Xu Lingxin’s simple and barely sufficient explanation was hardly enough to answer An Fei’s questions. The best it could achieve was to open the floodgates of questioning, and the young girl sat alone in the depths of the Mourning Forest, her legs crossed as she meditated in the darkness.
Perhaps… meditation wasn’t the correct description, for An Fei lapsed between short naps and moments of great activity – the epitome of laziness.
She pondered on the few, seemingly meaningless words that were exchanged a few nights prior, and she pondered on what she could do with them. As she sat alone, there was quite nothing worthy of mention that she could act upon.
From He Xin’s acrimonious and wary attitude, it was obvious that she couldn’t easily leave the Morning Star Temple. And from Xu Meilian’s comments, several… cultivators of the sect were bound to intrude into the solitary and tranquil forest to endure masochistic torme – to train their mental state and control.
“Entering into the depths of the Mourning Forest… is equivalent to death.”
The spiritual qi present in the forest beyond its conquered fringes was considerably lethal and highly incompatible to the cultivators of the Morning Star Temple. Their meridians, dantian, flesh and blood – all would gently erode and dissolve before the nigh corrosive breath sustained in the kingdom of darkness and trees.
The sustained damage could be held at bay by expelling spiritual essence into the atmosphere and triggering a faux annihilation effect from the interaction of two… polarized attributes of spiritual qi – or spiritual essence –
“Not even Xu Lingxin dares to remain in the forest’s depths for any longer than a few minutes at a time,” An Fei’s lips paused, before clamping onto each other in thought.
“She, a Spirit Building Realm cultivator, can’t sustain such expenditure of spiritual essence… which means that this area contains what that girl He Xin mentioned – a plume of spiritual qi?”
If the depths of the Mourning Forest were inundated by such toxic spiritual qi that the cultivators of the Morning Star Temple dared not to venture far into its expanses, then it would certainly make sense… However…
“A plume of spiritual qi is said to have these threads trailing behind to reveal its presence. Cultivators require… talent to see these threads, but I can’t – oh, the temperature?”
The young girl rose to her feet and swung her head to the sides to inspect her surroundings, but found only darkness and cold gales brushing against the tips of her fingertips. The overwhelming sensation of glacial water constantly drowning her breath pounded heavily at her consciousness, and the lure to sleep remained at bay – waiting for a previous, glimmering chance. An Fei stretched her arms to her sides as far as they could reach, groping blindly in the dark environment.
When sunlight was absent from an area for a prolonged duration, the relative temperature would naturally be colder than other close regions. However… the depths of the forest – they were far too cold.
Water would freeze into ice if exposed to the darkness for longer than a few breaths, and the subsequent frost would shatter from an invisible stress that coursed through the Mourning Forest. The cold temperature was sufficiently dangerous to overwhelm the human body with hypothermia and death before they could realize it, but An Fei could walk, talk to herself – albeit quite an infuriating act – and function normally, without being affected by the cold…
“Is this evidence of spiritual qi being present in the region? Effects that defy common sense –was that what Xu Meilian said before?”
If that was the case, then how was she supposed to cultivate – to absorb this… spiritual qi?
No, it wasn’t that she sought after improving her strength like that of Xu Lingxin, Xu Meilian, or any other cultivator that she had encountered since waking up in the Shattered Star Continent. Just simply – her circumstances required it from her.
The notion that her functioning organ of a heart had been replaced by a cold, emotionless rhombic crystal of sky-blue color was worrying enough, and if she were to add on the nuisance that she required munching on toxic berries to stay awake –
An Fei shook her head to forcefully clear her thoughts, and instead lowered into a light crouch to inspect the ground below her feet. The soft, seedless soil radiated a brisk chill that threatened to seep into her bones and devour her inside-out.
The young girl quickly realized that the soil was of subzero temperature and retrieved her hand, but then fell into a dilemma once more.
“…do I just breathe in?”
She deeply wished to slap the original creator of the concept of cultivation and wring the answers from their neck, but relinquished her inner frustration with a deep sigh. An Fei patted her stomach with her hands and prepared to sit, when her recently dullish mind finally decided to rouse itself.
The memory of Xu Lingxin eagerly bidding for a bottle of spiritual medicine – spiritual pills, as the celestial maiden tenderly referred them as – flickered at the fringe of her thoughts, and An Fei clapped her hands with a brief flicker of inspiration.
The young girl quickly crawled through the dense layer of drooping foliage and raced towards the wooden cottage, and returned back to the depths of the forest when she had acquired a glass bottle filled to the brim with water from the pond.
As she settled herself into a seated position, the glass surface began to exhibit gasps of frost as the water within gradually froze into ice.
An Fei waited until several breaths had passed and the water was on the verge of transforming completely into a solid chunk of ice, and hurriedly pulled the cork off the bottle. The young girl tossed the chilled contents down her throat and gasped for air at the unfathomably cold experience, her body shivering for the smallest breath of warmth.
She hadn’t expected for the temperature of the water to be that cold.
An Fei’s arms clutched at her sides as she lay on the ground, trembling in great panic as she fought for breath. Her mind had numbed into a dull haze of bells ringing and faint whispers from the gales hovering above her head, and her ears desperately screamed for attention. The young girl could feel her body being ravaged by two distinct sensations of cold numbness from both outside and inside.
The glacial chill threatened to soak her from inside out with piercing sensations of cold numbness and icy pain. From outside, the depths of the forest sought to mold her skin to hold a delectable chilled texture, and pummeled her flesh with trembling blasts of cold wind.
It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t necessarily… unpleasant.
An Fei remained in the mixed sensation of confusion and forced bliss as her body spasmed from the chilly waves rocking her from both outside and within. The young girl curled into a fetal position and quietly waited for the troubling sensations to cease. When she was tempted into peering into the mental visualization, An Fei’s lips parted in surprise, then delight.
The dull, silent crystal at the base of her chest was now glimmering with the faintest of golden light. It couldn’t match the brilliance of a weakened, debilitated firefly, but to the young girl – it was the sole beacon of light shrouded in an impenetrable fog.
Compared to paying witness to a world covered by an unassailable veil of black and white, An Fei felt more comfortable staring at the small flickers and pulses of golden light concealed within her own body. She soon ignored the chill rocking her body and causing numerous trembles to tumble across her skin, and infatuated herself in watching the tiny kernel of light – with each pulse – expand in size, gradually adapting to match the rhythm of her breath.
The faster she drew in the glacial winds from the depths of the Mourning Forest, the more the golden beacon sought to grow. By the time the golden kernel had expanded to the size of her thumb’s fingernail, the young girl realized that her limbs felt oddly heavy. She spent the next half an hour regaining the use and sensation of her legs, and the effects of the chilled water had dissipated by the time she fully recovered.
“This… is this supposed to be how they cultivate?”
As she gazed towards the dense overgrowth shrouding the stars, An Fei deeply missed the Sanctum. The soft and comfortable bed, the scarlet dragon and the Archives of Time, the young girl felt regret as she slipped into her memories – especially the overabundance of golden light – spiritual essence and divine essence – that eagerly poured into her body day and night.
