Chapter 211: CH. 211 | The Truth About Dual Cultivation
They were utterly shocked, since a Dao Dimension of that caliber could only be manifested by someone with an extremely deep understanding of their own Dao Concept.
Cao Ying could summon a Dao Dimension herself, but that alone wasn’t enough.
The power inside her version wasn’t dominant or strong enough to actually kill a Nascent Soul cultivator.
But inside Lin Tian’s Dao Dimension, anyone trapped within it could barely do anything at all.
They tried flying off in every direction, only to find that wherever they headed led straight into nothingness.
They tried flying toward the nearest star, but the longer they flew toward it, the more it felt like the star was drifting further and further away from them.
The five men found themselves trapped inside a dimension with no way out, a dimension steeped in isolation and silence.
Their power was still there, intact, but useless against breaking down the Dao Dimension itself.
Back in the real world, Wu Yue and Cao Ying watched closely as Shi Yun and the four elders from the Huangyun Pavilion dropped out of the sky, unconscious, their eyes wide open and unseeing.
They were still alive, but their souls remained trapped inside Lin Tian’s Dao Dimension.
"Are they dead?" Wu Yue asked, curious.
Just as Cao Ying was about to answer, Lin Tian appeared between them and walked forward.
In his hand, he held a black orb scattered with stars, and somewhere among those stars were Shi Yun and the four elders.
"Master Lin?" Wu Yue and Cao Ying said, greeting him.
"What’s actually happening to them, Master Lin?" Wu Yue asked.
Lin Tian glanced over briefly, then tossed the star filled black orb forward. It burst open suddenly, revealing projected images of Shi Yun and the four Huangyun Pavilion elders.
They looked completely desperate, trying every technique and artifact they had to claw their way out of Lin Tian’s void dimension, but none of it amounted to anything.
"As long as I’m alive and my Dao Concept keeps growing, they’ll stay trapped in there. They won’t be able to cultivate at all. They’ll just keep existing, watching their lifespans burn away," Lin Tian said.
"That’s a far crueler punishment than death itself, knowing full well you have no chance at a real life, stuck suffering through an endless cycle with no way out," he added.
"If you never release them, does that mean they’ll eventually die?" Wu Yue asked.
Lin Tian glanced toward him and gave a short nod in response.
What Wu Yue said was accurate, but for them to actually die, they’d have to keep living out their existence while their lifespans slowly wore away to nothing.
Or, if they truly reached the point of desperation, they might try to destroy their own souls and bodies just to break free from that endless imprisonment.
"For now, I’ll keep them trapped in the Dao Dimension. If the Huangyun Pavilion comes knocking again, I’ll use them as leverage for negotiation."
"Understood, Master Lin."
"Since you’re both here, there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you two about," Lin Tian said.
Wu Yue and Cao Ying looked at each other, caught off guard for a moment, before exchanging a glance and settling in to hear what he had to say.
The three of them flew back from the area outside the sect and returned to the main hall. Once inside, Lin Tian took a long breath and turned to face them.
"I’ve decided to marry An Yue."
"Whoa!" Wu Yue said, startled. "I always figured you’d end up doing that eventually, but I didn’t expect it to happen this soon."
"How did An Yue react? I’m guessing she didn’t turn you down, right?" Wu Yue asked.
Lin Tian shook his head, explaining that there hadn’t been any hint of rejection from her at all.
She’d shown the same feelings he had, which left him confident that what she felt for him matched exactly what he felt for her.
Cao Ying listened to all of it, and she didn’t forget to offer her own congratulations to Lin Tian.
"Congratulations, Lin Tian."
"Thank you, Cao Ying."
"You don’t need to worry about a thing, Master Lin. Cao Ying and I, along with the sect’s disciples, will do everything we can to make sure your wedding with An Yue goes off perfectly."
Cao Ying nodded, feeling no objection to any of it, especially now that the sect’s most pressing matters had been fully resolved.
As for the invasive group of cultivators? They’d be easy enough to deal with, nowhere near as difficult as the fight against the Yuanmo Sect had been.
