Chương 550: Chapter 545: Recovering Cultivation

Now that I was in a physical body, the first thing I did was check up on the host. What I saw next surprised me. Du Yanze was asleep, completely knocked out. But thinking about it, it made sense. All this time, he had the weight of saving this world on his shoulders alone. The sheer willpower needed to hold on for so many loops wasn't something I could relate to, but at least, now that I was back, he could finally relax.

Shaking the thoughts out of my head, I turned to face Lu Chenyang, who was waiting anxiously for some type of response. The old man looked worried, which was understandable since he just watched me take control of someone with ease that would normally take months of preparation.

"You can call me Hou," I said.

"There's no need for formalities."

"No, this junior wouldn't dare..."

"I insist," I cut in, not wanting to complicate things.

"We're both dream cultivators exploring this realm together. There's no reason to make things awkward." Lu Chenyang relaxed a little but still kept a respectful distance.

"Yes, Senior Hou." I held back a sigh. That was probably the best I could get out of him.

"You said that possession helps dream cultivators regain their cultivation abilities," I said, changing the subject.

"I want to understand how that works."

"Oh, oh. Well, it's really quite easy once you get a good vessel," Lu Chenyang said quickly.

"The possession creates a solid anchor point that..." he cut himself short and glanced at the crowd of people surrounding us who were watching the show. The crowd had a mix of expressions on their faces, shock, confusion, awe.

"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere more private?" he said.

"Sounds good to me." I reached for Du Yanze's World-Writ Sovereign cultivation, and the Xuan Yi energy of this realm reacted to my will. The Realm of the Chosen operated on belief. If I wanted to accomplish something, I needed to actually believe it to be true. Right now, I wanted to fly, so I concentrated on a basic idea: I should be able to fly because someone of my status clearly had that ability even without any qi techniques.

Not even a second later, the belief imposed itself on the world around me, and I felt my feet lift off the ground.

"Senior Hou," Lu Chenyang's eyes widened in disbelief.

"You've already mastered..." Instead of responding, I waved my hand to extend my belief to encompass him. The old man gasped as he floated into the air beside me.

"Let's find a quieter spot," I said, as he struggled to form the words that were on his mind. I guided us upwards and away from the crowd, heading towards the direction that felt right. The city unfolded below us, complete with its gold-colored buildings and pretentious decorations that appeared even more foolish from this height. I headed towards the outer edges of the city and found what looked to be wilderness areas outside of the cultivated gardens and deliberately manicured parks.

We kept flying until I found what I was looking for: a group of very old trees near the outer limits of the city, situated among natural rock formations and wild growth. I guided myself and Lu Chenyang downward to land on the soft grass near the group of ancient oaks. The area felt serene, detached from the madness of the city. It reminded me of the shrine where I encountered the Stone Emperor, the ancient oak, and Little Bloom. I thought about whether Feng Zhaoyang succeeded in converting more people to the cause.

Was Little Bloom safe? But I chose to push these questions aside. Due to the time loop, none of them would recall events of this cycle anyway. Only Du Yanze would remember. That was the burden he accepted. The weight of being the sole person who remembered anything. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I returned my focus to Lu Chenyang, who was admiring our surroundings.

"A good choice," Lu Chenyang said.

"Private enough that we won't be interrupted, yet close enough to the city that the Xuan Yi density is still high."

"Show me how to access my dream cultivation," I said.

"You said it should be straightforward with a proper vessel?"

"Yes, yes," Lu Chenyang nodded.

"Now that you have a vessel, you will see that it is quite straightforward. The possession establishes a spiritual bridge between yourself as a spirit and your vessel. Right now, your consciousness is here, but your actual soul is tied into your physical body back in your home world." This matched what I understood from my previous experiences with spiritual manifestation even though the mechanism was different.

"That bridge is what we use to restore our cultivation," Lu Chenyang explained.

"Normally, when we enter a dream world as purely spiritual beings, the pressure exerted by the world drains away our cultivation. However, the bridge allows us to pull power from our anchored self through it."

"Like a spiritual lifeline?"

"Right!" Lu Chenyang exclaimed.

"So, what you need to do is meditate and follow the bridge back to your source, establish the connection, and then pull your cultivation through that channel into your current form." He sat down in a meditation pose.

