Chapter 1508: Vast Expanse Society
After feeling the raindrops hit his hand for a while, his eyes shone with determination. “I need to go back to the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm and see for myself. If I don’t, my heart will never be able to rest at ease!”
He didn’t speak the words aloud to anyone. Instead, he spun, transforming into a beam of light that shot off into the distance.
Back in their house, his wife had just opened her eyes, and they shone with bitterness. She sighed. In recent days, she’d gotten the feeling that her husband was somewhat aloof, to the point where… he almost didn’t seem at all like her husband.
Meanwhile, on a certain mountain in the Blue Sea Sect, Chen Fan was also standing out in the rain. He seemed to be thinking about the past, and within his eyes flickered guilt and other emotions. Eventually, he caught sight of Meng Hao flying up into the air. He almost stepped forward to interfere, but then held back.
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered to himself. “Go search for the truth, and maybe you’ll find it.” As he closed his eyes, a woman approached, who gently wrapped her arms around him from behind.
Chen Fan’s eyes turned warm. Slipping around to face her, he reached up and caressed her cheek.
She smiled kindly, then looked off into the distance, seemingly worried.
“Your little Junior Brother….”
“It’s fine,” Chen Fan said softly. “Let him look for his answers. Perhaps he’ll find what he’s looking for.”
“What about you? Did you find the answers? From what I can tell, it’s going to take Meng Hao a lot longer to get back to normal than you did.” According to the woman’s memories, Chen Fan had recovered rather quickly, which was confusing to her. In sharp contrast, Meng Hao had already been back for a month, and yet was still lost in confusion.
Chen Fan shook his head and pulled the woman up against his chest. “He was inside for longer than me. Most importantly, I had you. As soon as I laid eyes on you… I had my answer.”
He held her tightly, almost as if he feared that he would lose her forever if he let go.
The rain continued to fall even harder than before. Meng Hao was a bright beam of light that shot up into the Heavens. Soon, he reached the border of the sky itself, beyond the clouds. There was no rain here. He kept flying, shooting out from within the sky of the planet, where he felt himself being restrained by a protective spell formation.
He pulled a jade slip out of his bag of holding, and after the spell formation scanned it, it gradually released him. Without pausing for a moment, Meng Hao proceeded onward. Soon, he was out within the starry sky itself.
Surrounding him was nothing but glittering starlight. There was none of the mist that filled the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm. Everything was bright and clear, and the energy of Heaven and Earth was abundant.
His eyes flickered as he checked his cultivation base. At the moment, he only had one Soul Lamp which remained lit. His cultivation base was at the peak of the Ancient Realm.
After some thought, he became certain that the current level of his cultivation base was definitely different from what it had been in his vague memories. And yet, there were some things about it that seemed the same. However, there was no way to truly contemplate it. Over the past days, he had come to realize that if he tried to recollect certain things, it would cause splitting pain in his head and send his cultivation base into chaos.
He sighed, and his eyes flickered with determination and focus. Following the information which existed in his clear memories, he headed in the direction of the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm.
“I have to find some answers!” he thought, flying along at top speed. A few months later, after passing through multiple teleportation portals, he was about halfway to his destination.
The days of flying were draining his cultivation base, and yet he didn’t consume any medicinal pills, nor did he perform any breathing exercises to absorb the energy of Heaven and Earth.
At a certain point, after enough of his cultivation base was drained, a warm current suddenly began to flow through him, originating in his chest. That current restored his cultivation base almost instantly.
Meng Hao was instantly enlivened, and rubbed his bag of holding, a strange look gleaming in his eyes.
During the months of travel, he produced the copper mirror on more than one occasion to study it. Although he never discovered anything in particular about it, he could sense the pulses of warmth coming out of it and flowing into his body. Although that energy seemed to vanish inside of him, he felt no sense of danger from it, and in fact, it made him feel happy.
For some reason, he eventually took the copper mirror out and hung it around his neck where it could touch his skin, and allowed the current to flow out from it into his body. It was almost as if it were trying to awaken something. Because of that sensation, Meng Hao would occasionally slip into somewhat of a daze. His eyesight would swim, and after a moment, everything would turn back to normal, and yet he continued to have the sensation that he was being yelled at, although he couldn’t hear it clearly.
Most importantly, because of that flow, he didn’t have any need to absorb energy from the starry sky. It always ensured that his cultivation base remained in top condition.
The result was that, from the moment he awakened in this starry sky, to the moment he returned to the Blue Sea Sect, to his current situation of flying through the starry sky, he had never consumed any medicinal pills or absorbed any of the local energy of Heaven and Earth.
Although he wasn’t sure exactly why, he had the feeling that doing things that way was the best for him.
He patted the copper mirror hanging over his chest, and felt even more sure than ever that he needed to get back to the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm. That was where he would get his answers. He continued ever onward.
The Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm was actually quite a long ways away from the Blue Sea Sect, seemingly at the border of the entire Vast Expanse Cosmos. As he journeyed onward, he ran into quite a few cultivators, as well as numerous heavenly bodies.
At the moment, he was nearing the Dao of Water Sect.
He was hoping to take advantage of their teleportation portal to get closer to the Vast Expanse Society. The Vast Expanse Society was where he would be able to make his last teleportation, getting him very close to the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm.
“The Vast Expanse Society,” he murmured. “That name sounds so familiar….” His clear memories were telling him that the Vast Expanse Society was one of the Hundred Sects of the Vast Expanse Cosmos, and in fact, was one of the top three most powerful sects in the entire organization.
It was a mysterious sect, which was constantly locked down by swirling mists that prevented its disciples from leaving the sect. However, when other sects wished to use their teleportation portal, all that was required was enough Immortal jade, and they would have access.
There were stories about the Vast Expanse Society in Meng Hao’s memories. Supposedly, they had earned the disfavor of the exalted Allheaven, who, in his wrath, had sealed their sect with mist, almost like a curse.
“The exalted Allheaven….” Meng Hao suddenly stopped in place and began to search through his memories for information about the exalted Allheaven.
Allheaven was the guardian of the Vast Expanse Cosmos, a supreme entity who had supposedly created the entire place to begin with.
All sects offered wholehearted worship to statues of Allheaven, and according to the legends, the very energy of Heaven and Earth that cultivators used in their cultivation, was actually power from the exalted Allheaven.
Everything in existence, all living beings, were the people of Allheaven.
From generation to generation, for countless years, it had always been that way….
Within the Hundred Sects of the Vast Expanse Cosmos, being Chosen was not the ultimate glory. Only by acquiring the title ‘Son of Allheaven’ could one truly be considered doted upon by the world. A person with that title was a Chosen among Chosen!
“There is only one Son of Allheaven during a given period of time,” Meng Hao thought. “Sometimes one every 10,000 years, sometimes one every 1,000 years. To date, there have been ninety-eight Sons of Allheaven, cultivators who have been blessed by the exalted Allheaven himself. It is only by cultivating the Dao of Allheaven that one can be doted upon by the world, to be worshiped by all cultivators, to be respected by all sects!” Meng Hao was panting. For some reason, after the memories became clear, he realized that he felt intensely opposed to the title ‘Son of Allheaven’.
Shaking his head, he cleared his thoughts and proceeded along his way. Ten days later, he saw a planet up ahead of him in the starry sky.
It was blue, and it was just possible to determine that it was covered with water. It looked beautiful, and seemed to be teeming with life force.
“The Dao of Water Sect….” Meng Hao murmured. As he neared, he couldn’t stop his heart from pounding as he remembered that a woman name Xu Qing lived here.
In his vague memories, he remembered being married to someone in the Mountain and Sea Realm who was just like her. At the moment, it was hard to get a grip on his thoughts, and also hard to tell whether or not he wished this place to be real or not.
If it was real, and he saw Xu Qing, then Xu Qing would be real. But if it wasn’t real, then his heart would be filled with regret and bitterness.
It was with such complicated thoughts and feelings that Meng Hao drew ever closer to the Dao of Water Sect.
Their teleportation portal was not accessible to just anyone. Only members of the Hundred Sects were allowed access.
A stream of divine sense blocked Meng Hao’s path, but when he pulled out his Blue Sea Sect identification medallion, a disciple flew out and looked him over. Before he could say anything, the disciple asked, “You want to use the teleportation portal to go to the Vast Expanse Society, and then the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm. Am I right?”
Meng Hao’s eyes glittered, and he nodded. The disciple from the Dao of Water Sect sighed.
“I really don’t know what the deal is with that Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm. You’re not the first person to pass through here, you know. Lots of people have been trying to get to the Vast Expanse Arcane Pocket Realm.” The disciple led Meng Hao down onto the planet itself, to a location where a spell formation had been set up above the surface of the water.
Meng Hao paid the tax, and as he waited for the spell formation to activate, he hesitated for a moment, then clasped hands to the disciple from the Dao of Water Sect.
“Fellow Daoist,” he said, “may I ask… is Xu Qing in the sect?”
“Elder Sister Xu?” The disciple looked over at him. Realizing that there was something familiar about him, he studied him for a moment, then recognized him and laughed.
“Ah, I thought you looked familiar. So it’s Fellow Daoist Meng from the Blue Sea Sect.” Apparently he knew all about the things which had occurred between Meng Hao and Xu Qing.
“If you want to see Elder Sister Xu, then you’ll have to wait a bit. She usually comes to the teleportation portal around this time of day on her way to the East Sea to harvest Heavenwater Pearls for her cultivation.”