Browsing the Boards Nicely

After spending a full two months fixated on qi absorption and filling the dantian to about half, Baek Cheong finally realized a dispiriting truth.

The Spirit-Gathering Formation was drawing in spiritual energy, yet she could not gather even half of it.

'It's just leaking right out, isn't it?'

Baek Cheong frowned while seated cross-legged atop the Spirit-Gathering Formation in the eastern training room.

The Spirit-Gathering Formation, directly linked to the spirit vein, was pulling the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into the room.

Opening all her meridian paths and inhaling spiritual energy had long since become second nature.

Yet even with spiritual energy filling the room, the amount being drawn into the dantian fell far short.

A compressed divine sense scan made the reason clear.

'The pulling force isn't strong enough.'

The force that held spiritual energy and stacked it into the dantian came from the pull extending out from the spirit root.

But because Baek Cheong's cultivation realm was too low, that pull was far too weak to catch all the spiritual energy.

It was like a granary piled high with grain, while only hand-carrying it out.

Most of the spiritual energy drifting through the room scattered away before it could even reach the dantian.

'Wasteful, but there's nothing I can do.'

In the end, the only way to strengthen that pull was to raise cultivation realm.

For now, all she could do was let the overflowing spiritual energy spill away.

'Well, still, I'm getting stronger little by little.'

Baek Cheong took what comfort could be had.

Slowly, but surely, the Five Elements spirit roots were taking in spiritual energy and growing.

Perhaps it was because the Five Elements spirit roots were still growing bit by bit.

'The dormant spirit root... has been quiet lately.'

Since it had been soothed every month with the sect's attribute pills, there had been no particular sign.

There was no way to look directly at the dormant spirit root crouched deep within the dantian.

Even if it seemed quiet, there was no way to know what was happening inside.

'When it's quiet, that's when I need to be even more careful.'

Baek Cheong resolved never to let her guard down against the dormant spirit root.

Before long, after finishing the qi absorption session, Baek Cheong took the Jinmun Formation Diagram from the storage pouch.

Steeling the mind, Baek Cheong began learning the obscure glyph, but was still stuck on a single one.

'This damned tribulation glyph...'

It was a glyph embodying the 'jie' of heavenly tribulation.

Its shape was clearly different from the character commonly used to mean tribulation.

Baek Cheong had deliberately chosen it out of a desire to prepare for heavenly tribulation.

Since it was a character that dealt with tribulation, Baek Cheong thought adding it to the tribulation formation would make it that much more solid.

Baek Cheong had expected it to be hard, but this was beyond hard.

Baek Cheong couldn't even grasp the flow of where the strokes branched or split.

'Am I supposed to read this or not?'

Baek Cheong glared at the diagram and let out a sigh.

Come to think of it, this was closer to clutching at straws.

Even if the tribulation glyph ultimately remained unconquered, Baek Cheong couldn't just leave it alone.

"No choice, then."

The things to do right now were obvious.

One was to keep up cultivation, since karma might seep in wearing a different face from heavenly tribulation.

The other was to check and recheck the Five Elements Tribulation Formation Baek Cheong had already devised.

It was a formation that forged fake tribulation clouds to scatter the lightning tribulation, so it had to be off by not even a hair.

'Here the spiritual energy splits, and here the Cloud Spirit Pearl shapes the clouds...'

Until the day heavenly tribulation fell, Baek Cheong felt only having done everything possible would be enough to settle the heart.

'Just because of one real downvote, I've been put through all this trouble.'

After wrestling with the Jinmun Formation Diagram until exhausted, Baek Cheong quietly opened the Nameless Forum.

When study left Baek Cheong drained, browsing the boards to cool off was a habit.

But unlike before, the way Baek Cheong enjoyed the Nameless Forum had changed.

Before, Baek Cheong would start by stirring up trouble.

But these days, the bubbling urge to troll was being forcibly wrapped up tight.

'Hold it in, hold it in. We said we'd browse the boards nicely.'

Instead of trolling, Baek Cheong diligently wrote an information post about the glyph that had just been understood.

It was a heartfelt post, written carefully and accompanied by an explanation.

『Dao friend(913.14): Notes on the Basic Glyph 氺.』

[I'm writing this for dao friends who think they can judge formations just by memorizing the whole diagram. Today's topic is the most basic of the basic glyphs, the water (氺) glyph.

First, don't confuse it with the water character (水) we write with a brush. 水 is just a character, while 氺 is the waterway that spiritual energy actually flows through. Even though they look similar, the direction the strokes open in is completely different.

As I've said over and over, glyphs aren't something you memorize; they're something you comprehend. 氺 is the same. The thick middle stroke is the main channel, and the thin strokes branching off to either side are side branches. Spiritual energy rushes through the main channel while the side branches let a little seep out and control the speed. That's why it curves and flows so smoothly, like water.

The direction of those side branches is the most important part. If they curl inward, spiritual energy pools; if they stretch outward, it scatters. To make a water-attribute formation hold spiritual energy, you absolutely have to inscribe the inward-curving 氺.

And if you leave 氺 by itself, it's just a puddle of water and useless. You have to attach a wood-attribute glyph next to it so a channel opens up before it can work at all. Water generates wood, so if you release spiritual energy where the water nourishes the wood, it circulates on its own. That's the basic principle of fitting glyphs together through mutual generation.

Even if it looks trivial, one wrong placement of 氺 and the whole formation leaks, so study the basics properly.]

[Merit 0 / Karma 0]

There were conspicuously few information posts about glyphs on the Nameless Forum, so Baek Cheong decided to target the gap.

If lucky, someone might read it closely and press Merit for Baek Cheong.

And there was also some hope that it might build up a bit of Dao Traces.

But even if Dao Traces were gained, Baek Cheong couldn't press Merit on the post.

