Journey of True Cultivation-Chapter 92: Under a Painted Sky

In a dark, silent realm where nothing could be seen or heard, only thoughts echoed endlessly in the mind, thoughts and nothing else.

No one could move. No one could speak. There was only silence... and the thought of the past.

Dead or alive, it made no difference. Only the echo of his own mind remained, a slow poison that gnawed at sanity.

Eternity passed, lingering in stillness, as if waiting for something.

Then, one day, a small warmth appeared.

Perhaps it had always been there. And so, in that timeless void, the maddening thoughts began to fade. Slowly, they vanished, leaving behind only warmth... and a new sensation, comfort.

These two, warmth and comfort, endured through another eternity. In this endless dark, silent realm, they became the new normal. It could even be called a kind of paradise.

But nothing stays forever.

One day, the warmth began to fade, vanishing little by little, leaving only the comfort behind.

Now, there was only comfort in that quiet realm.

But even that peace did not last.

The dark, silent world began to tremble, as if a great calamity were descending.

In that moment, something long sealed deep within that realm stirred, something regained the ability to move.

The world began to shatter.

The darkness fractured, breaking into nothingness.

And from the void, a single white orb emerged, floating in the heart of chaos.

It did not remain there long.

Just as the void reached for it once more, the white orb saw light.

And then, with a sudden breath, he opened his eyes, gasping as he lay in his small bed.

"Haa... haa... haa..."

He calmed himself with a few deep breaths. Slowly, his thoughts began to settle, but just as clarity returned, a deep shiver ran through his entire being as he thought of one thing.

"Is this another illusion?" his body, his spirit, and even deeper, his very soul, trembled.

The moment the shiver passed, his stomach lurched violently. He leaned forward and vomited over the edge of the bed. A sharp pain radiated through his throat and stomach, but after a few moments, the heaving stopped, leaving only the raw ache behind.

"Haa... haa..."

His breath came in ragged gasps. Snot dripped from his nose, his eyes were bloodshot, and his pale face was drenched in sweat. His body had clearly not taken the strain well. With trembling fingers, he wiped the mucus from his face and then looked down at the mess he'd made.

It was vile, an ugly mixture of bile and undigested filth. A bit of it had splashed onto his robe, staining the fabric. But he didn't care. Not now.

He rose shakily from the bed.

His legs felt weak, and they were much shorter than he remembered. Yet he managed to stand. Stumbling slightly, he made his way to the window.

Though he was too small to fully reach it, he could still see outside.

It was night.

The stars shimmered quietly above, and a full, round moon hung in the sky. The air was still, the heavens cloudless. The more he stared at the night sky, the more entranced he became.

It was nothing special, just a calm, quiet night, but it stirred something within him. A strange joy.

He remembered the endless darkness.

The silence that stretched through eternity.

The strange warmth that accompanied it... until it faded into simple comfort, but then an though came to his mind.

"What if this window shows stars painted on a wall? What if my legs are just dreams beneath chains?" But the vomit was real. The pain was real. The breath, the night air, the disgust...

But now, he could move his arms. He could stand on his own legs. He could feel again, even the dull pain in his throat reminded him he was alive.

And that feeling... he hadn't known it in a very, very long time.

If this was an illusion, then he'd choose to live in and search for a way to control his own fate, not being at the palm of some higher being, but now, he though of nothing other than the feeling he felt now.

"I am alive."

As he spoke the words aloud, his voice was high pitched, the voice of a child. But the emotions behind those words... no child could have felt them.

Tears streamed silently from his already red eyes.

He didn't sob. He didn't cry. He simply stood there, staring up at the round moon and the stars that surrounded it, letting the tears fall quietly.

Eventually, the tears stopped.

A calm settled over him, and with it, the clarity of memory. He knew who he was.

What had truly happened to him, he didn't fully understand it, and that uncertainty made something churn inside him. A creeping anxiety. A feeling of powerlessness.

He gritted his teeth and crushed the emotion down. He would not let it rule him.

"I am Yuan," he whispered.

His voice was still a child's, light, soft, almost fragile, but the weight behind it was too deep, too heavy for such a young frame. It carried the echo of countless years.

