Chapter 2: An Unexpected Discovery——The Floating Spirit Farm
1020 Words
Shi Yue awoke groggily, the memory of searing pain still echoing in his limbs. Disorientation washed over him. Instead of the familiar damp stone and the coppery scent of the Crimson-Scaled Python's blood, he found himself standing before a humble Stone House.
Before him stretched three meticulously measured plots of Spirit Farmland, their rich, dark soil promising fertility. The air hummed with Spiritual Energy, far denser and purer than any he'd encountered in the Ethereal Mountains.
"This... where is this?" Shi Yue stammered, his voice swallowed by the profound silence. He vividly recalled the cave, the dead serpent, the treacherous Blue Pearl sucking him dry. Was this a dream born of exhaustion and pain? He pinched his thigh hard. The sharp jolt confirmed this unsettling reality was no illusion.
With a cautious flicker of his Spiritual Sense, he probed his surroundings. Nothing. No rustle of life, no whisper of breath save his own. He was utterly alone in this strange realm.
Hesitantly, he approached the edge of the Spirit Farmland. His breath hitched as he looked down. He stood on an island – a Floating Island – suspended impossibly high in an endless azure sky. Below stretched a vast, featureless expanse of deep blue ocean, stretching to the horizon. Vertigo threatened to overwhelm him.
A dizzying possibility struck him: "Could that Blue Pearl... be a Spatial Treasure?" His pulse hammered against his ribs, his breathing turning shallow. Spatial Treasures! The legends whispered of them in the archives of the Cloudsoar Sect – artifacts containing their own miniature worlds, governed by the profound laws of space itself. To possess one... the implications were staggering.
Excitement surged, a wild, hopeful flame. But it flickered and died almost as quickly as it ignited. A chilling thought followed: How do I get out?He'd stumbled in blindly, but escape seemed a locked door without a key.
Shi Yue was only at the Qi Refining stage, far from the realm of Foundation Establishment where true Abstain from Grains became possible. His physical body still demanded sustenance. He patted his Storage Pouch, finding only three precious Fasting Pills. They would sustain him, barely, for ten days.
Ten days.
Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at the edges of his mind. If he couldn't find a way out, starvation awaited him in this paradisiacal prison. He forced himself to step inside the Stone House. It was starkly empty, offering no clues, no comfort.
"Am I truly destined to perish here?" he murmured, stepping back outside and gazing helplessly at the unnaturally bright, unchanging sky. There was no sun, no moon, no comforting rhythm of day and night. Only the slow, inexorable trickle of sand in a small Hourglass he carried marked the passage of time – one full day for the upper chamber to empty into the lower.
Driven by desperation, Shi Yue spent the next three days scouring every inch of the Floating Island. He tapped stones, scrutinized the soil of the Spirit Farmland, even pushed his limited Magical Power to fly short distances off the edge, only to be met by an invisible barrier forcing him back. Nothing yielded a hint of an exit.
Resignation settled over him, heavy and cold. Trapped, with time running out, he saw only one path left: cultivate. The Spiritual Energy here was incredibly rich, a cultivator's dream. If he couldn't escape, perhaps he could race against his dwindling Fasting Pills, trying to advance his cultivation before starvation claimed him. He knew, logically, reaching Foundation Establishment from Qi Refining Layer Two in ten days was an impossible dream, a fool's hope. But it was the only hope he had. Clinging to it, he retreated into the Stone House, sat cross-legged on the bare stone floor, closed his eyes, and began circulating the Ethereal Art, drawing the potent ambient energy into his depleted core.
Ten days crawled by, measured grain by grain in the Hourglass. His Magical Power slowly replenished and even showed slight signs of growth, fueled by the environment. But the gnawing hunger grew more insistent as his last Fasting Pill dissolved on his tongue days before.
Then, on the tenth day, as Shi Yue sat deep in meditation, focusing on the flow of Qi, a sudden, violent pressure clamped onto his skull. A deafening buzzroared in his ears. His vision swam, consciousness threatening to slip away. His head felt leaden, unbearably heavy...
He slumped. Darkness.
Shi Yue gasped, snapping his eyes open. Rough stone scraped against his back. The damp, mineral scent of a cave filled his nostrils. The faint glow of a discarded Moonlight Stone illuminated the scene: the headless carcass of the Crimson-Scaled Python lay nearby, a dark stain spreading on the cave floor where its neck had been severed. He was back in the cave. The Floating Island, the Spirit Farmland, the Stone House – gone, as if they had never been.
Yet, the memory was searingly real, and the subtle thrum of Magical Power within him, slightly stronger than before his Magical Power had been Depleted, confirmed it hadn't been a mere hallucination. His fingers instinctively closed around the cool, smooth surface of the Blue Pearl still clutched tightly in his palm. It felt inert now, just a peculiar blue stone.
He stared at it, a storm of awe, terror, and dawning comprehension swirling within him. The impossible had happened. He had touched, however briefly, the power of a Spatial Treasure. And somehow, miraculously, he had returned. The cave, the dead beast, the harsh reality of the Ethereal Mountains – they were suddenly imbued with a terrifying new potential. His journey, he realized with a shiver that wasn't entirely fear, had just taken an unimaginable turn.
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