The Shemi Continent is vast.
Its skies stretch over kingdoms that have never seen one another. From the cold throne of the God Domain to the hollow valleys of the Spirit Domain, each land bends its own laws. The Mistveil Domain, where I was born, lies at the edge of everything — a place others forget to name.
Few leave it.
Even Nascent Soul cultivators, strong by most standards, rarely cross into neighboring domains. The spiritual qi is very sparse between the borders of Mistveil Domain and others. Terrain is rigid and complex — dangerous valleys, high mountain peaks, poisonous marshy areas. If there is no qi, you can't cross domains.
A cultivator without high enough realm… may simply starve.
It's said that even Soul Formation realm cultivators who left Little Town have died not from battle, but from emptiness — their food gone, their energy drained, surrounded by dry spirit fields that couldn't sustain life.
Even soul cultivators, who can survive without food or rest for weeks — even months — cannot easily close the distance. Some domains lie a lifetime apart. Others… thousands of years, step by step.
But I am not walking.
I never trained my Qi too much. My bloodline made it unstable. The phoenix flame rejected shaping. The dragon will resisted flow. Qi cultivation turned against me before I could hold it.
So I turned elsewhere. To soul cultivation.
I found its first traces after I was left behind.
The ruins I wandered through as a child weren't empty. In a collapsed shrine deep within the cliffs past Little Town, I found fragments. Broken stone carvings. Half-burned jade scrolls. Whispers of arts long sealed away. They didn't need Qi. They needed will.
That's where it began.
Now, at Law Soul level, I no longer travel through the land.
I can travel through space portals across vast distances.
---
I stood at the edge of the Mistveil boundary and let my soul stretch. Not violently. Not with pressure.
I opened the space.
And stepped into the fold between domains.
---
The Ancient Archaic Domain opened around me.
The moment I arrived, I felt it. The ground carried memory. The stones pressed with remnants. The air bent slightly sideways — not in distortion, but in grief.
I entered a city with no name. Not on any map from Mistveil. But it lived.
I checked into an inn along a ridge wall, built from ancient timber, its windows fogged with age. Formations flickered silently at its edges. None lit.
No one asked me who I was. They simply watched as I moved.
---
In the main hall, cloaked cultivators whispered near a half-burned brazier.
"...they say the ruin holds a soul anchor. Something older than the sects."
"Stabilizes even broken fusion states."
"Impossible. Nothing survives that long."
"Then why are the elders sending scouts into the old gate?"
Their voices dropped when I passed. One of them stared — sharp, curious — but didn't speak.
---
The phrase stayed with me.
Soul stabilizing treasure.
Could it balance what remains unfinished in me? Could it smooth the final thread of fusion between flame and will?
Even if not — if it showed me what had been tried before — then it was worth finding.
But I needed facts, not rumors.
The city had one place for that.
Mirrorwake Pavilion.
It wasn't a sect . It was something else entirely.
An open exchange of knowledge and secrets.
A place where information was sold like weapons — for spirit stones, treasures, or favors. Maps, techniques, names. Rumors filtered into facts. Secrets became currency.
If the soul-stabilizing treasure was real — and if anyone had recorded where the ruin now opened — the Mirrorwake Pavilion would know.
I would go at first light. Because time here is not given — it must be taken.
Let others chase opportunity.
I seek the soul of it.
---
End of Chapter Twenty