176 - A Chance Worth Betting On

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“You sure you won’t consider this?” The old man asked. “For my part, I’d rather like for someone to prove my theory. Imagine what it would be like if people could travel between all those different planes by simply jumping off the edge. Wouldn’t that be amusing?”

Qin Yun remained silent, merely looking at the older man with dead eyes. And yet, the man showed no signs of embarrassment. The same creepy smile remained on his lips, never wavering.

Finally, Qin Yun sighed and said, "Have you always been this insane, or did boredom make you this way?"

"What could you possibly mean? I have nothing but the best of intentions for the people of this world!"

The man looked offended, but Qin Yun felt it was much too exaggerated, like a performance—one he didn’t even try to hide.

“Why all the theatrics?” Qin Yun asked sombrely. “Was I ever this type of person?”

"You don't remember?" the old man said, shocked. "Think back to the beginning. Remember where this all started. I don't think I'm much different than back then. If anything, you're the one that's changed drastically. I can't help but wonder what happened to you that made you end up so boring. C'mon, live a little!"

“I’ve lived enough, thank you.” Qin Yun snapped back, exhausted. He didn’t want to admit it, but conversing with this man took a lot out of him. “Can we get back to what I asked? I can’t spend all my time here. I have places to be.”

“Really?” the man said, raising an eyebrow. “You went all the way to the edge of the world, but only now you’re in a hurry. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me,” Qin Yun replied sternly. “Talking to you already makes me feel like I have schizophrenia. Just get on with it!”

“Alright, if you say so,” the man shrugged. “Your second option is to head the other way. I suppose you’re familiar with what’s at the core of every continent, right?”

“The Well of Souls. I haven’t seen it for myself, but from what I saw in the records of my clan, it’s something like a well of power where the souls of the dead get stripped of their qi, then recycled and spit back out into a new life.”

“Good, but that’s just on the surface. In those records of yours, was there any mention of its shape?”

Qin Yun's eyes narrowed as his mind focused on the word "surface." There was more to the Well of Souls than what Qin Yun knew, and the man was aware of it. However, judging by his responses alone, he did not intend to share more than he wanted. Besides, Qin Yun would also be hard-pressed to believe him. As such, he decided to push his doubts toward the back of his mind and give the man the benefit of the doubt—if only for now.

"A geyser," Qin Yun finally said. "The books describe it as a massive water geyser reaching high into the sky. There are also mentions of it being an inverted waterfall. One book went against the consensus, making it look like torrential rain."

“All of them aren’t wrong. They all have one thing in common: they all flow—like a river. The direction of that flow hardly matters.”

“Really now?" Qin Yun interjected, finding faults with what had been said. "Last I checked, the direction of flow is critical when it comes to cultivation. Get things wrong and you enter Qi Deviation. That's a recipe for disaster. It can lead to catastrophic consequences."

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I know next to nothing about cultivation. It’s never been of much interest to me, but I’ll take your word for it. However, how would that translate to this world? Aren’t the two completely different entities?”

“How so?" Qin Yun asked, not believing in the slightest that the man hadn't dabbled in the mechanisms of cultivation. Otherwise, how could he have crafted such a magnificent formation that drew its strength from the same mechanisms as cultivation?

Qin Yun expressed his doubts, yet the man only chuckled.

“Flow is flow," the man said. "It doesn't matter what's flowing, whether water, blood or qi. It's all the same. After all this time, did you forget basic physics? Flow is but a transient state, a change of energy from a high-energy state to a low-energy state. If you can understand the properties of flow and harness its power, there's no need for you to understand the mechanisms of cultivation to harness qi. Change your mindset a little, and everything can be used as a power source."

“Is that so,” Qin Yun said, but he still looked unconvinced.

The man's explanation may have made sense if Qin Yun were a layman, but as a cultivator, he couldn't help but disagree, for qi was unlike anything he had ever encountered. It wasn't water or blood, for those two abided by the laws of physics, but qi was something else entirely.

Any cultivator worth their salt would tell you that qi was something alive, possessing its own consciousness. Only by tapping into that consciousness with your own, expanding your senses to tap into those unexplained mysteries, could one bend it to one's will, allowing them to tread the path to immortality.

In one way, cultivation was very much a form of communication. By appealing to the world and using one's spiritual root as a medium, one could attract this energy into one's core, changing the very definition of what they were. They would no longer be considered mortal after that point.

Qi was the means of making the impossible—dictated by any other natural law—possible. It was magical, something Qin Yun could spend his whole life delving into, never to find the limits of its depths.

