The illusions?

Albeit, the huge pressure, Yun still gathered his willpower and neared the pillars, determined to test his talent. When he ascended the few small steps, the gazes and mutterings of the many spectators left him with a sickening pressure.

So much that every step he took generated a needlessly huge amount of nervous cold sweat, mostly on his back. If he were to achieve a great score, it would be tantamount to having a bright future, whereas a bad score, well one would have to think no further and dwelling on it would bring no one glory.

Yun was already capable of living a life as a homeless orphan, no matter what happened, that was the worst possible outcome for him. To Yun, this outcome did not actually seem so bad, but the others would definitely shiver upon thinking of it.

Most here had a home to get to afterward if they were not accepted into any of the academies belonging to the sects. Yun was a special case, one of a few. It was not completely irregular to see people like him, homeless and participating in these tests to try to abandon their old lives.

'God forsake me once, god forsake me twice!', these were the current thoughts that Yun had, he kept repeating it inside his mind. After mere moments he had already ascended the steps and stood in front of the test pillars.

Absentminded he instinctively touched the first pillar with his left hand and the second pillar with his right hand. Many people frowned when they saw this, it was common knowledge to know that these pillars actually scourged energy through your body and mind to check your condition.

One was a sliver of will from a 9-dan mortal, while the other was a sliver of a soul from a deceased Immortal. It should also be classified that the 9-dan mortal realm and 9-dan immortal realm are not immortals yet, in reality, immortals are those who ascend the 9-dan immortal realm.

The reason why both tests were taken individually and seemed to bring no harm, was indeed because they would not oppose each other. Under normal circumstances, the will of a 9-dan mortal would be incapable of fighting an immortal's soul, even if it was just a sliver. But if the soul happened to think that the person it was rummaging through was the owner of the hostile 9-dan mortal will, it would definitely go mad.

Oblivious to the thoughts of the others, Yun was currently enchanted. In his mind, Yun was currently frowning as well 'Hm? What's this???' he found himself standing in a white space, not able to see any walls, any floors or anything at all?

Looking around confusedly, Yun was unable to make out anything. Haphazardly Yun started walking around, trying to grasp what was going on. From what he could tell this seemed to be some kind of illusion or a dream.

After walking for what felt like hours, Yun did not feel fatigued nor did he notice any changes in the environment. Unable to do anything else but lament...

'Oi, I'm currently in the midst of a test, what use is me being confined in here?' actually, Yun had already tried everything possible. Punching himself meant nothing, no pain or anything alike, running too had no use, in here he had endless stamina.

After becoming a bit enraged, Yun started verbalizing his thoughts. "Damn this, what is the use of being confined in here!" Before he could start condemning this irregular occurrence, a book was swiftly formed in front of him. With a ragged breath and widening eyes, he stared at the book in utter disbelief.

[The use of being confined here] such a simple title, yet it also showed a certain mocking of Yun, to think this space had some kind of conscience, and that it would literally create a book with a title directly answering him.

Moments later Yun had already taken the book and opened it, reading the first few sentences, lines formed above his eyebrows.

This was an empty book! Yun frowned even more, what the heck was this!

Suddenly Yun noticed something appearing, it was the back of a youth, with two arms each respectively touching a pillar each. When he saw this sight his right eyebrow shot up, initially, he remembered seeing this sight, but upon noticing the deficiency in the appearance, he obviously would not be stupid enough to now know what it was showing.

'This is me? How come I am sweating so terribly and look so exhausted?'

Walking closer he inspected what appeared to be himself, at first he did not notice much, and since he was in this weird white space he was not able to tell whether this was depicting reality or not. In a few minutes, there were a few points that he could not help but notice.

'Sweat that is supposed to drip off of me, seems like time is going really slow, also seems like I am in pain from touching these two pillars? Could my talent be so crappy that even these test pillars are capable of killing me ...'

Yun almost started crying upon reaching this route of thought, but before long the image turned transparent, and all kinds of weird flow similar the flow of water or wind if visible could be seen going through his body, there were in total three energies visible in his body at the time of the image.

Inspecting it very closely, the energies were assigned colors, in truth Yun had no idea what these energies represented, but after looking at it for a few hours he understood that the red energy originated from the left pillar while the purple energy originated from the right pillar. It was easy to determine that the thin and overwhelming purple energy was much more sophisticated than the thicker and slower red energy.

The third energy, as depicted every time the illusion started over, actually came from inside him. It traveled from his stomach area up through specific tunnels in his body, most likely meridians, and left thick parts of itself lying around the body.

After a minute passed the two other energies that started running into each other instead of breaking through the blockages made by his energy, would then break through some small holes on his body and eventually be used up. Although Yun had understood this by watching it going on, he could not help but wonder how he was going to pull up that energy from his stomach and do it like on the picture.

