Chương 53: Chapter 52: BAGS AND PRISMS

CHAPTER 52 BAGS AND PRISMS —∞— They spent only as much time inside the cave as it took to collect everything, and not a second more. Jieyuan quickly collected all the scale blades he'd thrown, and then helped Daojue put away the artifacts lying around the cave into their new holder pouches. In the process he learned that these holder pouches weren't empty, but he held off from taking a proper look inside until they were out. Jieyuan also put away the jackal's corpse, which went into a pouch all of its own.

Though they had plenty of Orangerealm weapons now, that didn't mean he was about to pass up on the beast's claws and fangs. Waste not, want not, and all that. You could never have enough Orangerealm things to throw. As soon as they were out, they made for the next pocket. There was no guarantee the jackal hadn't had friends. Or worse, a pack. Meiyao might have been able to tell, but she wasn't around.

So, like always, Jieyuan thought it best to plan for the worst while hoping the Heavens didn't find your imagination lacking and decide to show you just how bad things could really get. Thankfully, the Heavens seemed to have already sated their sadistic streak for today with the one Orangerealm beast, so what followed was just more of the same old song and dance.

They moved from pocket to pocket, mowing through whatever Redrealm beasts the Dome sent their way (the ones that didn't end up backing down after the customary stare-down, at any rate), until they came across a clearing Huaxin deemed safe enough for them to set up camp. Or, at least, the cultivator version of setting up camp, which boiled down to just sitting down and calling it a day. Usually, that was. This time around, things promised to be a fair bit more interesting.

"All right," Jieyuan said, standing in the middle of the clearing. Both Huaxin and Maeva were on the lookout, and they'd gotten good enough, Huaxin in particular, that they could detect the approach of anything under Orangerealm ten times out ten.

"Let's have a look." Trees circled the edges of this particular pocket, but the center of it was mostly bare. Jieyuan first cleared away some of the undergrowth from the center with Daojue's silent help until they had a nice, neat, tidy patch of grass and dirt and not an inches-thick jumble of wild plant stuff. Then they went about emptying the holder pouches in front of them, taking out all the new artifacts they'd picked up earlier.

When they moved on to the ones they'd put away in the new holder pouches, Jieyuan found himself taking out a lot more artifacts than he'd put inside. They hadn't even started yet, and already things looked promising. They'd only had to fill up some of the Redrealm bags, but he emptied all of the Redrealm ones, getting it all out on the forest floor. Soon, they found themselves staring not just at weapons, armor, and accessories, but also jadebooks and red prisms. Lots and lots of prisms, for that matter.

Jieyuan didn't start inspecting the artifacts immediately; instead he looked over to the Orangerealm bags, which he hadn't peeked inside yet. He considered them for a moment, but ultimately decided to leave them alone for now. Saving the best for last, and all that. Jieyuan and Daojue crouched in front of the artifacts on the ground and got to work. Deciding to start with the weapons first, Jieyuan picked up one of the swords and trained his soulsenses on it, searching its song.

He didn't need to have the weapon in his hands; he could've done it from a distance. But physical contact helped with concentration. And though just holding a sword still made Jieyuan's skin crawl (for reasons he was no closer to figuring out), he had no intention of actually wielding it, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

"Hmmm." It took Jieyuan only a few moments to get the measure of the weapon. Which was because there wasn't much to measure. It practically didn't have a song; it was blank, without a spiritskill. The only thing it had going for it was its step, tenth-step Redrealm. In other words, it's useless. Jieyuan shrugged before setting the sword aside. It was a pity, but he'd doubted he'd be finding anything on the level of the Shifting Sisters anyway. And they still had plenty more opportunities to strike gold.

As soon as he let go of the weapon, the discomfort vanished, only to come back back with a vengeance as he picked up a second sword. He ignored the odd, inexplicable revulsion, and gave its spiritual song a quick inspection. Blank again. He set it down next to the first one and glanced over at Daojue, who was in front of him. Daojue was holding a sword himself, Gleaming End lying on the ground just beside him. On the other side of him was another sword as well as a saber that Daojue had probably already checked.

Daojue only held the sword for a moment before also setting it aside.

"Blank?" Jieyuan guessed. Daojue didn't answer. Jieyuan hummed, nodding to himself, as he picked up another weapon, a saber this time. A brief inspection later, and he set it down with the two swords he'd already checked, a frown on his face. He was starting to notice a pattern here. Three more artifacts later, he was all but sure of it.

