Chapter 615: Entering the Spatially Chaotic Seed Vault
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 615: Entering the Spatially Chaotic Seed Vault
On the way to the Seed Vault, I continued to ponder how to further break through the tight boundary between dream and reality.
Perhaps I should try researching dream creatures. From the Great Knowledge Seed, I learned that dream creatures devour soul crystals to trigger a dream overlap. However, I’ve never actually seen how they trigger it. If even a mindless dream creature can do it, then... I should be able to as well.
Maybe next time I encounter one, I’ll try using a consciousness communication spell?
That is, if dream creatures even have their own language...
"Almost there."
Snapping out of my thoughts, I looked toward the distance.
I could sense an abnormal energy fluctuation coming from that direction. Faintly, a sprawling complex of buildings came into view—the Seed Vault belonging to this civilization. These structures had suffered the same fate as the ones I’d seen along the way.
Eventually, I reached an area covered in crystals. Weeds and wild plants poked through the gaps between these formations. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the stems and leaves of these weeds had developed crystallized veins. They relied on these structures for growth and the transmission of transcendent energy.
I reached down and snapped off a small cluster of crystals. They were incredibly hard, but with my body cultivation power, I managed to break off a small piece. The moment it snapped, a burst of energy was released from the fracture.
"Crystals formed from condensed transcendent energy... but the energy level is quite low." I looked further ahead. The energy level of the crystals deeper in seemed much higher than here at the periphery.
Moreover, these weren't just pure energy crystals; they contained quite a few "impurities"—shards of ordinary transcendent materials.
As Ninglan Qiuyue had said, this mining area was of a more complex variety.
I toyed with the small crystal in my hand. It reminded me of a spell I hadn't used in a while.
Crystallization Art.
I had neglected this spell for some time, but it wasn't too late to bring it back. Looking at the shard, I immediately treated it as a "crystal nucleus" for a crystallization reaction, using it to catalyze and accelerate the process.
Just as I watched the crystal in my hand begin to grow slowly by absorbing energy from the air, a voice interrupted my brief moment of interest.
"Who are you? Why are you here... You! How can it be you?!"
"Hmm?" I looked up at the girl who had spoken. At a glance, I recognized her as a student from the Witch Academy. "It seems you know who I am."
I brushed my hands together and tossed the crystal aside. It was just common junk, after all.
"Teaching Assistant Yang Yuehan, I could hardly fail to recognize your name or your face."
"From your tone, it sounds like I'm not welcome here." I took a few steps forward, completely indifferent to her guarded demeanor.
"You're joking. The Expansion Realm doesn't belong to any one person. If Teaching Assistant Xiao Han wants to come here, we have no right to stop you. However, it's dangerous ahead. If you continue and get trapped, it would be our responsibility for failing to warn you properly." The girl forced a thin smile as she spoke.
"Is that so? I heard you were all trapped here, which is why I came. I heard five groups have been caught so far; I wanted to see it for myself."
"I see. So Teaching Assistant Xiao Han is here to lend a hand?"
"No, I just came to take a look out of curiosity. Am I not welcome?" I asked with a smile.
"You are welcome. As long as you aren't here to cause trouble, we welcome everyone."
"Then, after you." I made a polite gesture, signaling for her to lead me to their current base.
I bet she wouldn't just let me wander around freely; that would be far too dangerous for them.
However, I didn't actually want to deal with the rest of that lot right now. It would just lead to endless, pointless bickering.
"If I may ask, are you part of the second rescue team? Patrolling the perimeter?" I struck up a conversation.
"Yes. This energy-rich area easily attracts large numbers of variant beasts looking for trouble. We're responsible for killing or driving them away—like that group over there." She nodded toward the distance, pointing at the mountain-like carcass of a massive variant beast.
They were capable of clearing out variant beasts of that size. After all, variant beasts weren't exceptionally powerful; their danger lay primarily in their sheer bulk. The larger they were, the more dangerous they became.
However... for witches who weren't suppressed by the Great Weakening Spell, killing these mountains of flesh was relatively easy.