After two hours of inspecting it and trying his best to meditate and find a way to control the yellow energy depicted, he still felt nothing.

'If I go on like this, will I stay in here forever? How am I supposed to learn to control this energy when I have never met it before.'

Feeling exasperated over the course of this hopeless situation, he stood up and walked around. Before long another him appeared, although this time it was kind of fuzzy and blurred. A scroll was lying in front of him, Yun was unable to make out the name or content of the scroll, as such he walked closer and sat down.

Looking at the copy of himself meditating he tried to keep up and do the exact same, the fuzzy image stabilized a bit, but it was still extremely blurry, it was almost impossible to make out the movement, not to mention just copying the meditative stance was terribly hard.

Looking at the scroll again, he noticed a few words on top of the scroll. 'Ah, this is what the illusion in front of me is currently in the midst of? Seems to read [Karmic Severance Cultivation Technique]. What a profound name, if the content was not so blurred and fuzzy I could probably learn it while in here.

Once again gazing at the blurry person meditating in front of him, he steadied himself and tried to sit the same, following that he kept all of his concentration on watching the subtle movements that he was capable of catching beyond the blurring.

After a long time passed, he finally seemed to gain some clarification, it seemed that he was sorely mistaken, the illusion did not move at all! Instead what was moving was the inside, namely especially the lungs seemed to be following some special rhythm, this meant he was going by a breathing pattern.

Although he had been watching it for multiple hours, it was not easy to differentiate between the start and the end of the breathing technique. Once again he dejectedly stood up after what felt like a full day of trying to figure out the breathing method.

'Ai ai, a solution to a solution, could this place be some kind of life-saving treasure? Even so, I own nothing that could possibly hold such a formidable treasure... It seems like the first illusion of me touching the two stone pillars was what initiated this, the two energies are able to claim my life. After I failed to understand how to keep up with the solution, it presented a solution to me not knowing how to keep up, but even that I failed to understand.'

Contemplating for a while, the source of this white space was indeed due to his incomparably unlucky state of being close to perishing. As for whether this space would be able to help him, he could only ponder and walk further.

Since the case was such that it even had a solution to a solution, he wondered if there were another solution. Maybe he would go in a loop for ages...

A thing he was unable of comprehending was why the breathing technique and the illusion were hazy making it almost impossible for him to understand the situation.

After walking for another long period of time, he heard someone speak.

"Settle down, the lecture will begin!"

turning to the source of the speech, he saw an elder seating himself and sipping on some tea, in front of him was a haze, seemingly this was a lecture, and participating in the lecture would be innumerable students. Although he could not make out who these people were, he was still able to count and the number was not as huge as he expected.

Around 20-25 people were listening to the lecture of the elder, while the students were quite hazy, the elder was in fact not! Actually, his figure was quite clear and only the facial appearance of the elder was foggy. The exact voice was a bit jumpy, but the words were actually understandable, and it meant that this lecture could be a solution to him being unable to comprehend the breathing method!

The lecture quickly started, Yun seated himself and pricked his ears intent on learning and understanding every word of the lecture.

"I will only conduct this lecture once, focus your all on listening and understanding, do not start comprehending in the midst of the lecture or you might miss out on the latter part. This lecture is only conducted once a month, please prepare yourselves."

Moments later he started lecturing.

"When you start cultivating as a mortal realm cultivator, you will start by cultivating your physical body to enhance your jing energy inside you, thus the jing energy accumulated will become what you use to refine qi in your lower dantian, thus creating a basis for cultivation."

Soon the elder explained the capacity for the mortal 9-dans and how to refine jing into Qi, although he mentioned cultivation techniques and scriptures, he did not impart any while lecturing, he simply pointed out the various points to take note of when cultivating. A 1-dan mortal would have succeeded in refining jing into Qi in their lower dantian, a 4-dan mortal would be capable of using Qi to enforce and strengthen their organs and physical body.

Even stronger, the 7-dan mortal would be capable of using Qi outside their body, controlling it to enforce their martial arts and being cultivating Qi Martial Arts. This was actually the beginning stages of a 1-dan immortal. The elder did not lecture on 1-dan immortals, he kept lecturing on how one should proceed from 1-dan mortal through the dans all the way up to 6-dan pinnacle where he stopped lecturing.

When he stopped his lecture it was as if time stopped, Yun had his mouth agape. Having been intent on understanding and comprehending everything the elder had said, he had merely comprehended some of the first sentences before he noticed that the elder's lecture was done.

Scratching his nose slightly he contemplated a bit, soon a weird sight occurred...

"Settle down, the lecture will begin!"