Chapter 94
Five days had passed since they left the Yeonha Baek Clan.
The Gadan-gi Law Enforcer was handling the Flying Dharma Treasure with seasoned skill, so the journey time was steadily shortening.
In this situation, Baek-Cheong felt bored and immersed herself in browsing the forum.
It was because there was almost nothing she could do while on the move.
She couldn’t even touch Pill Refining without a Pill Room, Flying Sword Cultivation was too much to attempt on the narrow deck, and it wasn’t the place to bring out a technique like Ice Dragon Shatter amidst the clutter with so many eyes watching.
She absolutely wasn’t making excuses just to browse the forum.
As a result, most of her time naturally went into browsing the forum.
When she opened her eyes in the morning, she immediately settled into a room on one side of the Pavilion, and she frequented the Nameless Forum all day long, except when she had her meals.
Since the hull didn’t shake, it was incredibly comfortable to lie on the bed and thoroughly scroll through the Nameless Forum.
“Anyway…”
At that moment, the question that had been weighing on her mind reared its head again.
It was the Barrier situated between the continents.
The structure where one couldn’t go straight to the Central Continent from the northernmost tip, but had to take a detour through the southernmost tip, was somewhat strange.
In effect, it was as if each Continent was divided like a separate Lower Realm.
Since she had never seen it herself, it was unsatisfactory to just brush it off as a rumor, but she couldn’t exactly interrogate her uncle about it either.
“Nameless-Emon is the best for things like this.”
Baek-Cheong took a Seat in front of the Forum Board and wrote a post.
“Dao Friend (913.14): Are there barriers wedged between every Continent originally?”
[There are several continents in our Lower Realm, but I heard there are barriers between them so you can’t cross straight over. Is it like that in other lower realms too?]
Questions about geography were far from secret-entangled topics like formations or lightning qi, so it was fine to chatter about them freely.
Replies quickly began to line up.
[Dao Friend (45.99): What are you talking about? Our Lower Realm is one single Continent.]
[Dao Friend (73.18): We don’t even have continents lol. Just thousands of floating islands.]
[Dao Friend (391.04): This is Five Continents. But there are no barriers or anything, just the ocean.]
[Dao Friend (127.31): Barrier? What’s that?]
[Dao Friend (22.81): Another troublemaker. Logically, why would continents be divided like lower realms?]
“What is this?”
She was at a loss for where to even begin, with every answer to a single question being completely different.
The majority of the replies were just people boasting about their own lower realms, so they weren’t useful as comparative data.
[Dao Friend (913.14): Every reply is completely different, you’re all talking about your own lower realms, right?]
└Dao Friend (45.99): Yeah, we’re talking about our Lower Realm. We don’t know about other lower realms.
└Dao Friend (73.18): Yeah, our Lower Realm is full of islands.
└Dao Friend (391.04): We have Five Continents, yup.
└Dao Friend (127.31): Dao Friend, so what’s a Barrier?
[Dao Friend (913.14): I mean something naturally blocking the space between continents so you can’t cross straight over.]
└Dao Friend (127.31): This is the first time hearing of it.
“Well, if a Dao Friend could look into the affairs of other lower realms, they would have ascended to the Upper Realm long ago.”
When one thinks about it logically, it was only natural that the answers varied so much.
Even so, there was no reason to stop.
[Dao Friend (913.14): So how do you travel between continents in your lower realms?]
[Dao Friend (73.18): It’s between islands, so flying dharma treasures are the only answer.]
[Dao Friend (45.99): It’s one piece so we just walk around.]
[Dao Friend (391.04): We use flying dharma treasures too. There are safe sea routes over the ocean.]
[Dao Friend (23.7): Our Continent has a Barrier that even nascent soul cultivators can’t easily cross, so we travel via teleportation formations.]
[Dao Friend (553.71): Our Lower Realm has Five Continents, but there are barriers between them and they’re connected by massive corridors.]
‘Oh, there’s a similar place too.’
It was her first time hearing the expression “corridor between barriers”, but the concept of a passage was similar to that.
[Dao Friend (211.5): Our Lower Realm is similar. There are barriers between continents, but we just pass through them on flying dharma treasures following designated routes. Even without the routes, nascent soul cultivators can somehow pass through.]
[Dao Friend (913.14): We can’t go straight from Continent to Continent; we have to cross the Continent and take a detour.]
