Path of the Ascendant

The Ascendant looked at him for a brief while, then raised an eyebrow and physically restrained her urge to hit the heavens in the face. Strictly speaking, she was neither able to strike the heavens nor were they the ones to blame for her current irritation, but it was a reflexive thought at this point.

“… It is rather unbelievable, isn’t it?”

“That’s a surprisingly suitable word for your actions. Patriarch, I am familiar enough with the concept, but I see no reason at all why you had to drag this out instead of simply informing me and providing me with the materials I would request once I understood exactly what you had to offer.”

“It is a natural spatial realm, the likes of which have not been seen anywhere else in the Planar Continents!”

He was correct, so far as she knew. Spatial realms were made exclusively made by the hands of intelligent beings like humans or ancient beasts, but there had never been a record of a spatial realm coming about on its own accord, nor of the heavens deliberately working towards producing a spatial realm. To those for whom the behaviour of the natural world, and the heavens as an extension of this, was of interest, the question of why this was the case was always an enticing one.

However, when it came to using natural resources, most agreed that it was best to use them wherever necessary, sparing only the amount necessary to ensure that a regenerating resource wouldn’t run out entirely. For instance, this was done with authamite, which could recover if left alone for long enough, and any other materials with a leaning towards the element of wood especially.

“And what exactly is the problem?”

“It… well, is this something that should be exploited?”

“I might be mistaken, but is the entirety of the Fu District not based around eagerly exploiting every little thing that the natural spatial realm provides?”

“We are merely using the bare minimum to keep our homes in a reasonable state!”

“This reasonable state exceeds the living standards of most of the people of Yi City, and has done so for an absurdly long time. Perhaps if the resources within had been available to the rest of Yi City, things would have been better for all of us.”

“To give them away for free-”

“This is a special situation, hence me not taking no for an answer. At other times, you could have allowed far more of this realm’s production to be accessed by the neighbouring districts at least, and any within reach at best. That way, perhaps the Ju District wouldn’t have thought about separating from Yi City’s foundation entirely and taking over with a bunch of automaton troops,” Wei Yi muttered the latter part, returning to the initial topic immediately after, “Give me the spatial stabilisation point, and I will not only make sure that Primordial Nature doesn’t escape its current containment, but also that you have the chance to trade with all but the Shi District, Huang District and Ling District, at least for now.”

“Ascendant, I hope you understand that my concern regarding the natural spatial realm was entirely genuine. I do not know what will happen if our usage of the spatial realm is greatly increased.”

“It shouldn’t cause any problems.”

That was a rather significant oversimplification of the potential consequences that might arise, as well as the things she would need to address as a result, but the Fu Patriarch could hardly say anything in response. Despite living in the Fu District all his life, he could not be said to have as much experience with spatial realms as the woman who owned both a spatial artefact and a spatial realm, and who had messed around with both of those and had the expertise of Yi Shi Ming on her side.

In addition, he wasn’t aware of Kong Shi Meng’s return, who would also have knowledge about the natural spatial realm, likely vastly exceeding that of the Fu Patriarch as he and his ancestors did not appear to have researched the natural spatial realm.

Even if the former Master of Yi City had not done much to research the spatial realm himself, then his current cultivation realm would still grant him additional insights. If he had both done his research and was truly in the ninth realm, as he should be and as his odd state of cultivation suggested, then any insights he had attained back then would still be incredibly useful to understanding further aspects of the natural spatial realm that he had been unable to comprehend at the time. To put it another way, Kong Shi Meng was bound to have something to contribute.

“The spatial stabilisation point is immediately next to the largest and clearest entrance to the spatial realm. They aren’t anchored to one another directly, as that might lead to damage to the natural spatial realm, but it appears to have been sufficient to allow us consistent entry into the natural spatial realm via our homes.”

“Hm…” the Ascendant glanced towards the various homes of the people of the Fu District, and noted how the people that travelled down into their basements would step into a strange space that aligned with their basement, but did not exactly match it, meaning that they would occasionally wander beyond the boundaries of their basements, and sometimes into obstacles that she couldn’t perfectly perceive from where she stood.

