a little bit, and then you’ll understand!”
“I doubt it… but if you are willing to give me a bit, I will try it.”
She almost instantly received a slice of cake, which she had to convince the woman to reduce to just an amount that would fit on a fork, at which point she put the piece of cake into her mouth and, against her better judgement, hoped to feel even a bit of taste upon her tongue. That would make it the first food item that she had tasted since her imprisonment in the Kong Prison Realm had robbed her of the ability to taste food, and it would certainly be a pleasant experience, even if she tended to be able to taste the lips of others quite often.
Of course, even though the cake was made through an otherworldly gift, the cake itself was not an otherworldly item. It might have been the most delicious cake in the world, in the entire universe, but she could not taste a thing.
“As I thought, my sense of taste won’t return just because of this. You can keep the rest of the cake if you wish, although I don’t know what else you would do with it.”
“Oh, there are plenty of people around here that like my cakes. They’ll gladly eat them if I offer them, so the moment that I have had enough – and there comes a time when I’ve had enough, since they are all quite sweet and filling no matter how otherwise delicious they are – I tend to let everyone else have a go. Somehow, they eat far less than I do.”
“That’s because your portions are rather abnormal.”
“No they’re not. How much do you usually eat a day?”
“I didn’t say I was an example of a reasonable diet, for most, but I eat nothing at all. I have no sense of taste, I have an almost constant level of energy thanks to planar energy and physique energy, primarily, and I don’t ever really have the want or need to eat or drink normally, so I don’t do so.”
Lilian’s eyes widened, “You… you can’t be human, can you?”
“I am.”
“But that’s not possible! Everyone loves cakes!”
“That’s your problem… Anyway, how much of an effect does your otherworldly gift have on your production of cakes? Once you lose it, will that ability be completely compromised?”
“I’m decent enough at cakes, I guess, but… wait, don’t you change the subject!”
“Maybe after I remove the azure light from your body. It seems to be somewhere in your right palm, so give it here,” Wei Yi instructed, and Lilian gave it to her before she was able to give it much thought, allowing the Ascendant to hold her hand tightly once she began to reconsider, “This will hurt a little, but far less so due to the position within your body. If you scream, you might want to keep it down a little, but otherwise I don’t care what you do or do not do.”
Then, without any further delay, she activated the Purifier’s Seal and focused it upon the odd spot in the woman’s hand. So far, her method of detecting the azure lights had proven to be extremely reliable, and as she used it once more, she confirmed that it still was. Right away, the chosen parameter for the Purifier’s Seal was detected, and a point in the woman’s hand visibly heated up.
A point of azure light emerged from her skin, and was warded off the moment after via the Truth of the Universe. To the eyes of the other two, it seemed like a vast blast of power forced that azure thing away, and since it was a misunderstanding that not only she had, but that was also quite beneficial to her image, so she didn’t bother correcting it at all. For any of the otherworldly demons to figure it out would be rather unlikely, but even if they did, it would take decades of study and contemplation in order to reach a similar level to her own, so the conflict with the Great Leeches would be near conclusion by that point.
Furthermore, it was hardly her fault if others misinterpreted her actions, so she wasn’t too concerned about negative consequences from this.
“Is… is it done? Do I not have that azure light thing anymore?”
“No, you no longer have an azure light. You might say that your otherworldly gift is now lightless, and so your cakes will be slightly less tasty until you either cultivate to a higher realm, or figure out exactly what had been making them taste good and replicate it on your own,” Wei Yi explained.
“Oh… oh no, I need to run! Sorry, Monique, I’ll speak with you later!” the woman exclaimed and ran off without another word.
Thus, Wei Yi and Monique were left alone within the latter’s residence.
“What?” the latter had to ask, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“I suspect, although I may be wrong, that she is rather worried about the state of her cakes, and so- oh, she’s just now feeling the burn in her hand. She could’ve stuck around and let me heal her a little, but I suppose I forgot to mention that…” Wei Yi muttered, “Presumably, once she verified how good or bad her cakes will now be, she will either return or stay there and improve her craft until it reaches some old standard.”
“You can… right, you should be able to see that all the way from here with your abilities. Is it time for me to go through the same thing, then?”
“Yes. Come here, and don’t mind me getting near your breast. The azure light is residing there.”