"They're all blank artifacts," he said, tossing yet another spiritskill-less sword into a quickly growing pile to his side. It was at tenth-step, sure, but that didn't matter much when it was just a blank, old, boring sword. Granted, it was a sword, so it wasn't like he'd had any intention of using it anyway, given his irrational aversion toward them. The pile by Daojue's side was much bigger than his; Daojue barely had to glance at an artifact to tell what it could do.

But as far as Jieyuan could tell, Daojue hadn't found anything interesting yet either. He'd thought they might strike gold yet, but as it turned out the gold remained very much unstruck by the time they'd finished going through all the Redrealm weapons. All but one of them were blank artifacts, and the single weapon with a spiritskill, a saber, was nothing to write home about.

Jieyuan's leading theory was that the scouting parties sent into the Dome had mostly brought with them only had blank artifacts because they weren't expected to return and their sects didn't want to risk losing anything precious. As Jieyuan turned his eyes to the remaining artifacts, though, he hoped he was wrong. Because that meant that those wouldn't be much better. The weapons done with, they moved on to the armor pieces, though Jieyuan hadn't expected much from those to begin with.

As far as he knew, Redrealm cultivator's greaves and gauntlets didn't have any special spiritskills; their basic functions were supposedly already the limit of what you could pull of with Redrealm inscripts. He was proven correct, and the Redrealm armor pieces made themselves at home beside the weapons. Next came the turn of the accessories.

"Cleanser ring, cleanser bracelet, cleanser ring," Jieyuan murmured, putting them away one after another. And after that, a series of holder pouches, bags, and purses, and then mind-linkers in all shapes and forms. Nothing particularly useful. And with that, all that was left of their Redrealm haul were the red prisms and the jadebooks, neither of which he bothered with for now. The prisms were straightforward enough and definitely welcome, while the jadebooks he set aside to look through later.

"Well, that's that," Jieyuan said, frowning at the dozens of mostly useless Redrealm artifacts.

"Blank artifacts, jadebooks, and prisms." It wasn't like the artifacts were worthless. They could still be sold. But for that they'd need to leave the Dome first, and that didn't look like it would be happening any time soon. Putting them out of his mind for now, Jieyuan turned his attention to the artifacts he couldn't sense. The higher-realm ones. Those, at least, promised to be more interesting, even if by virtue of their realm alone.

He couldn't inspect them, what with them being invisible to his soulsenses, but he was fairly sure that Daojue had a way around that, considering the whole deal with Gleaming End. And so he turned over to Daojue.

"Can you look through them?" Daojue didn't reply, but he picked up one of the higher-realm artifacts, a sword, and stared at it intently for a few moments.

"Ninth-step Orangerealm," Daojue said, simply, setting down the sword.

"Blank." And there you have it. Jieyuan nodded, and then asked, "I take it that's another bloodgift of yours at work?"

"No," Daojue replied, picking up another sword. This one looked a little fancier, with cupped, disc-shaped guard in the shape of an open lotus. No? Jieyuan frowned.

"What is it, then? How are you sensing them?" Daojue ignored him.

"Tenth-step Orangerealm," Daojue said after a little while, putting the Orangerealm sword beside the first one.

"Blank." And on and on it went, one Orangerealm weapon after another. Over a dozen swords, and one saber. And not a single spiritskill to be found among them. Jieyuan wasn't too disappointed, though. All of the Orangerealm weapons were at either ninth-step or tenth-step. Gleaming End had been immensely useful so far because of its realm, not because of its spiritskills (which Daojue had only managed to use that one time, during their escape from Viridian Death City). And it was only at first-step Orangerealm.

There was one issue, though. The reason why Gleaming End worked so well was because Daojue had bonded with it, letting him use its Law offensively. Otherwise, just like with his scale blades and daggers, besides being indestructible it wouldn't have been any better than a Redrealm sword against Redrealm beasts. Only against Orangerealm beasts would they offer any advantage over Redrealm weapons, canceling out their Laws. But Jieyuan already had a way around it in mind.

Before Daojue could move on to the other Orangerealm artifacts, he asked, "Would you mind bonding the saber for me to use?" Sabers also felt wrong to him, but it wasn't nearly as bad as with swords, and needs must. He could live with some discomfort.

"I cannot," Daojue said.

"What?" Jieyuan looked from Daojue to Gleaming End and then back to Daojue.