They were also able to obtain things that they shouldn’t have had from within their homes, clearly marking the locations of their spatial realm access points.

Still, it was extremely fascinating to look at, even if this couldn’t be considered as the most advanced of uses for a spatial realm, and even if this was likely done semi-unintentionally by whoever had initially settled by the natural spatial realm. If Wei Yi had been given access to this natural spatial realm and been permitted to do whatever she wished with it – not that she would ask anyone for permission – she would have attempted to perform a greater level of integration with the world, or perhaps locked it off and tried to create a separate, safer space where the most valuable and trusted members of the Fu District could reside and progress the district’s development of whatever was necessary.

For now, this was none of her concern, and thus she didn’t bother to ask the Fu Patriarch about those matters, and just headed to the spatial stabilisation point, which she was able to detect the moment that she knew what sought.

Spatial fluctuations were usually rather obvious when looked upon from the outside, or the inside, as space was a rather fundamental thing that was easy to perceive with some understanding of it. This was a matter in which the natural spatial realm differed, as it would share a significantly larger quantity of natural laws to any of the spatial realms made by mankind.

Still, there were obvious hints of the fluctuations, present all over the district.

They were concentrated to the west, and after a brief while, she spotted the spatial stabilisation node there as well. They were placed opposite one another, and the soft outside edge of the gateway into the natural spatial realm was nearly invisible. Peering through the gateway from the side would almost make it seem as if there was no gateway there at all, and the natural environment just ended up positioned in the most curious of ways.

Planar energy poured into the spatial realm, as it had a lower energy concentration than the world currently possessed, but she knew that the spatial realm would once have had more energy allocation than the Planar Continents. Furthermore, it was likely that the natural spatial realm would slowly accommodate to the rise in planar energy allocation, since it couldn’t have been this high while the Patriarch of the Fu District was only in the first stage. Thus, it was possible that this natural spatial realm had the additional traits of adapting to the outside world, something that the Kong Prison Realm did not do, currently to its own benefit.

She reached into the gateway with her divine sense, quickly confirming some basic natural laws and properties to ensure that she could indeed get in safely, without damaging the spatial realm.

‘It appears to be entirely identical, and the state of the spatial realm appears to be entirely stable, regardless of the size that it is. Hopefully, it won’t just collapse the moment I attempt to use my own energy, which would almost certainly have damaged something like the Kong Holy Grounds,’ Wei Yi took a step towards the gateway, looked closely into it with her vision to confirm her observations, then took another to enter. She did not choose to claim the spatial stabilisation point first, as she wanted to minimize the chance of the natural spatial realm’s collapse while she was inside.

Her House of Gold had plenty of space to store any materials that she might acquire, and she didn’t know whether there would be any necessity to drag out more than would fit. As such, even if the natural spatial realm collapsed the moment after she departed, she wouldn’t lose out on her opportunity to confront Primordial Nature on vaguely more even grounds.

The loss of the natural spatial realm was obviously not desirable, but it was a long-term matter that could only become an issue if Primordial Nature and the other Primordial Deities were defeated, at least as far as the Ascendant could see.

Another step brought her inside, although it certainly didn’t feel like she had crossed a boundary of any kind. There was far too many similarities between the outside and inside for there to be such a thing, and she could likely be fooled if this entrance was placed within a physical gate and her divine sense wasn’t used. She was intrigued by why such a thing could even occur, but an answer came to her significantly earlier than she would have expected.

“This natural spatial realm is indeed the only one in existence. The Fu District’s Patriarch is correct in this regard,” Kong Shi Meng suddenly appeared right beside her, standing with his hands behind his back, looking up into the blue skies of this realm, his eyes narrowed just a little, “This place has been created many decades ago, and has stood here since then, a permanent space formed in a world of temporality. With everything taken from it, the spatial realm will attempt to recover itself to its previous state, and nearly everything will do so without any flaw at all. There are some things that could not change, however…”

He did not continue, leaving the Ascendant to ponder exactly what she could and could not take away from this place without any lasting harm, though she did not do so for long. Now that she was here and got to look at whatever she wished, she only needed to find the things that she would use.

