Daily life of a cultivation judge Chapter 1514: The realm of darkness and creation

This is such a wonderful place, Yang Qing muttered contentently as he slowly opened his eyes.

He sighed in deep satisfaction and snuggled deeper into his chair.

I just closed my eyes for a few seconds, and it feels like I have slept for he added as he took a deep, relaxed breath before moving to thank Veiled Destiny for gracing him with such a wonderful place.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this place was some mysterious realm or heavenly grotto, or if it had been created through Senior Veiled Destiny’s abilities. His guess leaned heavily toward the latter, given the sheer manifestation of the place. It was simply too mystical.

While he had never witnessed the true capabilities of Soul Formation experts, the little he had seen from being around Ren Shu, the time he had almost died at the Ice Emerald Sect, and the restorative abilities displayed by Senior Wood Grove all suggested that creating such a wondrous place was well within the realm of possibility for beings of their caliber.

Not to mention Senior Veiled Destiny wasn’t even an ordinary Soul Formation expert. Who knew how many wondrous and mystical things she was capable of?

Veiled Destiny smiled kindly at Yang Qing’s compliments. Though he couldn’t see her face through the dark, cosmic fog that veiled it, he could hear the smile in her voice.

As for Yang Qing, Veiled Destiny conveniently didn’t tell him that he hadn’t closed his eyes for the few seconds he thought he had, but had actually been asleep for ten hours. What had felt like closing his eyes and opening them ten seconds later had, in reality, been a ten-hour sleep.

This realm was entirely of her making, and it was child’s play for her to slow down time while leaving Yang Qing none the wiser. After all, all Daos shared the same root, and that was even more true for the Supreme Daos. For those who had mastered one to profound depths, as Veiled Destiny had with the Supreme Dao of Karma, delving deeper into it naturally granted insight into the other Supreme Daos because of their shared root.

That interconnected understanding was how, through one of her abilities, she could allow someone to wield the abilities of a middle-stage Domain expert. Her comprehension ran deep not only in her own path, but in the other Supreme Dao paths as well, such as the Supreme Dao of Time, the Supreme Dao of Life, and many others.

And the same was true for experts who had mastered the other Supreme Dao paths besides Karma. They might not be able to wield Karma as Veiled Destiny did, but they would possess enough understanding of it to invoke certain aspects of its power for their own purposes. That was precisely what made tracing or calculating the karma of Soul Formation experts so difficult.

While cultivating a Supreme Dao was not a strict requirement for breaking through to the Soul Formation Realm, it greatly increased the chances of a successful breakthrough. Nine out of ten experts who reached that realm had done so because they had cultivated a Supreme Dao.

And though entering the Soul Formation Realm did not necessarily require one, reaching the Soul Supreme stage most definitely did. Without comprehending a Supreme Dao, one’s path beyond the early stage of the realm would remain forever closed.

Most cultivators who stall out in the Early Stage of the Soul Formation Realm do so either because they exhausted their talent just to reach that stage, or because the Dao they cultivated limits how far they can walk.

Of course, the path isn’t completely cut off from them. They can use their understanding of their own Dao to find the path that leads to the Supreme Dao it branches from. But doing so requires tremendous powers of comprehension, access to resources and places that foster such enlightenment, which more often than not are found in the deeper layers of the Void, along with time and a lot of luck.

Even then, one could fulfill all those conditions and still fall short.

The journey is a long and arduous one, which is why the Soul Formation Realm is also colloquially referred to as the .

For those who enter the realm through Daos that are not part of the Supreme Daos, they must grope through the darkness in search of the path that leads to them. The only way to illuminate that path is through countless experimentations, creating new cultivation arts and spells to confirm or disprove the ideas and guesses born from their understanding of their Dao, gradually enriching it until they discover the path of the Supreme Dao from which said Dao branched from.

After all, before one could even think of searching for the Supreme Path tied to their Dao, their understanding of that Dao had to reach its absolute depths. They had to at least attain the level of a summit holder, or a peer without equal in that particular path, before they could even touch the qualification for the Supreme Path. The best way to achieve that was to become a pioneer of sorts in their chosen Dao through various means, chief among them experimentation.

There had been lone Soul Formation experts who ended up founding sects simply because doing so became part of their experimentation. They would create a cultivation art centered around their chosen Dao, and in an effort to observe and study as many variables as possible, they accepted disciples. Then they accepted more, and before long, a sect was born.

All of it was done so that expert could excavate deeper and deeper into their Dao by witnessing how it manifested through the hands of others, before consolidating those insights into their own understanding.

The countless cultivation arts, techniques, and spells that existed throughout the world, a great many of them had been born from the experimentations of Soul Formation experts seeking to refine and enrich their Dao Conduct.

It was the same case for the various mysterious realms that had been created. Yes, some had been created as legacies for the sects, clans, or whatever organizations birthed them. But others had been created as experimental material, meant to test the various hypotheses of some expert.