"Why not? What about Gleaming End? You bonded it, didn't—""I did not bond Gleaming End," Daojue said.

"Gleaming End bonded itself to me."

"That's—" Jieyuan caught himself, frowning, and stopped to think. Too many stupid questions—at least from Daojue's perspective—would have Daojue ignoring him altogether for the rest of the day. Jieyuan recalled their talk after their escape from the Dome. How Daojue had said it was Gleaming End that had used its spiritskills, and not him. Oh.

"Does this have to do with the whole Gleaming End being alive business?" Jieyuan asked. Daojue said nothing. Jieyuan glanced over at the Orangerealm swords on the ground.

"And those aren't alive, then?" Again, no response. Jieyuan sighed, shaking his head.

"I guess there's nothing to be done about it." Wordlessly, Daojue returned to his inspection of the remaining Orangerealm artifacts. The gauntlets and greaves, as it turned out, were blank like Redrealm ones; not that it'd have meant anything if they weren't, as they wouldn't have been able to use them anyway. But then Daojue moved on to the Orangerealm accessories, and there things got more interesting.

Earlier, Jieyuan had left the Orangerealm holder pouches for later because he'd wanted to save the best for last. But now it was looking like they were more of his last hope instead. Jieyuan picked up one of the Orangerealm holder pouches and took a look inside it. It was massive. Perspective was a little skewed with all the dimensional warping at play, but improved sight also meant improved depth perception. I can probably fit an entire house inside here. With space left over.

The weight reduction factor, proportional to the space, would let him carry said house without any issue. Like the Redrealm bags, it wasn't empty. Inside were more Orangerealm artifacts, about a hundred orange prisms, and half a dozen jadebooks. Jieyuan dumped all of it on the ground, and then moved on to the other two Orangerealm pouches. Inside them he found more of the same, all of which also went to the ground. Jieyuan ignored all of that, though.

What he was interested in were the three Orangerealm bags themselves, not their contents. He'd already given up on all of the other Orangerealm artifacts, but the thing about holder pouches was that they didn't need to be bonded to be used. Sure, he wouldn't be able to manipulate their internal space like he could with a bonded one, but it wasn't that big of a deal if he just used them for storage. The jadebooks were another point of interest, but he set them aside with the ones from before to look through later.

Daojue went through the higher-realm artifacts while Jieyuan sorted everything else. In one side of the patch of earth they'd cleared went all the holder bags, the red prisms, and the jadebooks; on the other side, the orange prisms and all the other artifacts.

"All right," Jieyuan said to himself, standing up, looking between the two piles. Daojue stood by his side, Gleaming End in hand again.

"We can work with this." Twelve bags in total. Nine Redrealm, three Orangerealm. Between those and the ones Jieyuan and Daojue already had, they wouldn't be hurting for storage space any time soon. And given they'd taken to harvesting beast parts and plants for refining, that was space they'd be putting to good use. And then there were the prisms, something else they wouldn't be hurting for. The orange prisms were of as little help as the Orangerealm artifacts, but the red prisms were a different story.

And now they had a whole bunch more of them. Well over a thousand. It wasn't like they'd been running low on prisms before, but given they had probably years in the Dome ahead of them, it'd have only been a matter of time before they'd have to start rationing. A thousand prisms would tide them over for a good while. More than enough for him and Daojue to make it to tenth-step Redrealm with prisms left over. Bags and prisms. Those seemed to be the only things useful out of everything.

There were still the jadebooks to go through, but though Jieyuan had grouped them together with the bags and the red prisms in the useful pile, he doubted he'd find anything particularly interested them; most likely they'd end up not much better than paperweights. All things considered, it wasn't so bad. The prisms alone were worth that fight with the jackal, and the holder bags were more than welcome. Still, Jieyuan found himself a little disappointed. That was the thing about expectations.

When they weren't met, they could make even a good deal look rotten. And as for the biggest disappointment… Jieyuan moved over to the other pile, crouching down in front of the five higher-realm artifacts he'd set to the side. Four rings and a bracelet. The Yellowrealm artifacts he'd been so excited about—Daojue had confirmed that they were, indeed, Yellowrealm—but had no way of using. The worst part was that they'd have been really useful.

Daojue had given him a brief description of what each of the artifacts could do, and Jieyuan was particularly interested in what Daojue had called a glyph-sealer ring. Jieyuan picked up said ring, turning it over in his hand. It was a smooth black band. Or rather, a gold band—but dotting its surface were hundreds of tiny black symbols, bunched so tightly together they just about obscured the gold. Inscripts didn't usually leave a mark, but these ones did.

