As someone in sequence 001, I also want to give up today.

The clone's chanting still lingered on the mountain ridge when the vortex on the other side of the barrier spat out the main body.

There was no cliff in front of us, nor was there overwhelming darkness.

The whole world suddenly unfolded before Li Xian.

The human world stretches on and on without end.

On both sides of the rammed earth official road are glossy wheat fields, with the wheat ears pressed into golden waves by the wind.

Further away are the rooftops with blue tiles and white walls, with wisps of smoke rising into the sky, carrying the smells of firewood, stoves, and the dry aroma of grains turning in the threshing ground.

Faintly, one could hear human voices, barking dogs, and the rumbling of carts and horses rolling over stone slabs.

Li Xian stood there for a while, then spread out his Myriad Manifestations Power and casually scanned the area.

This scan yielded a conclusion that made him think for a moment longer.

He was still standing on Earth.

Time hasn't changed, the sun overhead still follows the same orbit, and the earth's atmosphere, wind direction, and tide rhythm are all in sync with the blue planet.

He was simply swept into a special space superimposed on the blue planet by that vortex.

Standing here and looking up at the sky, what you see is the sun and moon of this space itself.

But if he wanted to, he could follow the path he came from back to the exit, which would still lead to some place on Earth.

In other words, this is still a secret realm.

A world within a secret realm.

This city is not small.

The city walls were three layers high. The outer city housed ordinary people, the inner city housed officials, and the innermost palace, with its vermilion walls and golden tiles, covered an area of ​​tens of thousands of acres.

A rough estimate of the city's population is over one million.

Most of the people walking on the street are ordinary people, some carrying hoes, some carrying water, their entire livelihood depends on their two legs and one pair of shoulders.

However, many people also have a kind of energy circulating within them.

That energy didn't follow the path of supernatural abilities; it gathered in the meridians and was nurtured little by little.

Li Xian followed the aura of one of the people and looked inside.

A man carrying a tofu pole focused his energy, and several shallow layers of energy condensed around his body.

That's not a superpower; it's an extraordinary power unique to this world.

Li Xian stroked his chin.

Come here.

As soon as those four words came out, he knew that he had once again found himself a way to "make the best of a bad situation".

But he did not take a step immediately.

Standing in the sun, lost in thought, actually aligns with his philosophy of life. However, the official road was too sunny, and he would prefer to find a place with a roof to rest.

So the young man, dressed in a gray hooded sweatshirt, black sweatpants, and canvas shoes, strolled leisurely toward the nearest city.

A plaque made of ebony hangs above the city gate, with two characters written in regular script, bold and vigorous: "Wangjing".

Li Xian didn't pay much attention to the words on the plaque.

He was about to go in when he was stopped by two guards.

"Halt. Where did you come from? Where's your travel permit?"

Before Li Xian could even speak, the guard himself started acting strangely.

A fine layer of sweat appeared on his forehead, and his hand holding the knife trembled uncontrollably.

He probably couldn't figure out where the chill was coming from, and assumed he had seen a strange person, so he stubbornly pressed on, saying, "Without a travel permit, you can't enter the city."

Li Xian wasn't annoyed. He stood still and gave the guard a serious look.

One glance is enough.

The guard felt a tingling sensation in the back of his head, and a chill ran down his spine, more intense than plunging headfirst into ice water in the dead of winter.

When he came to his senses, the space in front of him was empty.

"Where are the others?"

The person next to him was also confused, peering into the city gate: "They're inside?"

"Were those we just stopped even human?"

The guard remained silent for two breaths, then said nothing more.

With only a few copper coins a month, who would risk their life?

The shops along the street lined up one after another, with all sorts of strange and wonderful characters written on their signs. There was a proper "Fuji Grain Shop" and a crooked "Zhang's Shoe Repair Shop".

A barefoot child, clutching three copper coins, stood on tiptoe and haggled with the old man selling candy, arguing until their faces turned red.

Finally, the old man waved his hand and stuffed an extra candied hawthorn into his hand. The child ran off in a flash.

There was also a fortune-telling stall on the street corner. The stall owner was an old man with a goatee. In front of him were more than a dozen slips of paper covered with words. He was interpreting the fortunes for a worried woman with great enthusiasm.

Li Xian overheard the old man repeating the same two phrases over and over: "Great fortune" and "A noble person will appear."

The woman, however, found the conversation increasingly pleasant. She took out five copper coins and left happily.

After reading it, Li Xian withdrew his gaze.

With plenty of time, he can slowly explore this world.

