CHAPTER 901: CHAPTER 900: SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT

The skeleton framework clearly has the foundations of Body Cultivation, wielding a giant axe with a certain rhythm but lacking a bit of spirituality, posing no threat to Hou Niao.

But the trouble is, this guy doesn’t communicate with him at all, no matter what method he uses.

After countless attempts, he understands in his heart that this is already a monster acting on instinct, having long lost human nature. If he can’t get out and is forever trapped in the space rift, he will become the next skeleton framework.

It doesn’t run away because it has already lost its attachment to life and death. Perhaps, for it, death is the best release.

After multiple failed attempts, he decisively ended the skeleton framework’s life. At the moment of its collapse, the skeleton let out a satisfied sigh, and a wisp of Soul Fire drifted out...

Hou Niao’s heart stirred as he realized something, and with a gesture, he captured the Soul Fire in his hand, sat down cross-legged on the spot, and immediately entered the Purple Mansion Soul Realm Space.

He was right!

Upon entering the Soul Realm Space, everything in its environment was exactly the same as reality!

The Soul Realm where he has been practicing his sword daily for a hundred and fifty years indeed has reality as its reference, the answer lies here?

If he can find the reference in the Soul Realm, everything becomes simple; because although the scenes in the Soul Realm are exactly the same as the environment he currently resides in, it is a miniature scene. Running for a day here equals only a moment in the Soul Realm, compressing nearly a hundred times of time for him.

He doesn’t need to run around in reality to verify whether the path is open; he just needs to experiment in the Soul Realm and then make decisions in reality.

With the help of the Soul Realm, it doesn’t completely solve his troubles, but at least it greatly increases his hope. It’s the first good news he encountered since entering the Medicine King Furnace.

In just one day, he eliminated four passages, either because the paths were blocked, or he couldn’t sense the destination’s aura. He only needed to traverse the fifth passage until a fork appeared and then continue to enter the Soul Realm Space to discern the branching paths.

During this process, whether in the Soul Realm or the real space rift, wandering souls from the Soul Realm or real creatures occasionally appeared and were quickly dispatched.

The Medicine King Furnace once said that it would limit the creatures in the space rift to below the Golden Core Realm through slumber. If they encountered a monster above the Golden Core Realm, it meant they were on the wrong path and should retreat.

From having no clues to having a method to rely on, it didn’t take him long to walk on the correct path; the only uncertainty was about the others.

Was he the only one who took the right path? Or were they all converging to a destination with the help of a Space Treasure?

He didn’t know, he just had to keep walking.

He missed his senior sister a bit, wondering what she would do if she were here.

In the meantime, he didn’t forget to constantly consume the great medicine Fei Bai Fairy distributed to him. He had now crossed into the Golden Core Late Stage, with the core filled to seventy percent, yet still not enough. He not only needed his cultivation not to suffer losses in battles but also wanted to gain advantages. Every visitor from the Upper Realm they encountered on Hell Star was in the Golden Core Late Stage, each with profound cultivation, and he needed his Mana to be sufficient to exert power in battle.

This was the purest essence of Spirit Plant, without any added herbs. He still had a thousand or so left; he wasn’t sure where he would progress after consuming them. He didn’t want to keep them for later because if he lacked cultivation and got beaten up later, losing his possessions would be foolish.

With continuous repetition of moving forward, stopping, discerning, confirming... there were small mistakes occasionally, but overall, the general direction wasn’t wrong, as the aura he sensed grew stronger.

Then he encountered the first companion, Daoist Qi Zheng, who, according to Fei Bai Fairy, belonged to a formidable Daoist lineage deriving from the Time Great Dao.

He was surprised; Qi Zheng was even more surprised! Because he clearly understood his path-finding methods, he was confident that his knowledge of the space surpassed any visitor from the Upper Realm by a step, with treasures even more enchanting. Yet he ran abreast with a country bumpkin from Jinxiu, which was quite unbelievable.

He didn’t attribute this to luck; there must be some inherent reason.

They didn’t immediately travel together, as some things still needed confirmation. A common caution every cultivator received before venturing out was that the greatest danger often came from those around them, even the newly acquainted friends, not from direct threats.

This wasn’t scaremongering but a harsh truth that made every wandering cultivator instinctively wary of anyone trying to approach.

The two nodded amicably and then parted ways, with Daoist Qi Zheng leading and Hou Niao following. At the bifurcation, they chose different paths, and days later, they met again in a corridor.

They continued on their separate paths, neither of them able to shake off the other as they met for the third time. Both had the skills to navigate correctly through the dense web of the space rift, albeit with different secrets.

"Shall we each lead a segment?" Daoist Qi Zheng offered proactively.

Both their methods involved choosing a path after each corridor, a necessity given their Realm; they couldn’t determine all paths in one go despite their Golden Core ability. Their capability lied in choosing at the immediate fork, with Qi Zheng relying on his sect’s secret spatial spectroscope and Hou Niao relying on on-site observation in the Soul Realm.

One high, one low, one fast, one slow, which calmed Qi Zheng’s somewhat disillusioned Upper Realm mindset, but both remained wary, knowing the other wasn’t easy to deal with, resulting in fewer inexplicable concerns.

A month later, they encountered Guan Yan and Fei Bai, and their group surprisingly gathered in the space rift. Apart from proving each had their own trump cards, it indirectly showed that this section of the space rift was relatively simple, not yet reaching cosmic-level difficulty. After all, the distance between Hell Star and the Jinxiu Continent was closing infinitely.

With more people, the speed increased, with four methods to compare and judge, greatly improving accuracy.

To have reached this point, they acknowledged each other, having developed some tacit understanding and trust over six or seven years, much better than newly acquainted friends.

They also encountered others who wished to join, allowing them to but rejecting their path choices. Consequently, as some came, others left, and gradually over half a year, their group grew to about ten.

The destination drew closer and closer.