"It's my first time seeing one that big. Is the meat any good?"
"The meat?" The girl froze, stunned by my train of thought. She looked at me as if I were insane, unsure how to respond. "I... I don't know. Maybe you can try it, if you aren't afraid that eating variant beast meat will make you mutate as well..."
"Never mind then." I noted that the creature had been dead for a while. The meat wouldn't be fresh, so I naturally lost interest. "But... you're just leaving such a huge thing there? Aren't you worried about a corpse explosion?"
"Corpse explosion?"
"When a corpse rots, the gases produced bloat the body until it bursts. Foul-smelling organs and fermented, undigested matter get sprayed everywhere by the pressure..."
"Eww... ugh..." Hearing my description, the girl made a face of pure disgust. The imagery seemed to flash through her mind, and she instinctively began to gag.
The walk didn't last much longer.
The girl arrived at a man-made settlement where a significant number of people had gathered. It wasn't just students from the Witch Academy; there were people from other academies as well.
They were clustered here, facing a complex of buildings in the distance. Those buildings possessed a severe sense of fragmentation, creating a bizarre visual impact—as if the intact structures had been scrambled like a puzzle.
Combined with the covering of energy crystals, the buildings gave off a peculiar luster. Many plants, ignoring the harsh environment, sprouted leaves and branches of life from within the structures.
The dream overlap region was slowly expanding. Their current camp was located among some nearby collapsed buildings, a short distance from the overlap. Before long, they would have to move their settlement further out again.
"Hmm? Why are you back already?"
Seeing the girl, the crowd noticed her arrival.
"I ran into this person in the perimeter, so I brought her back." The girl rubbed her temples, thinking she had finally handed off this troublesome guest.
Given the choice, she would rather go fight variant beasts than walk with someone like this!
Even guarding a variant beast corpse that might explode at any moment... actually, thinking of that stench, she couldn't handle that either. She wanted to leave immediately and get someone to move that massive carcass. If she hadn't been reminded, she wouldn't have thought of it; they rarely dealt with monsters of such immense size.
"Who?"
"What do you mean? Teaching Assistant Xiao Han, right here. Uh... why are you all looking at me like that?" The girl looked at the "trouble" standing beside her, then turned to see everyone staring at her as if she were an idiot.
She was suddenly bewildered.
"There's no one beside you. Are you having hallucinations?" At that moment, the person closest to the girl stepped forward and spoke in a grave tone.
"No one? You... don't scare me. She's standing right here, isn't she?" The girl instinctively cast a purification spell and a dispelling spell on herself. Finally, she rubbed her eyes... but the figure was still standing right there beside her.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the boundary of the spatially chaotic Seed Vault.
My true self appeared here. The one who had followed the girl was a Knowledge Shadow, deployed while she was busy gagging.
I couldn't be bothered to interact with that crowd. They didn't welcome me, so I saw no reason to cater to them.
If I wanted to do something, I would just do it.
If they wanted to stay outside and cautiously test various methods, let them. I chose to go straight in. This was the confidence born of my strength and means.
I was confident that nothing inside could deal me a fatal blow, and I wouldn't be trapped by this peculiar environment.
I looked at the distorted space before me and reached out, lightly tapping the interface where the space was severed.
My finger passed through without resistance, creating a ripple of shattered light on the plane. Irregular "spatial planes" dissipated in the direction of my finger's pressure, eventually vanishing into the surrounding space.
This was the first time I had seen the "shattering" of space so vividly.
Of course, I wasn't seeing this with my naked eyes, but with Spirit Vision. Information at this level could be seen even with the lowest grade of Foreseeing Spirit Vision, though the clarity would differ.
"Is this the distorted plane of physical space?" I murmured, as if asking myself.
Then, without hesitation, I stepped inside. My entire body seemed to shatter like glass, surrounded by fragments of spatial planes that dissipated as I moved forward.
In that moment, I felt a throb in my heart—a familiar revelation that brought a different perspective.
"The Eighth Sense of body cultivation is... spatial sense, right?" I asked aloud. Immediately, the voice of the Knowledge Shadow responded.