Just as he was pondering this, a young man carrying a medicine basket walked past him.

The man was probably a D-rank, with a steady gait and an aura that made ordinary people feel suffocated when they got close to him.

But as he passed Li Xian by the corner of the wall, he suddenly stopped and subconsciously glanced at the figure passing by, his pupils shrinking sharply.

He clearly couldn't detect any aura at all.

A living person stood there, but in the perception of this cultivator at the Opening Mansion Realm, he was like an empty piece of wood, a stretch of endless darkness.

The young man's throat bobbed, and he didn't dare linger. He lowered his head and walked away quickly.

Li Xian entered the city and walked along a small part of the long street, getting a clear picture of all the living people there.

The vast majority are ordinary people.

The women carrying rice, selling cloth, driving carts, squatting by the wall playing chess, and haggling over prices with bamboo baskets were all clean and tidy, without a trace of anything unusual.

But every now and then, he would run into one or two people who were "on display".

That kind of brightness has nothing to do with superpowers or awakening; it's a very rare power system on Earth.

Reiki.

The thing was as thin as a spider's thread, slowly traveling through a person's meridians.

Ordinary people cannot see it with their eyes closed, but cultivators can lure it down, lead it in, and repeatedly tame it.

Li Xian narrowed his eyes, casually picked up a strand of air, and examined it for a couple of breaths with his fingertips.

interesting.

This approach is completely different from superpowers; it's a different kind of ladder.

He quickly pieced together the name of this set of heavenly ladders from the city's bulletin boards and the stories told by teahouse storytellers:

Sensing the Spirit, Condensing Patterns, Opening a Mansion, Contracting with the Spirit, Transforming the Domain, Merging with the Heavens, Ascending the Tower.

Seven floors, each floor leading to a heavenly staircase.

Sensing the spirit means first sensing the spiritual energy flowing between heaven and earth and drawing a trace into the body. The sign is that when you close your eyes, you can see light spots floating around your body. These light spots are called spiritual dust. Most people are stuck in the state of sensing but not entering the spirit for their entire lives. They can see the spiritual energy, but they cannot draw it in.

Spiritual runes are formed when spiritual energy repeatedly washes over the meridians, condensing into fixed patterns. There are three to nine spiritual runes, and their quantity and quality determine the upper limit of one's talent. The more runes one has, the more powerful the same fireball spell can be.

Opening a mansion involves creating a spiritual mansion in the dantian or tanzhong. Essentially, it is a folded space used to store spiritual energy, ranging in size from a fist to a house. Only in this state can there be a stable output of spiritual energy, enabling one to refine weapons, set up formations, and draw talismans.

Spiritual Contracts no longer involve simply using spiritual energy, but rather forming a pact with a specific element of nature—a wisp of wind, a spring, an ancient tree, a spirit beast, or even the spirit of a mountain. Upon forming the pact, one gains a unique spiritual talent; for example, a pact with the wind grants short-distance teleportation. The cost is that if the pacted entity perishes or betrays the cultivator, the cultivator will suffer severe damage.

The Spirit Domain expands outward from the Spirit Palace, merging with the individual's spiritual contract to form a Spirit Domain. Within this domain, rules can be slightly modified, doubling the power of fire-based spiritual arts and slowing down the flow of spiritual energy in enemies. Initially, the domain is only a few feet wide, but as cultivation increases, it can cover an entire city. The sign of this realm is the appearance of contract patterns on the ground beneath one's feet when the Spirit Domain unfolds.

Upon merging with the heavens, the spiritual realm is no longer closed off, partially overlapping with the real world. Wherever a cultivator is, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth will actively converge towards them, like a walking spiritual vein. They can briefly borrow the power of heaven and earth to induce local celestial phenomena—light rain, thin mist, gentle breeze. When a powerful being in this realm becomes enraged, the spiritual energy within a radius of a hundred miles will become chaotic.

Upon ascending the tower, the soul enters the Spiritual Platform. The Spiritual Platform has nine floors; with each floor ascended, the affinity between the soul and spiritual energy increases dramatically. Each floor represents a new realm; reaching the third floor allows one to crush those in the Heavenly Fusion Realm, reaching the sixth floor makes one a regional overlord, and reaching the ninth floor is one in ten thousand. Each floor ascends requires passing a trial of the heart; the slightest wavering of will results in the soul shattering on the spot.

Converted to his outdated alphabet, Sensing Spirit is e, Condensing Patterns is f, Opening a Mansion is d, Contracting Spirit is c, Transforming Domain is b, Merging Heaven is a, and Ascending the Tower is s.