Chapter 158
It had been ages since a table had been laid so lavishly that its legs seemed ready to buckle.
Baek Cheong emptied every dish that had been brought in, leaving not a single scrap.
Only then did her stomach, which had been practically starved for a full fortnight, finally fill up properly.
She had stuffed in so much that her belly bulged roundly.
‘Ah, now I feel alive.’
With her belly full, she felt even her little chest swell with contentment.
She leisurely flopped down on the bed.
With warm rice in her stomach and a soft place to lie, she had nothing in the world to envy.
Training, enlightenment, all of it was shoved to the back before that drowsy fullness.
'Now that I’m fed, I’m going to browse the boards to my heart’s content.’
Baek Cheong moved her Divine Sense and familiarly slipped into the Nameless Forum.
There was no better luxury than lying down after a full meal and enjoying the forum.
But the moment she stepped into the forum board, she tilted her head.
『Dao friend(202.5): Is there really a war going on in the Upper Realm?』
『Dao friend(3.1): These aftershocks will linger.』
『Dao friend(77.9): Does it seem like a lot more Upper Realm dao Friends are coming down to the Lower Realms lately?』
Every post she skimmed was boiling over with the same topic.
‘What war?’
If it were only a floating rumor, the Nameless Forum would not have been this noisy.
Normally, she would have pounced on it as fresh bait in delight.
But perhaps because she was full, she could not be bothered to twitch even a mote of spiritual energy.
‘I’ll just lie here and watch.’
Baek Cheong lay sprawled out and moved her Divine Sense, first checking the source of the commotion.
If the bait was this heated, there had to be a post somewhere that had started the fire.
Fortunately, since it was a raging topic, she did not even need to search the depths.
Before long, she reached one of the posts every dao friend was talking about.
『Boiled Egg: Looking for a cozy Lower Realm.』
[I came down to avoid the great war that broke out in the Spirit Realm. I’d like somewhere with fewer restrictions than where I am now, so I’m looking for a place where the heavenly dao is weak. If you provide information, I’ll raise you as far as Deity transformation.]
[Merit 0 / Karma 0]
In the spot where an interface number should have been stamped, an unfamiliar fixed name(Fixed name) was brazenly written instead.
A fixed name was a power enjoyed only by cultivators of the Spirit Realm: the authority to display a name in place of the shifting dao friend and interface number.
And once before, an Upper Realm cultivator hiding in a Lower Realm had posted out of habit and exposed their identity.
But this fixed name cultivator called Boiled Egg felt different from that case.
They themselves had revealed their identity and were openly asking around for a Lower Realm.
'They’ll raise someone to Deity transformation?’
Baek Cheong’s mouth fell open as she read down the post.
Deity transformation was the realm of great Cultivators whom Lower Realm cultivators could only look up to.
The promise of raising someone to the stage just before ascension was a staggering temptation.
Even the circumstances written there by way of explanation were anything but ordinary.
No wonder the Nameless Forum was in an uproar.
Below it, replies from dao Friends were packed densely.
[Dao friend(1.7): War in the Upper Realm? This is the first I’ve heard of it.]
[Dao friend(88.4): Isn’t this bait? Does it make any sense to say they’ll raise you to Deity transformation, lol?]
[Dao friend(11.23): Hmm…]
[Dao friend(55.19): According to the news, the heavenly Gate in the Spirit Realm has gone awry. Could something be happening in the True Immortal Realm?]
[Dao friend(333.333): Come to our Lower Realm! It’s declining, so there are no heavenly Tribulations and no Deity transformation cultivators!]
└Dao friend(417.3): That place is a beggar’s den where spirit stones don’t even form lol. Better come to our Lower Realm instead.
└Dao friend(333.333): Don’t try to sell that nonsense here.
At a rough glance, the replies numbered well into the thousands.
Some dao Friends doubted the news of war and suspected a trick, while others immediately began flattering and advertising their own realms.
'It’s absolute chaos.’
Baek Cheong let out a small snort of laughter as she watched the replies turn into a battlefield.
Then her gaze stopped on one particular reply.
It was dao friend(55.19)’s claim that the heavenly Gate in the Spirit Realm had gone awry.
Her curiosity stirred at the suggestion that something might have happened in the True Immortal Realm.
The True Immortal Realm was where the unknown being said to have created the Nameless Forum resided.
If a place like that were shaken badly enough to drag the Spirit Realm into war, that meant a calamity of no ordinary scale had erupted.
'It can’t really be true, can it?’
A needless chill crept over her, yet inwardly she still salivated over the bait.
Then the numbers at the head of the post suddenly caught her eye.
[Merit 0 / Karma 0]
This time, both Merit and Karma remained at zero.
Not a single person had pressed Karma to prevent the post from being deleted.
Then again, Boiled Egg had exposed their own identity and was begging for a Lower Realm.
Far from deleting the post, they would want as many dao Friends as possible to see it, so there was no reason to bind it with Karma.
‘Hmmm…’
Baek Cheong felt something strange about it, but let it pass for the time being.