From what he understood of Daojue's very succinct explanation, glyph-sealer rings were storage artifacts like holder bags, except they held dozens to hundreds separate pockets of space—each one represented by that tiny mark—where you could teleport things in and out of. Sealing and unsealing. There'd been some sealer rings among the Orangerealm artifacts, too, but with less than a hundred marks. Already he had ideas for how he might use something like this. Usages that went way beyond simple storage.

Depending on the exact mechanics (sealing and unsealing speed, whether you could choose where something was unsealed in, just what could be sealed), he could think of so many ways something like this might be useful in combat. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

And yet right now it's just dead weight— Out of the corner of his eye, Jieyuan saw Daojue—who for a while now had been just standing there, staring at Gleaming End for whatever reason—suddenly walk over and pick up one of the Orangerealm swords. Holding the sword out in front of him in one hand, Gleaming End in the other, Daojue looked between the two weapons. What's this, now? Jieyuan didn't ask, just watched as Daojue brought his hands together, resting the blade of the sword against Gleaming End's shaft.

The sword suddenly shimmered, the space around it warping. And then it disappeared. Jieyuan blinked. Wait, what? Like it was the most natural thing in the world, Daojue knelt down and picked up another Orangerealm sword. Jieyuan blinked again.

"Daojue?" Daojue paused, turning to look at him. Of course, he didn't elaborate, so Jieyuan had no choice but to ask, "What… What was that? What are you doing?"

"The cannibalism ritual," was Daojue's stone-faced answer. Now it was Jieyuan's turn to stare blankly. The what now?

"What in the—" Like with before, Jieyuan caught himself, shutting his mouth as he curbed the knee-jerk reaction to Daojue's ever-growing list of oddities. He considered Daojue's words while Daojue just stared at him, not doing anything. Like he was waiting for something. There was more to it than Daojue just being Daojue; Jieyuan got the impression that that Daojue wanted him to figure this out for himself. It wasn't the first time Daojue had done something like this. It was happening more and more lately.

Sometimes Daojue would do this when Jieyuan was refining, sometime after a fight; he'd offer some vague piece of advice, and remain utterly unresponsive until Jieyuan puzzled it out. Jieyuan wasn't sure what exactly the point of it was, whether this was Daojue acting on some bizarre sense of humor or Daojue testing him for some similarly bizarre reason. It could be a bit annoying, but he wasn't complaining. He'd rather have scraps of information thrown his way than nothing at all. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

All right. Let's think this through. Cannibalism's the key word here. Cannibalism… Two weapons, pressed together. One weapon disappearing. Cannibalism …

"You're sacrificing one chromal artifact to another," Jieyuan said.

"It's as if the sacrificed artifact is being eaten by the other artifact, hence cannibalism. Gleaming End ate the sword. And as for what this ritual does… It makes the remaining artifact stronger. It… increases the artifact's step." None of what Jieyuan said was phrased as a question. He made sure to state it all a fact. Daojue had never outright said anything along the lines of Are you asking or telling?

But the first time Daojue had done something like this, Jieyuan had made the mistake of asking his theories instead of telling them, and Daojue had given him a look. Daojue didn't reply, but his expression changed almost imperceptibly, softening ever so slightly around the eyes and mouth. This was, as best as Jieyuan could tell, Daojue's pleased face.

"All right," Jieyuan said, slowly. Already his thoughts were running ahead. Being able to increase your artifacts' step was a game-changer. He glanced down at the Shifting Sisters, kept sheathed at the sides of his waist. They'd served him well so far, but were useless against Orangerealm beasts, and it was only a matter of time before he'd have to discard them. But if he could get them to Orangerealm?

"Can you teach me the ritual?" Jieyuan didn't mince words. Daojue, likewise, got straight to the point.

"It can only be done with an ego artifact."

"Oh. That's… All right." A pity, but Jieyuan couldn't say he was that surprised. He'd never heard about this ritual before, and considering how useful it was, knowledge of it would would've spread if it was something that could be used with any kind of artifact. And ego artifact, was it? So that was what they were called.

"Anyway, what's Gleaming End's step now?" Jieyuan asked. Even if he could do nothing about the Shifting Sisters, improving Gleaming End would still be better than nothing.

"First-step Orangerealm," Daojue said. And, for the third time today, a single sentence was all it took to dash Jieyuan's hopes.

