Where Immortals Once Walked

So this is what Panlong City looks like from a third-party perspective?

A hazy ancient city, looming atop a highland?

Yet when He Lingchuan focused more closely, he realized the city was not fixed at all. It gathered and dispersed in cycles. It was sometimes sharp and distinct, but most of the time blurred, with only a rough outline visible.

He asked the mirror what was going on.

The mirror gave him a single explanation, “It’s too big, and big things come with big problems. Manifesting it requires an astonishing amount of energy, so it’s very hard to make it fully concrete. Also, while this City of the Dead is magnificent, it’s definitely not complete yet.”

“What do you mean when you say that it’s not complete?”

“Every soul land has its own rules or laws that must be obeyed. The more complete the rules, the more successful the soul land.”

Rules? He Lingchuan rolled the word over in his mind, then asked, “So how does a soul land become complete?”

“Either it evolves on its own over time, or it borrows external forces,” the mirror replied. “Take me, for instance, I want to study and learn from that City of the Dead. Likewise, it must also have its own means of evolution.”

At the mention of external forces, He Lingchuan immediately thought of the things the divine bone amulet had swallowed before.

It had absorbed the foundation stone of an ancient immortal’s cave abode, the secret medicine of a heavenly god, and the molted shell of an ancient greater monster like Zhu Erniang.

In other words, the Panlong City Illusion Realm within the Generous Pot was also seeking ways to perfect its rules and evolve itself?

The mirror asked him again, “You enter the City of the Dead quite often, don’t you?”

He Lingchuan nodded. “When I sleep at night, every so often I enter the City of the Dead as some sort of dreamscape.”

“Dreamscape? Wahahaha—I already told you, that’s a soul land, a soul land!” The mirror burst into wild laughter. If it had arms, it would have been slapping the table by now. “What kind of idiot thinks a soul land is just a dreamscape? Ahahaha! Are you trying to make me laugh myself to death?”

He Lingchuan bared his teeth in a grin and cracked his knuckles.

A few breaths later.

“Normally, dreams revolve around you as the central subject,” the mirror said sullenly. “When you’ve been in the City of the Dead all this time, have you ever felt that it revolved around you?”

He Lingchuan thought about it, then shook his head.

He was only a part of it.

“But I can only enter when I’m asleep. Why is that?”

“That’s simply one of the soul land’s rules. Usually, it’s meant to block others from entering or prying.”

Well, plenty of people coveted the Generous Pot, after all.

He Lingchuan had been wanting to ask this for a long time, “So what exactly is a soul land?”

“Doesn’t the name already give it away? A soul land is a dwelling place for dead souls unwilling to dissipate. Most are naturally formed. The majority of spirits living there don’t even realize they’re dead. They go on living and acting just as they did in life.” It paused, then continued, “A soul land doesn’t exist in the real world, nor does it belong to the firmament. It stands on its own, a kind of sanctuary for the dead. But no matter what, it is not a dream! It has nothing to do with your absurd, idiotic dreams!”

He Lingchuan recalled a strange anecdote he had once read in the Literature Pavilion.

A traveler, pursued by wolves in the wilderness, fled toward a light and stumbled into a small town hidden in a mountain valley. Life there was peaceful and warm, everyone smiling. The townsfolk helped him drive off the wolves, fed and housed him, and there was even a beautiful young woman who talked with him late into the night.

He fell asleep in that bliss. When he woke the next morning, he found himself lying atop a massive boulder. One more roll and he would have fallen into a fissure. When he looked around, he saw only weeds and dead trees and not a single sign of human habitation.

He fled the valley in terror.

Later, he learned that ten years earlier, a volcanic eruption had swallowed the town at the mountain’s base, along with more than a thousand lives.

He never knew what he had truly encountered. No one believed him when he told the story.

Some who heard it went to search the valley themselves, but they all found nothing.

The “ghost town” never appeared again.

Listening to the mirror now, He Lingchuan realized that man had likely entered a naturally formed soul land.

“So, soul lands can be natural or artificial?”

“Sometimes the heavens and earth spontaneously generate a soul land. Usually, it’s because too many people die in a short span, and resentment surges sky-high. But those kinds of soul lands are very unstable, and they might vanish without a sound one day,” the mirror explained. “Artificial soul lands are different. They’re far more stable, but they require a carrier or vessel.”

For the world within the mirror, the carrier or vessel was obviously the mirror itself.

So what’s Panlong City’s vessel? It should be the Generous Pot, right?

“And that’s exactly why once the normal order there is disrupted, the resentment of the dead will erupt violently.” Then it suddenly asked, “Wait, did you also change the karma there?”

He Lingchuan nodded again. He had crossed and tangled reality and the dreamscape so thoroughly; how could karma not have changed?

The mirror gasped. “Then how messed up are the laws of that City of the Dead? Why hasn’t it collapsed yet?”

“It’s perfectly orderly,” He Lingchuan said irritably. “Almost no different from the real world. It’s not like your mirror realm that’s awkward and wrong in every way.”

