Ask the Mirror

Chapter 176: Information

Goblin: The re-translation has reached 123 chapters, however this is taking way longer to finish than I expected, quite far away from chapter 175. But I guess it can’t be helped due to the constant turmoil in my life. Anyways, my accursed life aside, I decided to continue the regular update from chapter 176. I retranslated chapters 177 to 183 first to add them as Patreon Advance chapters. Also, check this list of the changed terms I managed to compile (there might be others but I reached my mental limit at some point, I will post the full term list at the AM Wiki page after I sort them out).

Yu Ci’s mind was pulled into a vortex like a dream.

He saw that each time the two phantoms clashed, they stirred the primal energies of heaven and earth for dozens of li in every direction—especially when they collided into the enormous rift. The surrounding mountain rock and cliff faces seemed on the verge of collapse at any moment, and indeed, they should have collapsed long ago, just like the four mountain peaks that had rumbled and tumbled down moments before.

Yet, the mountain itself still stood.

Yu Ci felt a sudden daze. He seemed to see the mountain twisting and shaking, like a colossal living thing, digesting the violent impact.

As this sensation took hold, Yu Ci felt as if he had been abruptly lifted high above this battlefield, looking down from on high, his gaze piercing through a thousand li of clouds and mist. Then he saw it: upon this enormous mountain, countless gleaming talisman patterns spread layer upon layer through the rock and stone, through the clouds and mist.

Within the circuits formed by these talisman patterns, the terrifying power unleashed by both combatants manifested, transforming into blazing, dazzling magma that flowed down the mountain along the talisman-pattern circuits, extinguishing all life in its path—yet it could not break free from the talisman patterns’ restraints, plummeting instead into the bottomless abyss.

This channelled power effortlessly tore apart the stable web of species that had existed in the canyon for billions of years. In the abyss, tens of thousands of bizarre creatures were instantly annihilated, turned to ash.

This grand perspective did not last long. The entire sequence of images came in fragments, as if on the verge of breaking off at any moment. Yu Ci felt an intense vertigo, and as the world spun around him, all light within that space withdrew. An endless darkness descended, utterly pure, utterly profound, as if it could devour a person’s soul and corrode it to nothing.

Yu Ci’s mind shuddered violently. All the images dissolved.

He stood there, dazed and uncomprehending. The phantom of his Yin Spirit flickered in and out of existence; the images he had just traversed had consumed too much of his energy. Simply maintaining his Yin Spirit state at this point was already remarkable. After a long moment, the Yin Spirit phantom solidified once more, but his sensations had clearly changed from before.

First, Yu Ci felt that his Yin Spirit had grown “heavier.”

Thousands of points of firelight within the rift emitted a vast quantity of information, piling up within his spirit. Though the Conscious Spirit was vast and its capacity theoretically limitless, the sudden compression of such complex and dense information still brought immense pressure. Having been refined by the *Primordial Origin Qi Method*, the memory region at the outer layer of his spirit had once been quite clear—but now an “iceberg” had been forcibly crammed into it.

The “iceberg” stood towering, its peak seeming to pierce the clouds, while an immeasurable portion of it remained hidden in the bottomless depths of the sea.

He wanted to probe its mysteries, but before he could even approach, he could not withstand the weight of this colossal thing—the massive quantity of disordered information interweaved, chaotic and dangerous. If it slipped out of control, it could shatter his consciousness and drive him mad. Yet he had no way to expel it. He could only let his divine intent circle far away from the iceberg’s periphery, occasionally brushing against the most trivial fragments.

These fragments spanned heaven and earth, sea and stars, jumping and shifting without pattern. Yet a strange power flowed through them, capable of capturing the mind. If he focused on them too long, his Yin Spirit would be twisted and deformed.

Yu Ci hurriedly shifted his focus, no longer looking inward but turning outward. Then he noticed a second peculiarity: his Yin Spirit had grown “clearer.”