"This will also be good for An Yue’s cultivation progress. I’m sure you understand what I mean, right?" Cao Ying asked.
Lin Tian went quiet for a moment, his head lowered as he thought it over.
It had been a long time since he’d been intimate with anyone, and even that had only ever been with a mortal. But now, everything was different.
Once he and An Yue were officially married and became husband and wife, dual cultivation would become something they’d need to do.
Beyond simply having children, dual cultivation also served the purpose of helping each partner’s energy support the other’s.
Lin Tian felt fairly confident that if he practiced dual cultivation with An Yue, given that her cultivation base was already at Perfect Core Formation, he could help her break through to Early Nascent Soul without any need for a soul extraction pill at all.
As for the Nascent Soul essence taken from his clone, Lin Tian found himself considering something else entirely: building a high tier combat puppet and implanting that Nascent Soul spirit inside it. Its command would be simple. Always protect An Yue.
He decided he’d think through the details of that later. For now, his focus was on preparing for the wedding that was coming up soon.
With Wu Yue, Cao Ying, An Xiao, and the rest of the Lingxian Sect’s disciples all pitching in, he felt confident the wedding would go smoothly and be full of joy, without a single disruption.
***
Five days later.
News of Lin Tian and An Yue’s upcoming marriage had officially spread throughout the entire sect, and it had even reached the ears of cultivators elsewhere.
Plenty of people found it strange. The Qin Kingdom was in the middle of total chaos, and yet here was Lin Tian of the Lingxian Sect, going ahead with a lavish wedding celebration regardless.
Even so, most of them feared the threat of death Lin Tian had made clear to anyone who might interfere.
His warning was simple: end up trapped in a dimension of nothingness, where death wasn’t an option and living served no purpose at all.
At first, some doubted whether it was even true. But after a few cultivators who’d challenged Lin Tian ended up dead with almost no effort on his part, people started taking his threat far more seriously.
Every corner of the sect had been decked out with red fabric ornaments, along with other festive touches like lanterns and countless trinkets in red and gold.
Ya Fei and the other disciples were thrilled for An Yue too, even though some of them had secretly hoped to marry Lin Tian themselves at some point.
Still, since An Yue was their senior, they felt her happiness deserved to come first.
They pampered An Yue, sitting together in a warm bathing pool without a stitch of clothing between them, chatting away about the old days, especially about the time when Lin Tian first started rebuilding the sect.
"I still can’t believe I’m actually going to marry Lin Tian."
"We all wanted to, honestly, but we were scared it would end up ruining our master disciple relationship with him," Ya Fei said. "But I’m sure of one thing. You and Lin Tian both feel the same kind of love for each other, right?"
An Yue turned and nodded, agreeing with what Ya Fei had said. Ya Fei smiled, and Yun Yun and the others chimed in as well.
Many of them shared how happy they felt for An Yue, wishing her a truly joyful life together with Lin Tian.
"Once you’re married, just go ahead and have a baby right away," Ya Fei said bluntly, making An Yue’s face flush with embarrassment.
"HA HA!" Yun Yun laughed loudly.
"Is that really something people just do?" An Yue asked.
"Of course it is. You two are going to be husband and wife, after all. Besides pregnancy, that’s also what people usually call dual cultivation."
"I’ve heard about that before. People say someone can gain a huge advantage from doing dual cultivation," Yun Yun said.
Ya Fei nodded. "In An Yue’s case, dual cultivation is going to be exactly what pushes her through to Nascent Soul."
"Wow, I’m so jealous," Yun Yun said.
"C-Can we please talk about literally anything else besides dual cultivation?" An Yue asked, both hands flying up to cover her ears as if she didn’t want to hear another word from any of them.
Ya Fei and the others burst out laughing at the sight of her reaction, then moved on to other topics.
That night, the Lingxian Sect buzzed with excitement as everyone prepared for the wedding the following day.
And there wasn’t a single cultivator anywhere who could stop that wedding from happening.