“Earth-type materials are found within this patch of the earth, wood-type grow from the field there, and the strongest metal-type materials should be… hm. They appear to have weakened since I last checked,” Kong Shi Meng said, though he slowly descended into muttering with a tone that differed slightly from his previous monotone. It was rather subtle, and it was still not outside the character she expected from him, so it wasn’t a point for concern.

That did remind her that she had never been able to find some kind of definitive method of confirming his identity, and it was clearly still on the forefront of her mind. He was currently helping her, which was obviously a positive, but the more she learned about his knowledge, the more she was apprehensive about who he could also be.

After all, a weakling with no true power or information could pose as Kong Shi Meng for a while, but some basic checks would confirm his identity to be other than what he wishes to present. On the other hand, someone that is able to appear exactly like the Master of Yi City in every way will have to be powerful, knowledgeable or both, and from what she has seen so far, the man before her was both strong and wise. It meant that she needed to pay close attention to him at all times, a thing that was rather difficult when he was able to move around even more quietly than Yi Shi Ming.

“I need the earth-type materials. Which ones are most reactive to the element of wood?”

“The dirt wrapped in brambles there is most fitting,” Kong Shi Meng said, pointing into a distant forest darkened by a thick canopy of black wood and excessively thick leaves, “It is harmless to you.”

She didn’t need to ask whether this would apply to the average person without a cultivation, as the appearance of the forest alone answered most questions. It writhed and shifted in a manner akin to the influenced flora of Primordial Nature, as some aspect of the planar materials that composed that forest in particular, and if an ordinary person was to attempt to enter that place, they would not survive long.

Against her, an abnormally powerful individual at a realm as high as the materials she wanted, the most the plants could do was slightly bother her and maybe try to reach somewhere that they should not go – on that topic, the hard and rough material of the roots and brambles was in no way appealing.

The Ascendant mentally gave her libido a light slap and headed into the bramble forest.

Since she knew what she was looking for, with the aid of her divine sense that had stretched out across the entirety of the hilly region that was the natural spatial realm, she found it in moments, appearing beside the area of bramble-wrapped dirt that had a shape akin to endless roots wrapped together into a thick sheet. Vitality flowed from it as if it was an ocean of it.

‘Perfect. There’s traces of the element of wood, and there is clear cooperation between the wood and earth. At the same time, it is outside the control of Primordial Nature, and it is exactly what I need, in the quantities that I need… roughly. I might need a little more than just this patch of bramble dirt,’ the Ascendant concluded after a quick check of the total volume of the material, storing it in the House of Gold, appearing beside Kong Shi Meng a moment after, “What other materials share these exact traits? In fact, the more resonance with wood, the better, so long as it is not wood-type itself.”

“North-west, three thousand and fifty-three metres. South, five hundred and ninety-eight metres. East, exactly ten thousand metres.”

“Got it. Will that have any kind of significant impact on the natural spatial realm?”

“Some. Nothing permanent, provided that you do not rip out the root of these resource nodes,” the former Master of Yi City said, glancing in the direction of the barren patch of the bramble forest, “You should know what I mean, given that you have left it intact.”

“I suppose that you aren’t simply referring to the material itself. Is there some kind of marker that the world has for where things are meant to be, and from where it would then recover the materials, no matter how much I take?” after seeing him nod, Wei Yi continued, “Therefore, there is a certain blueprint to the world, just like the Kong Prison Realm can be altered according to my imagined vision of it even if I don’t or cannot personally exert the effort to change it?”

Again, he simply nodded.

She didn’t press him on this any further, as she believed that she understood the matter well enough herself. After all, she had been comparing spatial realms to the world itself, and thus a spatial spirit to the heavens, long before Kong Shi Meng had tacitly agreed to her interpretation, and so she understood that she had been on point in this regard.

In that sense, it would also explain why natural spatial realms were scarce, as a spatial spirit wouldn’t then go on to create a spatial realm inside of its domain with its own spatial spirit, but the fact that a natural spatial realm did exist did make things a little confusing.