Besides, the world also possessed its own predetermined flow in the form of the countless earth veins located deep within the ground. Massive amounts of qi spilling out of the Well of Souls would be channelled throughout these veins to every corner of the continent, filling the world with vitality.

"—but doesn't that flow—from time to time—reverse on its own?" the old man interrupted Qin Yun's explanation. "Don't tell me the place you originated from is free of natural disaster. Isn't that where they come from?"

Qin Yun couldn't help but reluctantly agree, especially in recent times. Even in his short twenty-one years of life—indeed, his birthday had come and gone without anyone ever celebrating it—Qin Yun had seen, time and again, floods, droughts, and even earthquakes assault the land. Of course, those events were only disastrous to mortals as cultivators had many ways to avert them, but they were indeed quite common.

Qin Yun even wondered now if some of them weren’t intentional. If disasters were linked to the flow of qi within the earth veins—which seemed entirely possible—large cultivation clans and sects would easily have the means to alter their flows, causing intentional disaster.

However, there was one question on his mind: what need would there be to do so? Cultivators could easily wipe out entire kingdoms with a wave of their hands. There was no need to go to such lengths when violence could do the same much more quickly.

Well—no need to think about this now...

“Let’s get back on track,” Qin Yun said. “How is this related to that second option you mentioned?”

“Let me ask you this, how big do you reckon this Well of Souls is?”

“In diameters? How is this relevant?” Qin Yun asked, confused.

“Let me rephrase this. How deep do you think it goes?”

“Well, from what I read, the Well of Souls streams out of a giant hole in the ground, so deep that no one can see the bottom, if there is even one—”

Qin Yun's subsequent words were left hanging on his tongue. His eyes widened, finally realizing what the man was hinting at. It was a preposterous thought, one Qin Yun wouldn't even dare to have. Yet, he remained nonchalant, always with the same damnable smile hanging on his lips. If not for the fact that man was but an illusion created by an advanced projection software, Qin Yun would want nothing more than to hit him right in the face, if only to wipe that smirk right off it.

"It seems you're starting to get it," the old man said. "The Well of Souls has no end. It's a giant funnel spanning the full length of this lotus-shaped world. It makes sense, doesn't it? Otherwise, how would you explain how this intricate system of roots within each leaf could be supplied with qi if not for its proximity to the Well of Souls. There needs to be a physical connection for something swirling with that much energy."

“Are you asking me to ride that flow upwards until I reach the continent I started from?” Qin Yun asked angrily, feeling all this back and forth was a waste of time. “Are you insane? This is nothing more than suicide. How is that supposed to be safer than jumping off the edge?”

“Because it’s been tested before—”

The old man's words shook Qin Yun to his core. He could hardly believe what he had heard. The Well of Souls was a system meant to recycle souls. Meaning, one's soul would be destroyed the moment one entered its flow. Even with his artifact-level body to house it, Qin Yun didn't believe this would be enough to stop the corrosion of the well from eradicating him.

—with machines,” the old man finished his sentence.

These last two words hit Qin Yun like a wrecking ball.

Indeed, if the soul could be housed in something that could restrict the well's flow, the soul would be safe to travel within. However, finding something like that was like finding materials that could resist the might of the sun. No such thing should exist, and yet it did.

“You built some sort of ship that can travel within the flow of the Well of Souls?” Qin Yun asked, barely believing his own words, yet the way the man’s smile shifted told him he had hit the nail on the head.

Coming from any other, Qin Yun would be hard-pressed to believe them, yet he had seen the man's genius first-hand. The barrier surrounding this manor was just the thing necessary to keep whatever type of ship he had constructed safe from the soul corrosion of the Well of Souls. If it could keep Corruption at bay, it should be more than enough for that purpose.

Qin Yun finally began to see a way out of this predicament. If he could reach the Well of Souls and find that ship, he would have a chance—though slim—to be able to leave this place in one piece.

Still, he found it hard to trust this man. It all seemed too convenient. Why would he go out of his way to help him like this? He claimed he owed her a debt, and this was a way for him to repay her, yet Qin Yun didn't believe it one bit. They weren't the type to go about it in such a convoluted way. If he genuinely had a debt to repay, the man would have done something about the encroaching corruption, and obviously, he had done no such thing.

He had also noticed something else, and it lingered on his mind. It stemmed from something the man had hinted at. He, therefore, couldn't help but ask.

“If the Well of Souls extends downward far enough to even reach this place, and the Corruption’s goal is the corrupt the well, why hasn’t it done so after all this time? After all, it had more than ample opportunity.”

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