This sensation was extremely subtle. Yu Ci felt that as his divine intent swept through the space within the rift, his perception had somehow changed. It was as if a kind of “order,” a kind of “thread,” had inexplicably been drawn from his heart and laid out across the surrounding space. Suddenly, certain information hidden within this enormous and chaotic mountain rift was stripped away.

Yu Ci’s Yin Spirit phantom unconsciously traced lines in the void, dividing the surrounding space in two with a twisting boundary. Blue and red blood stood on opposite sides, clearly differentiated.

“Two sides in opposition, each restraining the other. How was this caused? It must be like this…”

In truth, Yu Ci did not truly understand. But he had seized a thread, and thus he followed it from here to there, from surface to depth, tracing it step by step, gazing into the distance toward the source that flickered in and out of view. Unconsciously, the Yin Spirit phantom drifted upward, wrapped in a wisp of fragrance, disappearing into the cracked rock layers above.

“There are talisman patterns here, too…”

Following the vine to find the gourd felt truly satisfying. It was not merely inferring the situation outside, but also regulating the state of his Yin Spirit, gradually adapting to the changes brought by the “iceberg.” Without realizing it, Yu Ci had begun to reconstruct an ancient great battle, and the residual information from that battle was also affecting him.

As the process advanced, naturally and spontaneously, Yu Ci’s thoughts grew clearer, his spirit more vigorous, and his Yin Spirit phantom increasingly solid. Dense threads of qi-energy wove in and out of it, bringing with them streams of flowing light that swirled around his form.

Yet Yu Ci did not notice any of this.

At this moment, whether his mind was following the thread or the thread was pulling his mind, he had entered a state of complete absorption, forgetful of self. Because of this, the transformation of his Yin Spirit grew ever more profound. The “iceberg” occupying his memory region scattered strands of “cold air”—more fragments of information—which merged into Yu Ci’s consciousness. These fragments often helped him think more deeply.

Yu Ci seemed to understand much, yet there was even more he did not understand. He continued his pursuit, but an abrupt stimulus from the outside world startled him awake.

As his intent flowed, he saw a pair of blood-red eyes.

The Ghostly Beast was using its thick forelimbs to push aside blue stone, moving toward the earth cavity. It was at this moment that Yu Ci’s Yin Spirit phantom drifted up and emerged. The Ghostly Beast halted immediately. The blue stone slammed flat onto the ground with a heavy thud.

“GROAR!”

The Ghostly Beast’s roar filled the depression, echoing back and forth. In truth, Yu Ci heard no sound at all; his acute Yin Spirit perception had reconstituted the air vibrations into simulated hearing, naturally filtering out the killing force of the sound waves.

Its roar having failed, the Ghostly Beast grew increasingly agitated. Its blood-red eyes stared fixedly at this spot. Its body visibly went through a process of inhaling and gathering strength, its massive form actually swelling slightly more. Only then did it open its maw and bellow violently.

The atmosphere trembled with a deep hum. Yu Ci saw the powerful sound waves nearly condense into substance, transforming into a distinct ring of ripples that radiated sharply outward from the Ghostly Beast. Where the vibrations reached, the originally smooth cliff faces around them cracked with fine fissures. Stone powder drifted in the air, then was swept clean away, along with the thin mist inside the depression.

Yu Ci’s Yin Spirit phantom flickered slightly, the light passing through it distorting a little. Such formidable baleful force—if his physical body were here, not only would his fragile eardrums be destroyed, his head might even be blasted open. But in his Yin Spirit state, this was all it amounted to.

Simultaneously, a layer of rapidly fluctuating strange force struck at his Yin Spirit in a more subtle manner. Unfortunately for it, since the previous night, this kind of strange force had been unable to affect him.

Now, with his thoughts clear and agile, Yu Ci realized after a brief reflection that this was the power of the True Form Heavenly Dragon Qi at work. The True Intent of the Heavenly Dragon contained within it could withstand intense pressure, dissolving most attacks aimed at the spirit and stabilizing the soul.

Thus, in his Yin Spirit state, the Ghostly Beast was virtually powerless against Yu Ci.