[Dao Friend (211.5): That’s a pretty strict Lower Realm.]
“A strict Lower Realm…”
The words were light, but the aftertaste weighed on her mind.
In her Lower Realm, the closest passage was essentially blocked, and it was rare for the whereabouts of the soul transformation old ancestors from the great sects to leak outside.
[Dao Friend (22.81): What kind of Lower Realm leaves a close passage and uses a far one?]
[Dao Friend (913.14): It’s real.]
[Dao Friend (22.81): lol Dao Friends who say it’s real are never telling the truth.]
Treated like a troublemaker as usual, their joking replies wedged their way in among the serious ones.
She wasn’t pleased about the nonsense mixing in, but it was Reap What You Sow, so it couldn’t be helped.
‘It does seem like we’re the only ones who are different.’
When compared with the answers from other Dao Friends, the state of her Lower Realm became even clearer.
The difference was too obvious to dismiss as a mere coincidence.
[Dao Friend (913.14): Does any Dao Friend know how the barriers between continents are blocking the way.]
[Dao Friend (553.71): Never crossed outside the corridor so I don’t know.]
[Dao Friend (211.5): We follow the routes so we don’t see the Barrier itself. From what I’ve heard, it’s a storm.]
[Dao Friend (773.18): We don’t have barriers so I don’t know.]
‘They’re all different, so there’s no way to know…’
After skimming the replies one more time, Baek-Cheong eventually let out a sigh and closed the Nameless Forum.
What the true nature of the Continental Barrier was, exactly how her Lower Realm was different, and why only the Barrier to the Central Continent was so thick.
Her questions had only multiplied; not a single one had been answered.
‘Let’s bury it for now.’
It wasn’t something she could solve right away.
There was no reason for a qi condensation cultivator to cross continents, and even if there was a problem with her Lower Realm, it was far beyond the realm of what she could handle with her own hands.
She shoved the curiosity into a corner of her mind and turned her attention to another Forum Board.
Still, after the heavy topic of the Continental Barrier was buried, browsing the forum felt much lighter.
For several days, she settled into a room in the Pavilion and steadily digested the juicy topics on the Nameless Forum.
“Dao Friend (341.92): Succeeded in making an Inscribed Spirit Gathering Pill.”
[It feels a bit weird making a Spirit Gathering Pill when I’m already at the nascent soul stage, but anyway, I made it.]
“Now inscribed spirit gathering pills will be released in the Marketplace too.”
Ever since she first leaked the Pill Refining Method, attempts at making inscribed pills were bursting forth like a flood all over the Nameless Forum.
[Dao Friend (913.14): You have to Refine an Inscribed Foundation Establishment Pill for it to be real.]
When she casually threw out a reply mixed with bravado, an answer was posted immediately.
[Dao Friend (341.92): A foundation establishment pill is out of the question. Even the 4th-grade alchemists from other sects have declared it impossible.]
[Dao Friend (913.14): Just saying.]
[Dao Friend (341.92): lol I thought so.]
It seemed like she could Refine an Inscribed Foundation Establishment Pill without much trouble if her realm just rose by one stage, but there was no reason to go out of her way to boast about it in a reply.
‘Later, when I make an Inscribed Foundation Establishment Pill too, I’ll brag about it with a picture post.’
After she had exchanged replies for a while, browsing the forum slowly started to feel boring.
‘I’m bored. Maybe I should play the troublemaker.’
Baek-Cheong lightly stretched her hands and began writing a new post.
“Dao Friend (913.14): Formation glyphs are really easy. Why does everyone say they’re hard?”
Replies lined up one after another, but the Dao Friend whose attention she actually wanted to attract was someone else.
It was Dao Friend (33.3), who had tried to scam her with the Jinmun Formation Diagram.
Sure enough, Dao Friend (33.3) took the bait and started posting replies.
[Dao Friend (33.3): Dao Friend, you said Formation glyphs are that easy. How exactly are they easy? Please give me the explanation.]
[Dao Friend (33.3): Dao Friend?]
[Dao Friend (33.3): Why is there no answer? Are you going to answer me right now?]
“Welcome.”
Baek-Cheong watched the sight of Dao Friend (33.3)'s replies lining up, but she didn’t reply back.
As the replies increased, the image of Dao Friend (33.3) stomping their feet in frustration on the other side of the Nam