Chương 559: Chapter 554: A New Friend?

"Senior Lu," I spoke up, "can you teach me the dream gate creation technique?" The old man looked surprised by that.

"That is advanced for somebody who just managed to reach the Oneiric Sovereign realm. Most cultivators spend decades trying to master the basic fundamentals before they attempt gate creation."

"I understand that it's difficult," I replied.

"But I have some personal reasons that make doing all the effort worthwhile for me." Lu Chenyang spent a long moment studying my face. I could see him weighing a bunch of different considerations inside his head. All of his earlier encounters with me had probably managed to convince him that I was a lot more capable than my apparent age made me look. Plus, that fortune teller he met before had already told him some great things would end up happening to him if he decided to act like a genuine teacher.

"Alright," he finally went ahead and said.

"I'll teach it to you. But first we should go find somewhere a lot more private. The technique takes your full concentration, and I don't want us having any random distractions." I gave him a nod while I stood up and offered my hand out to him. He ended up taking it, pulling himself up onto his feet while letting out this grunt. We began walking again, except this time around we were heading over toward the city's eastern district since I remembered seeing some much quieter residential areas over there.

The long walk ended up giving us some good time to talk. Lu Chenyang seemed like he was a lot more relaxed now that we managed to put some distance between ourselves and the corrupted shrine. The sheer terror from his possession experience was obviously still there in his eyes, except it was getting pushed back into the background by his scholarly curiosity.

"You know," he told me while we were busy navigating our way through a street that was lined with shops selling dubious cultivation pills, "I've been doing a lot of thinking about what you said earlier. About how you are cultivating so you can protect things and solve problems instead of cultivating for pure ambition or out of sheer desperation."

"What about it?"

"It's refreshingly honest," Lu Chenyang replied.

"Most of the young cultivators I meet will either lie about what their true motivations are, or they don't understand why they're pursuing power in the first place. They will say 'I want to reach the highest heavens' or 'I am seeking the ultimate dao' without ever considering what any of that means." He took a quick pause so he could let this random street performer pass by us.

The man was aggressively juggling brightly flaming swords around while he loudly proclaimed to everybody that he was the greatest entertainer in all the realities. There were several onlookers standing around watching him with expressions of polite indifference, since every one of them was probably thinking they could juggle better than him if they ever bothered to try doing it. Such was the way of this world.

"Except for you," Lu Chenyang continued talking once we went past the loud performance, "you seem to have concrete goals, there are real things you want to accomplish. That is rare to see."

"I don't know if having that makes me anything special," I told him.

"It might mean that I'm more aware of where my limitations are. Because whenever you know there are massive problems out there that you currently can't solve, it forces your cultivation to focus into these practical directions."

"Perhaps that is true," Lu Chenyang said sounding thoughtful.

"Or perhaps you've simply been forced to mature a lot faster than most people do. The way you carry yourself around, and the decisions you end up making, they all speak of someone who's already had to face some severe consequences. Like you haven't faced theoretical dangers, you have been in real situations where real lives were hanging in the balance." I didn't bother trying to respond to that. He was right about that, except I couldn't explain the full scope of all my experiences to him.

All those time loops I went through, the terrifying otherworldly entities, and the fact that I'd already died multiple different times across several different realities. Those were not the kind of details you casually shared with people you just met. We ended up turning down this much quieter street. All the buildings around here were smaller and a lot more residential looking.

There were actual families living here, regular everyday people who genuinely believed they were destined for greatness though they mostly just went about doing their normal daily lives. There were kids playing around in the street, and their loud laughter was carrying that particular quality of young voices that hadn't managed to get corrupted by this realm's crazy delusions yet.

"Do you have any family, Senior Lu?" I suddenly asked him, since I was genuinely curious about what his life was like outside dream cultivation. The question seemed to catch him off-guard. He stayed quiet for several long steps before he finally decided to answer me. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Not anymore," he slowly said.

"My parents passed away over three hundred years ago. It was from natural causes and old age. They were mortal and they never showed any cultivation talent. Though I kept giving them expensive resources so they could extend their lifespans, they continued to age and grow weaker while I stayed looking young and fit, and then toward the ends of their lives, they looked at me like I was a stranger."

There was this deep sadness in his voice that those early in their cultivation journey wouldn't really understand, at least, not until they experienced it.

"I did have a younger sister though," Lu Chenyang continued.

"She was incredibly talented, and she managed to reach the Dream Architect realm before she turned a hundred years old. We used to dream walk together sometimes and explore different realms as a team. But one hundred and fifty years ago, she ended up dying during a massive spatial rift collapse. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I'm sorry about that," I told him, and I genuinely meant it too.

"It's how the cultivation world works," Lu Chenyang replied while giving this shrug that didn't quite manage to hide all the pain beneath it.