However, Yu Ci himself had encountered a minor problem. The sound waves from the Ghostly Beast’s roar were so powerful that they scattered the wisp of Sandalwood Peace Incense fragrance clinging to the periphery of his Yin Spirit. Exposed directly to the primal energies of heaven and earth, his Yin Spirit experienced considerable discomfort—though not as violently acute as that night in Absolute Cliff City, when the reaction had been like oil meeting a knife blade.

Adapting to and controlling the reaction between Yin Spirit and the primal energies of heaven and earth was a necessary process in cultivation. But this was truly not a good time for such training. Yu Ci dared not linger. His Yin Spirit phantom sank directly into the rock layers, diving back toward the rift below.

Before leaving, he glanced back and saw sparks flying wildly among the fiery smoke surrounding the Ghostly Beast. Each spark was born and extinguished in an instant—this was precisely the external manifestation of that strange force.

This was Rakshasa Illusory Force.

The conclusion came abruptly, but it was not unfounded imagination. Yu Ci’s thinking had become highly active; his memory was fluid, like inspiration bursting forth. When he focused his attention on it, corresponding information naturally leaped forth from his spirit, arranging and connecting to provide him with the basis for judgment.

The information that surfaced this time was precisely what the various elders had projected into his spirit using secret techniques—information he had only now found time to examine.

Upon closer inspection, Yu Ci understood why the elders had said this information was so important. The elders were important figures in the Great Thoroughfare, unremarkable in cultivation but privy to information at a level far beyond what an outer disciple like Yu Ci could ever access.

According to the elders, the Ghostly Beast was originally called a “Jade-Horned Wolf,” a rare natural species from the Blood Prison Ghostly Domain. It possessed innate abilities of illusion and illusion-breaking. Normally, it was only half a person in height and seven or eight feet in length. The reason this one had grown so enormous was that it had spent years by the side of the Rakshasa Ghostly Monarch, steeped in his divine power, absorbing some of the essence of his illusory force. Yet it could not fully digest it, which was like a human gorging themselves until their body swelled like a balloon. Once its size increased, it was no longer “adorable,” and so the Rakshasa Ghostly Monarch had abandoned it here in the Heavens Rift Valley.

The three Heart-Binding Horns on the Jade-Horned Wolf’s forehead were its most vulnerable points, yet also the foundation of its illusion techniques. With these three horns, even though it could not fully digest the Rakshasa Illusory Force, it could still borrow its divine power while maintaining its own clarity of mind.

But now, having lost all three horns and wielding the Rakshasa Illusory Force without restraint, the elders had judged that the Ghostly Beast had likely been eroded by that force. This was a reverse devouring process, first damaging its consciousness, then slowly infecting its spirit inside and out, while simultaneously affecting its physical body. The Ghostly Beast’s transformation into a flame form, allowing it to drill through mountains and earth at will with almost no substance—this was one of the signs of this condition.

The elders had seen two similar cases in the East, both involving devotees of the Rakshasa Cult who could not withstand their Divine Lord’s illusory force and transformed in flames into bizarre “Illusionary Spirits,” becoming sacrifices to their Divine Lord.

After reading this information, Yu Ci could not help but sigh: This Rakshasa Ghostly Monarch’s lineage truly lived up to its demonic origins—utterly bizarre.

By now, he had broken through the rock layers and returned to the rift space filled with Sandalwood Peace Incense, and the sensations of his Yin Spirit improved accordingly. But soon, he cursed aloud:

That idiot truly had lost its mind. Ignoring the consequences of illusory force erosion, it had transformed into its flame form again and was pursuing him.

Here, unlike up above, his physical body was laid out on the platform. One careless move, and the Ghostly Beast might trample him into pulp!

Yu Ci’s thoughts spun rapidly as he desperately sought a countermeasure—then suddenly paused.

At this moment, his active mind seized upon a piece of information, stripped from the periphery of the “iceberg” within his spirit.

His Yin Spirit perception abruptly shifted, fixing upon a certain object nearby.