Although she acted completely nonchalant about this, her energy was being used up quickly with each instance of azure light separation and then banishment, with the Truth of the Universe characters devouring her energy as quickly as Lilian had devoured the cakes. Using her nascent rift and rapid recovery from the other cultivation paths, she was able to sustain semi-rapid usage of the azure light repulsion array, but since she was about to use it for the third time in just an hour, with her characters still needing more energy than her planar pool was able to fit.
She could remove the azure light from Monique’s otherworldly gift, but if she wished to go through the entirety of the Dimensional Domain’s residents and make all of their gifts lightless, then she would spend another day just on that and recovering energy.
‘There are people I can catch up with here, so it isn’t that bad, but using my time a little more actively would be preferable after this. If I waste too much time, the Great Leeches will recover and attack again, so I should strike before they have the chance to do the same,’ she concluded while activating the Purifier’s Seal and seeing her Arm scatter into naught while the azure light hidden within the otherworldly demon’s body emerged.
Once more the characters arranged themselves into the array, and once more the azure light was sent off to some unknown place.
The moment that her Arm had scattered and the array within her body had begun to calm, Monique put a hand on her chest and clenched her teeth, clearly trying to restrain a cry of pain. She managed it, albeit barely, and all that did emerge was a bit of smoke from within her body, caused by the melting of flesh.
“… Ow. That was… not pleasant.”
“It isn’t meant to be. I am literally melting the otherworldly gift, alongside your body around it, and extracting the azure light, before I then banish it with one of my methods. If they weren’t so much of a problem, I wouldn’t need to get rid of them, and they could just be called an innate physique or something of the sort – aside from the two being entirely different, of course, but that is beside the point,” the Ascendant said, “You’re going to need to experiment with your otherworldly gift as well, but it shouldn’t impede you much if you just keep jogging every now and then, regardless of the effect.”
“I may do more if it isn’t dangerous to me anymore. Well, we originally came here to look at my paintings, right?”
“That’s correct. Are you in the condition to show them to me?”
“Yes, I should be… there’s a strange feeling, like something’s pressing down on my heart just a little bit. Is that normal, or have I got some kind of heart condition from this?” Monique asked, grasping her chest.
“You should be fine. The otherworldly gift had been rather close to the heart, so I must have affected it as a result. It should get better within a short while, but to make it happen even faster…” Wei Yi put her right hand on her chest this time and applied the physique ability of Vitality Siphon to move over some of her overwhelming and overflowing lifeforce into the otherworldly demon, focusing it upon the region within which the otherworldly gift resided.
There was little difference, but Monique’s expression clearly changed to that of relief, so there had to be some benefit for the woman. As such, the Ascendant waited until she could be certain that there was nothing more to be achieved with lifeforce, then stopped providing it and moved her hand back, making sure to heal the slight mark she left upon her skin with the tip of the star metal gauntlet. As of late, she had stopped bothering to put up a protective barrier to stop others from being hurt by it – and didn’t need to do so with herself, as there were always claws on her left hand and the gauntlet was usually present on the right, which meant that she had adjusted to touching herself or any personal belongings in such a way as to not damage them – and it showed, what with the number of people she had already poked with the tip of her claws.
“That did feel significantly more comfortable. Alright, let me show you some of my work, and then… Is that a cake? Did Lilian leave one of her cakes? Oh no, now we will also need to deal with all of this…”
“Later.”
The Ascendant prompted her towards the small art gallery that she had detected within the house long ago, while quietly putting up a small illusion array around the cake so that it would distract the otherworldly woman from it. She was perfectly fine with her doing anything with the cake later on, whether it would be used well or wasted completely, even if it was something she found unpleasant (with her frequent glances into people’s minds, she came across plenty of things that fit that label, and a few had included various baked products) but ideally not now.
Rather than wasting her time while she recovered her energy and refilled the Truth of the Universe, she would prefer to look at a bunch of paintings, learn the kind of art that her world had led her to create, and study the nature of the people that she now had under her leadership thanks to the existence of the Dimensional Domain.
Also, it would grant her the perfect chance to consider changing the name to the Lightless Domain instead, as it would suit the new nature of the nation far more.