"It… It didn't change? That was a tenth-step Orangerealm sword you sacrificed, wasn't it?" Jieyuan said.

"That seems awfully inefficient." Daojue didn't answer, and Jieyuan took that as a cue to consider the matter further.

"Hmmm. Is the ritual normally this wasteful," he said, tentatively, "or is there some sort of compatibility factor involved?" Again he caught a glimpse of satisfaction flash across Daojue's expression. There was no answer, but none was needed.

"They have poor compatibility, then," Jieyuan said. Daojue didn't correct him, and that was that. Jieyuan glanced over at the remaining Orangerealm artifacts.

"All right. It's not like we have much use for them, so have at it. Just spare the saber and the sealer rings. And the bags, of course." The Orangerealm saber would at least come in handy when fighting Orangerealm beasts, and though the sealer rings were useless right now, that didn't mean that wouldn't change further down the line. It was only a matter of time before they reached tenth-step Redrealm. But Jieyuan had no intention of stopping there.

To advance to Orangerealm, you needed an Orangerealm coalescence hymn; it was the only way to merge the tenth-density red chroma imbued in your soul into first-density orange chroma. He'd looked into it back in the Gleaming Sect, and supposedly the only way to create a coalescence hymn (or any heavenly hymn, really) was if you had another one of the same realm and type to reference. You also needed to have high enough heavenly affinity.

As well as lots of time, because it was supposed to take upwards of decades to create a heavenly hymn, with coalescence ones being especially difficult. He hadn't been able to find much on the process itself, but it also wasn't as if he'd bothered digging too deeply. At the time, he'd been sure he'd soon be joining the Howling Lighting Sect, where he'd be handed all the Orangerealm hymns he needed. Still, where there was a will, there was a way.

And in ancient times, the cultivators of old must've somehow come up with the hymns they needed to advance on their own. When the time came, he was sure he and Daojue could figure something out. But then something else occurred to Jieyuan. It wasn't just Orangerealm artifacts they had.

"Actually, what about the Redrealm and Yellowrealm artifacts?" Jieyuan asked.

"Can you sacrifice them too, or do they need to be at the same realm for the ritual?" Daojue gave him his usual, stony stare, then wordlessly let go of the Orangerealm sword and picked up a Redsoul one and pressed them against each other. Then he just stood there for a few moments, still as a statue. The viridian mist drifted and turned lazily around them. Nothing happened. Jieyuan raised an eyebrow as Daojue set the sword back down. He was testing it, Jieyuan realized. He didn't know what would happen.

Jieyuan had no idea how Daojue knew all these things a Redsoul had no right knowing; while he was tight-lipped about almost everything, he was especially cagey when it came to his past and origins. But more and more it was becoming clear that Daojue's knowledge wasn't comprehensive; there were gaps in it. Daojue grabbed the Yellowrealm bracelet and stood back up. The same scene repeated. Daojue brought the two artifacts together. A few seconds passed. Again, nothing happened.

But just as Daojue moved them apart, he froze.

"Daojue?" Jieyuan asked. Daojue didn't seem to hear him, just fixed his gaze on his right hand. He looked unusually tense. Then Daojue drove Gleaming End into the ground in front of him and let it stand on its own like a pillar, freeing up his hand. The next moment, the gauntlet over Daojue's right arm expanded and slid off him, dropping to the ground. Daojue kept staring at his right hand, and Jieyuan did likewise. On it was a Redrealm ring Jieyuan knew to be a mind-linker.

But there was also a blood-red ring, embossed with odd patterns. It didn't register to Jieyuan's soulsenses. Normally, that'd imply it was mundane. But not necessarily. Daojue's mysterious red ring. It was that ring Daojue was looking at. Daojue moved the Yellowrealm bracelet to his right hand, the hand with the red ring, and took hold of Gleaming End with his left. He pressed Gleaming End and the bracelet against each other again. The ring, Jieyuan couldn't help but notice, was in contact with the bracelet.

The bracelet shimmered, then disappeared. Daojue kept staring at the red ring. Jieyuan did some staring of his own. He'd always known there was something up about the ring, especially with how Daojue would absentmindedly rub it over his gauntlets whenever he was acting strange. But now he finally had confirmation. Now he knew for sure it definitely wasn't mundane.

And if he was right about the role the ring was playing right now in performing the cannibalism ritual on the Yellowrealm artifacts, it shouldn't be merely Orangerealm, either.

