183 - The Unending March of Time

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After a long time, Qin Yun finally opened his eyes. He didn’t know how long he had remained in a deep trance, but he knew it wasn’t a short time. He could usually tell with the amount of dust covering his surroundings, but with the sterile field covering the entirety of this mansion, this wasn’t an option. Everything remained as pristine as the day he entered this place.

Qin Yun once wondered why it had taken him so long. Still, by calming down and objectively examining the situation, he realized he had strayed far from his original objective. His sudden obsession with seeking the world's edge had caused him to forget what he sought as he cultivated immortality.

He had been so far from the pinnacle he once sought.

He rose to his feet and stretched. He expected his muscles to be sore from being inactive for so long, but surprisingly, they became much firmer while remaining soft and supple. His body had taken another step toward greater heights.

As for his cultivation, Qin Yun let the power flow throughout his meridians, only for an ethereal, brown lotus to appear above his head. However, it differed substantially from the last time it showed itself.

The traces of grey that once formed veins on the leaves disappeared and were replaced with the uniform brown of Qin Yun's original spiritual root element. At the same time, the golden characters strewn upon the central core had also vanished.

But interestingly enough, even with the loss of these two powerful forces, this lotus only seemed to have grown more potent and lush. By stripping them away from the core of his power, Qin Yun’s spiritual root had grown purer, closer to what it should have been in the first place before the will of this world began meddling with the path he ought to take.

Many might have mistakenly believed that adding those two forces to the lotus might have empowered it, but Qin Yun knew better, for after having stripped them away, two more leaves had bloomed, allowing Qin Yun to reach the fourth level of the Foundation Building realm.

Obviously, stripping them away was less than pleasant. It felt like cutting away one's flesh with a dull blade, yet Qin Yun persevered, for this was but a necessary step to reaching his ideals.

In this life, he had always sought to reach the pinnacle of each realm before going to be next, but with the urgency of his situation, such ideals had been put to the back of his mind. He had allowed himself to wallow in complacency, entrusting his faith to an unknown entity whose intentions he couldn’t fully understand.

Looking back on it, this was the beginning of it all. He may have deluded himself otherwise, but he was nothing more than its puppet, following the path laid out for him without even realizing it. Only by taking back control of his destiny at its root could Qin Yun truly walk a path of his own, and this started with his cultivation.

Still, he didn't have it in him to simply throw away these two magnificent powers, which was why stripping them away took so long.

While only the now-brown lotus was visible above his head, other changes had been made within his body. For one, the crystal heart was gone, with the tribulation qi held within all expended. In time, Qin Yun managed to slowly reconstruct his own heart, mending the void made by the crystal's departure.

By slowly letting the tribulation qi flow out of the subspace, Qin Yun had condensed it all above his lotus, forming a magnificent sun rising above the land to illuminate it with its glow. He had this idea when looking at the world he lived in, specifically the sun that shone above the Western Domain.

He had always wondered what sort of entity it was, as its peculiar orbit made it unlikely to be just a regular astral object. He now believed he had obtained a glimpse of its true nature.

As for the internal sun made of tribulation qi, the effects of its existence came as a surprise. The light it emitted empowered the lotus, making it grow much more quickly.

Looking back on it, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. There was a reason people called that lotus a "spiritual root." It behaved much like a plant and, as such, needed a source of light to truly make it grow, but he also knew that this step was supposed to come only when reaching the Golden Core realm, and its shape also differed significantly.

If the Foundation Building realm was meant to shape the lotus platform, the Void Core existed to shape the core within which light would be born. Only by reaching the Golden Core realm would that receptacle be filled with glow, further nurturing the seed that was the spiritual root.

Still, Qin Yun’s sun differed much from the norm.

For one, it was an external one instead of emerging from the core of the lotus platform. Its light shone down instead of outwards, making the shine much more efficient in its use of energy. Usually, as more petals opened up, the leaves below would be starved of that light as the orb would be smothered by all those new emergent petals, but with the sun so far overhead, albeit minimal, the lotus platform could continually receive that light, allowing it to continuously grow.

Yet, this wasn't all. Corruption had also taken a new form of its own.

Aided by the new sun's glow, Qin Yun stripped away all of the Corruption's corrosive nature from his lotus. Being denser than the light filling Qin Yun's core, the Corruption fell to the bottom, forming an endless sea upon which the lotus platform floated.