The mirror snorted. “If it can withstand your reckless meddling without collapsing, that means it has an extremely powerful energy source. Ugh, I’m so jealous. But at the same time, it also needs an equally powerful karmic power. Otherwise, if it collapses one day, even your soul will be buried inside it, and you won’t be getting out. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He Lingchuan took the warning seriously. “So the more I influence the City of the Dead, the more powerful karmic power I need to find for it?”

“Not quite accurate, but close enough.”

He Lingchuan nodded slowly.

No wonder then.

It was no wonder that after his first two entries into the dreamscape, everything cut off. He had gone a long time without entries into the dreamscape until the divine bone necklace devoured the foundation stone of that immortal’s cave abode. Only then did the true Panlong City open itself to him.

Even now, despite understanding the concept of a soul land, he still preferred calling it the Panlong Dreamscape.

So that’s why.

The Generous Pot had gained external karmic power, helping the Panlong Dreamscape complete its rules, enough to bear the changes He Lingchuan brought to that world.

The deeper he embedded himself in the dreamscape, the more freely he acted, the greater his influence became. According to the mirror, a soul land should be unchanging, but Panlong Dreamscape had branched into a new path because of him, gradually diverging from real history.

That demanded ever-greater evolutionary power. Without it, the system would fail—freezing at best, collapsing entirely at worst.

The mirror was not joking.

It seemed that from now on, anything the divine bone amulet set its sights on, He Lingchuan would have to seriously consider and obtain at all costs.

The mirror had also mentioned that Panlong City likely possessed a powerful energy source.

But what exactly was that?

Unfortunately, the answer to that was probably not something he could find in the near future.

He could only return his attention to the mirror in his hands. “So apart from acting as a heart-protecting mirror, what else can you do?”

It had been a pain to deal with. Now that he had subdued it, he did not feel it was especially useful.

“I can enlarge myself and be used as a shield,” the mirror hurriedly advertised. “That’s how General You used me. If I’m damaged, as long as I’m replenished in time, I can slowly repair myself.”

“Also, I have reflective properties. If an attack hits my surface, then so long as it’s not a spell or divine technique, I can rebound part of the force.”

“Force being reflected is basic physics,” He Lingchuan scoffed. “Still, you’re somewhat useful. Those evil ghosts that followed your orders, where did they come from?”

“They’re wandering souls I took in after awakening. There are three left now,” the mirror said. “The world isn’t much better than it was two hundred years ago. Fresh lonely souls roam everywhere. If I didn’t take them in, they’d dissipate in a few days anyway.”

He Lingchuan gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Oh, right, even if I transform into a shield, my soul-stealing ability still works,” the mirror added. “If an opponent stares at me, they might still lose focus.”

“Alright.” He Lingchuan lifted it and tested the weight.

The mirror obediently enlarged, going from a round mirror into a circular shield about one meter across. Its surface was still bright and reflective, making it easy to activate its soul-stealing ability.

It was simply a proportional increase in size.

He Lingchuan swung it around a few times. The balance and heft felt good, perfect for a one-handed shield. His offensive options were growing, and he really did need some defensive gear.

He already had a shield in Panlong City, and now he had filled that gap in the real world as well.

The only blemish was an ugly notch in the shield’s surface, courtesy of Fleeting Life.

“How do I repair this hole?”

“The more wrathful souls I consume, the faster I recover. Otherwise, I just have to take my time,” the mirror replied. “If not that, profound crystals work. Oh, nightmare qi works too.”

“Nightmare qi?” That term sounds familiar.

The mirror saw his confusion immediately. “The spirit qi of heaven and earth nourishes all things. Once it enters living beings, it becomes nightmare qi, also called nightmare energy. It sustains birth, aging, sickness, and death.”

That explanation was simple enough. He Lingchuan instantly understood.

In his old world, everything grew from sunlight. Plants absorbed light. Animals ate plants and grew flesh. Humans consumed animals.

No matter how many steps or names you gave it, at its core, it was all just energy.

“Huh?” Suddenly, he remembered where he had heard the term.

Back in Xinhuang, when he and his father captured an infiltrator, the man claimed to be an attendant of State Preceptor Shuang Ye of Beijia. He said he had been ordered to deploy a Dragon Punishment Pillar on the battlefield to collect nightmare qi.

The nightmare qi gathered by that pillar was extremely dense, but the light it emitted was visible only to the attendant and to He Lingchuan.

The attendant claimed he had opened his “Heaven’s Eye,” and said the State Preceptor wanted the nightmare qi collected so it could be properly appeased and transcended.

“But I heard nightmare qi is the resentment, unwillingness, and anger of those who die in battle?”

The mirror burst out laughing. “What?”

“Hahahahaha!” It laughed uncontrollably again. “Which idiot said that? That’s completely off, way off!”

He Lingchuan did not interrupt its laughter, but he did respond, “State Preceptor Shuang Ye of Beijia.”

Its laughter stopped dead.

“A state preceptor of Beijia?”

The mirror fell silent for a moment, then said weakly, “Perhaps he has other motives.”

How could such an eminent figure like the state preceptor of Beijia possibly make such a low-level mistake?