Chapter 218 - The Bleak Sea and the Ancient Remnant
The instant Su Bai’s fingers closed around the sword hilt, the ruined recess disappeared.
His awareness had been drawn inward.
An endless darkness spread beneath his feet. Far above that bleak expanse floated an unfamiliar figure.
The old man appeared to be somewhere in his seventies, although judging the age of a soul was probably pointless. His long gray hair fell freely behind him, while a faded robe covered a body that was translucent around the edges. Several portions of his sleeves occasionally dissolved into mist before slowly gathering again.
Even after countless years, the remnant still carried a faint dignity that had probably belonged to someone important in the ancient era.
At this moment, however, that dignified old man was staring around Su Bai’s sea of consciousness without saying anything.
His expression had changed several times since entering.
Surprise had appeared first. Confusion followed. Now his brows were slowly drawing together.
Su Bai watched him quietly.
The old man probably believed that Su Bai had been dragged here against his will, but that was only partly true.
The instant the foreign soul entered him, Su Bai’s body had reacted.
Needle Qi had begun gathering throughout his internal pathways almost instinctively. His body’s defense mechanism stirred, and something deeper within him had shown the faintest sign of awakening.
Su Bai immediately suppressed all of it.
He still did not know what the old man intended to do.
Attacking him before finding out would be wasteful.
Besides, an ancient cultivator who had survived as a remnant soul for countless years probably knew things that no damaged jade slip inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary could tell him.
Su Bai was willing to listen first.
The old man continued surveying the darkness.
His spiritual sense moved cautiously rather than spreading without restraint. That alone made Su Bai slightly more attentive.
This old man was careful.
Even though he had entered the sea of consciousness of a cultivator far weaker than himself had once been, he did not immediately probe everything around him.
His gaze eventually settled upon the tiny illusory needle suspended in the distance.
The Flaw-Piercing Needle Intent Seed remained there, with only the faintest trace of its former crack still visible.
The old man’s eyes narrowed.
’A needle?’
His disappointment was brief, but Su Bai caught it.
In the era the old man remembered, cultivators who pursued weapon Intent overwhelmingly chose swords, sabers, spears, halberds, or other weapons capable of carrying great momentum.
Even unusual paths tended to revolve around something that could dominate a battlefield openly.
A needle hardly belonged among them.
The old man had apparently expected something greater from someone whose spiritual foundation had already surprised him.
Yet as his attention remained upon the Intent Seed, the disappointment gradually disappeared.
He looked more carefully.
The tiny needle seemed insignificant, but the meaning contained within it was anything but shallow.
The longer the old man examined it, the more difficult it became to dismiss.
The Intent was still incomplete, yet the foundation had already been condensed into a stable Seed. More strangely, the principle within it was unusually clear for something that had not fully matured.
Everything possessed a flaw. The needle only needed to reach it.
The old man’s expression became thoughtful.
For someone this young to have reached such a point in Intent comprehension was already uncommon.
For that Intent to have developed along such an unconventional path made it even stranger.
His gaze moved away from the Intent Seed and returned to the surrounding darkness.
The old man had entered many seas of consciousness during his lifetime.
Some resembled calm lakes. Others appeared like mist-filled skies, endless plains, burning worlds, or turbulent oceans shaped by the cultivator’s spiritual nature.
This place resembled none of them.
There was simply darkness.
It stretched so far that even his remaining spiritual sense could not comfortably determine where it ended.
For a brief moment, an absurd thought crossed his mind.
Had he entered the spiritual world of a human at all?
The old man quickly dismissed it.
The young cultivator standing before him clearly possessed a human soul.
Still, something about this sea of consciousness made his instincts uncomfortable.
He committed what he could observe to memory before finally turning toward Su Bai.
His expression had already returned to that of a benevolent senior.
"Young man, your foundation is quite remarkable."
Su Bai clasped his hands respectfully.
"Senior praises me too much."
The old man stroked his beard.
"You are cautious despite your age. That is good. A cultivator who survives only through talent rarely survives for long."
Su Bai smiled faintly.
The old man was complimenting him while watching how he reacted to praise.
That was familiar enough.
Different world, different clothing, different lifespan, but some conversations remained surprisingly universal.