Qin Yun couldn't help but wonder if Corruption acted in much the same way within the outside world. The idea behind it all came to him as inspiration when witnessing the current state of this world leaf. He felt it natural as if the world had reached equilibrium.

The sea of grey within his core was tamed for the most part, with a single brown lotus floating atop and a blazing sun shining overhead. While the Grey still sought to encroach upon the lotus, leaving its mark once again, even seeking to drag it back down to the depth as tides came and went, the sun pierced through the darkness time and again, preventing the Grey from ever sinking its fangs into the lotus.

The balance was precarious; only a single asymmetry in the two respective forces would be enough to make it all crumble, yet Qin Yun had endeavoured for an untold amount of time to ensure the two would be perfectly equal in their respective strength.

It had been gruelling and laborious, yet well worth the risk, for it did away with the most concerning aspect of how Qin Yun had once cultivated those two forces. By trying to integrate them within his lotus without fully fusing them, Qin Yun ran the risk of the Grey running rampant, or even worse, for the two forces to grow out of control and explode, taking his life along with his cultivation core.

But now, by slowly pulling away from the sea and the sun, he could tap into those two forces with minimal risk. Yet this method had some disadvantages. First, the process was much slower, allowing for a gap his opponent could exploit.

Second, the speed of his cultivation would suffer greatly. He wouldn't be able to leap from stage to stage as he did before. He would need to slowly peel away at the two forces, changing their very natures into something he could use to empower his lotus. Fortunately, it seemed both the sea of desolation and the vibrant sun were—at their cores—made of something resembling pure qi, which the lotus could use as sustenance, allowing it to grow.

Qin Yun didn't find that discovery all that surprising. After all, he had already seen that, despite their antithetical natures, Tribulation and Corruption were much closer than most would believe. It was almost as if they were two sides of the same coin. Still, their natures couldn't help but clash, for Tribulation embodied the immutable, a world on the verge of perfection. At the same time, Corruption was mutable, the essence of chaos, nothing and everything at once.

Of course, those were but conjectures at this point, for he had yet to delve deeper into both of their origins. Yet, for now, his hypothesis seemed to track. This was more than a struggle over a single world; it was a battle reaching the very core of their essence, a battle between an unstoppable force of change and an immovable object, both the very pinnacle of what they were.

As for which would emerge victorious, if Qin Yun was a betting man, he would put all his chips into that unstoppable force, yet it seemed there was much more at play.

But for now, Qin Yun was content. His cultivation was stable, and he had advanced two levels to reach the fourth stage of the Foundation Building realm. Considering his age, such cultivation speed would be deemed average among sects like the Moonlight Sword Palace and only barely passable when thinking of one of the Four Great Sects. He could be admitted to their Outer Sect at most.

As for his current strength, it far surpassed the Foundation Building realm. Even using his qi alone, Qin Yun could contend against a cultivator in the middle stages of the Void Core realm. If he were to add the strength of his body, he wouldn't be at a disadvantage against a Nascent Soul elder without having to resort to his Sword Intent.

Beyond that, there wasn't any use in thinking about it. He could do nothing against those possessing their own domains without a domain of his own. Such was the gap between the Nascent Soul and Soul Formation realms.

To awaken one’s soul was but the threshold of immortality, a gulf no mortal man could cross, not even one possessing Qin Yun’s means. He would only be squashed like a bug.

With his cultivation in order, Qin Yun headed outside. As expected, the world had returned to calm, as the flood of grey mist that once attacked the shimmering barrier had condensed back into countless flowers, which were much bigger than the last time he fought against them.

It seems most of the surrounding Corruption was attracted by the commotion, yet judging by its inactivity, several years must have passed, but I wonder how many.

While absorbed into his cultivation, Qin Yun had lost track of time. He wouldn't usually make this blunder, yet separating Tribulation and Corruption away from his lotus hadn't been easy. He had needed to strip away any distractions from his mind to even attempt such a ludicrous endeavour, leaving no mental energy for something this inconsequential.

But by observing his surroundings, he could safely assume many years had passed, leaving not much more remaining time before the world was utterly entombed under a sea of Corruption. Yet, considering the dire situation unfolding before him, Qin Yun seemed strangely calm, zen even. He didn't feel any sense of urgency, allowing him to plan his next step much more clearly, leading to much less wasted movement.

It seems taking the time to rectify my cultivation was the right choice. My Dao has begun to take shape, yet it seems too soon to even consider leaning on it. Instead, let’s make something out of this place. It would be a shame to leave it here, lost within this desolate land...

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