Since that was far removed from the Merit that could shave off karma, all Baek Cheong could do was feel disappointed.

'Ah well, it's still better than doing nothing.'

In truth, there was another motive besides Merit.

It was the same ulterior motive as when Baek Cheong had once diligently kept a cultivation journal to shed the 'old monster' label.

Baek Cheong believed that if earnest information posts were steadily stacked up, the troll label would eventually fade too.

But the information post was buried almost as soon as it went up.

The Nameless Forum was buzzing with war bait from the Upper Realm, so there was no room to wedge in.

The only reply that had even been left was a single one.

『Dao friend(33.3): Huuuh?』

Dao friend(33.3) was the one who had once tried to work the Jinmun Formation Diagram onto Baek Cheong, only to end up mastering it themselves, and who now kept popping up whenever glyph bait appeared.

It had seemed like they'd gone quiet for a while, but then they suddenly popped back up again.

'What are they even saying?'

The reply itself was impossible to understand.

With a question mark attached, it did seem like they were asking something, but Baek Cheong couldn't make head or tail of it.

'What am I supposed to answer to this?'

Didn't Baek Cheong explain it kindly last time too, only for the other side to go on with a long Huuuu and collapse?

Baek Cheong decided to pretend Dao friend(33.3)'s reply hadn't been seen.

Baek Cheong looked around the Nameless Forum after backing out of the post.

The Nameless Forum was still all a-twitter over the war that had broken out in the Upper Realm.

In the time it took to blink once, hundreds of new posts were being refreshed.

『Dao friend(55.19): I heard the Spirit Realm's Heavenly Gate got messed up again.』

『Dao friend(1.7): More cultivators have fled down here.』

『Dao friend(341.8): At this rate, won't the fallout reach the Lower Realm too?』

[Is it already spreading here?]

As Baek Cheong skimmed the endlessly refreshing posts, one hot topic caught the eye.

『Boiled Egg: Here's my review of the Lower Realm I was introduced to.』

[In the Lower Realm where Dao friend(333.333) resides, the Heavenly Dao has been so overprotective of cultivators that it lost its tribulations and declined. Fearing it would enter the Dharma-ending age, I sealed the Heavenly Dao, and because I have to govern in its place, I called over a few dao friends I was close to from the Upper Realm. Although the spiritual energy is murkier and scarcer than in the Upper Realm, it should be manageable if I keep the population under control.]

[Merit 0 / Karma 0]

It was a high-ranking dao friend who had set the Nameless Forum buzzing while searching for a cozy Lower Realm.

Now they had even finished settling in and were posting a review, of all things.

'Did they really swallow up an entire Lower Realm?'

Baek Cheong's jaw dropped as the words sank in.

Seal the Heavenly Dao and call in a few Upper Realm cultivators to govern a Lower Realm.

Call it a review, and yet they'd swallowed an entire Lower Realm whole.

The replies below all sounded just as stunned.

[Dao friend(11.23): They actually got tricked into revealing the Lower Realm's location.]

[Dao friend(417.3): They said there weren't even any Soul Transformation cultivators, and they got eaten whole.]

[Dao friend(88.4): Said they were looking for a cozy Lower Realm and then just settled right in lol.]

Only after reading the replies did the situation become clear.

The Dao friend(333.333) named in the review was the dao friend who had eagerly jumped into Boiled Egg's search post.

They had even marketed it as a declining Lower Realm with neither Heavenly Dao nor Soul Transformation cultivators.

'Ah, so that's what it was.'

Looking back, it was like digging their own grave with their own hands.

Bragging that there was no Heavenly Dao and no Soul Transformation cultivators was basically advertising it as an empty house.

'To think they'd fall for it that completely.'

Baek Cheong tsked while skimming the replies.

Come to think of it, it was obvious from the start.

Even if war had broken out in the Upper Realm, the Upper Realm was still the better place to be.

Besides, going from the Upper Realm down to the Lower Realm was even harder than ascending.

The very fact that they'd deliberately taken such a hard road downward meant they had a black heart.

'They must have planned from the start to swallow up some easy Lower Realm.'

But Dao friend(333.333) never did see through that scheme.

After publicly blurting out that it was a Lower Realm with neither Heavenly Dao nor Soul Transformation cultivators...

By the time they sensed something was off, the whole Lower Realm would already have been swallowed up.

'Tsk tsk, how had they ended up like that?'

After tsking over someone else's business, Baek Cheong's thoughts suddenly rolled elsewhere.

'But that... if I use it well, couldn't it be good?'

If Baek Cheong ever reached Soul Transformation, the longing for ascension would be unavoidable.

The problem was that the road to ascension was still a distant one.

So even at Soul Transformation stage nine, ascension was still out of reach.

Yet an Upper Realm cultivator like the famed dao friend had crossed the realm barrier in reverse and come down to the Lower Realm.

That meant Upper Realm cultivators had the power to go back and forth across the realm barrier somehow.

'Then if I use Upper Realm cultivators, couldn't they break open the blocked path to ascension?'

At that thought, Baek Cheong's eyes lit up.

Dao friend(333.333) had been swallowed whole because they lacked the strength.

But as a Soul Transformation cultivator, there'd be no way to get swallowed whole.

Instead, Baek Cheong could make proper use of Upper Realm cultivators and then use them for ascension.

'Oh, this might be unexpectedly good?'

Everyone else was shrinking back, calling it eerie.

Baek Cheong, meanwhile, was already using it to grab the first clue to ascension.

It was all for preparing for every possibility, just in case.

'I should remember this for later.'

With a pleased look, Baek Cheong etched the famed dao friend's review firmly into memory.

All while briefly forgetting that a heavenly tribulation carrying karma was right around the corner.