The old man continued, "Before I decide whether you are suitable to receive what I left behind, tell me your name, your sect, and your age."
Su Bai almost laughed.
So they were doing this properly.
The remnant soul had entered his sea of consciousness, examined what it could see, and was now asking questions that sounded harmless while quietly establishing who might come looking for him if something happened.
Perhaps Su Bai was being unfair.
Perhaps the old man genuinely wanted to pass down an inheritance.
There was no reason to ruin such a touching possibility by telling the truth.
Su Bai bowed slightly.
"This junior is Chen Feng of the Myriad Swords Sect. I turned eighteen this year."
The old man’s hand paused against his beard.
"Myriad Swords Sect?"
"Yes, Senior."
The old man searched through what remained of his memories.
He remembered sword sects that had once ruled entire regions. He remembered immortal clans whose names had been enough to silence battlefields. He remembered great orthodox powers, demonic lineages, hidden families, and wandering inheritances.
There had been no Myriad Swords Sect.
That alone meant little.
The world changed. Sects disappeared. New ones rose from their ruins.
His gaze briefly shifted toward the tiny needle-shaped Intent Seed.
A disciple of a sword sect who cultivated Needle Intent.
The contradiction was obvious, but the old man did not expose it. Whether the young man truly belonged to such a sect or had simply given him a false background hardly mattered for now.
Anyone who had survived this deep inside the sealed battlefield would naturally be wary of an unfamiliar remnant soul.
If anything, the lie told him that the boy was not foolish.
What interested him more was the young man’s foundation.
If someone like this could emerge from a sect he had never heard of, either the current cultivation world had changed beyond recognition or the Myriad Swords Sect had become an extraordinary power after his time.
The old man’s gaze sharpened slightly.
"Eighteen?"
Su Bai nodded with the sincerity of someone who had absolutely no reason to lie.
For the first time since entering, genuine excitement stirred within the remnant soul.
Eighteen years old. An Intent Seed. A body capable of surviving Ashen-Blood Miasma.
More importantly, the young man had survived this deep inside the sealed battlefield alone.
The old man’s fading soul trembled slightly before he forced it still.
"Excellent."
His smile became warmer.
"To reach this depth at eighteen while possessing such a foundation is extraordinary. I witnessed countless geniuses during my life, but very few could have accomplished what you have."
Su Bai lowered his head modestly.
"Junior was merely fortunate."
The old man’s eyes flickered.
Fortunate?
He doubted that.
Luck did not usually produce an Intent Seed with that degree of refinement.
He decided to probe somewhere else.
"You have remained in this sealed realm for quite some time."
Su Bai looked up.
The old man continued speaking in the same mild tone.
"Yet the Ashen-Blood Miasma does not seem to injure you. Your body accepts it with remarkable ease."
There it was.
Su Bai had been waiting for that question.
He tilted his head slightly.
"Senior recognized me as human immediately. I was actually wondering how."
The old man’s smile widened.
The question sounded innocent, but it told him something useful.
This young man knew there were creatures here that could imitate humans.
"The creatures born from that corruption may resemble cultivators, but they do not walk the same path."
His voice carried faint contempt.
"Their strength is bestowed through the source from which they originate. They may possess techniques and memories stolen from others, but what they carry is fundamentally different from cultivation built step by step."
Su Bai’s eyes moved slightly.
The old man continued, "There was also another reason."
He looked at Su Bai from head to toe.
A peculiar silence followed.
Even as a projection of awareness, Su Bai’s current appearance reflected his physical state closely enough that there was very little room for dignity.
The old man’s mouth twitched.
"I fought those creatures for countless years. Even their False Bodies generally possessed enough awareness to cover themselves."
Su Bai’s expression froze.
The old man finally allowed himself a faint chuckle.
"You, on the other hand, approached my sword as bare as the day you were born."
Su Bai stared at him.
Of all the ancient wisdom this man could have preserved across countless millennia, that was the observation he chose to share.
Su Bai silently decided that robes might deserve slightly more priority once this conversation ended.
Assuming the old man did not become food first.
The remnant soul’s amusement lasted only briefly.
His attention returned to Su Bai’s body.
"Now answer this old man’s question. How can your body absorb the Ashen-Blood Miasma without being corrupted?"