Those who reached the summit and groped for the path to the Supreme were those who toiled in the darkness, who dug and dug and never stopped digging through countless experimentations, innovations, and creations until, at long last, their digging revealed a lighted path.

Most never reached that light.

Nine out of ten died in that darkness because they lacked the fortune of those who managed to grasp a Supreme Path when breaking through to the Soul Formation Realm, or they were not blessed like the mythical races, who were born with the Supreme Path already embedded into the very essence of their being. By virtue of simply existing, they already possessed that path.

And the cruelest part was that, for some, it wasn’t just one path but multiple, like the Phoenix race with its ties to the Supreme Path of Destruction and the Supreme Path of Life, or the Kunpeng, born with the Supreme Path of Time and the Supreme Path of Space.

It was what made it harder for Veiled Destiny to track the karma of such beings with their cheat-like abilities, and advantages that many toiled their entire lives just to catch a glimpse of and never still fail to do. The only way to contend with a Supreme Path was through another Supreme Path, and most mythical races didn’t possess just one, which was the very reason behind their dominance and overwhelming advantage.

To be honest, Veiled Destiny wasn’t too different in that regard either. The Supreme Dao of Karma was her bread and butter, but she was also versed in the Supreme Dao of Destiny, given the countless overlaps shared between the two Supreme Daos. And just like the mythical races, she didn’t exactly toil from the ground up to gain her understanding of those two Supreme Daos.

She was born knowing them.

And it was why Veiled Destiny couldn’t help but grow curious about the green-haired youth before her.

Before her was a human who had managed to grasp the very advantages mythical races were born with by having touched upon two Supreme Paths without being one himself. Of course, those paths, in their present state, were nothing more than uncultivated seeds, but the seeds . Given enough time and nurturing, which the Order was certain to provide, and with the brilliance, curiosity, and desire she had seen in that youth’s eyes, Veiled Destiny had no doubt he would seize the opportunity before him and raise those seeds into towering trees, placing him upon the same summit as the mythical races.

And yet, even in their seed state, the influences were already showing. Veiled Destiny had intended to let Yang Qing rest for a full day, given the level of tension and exhaustion she sensed within him. However, by virtue of the two Supreme Paths incubating inside him, his body reacted defensively to her influence and roused him from his slumber.

It was an entirely passive reaction, with Yang Qing none the wiser. Had Veiled Destiny wished to exert more of her influence, the gulf in strength between them was so vast that she could have easily bypassed his passive defenses and kept him asleep for twenty-four hours instead of ten. Yet, even with her not forcing the issue, what Yang Qing had accomplished was still a remarkable feat.

she silently murmured to herself as she studied the oblivious Yang Qing, who was still praising her and marveling at how restful the place was. He even claimed that, if given the chance, he’d never leave here. Though he played it off as a joke, Veiled Destiny could tell he wasn’t entirely joking.

The manifestation of multiple Supreme Paths, like Yang Qing’s, wherein it appeared in humans without even a drop of mythical race blood was exceedingly rare. And when it did occur, from her years of observation, nine out of ten such individuals possessed Peerless Jade Physiques.

She had long grown curious about the physique, especially since it was one of the few things even her abilities couldn’t completely see through.

she wondered as a youthful figure with long blue hair, a penchant for fishing, and a playful temperament every bit the equal of the youth before her flashed through her mind. He was also the biggest scammer she knew.

[You want to know?]

Veiled Destiny’s fist clenched involuntarily as she imagined that figure’s smug face and the look he would wear when he asked that question.

she thought fearfully, hastily shoving him from her mind lest he suddenly appear before her. From experience, she knew he was more than capable of sensing whenever she was thinking about him, especially when she was cursing him.

He almost always seemed to know whenever someone cursed him, which only motivated him to appear, torment the offender, scam them, or simply act shameless.

Taking a few quick, calming breaths and deploying a warning barrier just in case, Veiled Destiny turned her attention back to Yang Qing.

As she gazed at Yang Qing’s slightly anxious yet expectant expression, she found herself thinking, or...

Veiled Destiny’s thoughts paused briefly as another idea quietly took over.

Yang Qing, who had been feeling slightly nervous, felt some of his anxiety wash away as he detected an increase in the warmth with which Senior Veiled Destiny was looking at him.

Of course, he couldn’t see her face and was going entirely off instinct. His instincts told him Senior Veiled Destiny was smiling at him in that same affable way his mother always did whenever she asked him when he’d give her grandchildren, or whenever he’d gone too long without visiting and finally came to see her.

Yang Qing thought with relief as it eased his nerves about making the request.

Just as he was celebrating that the odds of having his request fulfilled had increased, thanks to the favorable impression he believed he had detected, his gaze fell on the wicker chair. In that brief glance, another desire surfaced, which he hurriedly moved to erase from his mind.

Veiled Destiny didn’t miss that look. Instead, it made her smile widen even further as her impression of Yang Qing grew all the more favorable.

"You had a favor to ask?" she gently asked.