"Daojue," Jieyuan said, "what is that ring?" Jieyuan had never asked about it outright before; he'd thought about it, the times Daojue would daze off and start rubbing it, but with how cagey Daojue already was, he'd decided not to pick that particular fight. Now, though, Jieyuan just couldn't keep himself from asking. Daojue broke his gaze away from his hand and stared up at him. He said nothing.

"You…" More than ever before, Jieyuan considered pressing the issue. But instead he sighed. Daojue had no obligation to tell him his secrets, and it wasn't like he could force him anyway.

"Never mind that. What's Gleaming End's step now?" Daojue kept up his stare for a while longer, then said, "Second-step Orangerealm." Jieyuan winced. Sacrificing a Yellowrealm artifact to increase an Orangerealm one's step by one measly step. Even if the cannibalism ritual wasn't restricted to ego artifacts, Jieyuan reckoned it still wouldn't have been widespread, considering how absurdly wasteful it was. Jieyuan stared down at the Yellowrealm sealer ring he was holding.

He could see himself eventually reaching Orangerealm, but Yellowrealm… That was much farther off. Much farther off. He tossed the ring to Daojue.

"Sacrifice all the Yellowrealm artifacts, then. We're going all in." In response, Daojue simply pressed the ring to the spear. It disappeared, and that was that. Daojue crouched down to pick up another artifact. Jieyuan watched for a while as Daojue fed Gleaming End artifact after artifact. But his thoughts were on the red ring. What exactly was it? What could it do?

If he'd read the situation correctly, and the ring was behind each and every time Daojue had acted out, then it was what had pushed Daojue into going inside the greenseeker jackal's burrow. It was also the ring that had shown Daojue the way to Gleaming End, back in the Gleamstone Valley. The ring acted up a few more times here in the Dome, but nothing had come out of it. Unless … Jieyuan frowned. Maybe… Maybe it'd kept them out of danger?

They had only come across low-step Orangerealm beasts so far, which was suspicious. Assuming that was true, though, then what was the ring's power? Some kind of sensor? There was also the fact that it had allowed Daojue to sacrifice a Yellowrealm artifact. Did the ring have a spiritskill specifically for facilitating the cannibalism ritual? That seemed… odd. Unlikely. Maeva? Any ideas? Maeva popped up by his side in her usual ensemble, a yellow sundress with a white lab coat over it.

She gave Daojue and the ring a thoughtful look.

"I think you're looking at it the wrong way." What?

"Daojue shouldn't be able to perform a ritual on Orangerealm entities, to begin with," Maeva said.

"Lower-realm entities cannot affect higher-realm ones. There has only been one exception to that rule, so far. Meiyao's Divine Nature Resonance, which lets her resonate with higher-realm beasts, and that's supposedly only possibles with the beasts and plants of the Viridian Dome specifically." She turned to Jieyuan.

"Daojue already said it's not his bloodline that let him sense those Orangerealm artifacts. It shouldn't be a bloodgift that let him sacrifice those, either. Most likely, just like how it was Gleaming End that bonded Daojue, and Gleaming End that used its spiritskills in Viridian Death City, it was Gleaming End that was using the cannibalism ritual on the Orangerealm artifacts, not Daojue." Jieyuan immediately saw where she was getting at. You think the red ring's an ego artifact, then?

He watched as one of the Yellowrealm rings disappeared from Daojue's hand. That it's what's using the cannibalism ritual right now?

"That seems more likely to me," Maeva said.

"Of course, if you were to ask my husband, I believe he'd be able to come up with more theories." Jieyuan would've scoffed if Daojue wasn't nearby. Oh, I already know what he'll say, that there's the soul of some ancient cultivator in that ring. Jieyuan stopped and considered that for a moment. Actually, depending on just how sentient these ego artifacts are? That might not be off the mark. Maybe the ring itself could count as an ancient cultivator.

In fact, that'd also go a long way in explaining Daojue's unusual knowledge. It might even explain Daojue's unwillingness to reveal how he knew all those things. But then again… Did that change anything? Jieyuan thought it over, and then decided it didn't. At least not for the time being.

If Daojue was carrying the soul of some ancient cultivator—or something along those lines—around with him, Jieyuan reckoned they'd be finding out soon enough, when they reached tenth-step Redrealm and Daojue mysteriously produced some Orangerealm coalescence hymns. Until then, Jieyuan reckoned it was none of his business. Thanks, Maeva.

