Chapter 155
Baek Cheong had been glaring at the sales post for the Spirit Condensation Art for quite some time.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to click purchase, but she couldn’t leave the post either.
It was too suspicious to call it a solution, and too tempting to dismiss it as a trap.
At a time when Divine Sense was already giving her a headache, it was awfully convenient that an item like this had appeared.
Still, walking away from a perfectly good cultivation method right in front of her left her with too much regret.
‘Buying it feels like a trap, but passing it up feels like a waste.’
She was agonizing over the Spirit Condensation Art like that.
A tiny notification blinked in front of her.
'Hm? What’s this…’
The comment she had left a little while ago under the information post about compressing Divine Sense had received a reply.
It seemed the dao friend who hadn’t appeared for half a day had finally shown up.
Baek Cheong set aside the Spirit Condensation Art sales post for the moment and followed the notification back to the information post.
A new reply had appeared beneath the comment she had left earlier.
[Dao friend(410.310): The method of compressing Divine Sense can be considered a kind of Divine Sense training. It is only possible once you perceive the sea of Consciousness (Sea of Consciousness), and occurs naturally in the process of condensing the divine soul (Divine soul). With Divine Sense compressed in that way, you become able to manifest divine thought (Divine thought), and only then do the things described in the main text become possible.]
The person who had posted it had personally explained the method.
She brightened for a moment at the reply, which laid out the secret as if doing her a favor.
‘Oh, how nice.’
But the more she chewed over it, the less she could simply be pleased.
It was summed up in a few short lines, but not a single part of it was easy.
Handling Divine Sense or becoming aware of it was not especially difficult.
Those were things granted to every Cultivator, as natural as moving one’s own body.
The problem came after that.
Merely perceiving the sea of Consciousness, the source of Divine Sense, was no simple matter.
Even Cultivators who had reached foundation establishment could not do it easily.
Only after reaching golden core could one finally begin to consider it.
Becoming aware of the divine soul after that was even more distant.
A divine soul was something one naturally perceived in the process of forming a nascent soul.
All things considered, Divine Sense compression was something one could only really attempt at the nascent soul level.
'For me, who am only at qi condensation, that’s ridiculously far off, isn’t it?’
In terms of realm alone, it was a field so far removed from her that it could hardly be any farther.
Before hearing the explanation, she had thought compressing Divine Sense might be simple enough.
As it turned out, it was something one could only reach for on the threshold of becoming a great Cultivator.
Fortunately, there was one consolation.
'At least it’s not completely impossible.’
Baek Cheong had long ago awakened her mental image.
When she swallowed the inscribed five elements pill, her consciousness had once been pulled inward.
When forging the Mind Sword, she had also looked deep into her own mind.
Thanks to that, the sea of Consciousness was already clear to her; there was no need to perceive it anew.
‘I’ve been looking into my sea of Consciousness for ages, after all.’
This much was practically free.
But that only put her on the starting line; the road to the finish was still arduous.
Compressing Divine Sense on her own with only an explanation seemed far out of reach.
'Even though I know the method, there’s no way I can manage it.’
If she, whose realm was no more than qi condensation, wanted to pull off Divine Sense compression, there was simply no way without a cultivation method like the Spirit Condensation Art.
The secret dao friend(410.310) had revealed, in the end, pointed toward the Spirit Condensation Art.
Once she had reasoned that far, her eyes kept drifting back to it.
'But that’s what’s strange.’
If the goal was to sell the cultivation method, there was no reason to teach her the whole method.
For business to work, the seller should have hidden the real core and offered only tantalizing hints.
Yet dao friend(410.310) answered every question without hesitation.
That openness gradually eased her doubts.
The wariness she had felt when first encountering the Spirit Condensation Art had softened before she knew it.
Her mind was leaning toward it, but she still decided to ask what had to be asked.
[Dao friend(913.14): Then what happens if I can’t compress it on my own?]
└Dao friend(410.310): In that case, you can purchase the Spirit Condensation Art cultivation method that I listed on the marketplace.
└Dao friend(913.14): But don’t all Divine Sense cultivation Methods have side effects?
└Dao friend(410.310): Compressing Divine Sense allows one to do what one could not do at one’s realm, so it can be called an unsurpassed advantage. However, the size of one’s Divine Sense decreases; that alone is certainly a drawback and a side effect.
└Dao friend(913.14): So there aren’t any side effects besides that?
└Dao friend(410.310): …For the vast majority of Cultivators, the quantity of Divine Sense is more beneficial than its quality, so that is quite fatal enough.
Baek Cheong carefully questioned him about the things she was curious about.
As she read down the replies in order, she paused at the final line.