What the dao Friends were saying about labyrinth.
She skimmed down the replies, then moved to a post that had spun off from them.
『Dao friend(88.4): If that’s true, a lot of Upper Realm cultivators must have fled to the Lower Realms.』
[After all, even in the Spirit Realm, dao Friends with the nameless body are only a minority.]
[Dao friend(112.6): The Lower Realms are going to get noisy.]
[Dao friend(46.111): So what? They’re heaven-defiers anyway, rejected by the heavenly dao, so even Deity transformation cultivators can body them, right?]
[Dao friend(729.3): Is it hunting season…]
As she read down, one eyebrow twitched.
The reply that caught her eye said that those who defied the heavenly dao and descended were rejected even in the Lower Realms.
It even said they were reduced to prey, hunted by the Deity transformation cultivators of the Lower Realms.
‘But wait…’
A thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
What if, by some chance, an Upper Realm cultivator came down to her Lower Realm as well?
If even a single Upper Realm cultivator dropped in, every continent would find it more than a little troublesome.
‘No.’
But after she thought it over, it did not seem likely.
Even Deity transformation cultivators, the supposed pinnacle of the Lower Realm, were crowding around because they could not ascend.
That showed just how difficult it was to pierce the realm barrier and climb to the Upper Realm.
There was no reason why an Upper Realm cultivator could easily pierce a realm barrier and enter that even Deity transformation cultivators could not break through.
If the realm barrier were pierced, if anything, the path of ascension would open wide for those Deity transformation cultivators.
In the end, descending Upper Realm cultivators had nothing to do with her.
‘Even if one did manage to get in, the Deity transformation folks would beat them senseless.’
Baek Cheong dismissed the worry as nothing much.
Then she turned her eyes back to the boiling Nameless Forum.
But as she skimmed the posts, her eyes slowly narrowed.
The Nameless Forum was swarming with unfamiliar interface Numbers.
They were dao Friends who rarely showed themselves no matter how thoroughly she usually rummaged through the Nameless Forum.
『Dao friend(4.19): Has disaster finally broken out?』
『Dao friend(31.7): The aftermath of the war may even reach the Lower Realms.』
『Dao friend(76.140): If the True Immortal Realm had moved, the forum admin would have stepped in.』
[The forum admin should have news from even the Immortal Realm Nameless Forum.]
Just from the insight contained in their posts, it was clear these cultivators were on a different level.
That meant the war said to be happening in the Upper Realm had to be an extremely serious matter.
‘Huh? Wait.’
That was why Baek Cheong’s eyes began to sparkle.
‘Is this my chance?’
Great Cultivators who were rarely seen had gathered in one place.
This was exactly the kind of moment to casually ask something she had always wondered about.
As it happened, she had one question she had been nursing for a long time.
It was none other than the Dao Trace (Dao Trace).
It was a mystery she had carried ever since the day she had pressed Karma on a fixed name dao friend’s post.
To press Merit or Karma, one supposedly needed something called a Dao Trace.
But she had never been able to find out what a Dao Trace actually was.
'It’s been quite a while now, so there’s no way they’d suspect I was the one who pressed it.’
Now, however, things were different.
A crowd of famous great Cultivators had appeared and were talking.
No one would pay special attention if she slipped one question into the bustle.
Besides, a great Cultivator who knew about Dao Traces might answer her.
‘I should ask while I have the chance.’
Of course, she could not ask too openly.
If she gave away that she had a Dao Trace, there was no telling what kind of commotion would break out.
So, pretending to be an innocent dao friend, she wrote a post on the Q&A Board.
『Dao friend(913.14): How do you build up Dao Traces?』
[Apparently, you need them to press Merit and Karma?]
She asked while pretending to be a clueless novice.
‘Now, will someone answer?’
Baek Cheong lay back comfortably and waited for replies.
Her belly was full, and the bait was ripe.
[Dao friend(11.23): Why would you need that?]
[Dao friend(4.19): Are you a dao friend who only recently awakened the nameless body?]
[Dao friend(38.37): Since you seem not to know that Dao Traces are basic to the grand dao of cultivation, you must be a low-realm young dao friend.]
Sure enough, more great Cultivator dao Friends than usual took an interest.
A pointless question did butt in from a familiar dao friend, though.
[Dao friend(38.37): To build up Dao Traces, you must exert influence.]
└Dao friend(913.14): On the Nameless Forum?
└Dao friend(38.37): If you exert influence anywhere, rather than being limited to the Nameless Forum, Dao Traces naturally accumulate.
└Dao friend(913.14): How much influence do you need to exert?
└Dao friend(38.37): That will follow naturally as your realm rises, so there is no need to be impatient.
Among them, there was a dao friend kind enough to explain.
Of course, it was a vague explanation rather than a clear method.
Just as she was chewing over the replies with a faint sense of understanding - [Dao companion: It’s you, isn’t it?]
‘Huh?’
Baek Cheong was flustered when an unexpected fixed name dao friend left a reply.
And now it was the very fixed name dao friend on whose post she had pressed Karma, speaking with complete certainty.