"Any time, little brother," she said, disappearing back into him, returning to her lookout and chanting. Jieyuan watched Daojue for a few moments longer, but seeing he had matters well in hand and didn't need any help, he walked over to where he'd set aside the jadebooks. He plopped down in front of the little stacks of green cubes. Humming softly to himself, he picked up one of the Redrealm jadebooks, but his eyes were on the higher-realm ones. Who knows? Maybe we won't need Daojue's ring spirit.

Maybe we'll find an Orangerealm coalescence hymn in one of them. It wasn't likely. Given how precious heavenly hymns were, they weren't something you carried around with you; besides, cultivators gained perfect recall at seventh-step Redrealm. Not to mention heavenly hymns were sect property; sharing them with outsiders was expressly forbidden. But he could still hope. But first, the Redrealm ones. Jieyuan pumped some chroma into the little jade cube in his hand, and words appeared in his mind's eye.

Nothing—absolutely nothing—could've prepared him for a Viridian Death cultist's gleefully narrated account of the gradual necrosis of his flesh. It is the fourth day, and the Viridian looms closer than ever before. Its hold on me is indubitable. The skin of my hand has blackened into a stunning onyx; the flesh underneath, finely shriveled. On my palm, around the bite wound, are brilliant green boils, ripe as nature's most beautiful fruits.

The rest of my brothers and sisters are already one with the Viridian, and I envied them for their expedient departure, but now I know better. The Eternal Green had reserved for my unworthy self a far more glorious metamorphosis. Even in life the Viridian itself courses through me, and there is no feeling more rapturous. You who have found my legacy, I have already described the envoy of the Viridian that has granted me this most noble end. I am not a jealous man.

I beseech you once more to seek one such hallowed creature for yourself, so that you may also experience the utter joy that is to— Jieyuan cut off the flow of chroma into the jade slip, and the rest of the utterly deranged narration mercifully vanished from his mind's eye. He'd only persevered past the first few days of the disgusting log entries in hopes that the cultist might have included anything important about the Dome. But enough was enough; some things just weren't fit for human consumption.

He'd thought before how he wouldn't want a glimpse into the head of a Viridian Death cultist. He couldn't have been more right. Jieyuan almost threw the jadebook away—out of the pocket, even—but restrained himself, and instead just tossed it to the side. He'd be leaving it in the clearing when they left. He turned his attention to the remaining jadebooks. And it occurred to him that chances were that a great deal of them might have been from Viridian Death cultists.

Out of all the Redrealm sects, they were the most likely to send people into the Dome.

"Oh, joy," Jieyuan murmured to himself. But there was nothing to it. He grabbed another one and, bracing himself pumped some chroma into it. And wonder of wonders… THE VIRIDIAN CALLS ME AND I SHALL ANSWER I AM ITS MOST DEVOUT ROT SHALL SET ME— Jieyuan took a deep breath. Then another. Then a third, just for good measure. He was, it seemed, in for a treat and a half. After reading several more rabid lines praising the glory of the Viridian, Jieyuan gave up and set the little green cube aside with a scowl.

He went for the next jadebook before he could lose his courage. And so it went, jadebook after jadebook. The Redrealm ones turned out to be a total bust. More than two-thirds of them ended up being from Viridian Death cultists, as he had most sincerely dreaded. The only reason each one wasn't worse than the last was because they were each as bad as it could get in their own, terrible way. And the ones that weren't from cultists were less disturbing but just as useless.

Jieyuan turned his attention to the higher-realm jadebooks, the ones he couldn't see with his soulsenses. Two stacks, one significantly bigger than the other. Orangerealm and Yellowrealm. He started with the former, grasping one of the cubes. He gave it a considering look. At the very least, it promised to be better than the Redrealm ones, even if only because there was no chance it could be from a Viridian Death cultist.

Of course, there was no guarantee it wasn't from someone from an Orangerealm cult, but he'd take the risk. Though it was invisible to soulsenses, connecting his chroma to it made words appear in his mind's eye just fine. The only thing he couldn't do was change its contents, which would require him to bond it first. Let's see… Experiments with the viridian mist… Attempt one… Having learned his lesson, Jieyuan skimmed through the contents first. He quickly got the gist of it.