The part about Divine Sense shrinking when compressed bothered her.
Any ordinary Cultivator would leap up at the thought that their Divine Sense was shrinking, claiming their battle strength was being cut down.
Divine Sense was both sight and limbs; if Divine Sense shrank, it was the same as being restricted.
That was why dao friend(410.310) had said compression alone was fatal.
'True, most people suffer because they don’t have enough Divine Sense.’
But her circumstances were the exact opposite.
She was in trouble because her Divine Sense overflowed, so even if some of it shrank, she had nothing to regret.
If anything, she had been alarmed by her bloated Divine Sense and searching for a way to handle it.
'Isn’t that side effect perfect for me?’
At that thought, the corners of her mouth lifted on their own.
If the only side effect was a reduction in Divine Sense, then to her, it was no loss at all.
But there was another fatal side effect no one else would ever dream of.
The corners of her lips, which had been rising, slowly sank again.
‘Wait. Then does that affect my forum browsing too?’
If her Divine Sense shrank, that meant the amount of Divine Sense she could use in the Nameless Forum would shrink as well.
The larger one’s Divine Sense was, the deeper one could rummage through the depths of the Nameless Forum.
But if she compressed her Divine Sense, it meant she might not even be able to browse old posts the way she did now.
‘This is a bigger problem than I thought.’
Restrictions on forum browsing hurt far more than losing realm progress.
To her, this was a matter of the utmost importance.
‘Reducing my forum browsing just to manage my Divine Sense…’
Baek Cheong brought the Spirit Condensation Art sales post back up and continued agonizing over it in earnest.
There was too much at stake for her to decide carelessly.
Of course, she couldn’t simply sit on her hands forever either.
If she left her swollen Divine Sense as it was, her headaches might grow stronger with each realm she advanced to.
Forget an eternity of forum browsing; there was a real chance the throbbing in her head would interfere with daily life.
Either way, she had to give up something.
‘What do I do?’
One consolation, at least, was that the Spirit Condensation Art was not a scam.
At first, she had suspected it was a trap.
But the more she considered dao friend(410.310)’s attitude and the circumstances, the less likely that seemed.
This was a dao friend who had laid out the entire secret and even told her about the side effects without hiding anything.
Someone trying to bait her would naturally have hidden all of that and more.
'At the very least, this isn’t a trick to rip me off.’
False information could not be registered on the marketplace in the first place.
So if she paid the price, it would certainly compress her Divine Sense exactly as written.
All that remained was her own choice.
Would she hand over some of the depth of her forum browsing to bring her Divine Sense under control?
‘To pursue the dao of browsing, or to preserve my life - which path should I choose?’
Treating it as a problem with nearly her entire life at stake, Baek Cheong thought and thought.
She sat on the bed, not even knowing how half a day had slipped by.
She balanced the scales in her head again and again.
‘…’
A certain fact suddenly crossed her mind.
Compressing her Divine Sense would not make her completely unable to browse the forum.
The fun of digging through posts buried in the depths would diminish, sure.
But there was no way it would stop her from going in and out of the Nameless Forum and enjoying her forum browsing.
Reading new posts, leaving comments, and chatting with dao Friends - her everyday routine - would remain the same.
Looking at it that way, she stood to lose only part of her forum browsing.
'It’s not like I won’t be able to browse at all.’
Once that thought reached her, the heaviness in her little chest lifted considerably.
It was a hundred times better than letting chronic trouble ruin her entire long life.
Most importantly, compressed Divine Sense could do things she had not been able to do before, so it was a profitable trade.
While getting her Divine Sense under control, she could also acquire a new card to play.
'Good. I’ve decided.’
At last, Baek Cheong made up her mind.
There was no longer any reason to hesitate.
She returned to the Spirit Condensation Art sales post and pressed purchase without qualms.
[Would you like to proceed with payment? (Cost: 50 high-Grade spirit Stones)]
The price was no small sum, but her hand did not tremble.
If it meant taking such a troublesome burden off her shoulders, it was a price well worth paying.
She proceeded with the payment without hesitation.
[Payment complete. 50 high-High-Grade spirit Stones have been deducted.]
[Dao friend(410.310)’s item has been transmitted to the Storage Platform.]
The Spirit Condensation Art settled neatly in one corner of her Storage Platform.
Baek Cheong confirmed that the Spirit Condensation Art had entered the Storage Platform and nodded in satisfaction.
‘Well, I bought it.’
After making a decision she had dragged out for so long, her mind felt clear instead.
She immediately took the jade slip for the Spirit Condensation Art from the Storage Platform and examined it.
And the more she read the jade slip, the more she tilted her head in puzzlement.