"Everyone eventually loses people. The ones who manage to advance lose the ones who don't. So, eventually, you end up surrounded by strangers." We walked along in silence for a while after that. I started thinking about my own family all the back inside the Azure Peak Sect. My parents were ordinary people who'd somehow managed to produce a son who had cultivation talent. And there was my unborn sibling, who might or might not end up having the same opportunities I'd been given.

Then there was my best friend Wei Lin, who I might end up losing soon if I don't manage to go find a way to cure the corruption. And Liu Chen too, who'd become like a brother to me despite us having different backgrounds. I had purposely been focusing myself on doing my cultivation, so I could solve all our problems and prepare for the upcoming challenges, specifically so I didn't have to spend too much time thinking about the long term future.

The dark truth was that if I continued advancing, and I kept pushing my cultivation higher and higher, I'd eventually end up having to face the isolation that Lu Chenyang described. I'd have to watch my mortal family age and die off while I remained young. I'd easily outlive my friends, and my allies, and everyone who mattered to me unless they somehow managed to reach the high cultivation levels too. Was having that kind of lonely future worth the path of power I was walking?

That question didn't have an easy answer to it at all.

"Ah," Lu Chenyang suddenly said out, breaking up the somber mood we were in.

"There's a nice tea house sitting up ahead. And though my body is a spiritual projection now, I feel like I deserve something to drink after everything we've been through. What do you say to that?" I looked over to where he was pointing his finger. It was a small establishment that had a huge sign proudly proclaiming it was "The Supreme Tea of Destiny" written in this highly elaborate golden calligraphy.

When I looked through the windows, I could see several different customers sitting around tables, happily enjoying their beverages with that same usual excessive confidence this realm inspired inside everybody. Even though I wanted to jump into learning about the creation of dream gates, Lu Chenyang had been through a lot today, so it felt only right for me to be patient with him.

"Tea sounds good," I smiled over at him. We went ahead and entered the shop. The interior felt cozy despite having ostentatious decorations everywhere. There was gold trim on everything, naturally, and every table had a small little plaque on it carefully describing how the furniture itself was blessed by fate to only support the most important customers. A server approached us, she was a young woman whose shiny name tag proudly identified her as being "Li Hua, Chosen Servant of the Divine Brew."

She gave us a deep bow, which seemed too excessive for being in a tea house, but I was already used to seeing this realm's highly theatrical nature by now anyway.

"Honored guests," she greeted us.

"Your highly auspicious arrival was foretold inside my tea leaves this morning. Please, you must take the table by the window. It has been waiting specifically for cultivators of your sheer magnificence." Lu Chenyang and I quickly exchanged a glance with each other. His expression suggested he was trying incredibly hard to not burst out laughing. We followed Li Hua over to the table, which did end up having a nice view looking out at the street outside.

"What would you recommend?" I asked her, while I was looking at the menu. Every item on it had a paragraph-long description extensively explaining why it was the absolute greatest tea in existence.

"The Celestial Dragon Oolong," Li Hua said without any hesitation at all.

"It was harvested under the bright light of a full moon by me. Every leaf was carefully selected for its destined greatness and then prepared using ancient techniques that were passed down through generations of amazing tea masters who recognized my inherent superiority."

"We'll go ahead and have that then," Lu Chenyang said, clearly fighting hard to hold back a smile. Li Hua bowed deeply at us again then left so she could go prepare our order.

"This dream realm never stops being absurd," Lu Chenyang muttered once she was out of earshot.

"Every person living here is so convinced of their own importance that they can't see how ridiculous it all sounds."

"The corruption makes it worse," I pointed out to him.

"I wonder if the realm was always somewhat like this anyway. The original founder's cultivation method was based on having self-belief. Having some level of an inflated ego was probably built into the foundation from the beginning."

"That's probably right," Lu Chenyang agreed.

"Though there's a difference between having some healthy confidence and whatever it is we are seeing here. These people can't ever doubt themselves, when having some doubt would be appropriate for the situation. That isn't having confidence at all, it's pure cognitive inflexibility." After a few minutes, Li Hua returned carrying our tea. She carefully poured it out using this exaggerated ceremony, treating every drop like it secretly contained all the hidden secrets of true immortality.

The tea itself actually ended up smelling quite good though, it was floral, but it had nice hints of something earthy hiding underneath it.

"Please enjoy your highly transcendent experience," Li Hua told us, giving us one final deep bow before she finally left us alone. I went ahead and took a sip of it. It wasn't world-changing or destiny-altering like she claimed, it was just some well-prepared tea that used highly quality leaves, but sometimes that was more than enough.

"So," Lu Chenyang slowly said, while wrapping both of his hands around his warm cup.

"Tell me a little bit more about what you actually want to accomplish. I don't mean the goals you can't discuss with me, I mean the general shape of your cultivation path. What kind of cultivator do you want to become eventually?" I considered the question while taking another sip of tea. What did I want to become? The honest answer was that I didn't know.