Logically speaking, there are two possibilities for how such a thing came into existence. The first is that there is some kind of natural process that can culminate in the existence of a spatial realm, and this process occurred to produce the Fu District’s spatial realm. However, the obvious question after that is why the Fu District’s natural spatial realm is the only one of its kind. With the Planar Continents being millions, if not billions, years old, whatever freak coincidence had to occur to produce the natural spatial realm couldn’t have occurred only once. The heavens could have interfered, but it doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t then destroy or prevent this natural spatial realm from forming as well.

Hence, it had to be concluded that the heavens either wished for this natural spatial realm to exist, or deliberately created it. That clashed with the previous conclusion, and would imply that the heavens were capable of considering all kinds of things, and it would thus mean that the heavens had been intending to accomplish something with the creation of this natural spatial realm. It wasn’t clear what this was, however.

From the amount that Kong Shi Meng had been willing to reveal, it was clear that he didn’t have much to say to her for the moment. As such, she had to look for her answers elsewhere.

‘I mean, I can’t inquire with the heavens themselves, so the best I’ve got is just investigating all of this shit on my own… Man, it is a shame that the Primordial Deities seem so insistent on coming out and immediately fucking up nearly everything. With the Great Leeches, I was able to get some time to myself in between the major battles, but now I need to handle all of their emergences before I can do anything without feeling like an asshole…’ she sighed, ‘Not the only issue, of course, but it is doing a great deal to prevent the stress from being relieved.’

The more she thought about it, the more it would bother her, so she quickly hurried up and grabbed the rest of the materials that she needed. With her capabilities, it didn’t take her very long at all, and soon she was ready to leave.

Kong Shi Meng followed, and while she took the spatial stabilisation point, he did something to stabilise the gateway to the natural spatial realm, or the spatial realm itself.

As with a few other things, he did not explain a thing in anything resembling actual detail, so she didn’t try to get it out of him and instead just organised everything in the House of Gold and contemplated how she would ultimately approach the battle. She did not have much time before the next Primordial Deities would pop out somewhere, and she wanted to clear up at least one prior to that happening.

Thus, she would need to act right away, and she would need to succeed with just one chance.

 

“You want me to go to one of the other districts? Am I that useless?” the Chu Patriarch asked, clearly displeased with the request.

“I could say yes, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. You have the ability to resist a Primordial Deity for a few moments, but you have to be facing one that is unable to directly nullify all of your techniques. You cannot fight Primordial Nature properly, and so it would be far better for you to stay at another district at risk of Primordial Deity emergence while I fight it here,” Wei Yi explained, “Don’t bother arguing, by the way. This may be your district, but you cannot save it.”

“Do you anticipate that the fight will last for a dozen hours? Do you think you are strong enough?”

“You should hope that I am, or else your district is fucked and in nothing even closely resembling a good way. Trust me on that.”

He sighed, “I will not question your expertise with assessing the danger of Primordial Nature, but… Ah, fuck this. I will follow your instructions, but I will never permit you to have rest in the afterlife if you fail and leave my district to burn.”

“I’ll not let myself rest, so don’t worry about that.”

He sighed again and glanced in the direction of the barrier containing Primordial Nature, as well as all of the madness occurring inside while it was only able to modify a relatively small patch of land in comparison to the territory it had wished to occupy initially. Parts of the Chu District’s walls were caught within the barrier, and they were barely recognisable even through the faded mists of the pure energy forming the obstruction between them. To someone that had worked for much of their life to improve the district that they had inherited from their ancestors, it was a painful sight.

Still, he had to leave and let an outsider take care of things, as he was equivalent to a boost to Primordial Nature’s power at the moment.

“Don’t destroy anything that you don’t need to, Ascendant. I want to find this place in something vaguely resembling the state that I will leave it in, though I suppose there isn’t much I can do if you do ruin it all…”

The man sighed one final time and began his departure, and Wei Yi did not wait for him to get back before she headed over to the barrier and also had a glance inside. Her divine sense could penetrate the barrier in part, lacking perfect clarity but providing her with enough information that viewing it in person was more of a personal ritual than any kind of practical deed. She didn’t need to look in person, but it all too often proved to be a necessity within her mind.

It was, strictly speaking, an issue, but hardly one that required addressing anytime soon.