"Eternity passed. I was imprisoned... but I still survived. Reality was false. But then... what was the truth?"

He stared into the night, letting the question echo in his mind. He closed his eyes, held them shut for a moment... and then opened them again.

His eyes were black, plain, but deep. Deeper than they had any right to be. Eyes that could draw you in, make you lose yourself if you looked too long.

His face was small, a little round with baby fat. His limbs were short, his body weak and frail. His hair was short and black, nothing unusual.

Nothing about him seemed extraordinary... except those eyes.

He began to recall the scattered fragments of memory. After he saw the light... after he emerged from that eternal darkness... he had been reborn as a child.

His new parents called him Luan Yuan, mere mortals, nothing more. The place of his birth was an ordinary mortal village, small, isolated, and the spiritual essence was barren.

He knew he had siblings, a few at least, but he hadn't bothered to learn more. He didn't care. Not yet.

His focus shifted as he looked around the small room he now lived in.

Simple walls. A thatched ceiling. A rickety bed.

This was his new beginning.

The room was made entirely of wood. It contained only a small bed, three unlit lamps, and a door. Nothing else.

Yuan glanced at the door but quickly realized his current body wasn't tall enough, his arms were too short to reach the handle.

With a snort, he frowned. That's when the smell hit him.

His face twisted in disgust.

"Ugh... my vomit."

Annoyed but resigned, he muttered to himself, "Great. Looks like I'll have to clean this up somehow."

He glanced at the mess on his bed. Cleaning up wasn't easy in his small, fragile body, but at least it was night, and he didn't know how long until morning. Too restless to sleep in filth, he took action.

The bed was soaked only in the blanket, so with considerable effort and many failed attempts, he finally managed to open the window.

Unlike the door, the window opened with a simple push.

With a grunt, Yuan shoved the vomit covered blanket through it, tossing it out into the night.

The bed was now free of the worst of the mess. Though the smell still lingered faintly, he endured it.

Lying back down, he curled into himself. Sleep came slowly... but eventually, it claimed him.

Yuan slept well, until a sharp gasp of shock startled him awake.

From that moment on, time passed.

And after a long time, Yuan was already eight years old.

Over the past four years, Yuan had learned many things, about the world, about his own body, but the most important truth he uncovered was this, Cultivation was real.

It existed in this world, just as he had remembered.

From the moment he confirmed that truth, he began trying to reach the Mortal Awakening Stage. Yet despite all his efforts, his current body was painfully ordinary, born with almost no spiritual essence at all.

But that didn't stop him.

Day after day, he trained in silence, seizing whatever free moments life in the village allowed him. He poured his will into cultivation, even if progress was agonizingly slow. freeweɓnovel.cøm

What he hadn't realized at first was just how much he didn't know about the Mortal Awakening Stage.

First, all beings were born with at least some spiritual essence, enough to begin cultivating and awaken the five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The more spiritual essence one had within the body determined how fast one could awaken the senses.

In this mortal village, however, there were no cultivators. None. Not even a single wandering loose cultivator passed through.

Not even someone at the Mortal Awakening Stage.

The spiritual essence here was almost nonexistent. It was a barren land, and that made progress nearly impossible.

Four years.

Four years of effort was an eternity for a mortal expected to live only 60 to 80 years.

But today... finally...

He had done it.

He had awakened his first sense, his sight.

For the first time in this life, he could see the faint flow of spiritual essence in the air. Though dim and barely moving, it shimmered ever so slightly, like a lost color returning to a faded painting.

He had missed this sight more than he realized.

A few hours later, as he sat cross legged atop a flat stone, quietly refining the sense, he heard a familiar, high pitched voice calling out through the trees.

"Luan Yuan! Where are you?!" The voice belonged to a young boy, one of the local children.

He was shouting loudly, searching every corner of the village.

Yuan didn't respond. He simply sat in silence, focused in his lotus position. But the boy didn't give up.

Soon, he spotted him.

"Luan Yuan! There you are! I finally found you!" the boy shouted with a bright grin, running up to him. "Hehe! I told you, I'll always find you, even if I have to search the whole village! Hahaha!"