The small art gallery was located on the other side of the residence, which was large enough for her to be able to label it as a small mansion, which was the case with most homes within the Domain. There was plenty of space and only around a hundred people residing there, so there were no issues at all with taking up as much empty space as possible. On the contrary, the more they occupied, the easier it would be to connect the three districts it sat between even without the use of her spatial gateways.
While she and the Kong Prison Realm were still around, there was no need to worry about such a thing, but only temporarily. After enough time passed, the spatial gateways would become the main methods of transportation for all those that do not want to waste days traversing the dangerous wilds, and then they would be rather crowded and busy at almost all times of the day.
Having an alternative route, on which one may access the services of a group of people with incredible abilities and ideas rarely seen in other parts of the Planar Continents, would certainly be beneficial to many travellers, merchants, warriors and whoever else chose to travel between districts. There were plenty of people like this, and eventually they would allow the various cultures of the otherworldly demons to merge to a certain extent with that of Yi City’s various districts, ideally allowing the better parts of both to remain while the rest was forgotten about over time. Since she had less experience with the world of Orbis, she couldn’t say that she found most aspects of its culture preferable, but perhaps she had not yet seen the better parts.
Wherever those better parts were, she had a hard time deciding whether the paintings before her fit that label. If nothing else, they were certainly made well and without major flaws.
Monique had chosen to paint a series of images, and most were depicting green rolling hills and trees, with a soft blue sky above and some mountains or lakes in the distance. Focus was put on the individual blades of grass to the same extent as on the distant features, allowing every part of the image to contain sufficient detail. It did certainly look pleasant enough, that much she could say with certainty.
Wei Yi had never spent too much time looking at art, whether it was painted, sculpted, or something else, and so she had little to compare this to. This was made even more challenging by the fact that almost all paintings in the Planar Continents would involve planar energy, materials, and the great arts to some extent, as there was very little reason to be interested in a painting otherwise. Most of the time, the effects of a painting would be far inferior to a specialised item of a great art, but their added aesthetic appeal allowed them to be popular in the homes of those that could afford them.
It was hard to say whether this should be taken into account when judging the images, and so she could find little more to do than provide a shrug as a reaction to the paintings presented to her. If nothing else, their creator seemed to like them.
“This one was based on what I had seen when I had come to in this world! Look, the grass was being blown about in the wind and looked gorgeous! I had tried to memorise exactly what it looked like, but I couldn’t quite get all the details right… I think. Obviously, since I don’t remember it all, I can’t remember what it was that I had gotten right or wrong…”
“Uh-huh. Why have you never painted anything from your world?”
“Haven’t I?” Monique asked rather calmly at first, but when she took another careful look at every one of her creations, her eyes widened ever so slightly, “Wait, I swear I would have made something… I couldn’t have forgotten to make a painting of the Great Shard, or of…”
“This does happen occasionally.”
“W-What does? Memory problems?”
“Those too. Something about the process of being thrown into another world is, surprisingly enough, not ideal for you. That tends to lead to certain memories and ideas seeming to exist, but completely fading from the mind until you suddenly cannot recall them at all when prompted. One woman I knew had lost her name entirely, and she perished not long afterwards…” seeing that the otherworldly demon was clearly misunderstanding, she clarified, “The death wasn’t directly related, so don’t worry about that. I’d advise you to spend some time remembering everything that you think should be obvious, like that Great Shard, and encourage others to do the same.”
“Could we still remember things like this if we have forgotten them? I mean, there’s only so much that needs to be remembered about most towers and monuments, but if we have nothing, then we have nothing.”
“You have something, however. There is still some memory of the thing itself, and so it has not vanished from your mind entirely. Unlike the name of the woman I had mentioned, you know the name of the thing that you recall, and that it is located in a particular nation with a particular style. Even if the actual thing cannot be remembered, create something in its spirit.”
“Would that be good enough, though?”
“It will bring your thoughts back to the world you have lost, and even if the images of old are not returned to your mind, at least the others will be able to bring their minds back as well. Perhaps when you put many images together, things you have lost will return to you, or perhaps they will serve as inspiration for those of this world and allow you to share your ideas and culture with the Planar Continents even if the key monuments cannot be displayed or replicated.”
“… Yeah, that might be good. I’ll get to painting right away! Please, don’t stop me, or else I will lose this inspiration!”
‘Eh… Sure, I’ll just go then… Everyone has to run off when I help them, don’t they?’