She instead processed the area before her and quickly calculated the most efficient layout for all of her gathered materials while also taking into account the current landscape – and all of the changes caused to it by Primordial Nature’s powers – and the entities occupying and growing on that landscape. Neither would make things too easy for her.

It had to be mentioned that in a few minutes, Primordial Nature utterly changed the area it emerged from completely, and now it had been given quite a while longer to fester beneath Kong Shi Meng’s barrier. The landscape was easy to account for, but it was difficult to change under the feet of a Primordial Deity without it noticing and doing its best to prevent whatever it thought she was attempting to do. That she was doing a thing that seemed beneficial on the surface might not deter it effectively. When it came to the flora and fauna, however, she had to deal with the exact opposite – dealing with the changed entities was necessary and relatively simple, but their constant change and growth made them the worst kind of pain in the ass.

From her experience with the establishment of the barrier, she estimated a small window in which she would be able to do whatever without the Primordial Deity being able to intervene. That meant that she had the briefest of whiles to do the things that she needed to.

Calculating the right approach was necessary, and the moment that she had completed all of her preparations, she requested Kong Shi Meng to lower the barrier and waited for it to be done.

 

“Mortal thing, you have finally appeared again!” the Primordial Deity’s rustling and crackling voice echoed throughout the Chu District’s lands, “Although the heavens had blocked my advance, you shall see what a hunter can do with worthy prey! Whatever you had used to stall me shall never help you again!”

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Wei Yi muttered before raising her voice, “I only needed the once.”

“Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, mortal thing. In the hunt, all things must be at their peak ability regardless of their belief in victory. I shall teach you this!” Primordial Nature decided to go into another one of its educational speeches, though it did not remain still while it did so.

It must have learned from their previous encounter, for the Primordial Deity mobilised everything that it had manifested and changed and made them attack right away, using its monologue to give time for some of the slower entities to prepare. The fastest used similar methods to the planar constructs of Chu Su, firing needles and spines at immense speeds and in excessive numbers to purely strike at her, while the slowest were akin to the artillery used by the Ju District’s automatons, or the worlds that the otherworldly demons hailed from.

The slowest finished around the time it declared his intent to educate her, and joined an absurd volley of natural material that was clearly meant to cover her, her escapes, any directions one might go towards after an attempt to escape, and the nearest few dozen streets for good measure. It was a terrible thing to manage, requiring plenty of energy regardless of how she intended to deal with it, but for once, the deflection of projectiles could do more than merely guard herself and her lands.

She chose to meet the barrage with the Arm, gathering energy into it before encasing it with the shards of Moon Splitter and filling those with even more energy. When the flood came close, she struck.

All of that force blasted out of her with a simple palm, one that was not intended to pierce or target weakness. Rather, all of the force that she had built up was spread out across the widest area possible while maintaining the necessary force to push all the things that flew towards her back. At the same time, a few drops of her energy lingered on each projectile.

“A beast that can only defend is already lost, mortal thing!”

Indeed, when thrown back, the spines, needles, rocks, malformed eggs and the fleshy chunks shot out by some of its creations lost much of the velocity they once had, and though they flew far, they were easily dodged or simply rendered harmless due to some aspect of their nature. Most of the spines, for instance, did not even land with their tip facing the ground or target, only the force with which they flew permitting a few to be lodged into the ground and to sink in just a little, quickly filling the bramble-shaped dirt with all kinds of junk.

Before the Primordial Deity could do something else, Wei Yi asked, “Mind if I give a lesson of my own?”

She raised her right hand, as she still waited for the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow to recover its power, and focused on the land that she had altered, the brambles of which formed a thick enough layer either on the surface or a short distance within the ground of the area that Primordial Nature had been sealed in.

It was outside of her body, but it was still her oblivion essence. When she demanded it, she could change its form to that which she required.

“All things need food and water. The stronger one’s body, the more they need. When starved of both, even the mightiest of dragons can be rendered inferior to a child with a knife, provided that the knife is sharp enough to pierce the dragon’s scales. In this case, I’ve got the perfect knife for you.”

Thus, all of her external power transformed into a dry grey dust, and rapidly spread into the dirt.