"Congratulations. You have already grasped the essence of what it is before even officially comprehending it."
"And?"
"This will create a subtle resistance when you try to comprehend the prototype of spatial sense."
"If ignorance is a prerequisite for obtaining higher power, then that power is not a goal I care to pursue."
"A correction: it is not a prerequisite, but a shortcut. I hear a desire for dominion over power in your words. I admire that about you."
"Admire... is that a form of narcissism?"
"It is confidence."
"Fine... but this place really is a wonder." I didn't dwell on the matter, instead turning my focus back to my surroundings.
After stepping into this distinct space, my understanding of spatial dimensions suddenly expanded.
The intertwining of space wasn't just about mutual intersection and cutting; it involved distortion and loops.
Just by processing this information, I understood the greatest danger in this chaotic region.
Falling into a loop.
Spatial distortions and severances ultimately just created a labyrinth, but a loop constituted a dead end from which there was no escape.
Furthermore, the gravity here was incredibly chaotic. I would try to walk forward, only for gravity to shift in the next second. The source of gravity was the Expansion Realm, and its direction should have been fixed, but in this scrambled space, that was no longer the case.
There was only one reason for this: everything I saw in this space was caused by spatial distortion or fractures.
That was the true danger; it made it easy for one to make errors based on common sense.
However... I also discovered a very peculiar phenomenon. Despite the distortions and fractures in physical space, the ley lines remained unaffected. Only the flow of ley line energy seemed to be influenced.
* * *
Back outside.
After the initial confusion, many people began to realize what had happened.
"I remember that Yang Yuehan has an illusion clone spell. This must be her handiwork."
"What does she mean by this? Is she provoking us?"
"That's not the point, is it? The point is, why is Yang Yuehan even here!"
"Exactly... shouldn't she be busy with that tree of hers? Why did she suddenly come here?"
A flurry of questions was thrown out, but no one had an answer.
"Who knows what she's up to. She's impossible to read..."
"She wouldn't be trying to enter the Seed Vault, would she? What if she accidentally destroys the place with one of her strikes? There are still so many people inside. If she hits them by mistake..."
"If she can destroy this place, I'll thank her. If they're injured, we use healing spells; if they're dead, we send them back for resurrection. It would save us a lot of effort."
Though the crowd grumbled, no one addressed the core issue.
Why were they committing so much manpower here? Was it really just for a rescue?
Not everyone there was brainless.
After learning about the situation, they had all become very interested in this plant technology.
The so-called prejudice against plant technology... was merely a superficial mask.
Of course, it wasn't that they were personally interested, but they felt their mentors would be.
Facing entirely new transcendent plants and the transcendent architecture of a whole civilization—many of the wondrous techniques involved would be highly intriguing to certain mentors.
The main draw was the novelty.
They couldn't reach the level of a Transcendent Mentor themselves, so what else could they do to catch a mentor's eye?
Naturally, it was the collision and exchange of techniques between different civilizations. If they could provide a mentor with a spark of inspiration, they would leave a very good impression.
Furthermore, some students who already researched transcendent plants could use this as a temporary subject for their own studies.
And there was one more thing... once they learned that Teaching Assistant Xiao Han was interested in this civilization's Omni-Link Main Network Tree and was investing massive amounts of time and energy into it, they planned to play to her interests. They would use things they didn't particularly need to appease her and keep this "unstable factor" quiet.
The Seed Vault contained a vast amount of such materials. More importantly, these seeds were a valuable commodity. Even if they weren't inherently valuable, the witches would make them valuable.
But now, the unstable factor had arrived in person!
What was the point of their games now?
"Everyone, I'm sure you all understand the situation. It seems we have no choice but to make our move early."
As the leading Teaching Assistant from the Witch Academy spoke, no one opposed the suggestion.
Though it was a bit reckless—since the people who went in first hadn't fully mapped out the patterns of spatial change or sent information back—waiting wouldn't make things any better. Even with teleportation spells, they would just be left staring helplessly at the Seed Vault from the outside.