"Sit across from me," he said.

"I will guide you through this." I sat down facing him.

"Close your eyes," Lu Chenyang told me.

"Find your spiritual center, the part of you that exists beyond this form." I closed my eyes and focused inward on my consciousness. I didn't have access to my inner world, but I could almost sense something that seemed just out of reach, it felt like viewing something down a long tube.

"Do you feel it?" Lu Chenyang asked.

"That sensation of separation from being in two places at once?"

"Yes."

"Excellent," Lu Chenyang said.

"That is your bridge. Now I want you to follow it backwards to where you actually exist." I extended my awareness along that connection, feeling it stretch across, what? Distance didn't feel like the right word. Dimensions, maybe, layers of reality. I followed that awareness back along the connection from where I existed in Du Yanze's body in the Realm of the Chosen back to my body as Hou resting in meditation back in the Dream World.

"Don't attempt to cross it," Lu Chenyang warned me.

"You're not trying to return to your body; you're only becoming aware of the connection between them." I paused, maintaining my awareness along the length of the bridge without trying to move either way along it. The potential emanated from the connection like a stretched-out string ready to be plucked.

"Now," Lu Chenyang said, "try to reach for your cultivation. Don't reach for your vessel's cultivation; reach for your own true power. Sense it waiting at the opposite end of the bridge." I reached farther with my spiritual sense to locate that familiar presence representing my dream cultivation abilities. It took a little while to find it; my dream abilities were still developing.

"I've got it," I said after locating it; I sensed that silver thread of dream Qi that signified my status as a Dream Cultivator.

"Great job," Lu Chenyang said.

"This is the most critical step." His voice became more intense.

"Pull your cultivation through the bridge, not all of it; trying to bring your entire cultivation across dimensions would destroy the bridge, just enough to restore your active cultivation abilities in this realm."

"How much is enough?"

"You'll know," Lu Chenyang told me.

"Your vessel can only hold so much foreign spiritual energy before it becomes strained spiritually. Pull until you feel resistance and stop." I reached for my dream cultivation abilities and started pulling them through the bridge. The silvery Qi flowed along the length of the bridge like water flowing through a hose, spanning the distance between Hou's body and Du Yanze's form. When it entered Du Yanze's body, I felt my spiritual pressure begin changing and adjusting.

The Xuan Yi energy of this realm resisted the incoming dream Qi, as both types recognized each other as foreign entities. But the dream Qi persisted, it established an internal presence in Du Yanze's spiritual channels using some amount of space provided by my Dream Architect cultivation abilities. This continued until I felt resistance from Du Yanze's body, its capacity was nearing maximum load levels.

If I tried to continue forcing more power through something would fail, either the bridge or Du Yanze's spiritual foundation. I stopped extracting power through the bridge and withdrew my awareness from it carefully. I didn't want to accidentally cripple my friend. When I was done, I opened my eyes.

My surroundings had changed significantly, silver light danced across the grass and trees around me, this was caused by my presence and the saturation level of dream Qi within my spiritual channels, creating an external aura that radiated outward in waves. Lu Chenyang stared at me with an expression blending amazement with approval.

"Well done, Senior Hou," he said enthusiastically.

"Your fundamental base is surprisingly solid, that was one of the easiest times I have ever seen anyone integrate their cultivation into another host." I stood up to test my cultivation. The dream qi responded to my will immediately; it was far more accessible than now it had been when I was a spirit. I could feel the difference between this and my normal cultivation; the dream qi sat alongside Du Yanze's Xuan Yi energy rather than replacing it, the two systems coexisting in an uneasy balance.

"Thanks," I said to Lu Chenyang.

"That was easier than I expected."

"You have a naturally gifted talent for dream cultivation," Lu Chenyang replied.

"Few disciples manage to restore their cultivation abilities using possession successfully on their first attempt, you managed it in minutes." I somehow doubted that it was natural talent. Most likely, my experience as a spiritual manifestation in the tournament, world walking with the World Tree Sutra, and managing multiple energy systems had made this process easier than it would be for a normal dream cultivator. But it wasn't like I could tell him that.

The old man stared at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Curiosity, maybe? Or confusion?