As it turned out, he wasn't the only one who'd had the idea to figure out some way around the viridian mist after entering the Dome. The difference was that the author of the jadebook hadn't had Meiyao around to tell them that there was no point. So the cultivator had kept trying and trying and trying. Experiment after experiment. And the culmination of it all, written at the very end… The Viridian is absolute. Only in its embrace shall I find solace. Jieyuan slowly exhaled, cutting off the connection.

The author hadn't been from the Viridian Death Cult, but it looked like they'd found religion at the end. Jieyuan didn't like the sound of that. He liked even less what that could mean for him and Daojue. Jieyuan moved on to the next jadebook. Lines of poetry appeared in his mind's eye. His heart somersaulted, and he almost jumped to his feet. But then he realized the meter didn't match any of the heavenly hymn types. It was also too long. Heavens, don't play me like that.

Disappointment washed over him, and Jieyuan forced himself to relax. There were other poems in the jadebook, and he quickly went through them all, but none had the look of a heavenly hymn. That added up, though. Everyone—mundanes included—knew the exact structure of each of the heavenly hymn types, and it was considered to be in very bad taste to replicate them in mundane poetry. Jieyuan rolled the cube around in his hand, going through all the poems one more time, just to be sure.

The impression he got was the same, though. Just mundane poetry.

"Hmmm." The jadebook was probably worthless, but… Jieyuan decided to set it on his other side, away from the discarded ones. There was a chance he was wrong and the poems were heavenly hymns, maybe of types he'd never heard of. And the only real way to tell whether it was the real thing was to recite it while Communing, which he fully intended to test. He moved on. Compared to the first two, the rest of the Orangerealm books proved uneventful.

All of them either logs or memoirs that were either uninteresting or depressing. It seemed like Orangesouls didn't think or see the world that much differently from Redsouls and mundanes. Sighing, Jieyuan picked up yet another jadebook. This one, though, was from the Yellowrealm pile. There was no guarantee the jadebook itself was at Yellowrealm—he hadn't had Daojue confirm that—but it'd been in a Yellowrealm bag, so chances were it was the same realm.

As he connected his chroma to it, he decided it was definitely not an Orangerealm jadebook. Because words didn't appear in his mind's eye. Rather, his surroundings warped; and suddenly he was no longer in the Dome, sitting in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by viridian mist, but instead in a room. The room was large and spacious, with most of the space occupied by an enormous bed. He was sitting on top of the bed, at the edge.

Or rather, the body he was currently occupying—from whose eyes he was seeing right now—was sitting on the bed. There were no windows in the room. The dim lighting came from a glowing stone in the ceiling, which provided just enough light to see. The walls were stone, the floor carpeted. The bed beneath him was soft and springy. He—the body, the owner of the memory—was clad in soft, sheer silk robes. He was staring at the door, which sat opposite the bed, waiting for something. This was a full memory.

Jieyuan would've been way more surprised if he hadn't experienced something like this once before. Back in the Fatebloom Woods, when he'd tried to read Yikongwei Beidao's last jadebook. As it was, it took Jieyuan a moment to center himself. He was distantly aware of his actual body, and he knew that all it'd take to return to it was a thought. Jieyuan let it play out. He wasn't privy to the memory owner's thoughts, but he could feel the man's heartbeat as if it were his own.

He could also feel a dull, hollow thrum in his navel, something like anticipation. This should be a Yellowsoul's memory, a glimpse into a Yellowsoul's head. What kind of things would it show? What kind of memory would a Yellowsoul deem important enough to store in a jadebook? The door opened, revealing a woman on the other side. Jieyuan stared. The woman wore sheer robes just like the man's, stretched tight against her curves and leaving little to the imagination.

She had a young, pretty face, her cheeks rosy, her gaze deep and dark. She said nothing as she walked inside. Her hips swayed with every step. The man's eyes ran over her body, drinking in the sight of her. She was tall, her body toned in the way only a lifelong martial artist's could be. A cultivator, then. Maybe even a Yellowsoul herself. Jieyuan suddenly felt parched—and he wasn't sure how much of it was himself, and how much of it was the Yellowsoul whose body he was in. Wait. Hold on. There's no…

There's no way. She stopped right in front of the bed, in front of the man. He could smell her now, sweet and floral. The man didn't rise. She looked down at him. She smiled softly, teasingly. Jieyuan couldn't believe it. Refused to believe it. This isn't— It can't be— Slowly—excruciatingly so—the woman raised her hands until they were grasping the collar of her robes. And then, just as slowly, she pulled. Her robes came undone, baring smooth, pale— Jieyuan wrenched himself out of the memory.