Chapter 20 - Isolation

Yu Yin felt incredible unsure of himself right now, and rightly so as well. He had only just escaped from a literal embodiment of despair and then passed out for three days, only to wake up in a completely unknown place and be ditched by the only company he had. Yu Yin was quite upset by Layla's departure, which was understandable. Which man on earth wouldn't want to keep such a pretty woman company? Although he understood that his desires were rather selfish, and it wouldn't be fair to have requested her to stay, he still felt incredibly butthurt about the entire situation. However, it was far too late for that as she had left quite a while ago. Therefore, Yu Yin had been sat by the lake sulking for the last few hours.

"It would have been nice if she stayed with me a bit longer. Was she expecting me to follow her to join that sect? Why would I ever want to join a sect? Psh! That's something only idiots would do!"

In Yu Yin's opinion, the mere idea of joining a sect was simply ludicrous! He had long ago heard of the supposed "law of the jungle" some of these schools and sects had. Their members would even kill each other in cold blood just to obtain a little bit of glory and recognition, and yet, joining these sects had little to no benefit. Of course, this wasn't fact but instead was a heavy bias on Yu Yin's part. He, however, was convinced he was right and in some ways, he was!

"Bribing my way into a cage of violent monkeys, just for a few bits of resources and guidance? That girl doesn't know me at all! Did she really think I’d make such a stupid decision."

In reality, Layla was genuinely giving Yu Yin heartfelt advice that she thought would help him survive. However, Yu Yin was either oblivious to that fact or chose to ignore it.

After he was finished sulking and getting annoyed over practically nothing, Yu Yin moved on to his next course of action, which was admiring his new-found gains. He took out the florally engraved locket, his eyes sparkling at its magnificent splendour. Layla had earlier said it was pointless to try opening it, but Yu Yin would never listen to that. Why on earth wouldn't he try and open his new toy? Remembering how easily his blood skill opened the hidden plane before, that was the first thing he tried to unlock the lockets secrets. He wasn't too surprised when it failed, as he never expected to pull off such a miracle for a second time. He clasped both his hands around and attempted to pull it open, overly disappointed when it expectantly didn't budge. He put more and more force in, still provoking no reaction from the locket.

"Tch!"

Yu Yin rotated the little soul power he had around his body and self-cast [Acceleration], using his maximum force to yank apart this shiny decorated treasure. He should have known that such an idiotic action would result in unfortunate consequences, but Yu Yin seemed to lose all his brain cells whenever it came to treasure. His grip on the locket slipped slightly, causing it to fly out of his hands and into the huge body of water just adjacent to him. He blinked a few times blankly at the now rippling water before realising his folly.

"GYAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

The water splashed high into the air as Yu Yin dived into the water as if we were saving his drowning first-born child! A few ten minutes later, a soaked figure climbed out of the oversized pool having come to one simple conclusion:

That locket would not open easily!

Now that Yu Yin thought about it, it was stupid to think it would in the first place! He let out a sigh as he looked down at his remaining possessions. In addition to the newly obtained locket, he now only had a few things left.

First, of course, were his darling Silver Qilin horns which would allow him never to worry about the darkness of the night ever again! Travelling 24-hours wasn't much of an issue for him anymore, as long as he could fight off sleep that is.

The second thing he had was the [Myriad Blades of the Endless Night] manual. Layla had told him she no longer needed the thing and left it with him. After all, his Dao path was now fixed and this book was the only way he could progress in his cultivation, much to his dismay.

Lastly, other than his ungodly stash of gold coins which due to practical reasons would be terrible idea to take out, the last things he had were the three remaining golden pills that he had found in the coffin. Although he didn’t know what type of pill they were, he had seen the effect they had on healing Layla! He had found 5 of these pills in the dark prison that time, and given his stingy nature there was no way in hell he was ever going to hand all 5 over to Layla, even if he suspected that the pills actually originated from her interspatial ring. In the end he had given 2 of the pills to Layla and hoarded these 3 for himself. Smiling delightedly at the few valuables he had, he tucked them all away in his robes.

Yu Yin looked towards the direction that Layla had walked away to and let out one final sigh, before walking in the opposite direction. Since he had decided he wouldn't follow Layla's footsteps in joining a local power, he chose the only other option he had; wandering aimlessly in the wilderness to explore this new world. The woodland here was nowhere near as dense as the vast expanse of forestry which was Evergreen so traversing the land wasn't that difficult for Yu Yin. He had no idea where he was heading and nor did he care, not that his indifference would make an impact on his life in the grand scheme of things. Yu Yin had better things to think about than which indistinguishable patch of green he wanted to look at first anyway, like adjusting to the new changes in his body. He had been distracting himself from it since now, but this whole "awareness of heavenly energy" business was too damn nauseating! The stupid stuff was clouding his vision completely! Although he could still distinguish the colourful mist-looking energy from the corporeal world, that didn't stop him from nearly walking into a tree or two.

That wasn't the only thing that was ticking him off. Yu Yin was now fully aware of all the ongoings in his soul abode, which really wasn't a good thing right now. For one, splitting his awareness like that was giving him a terrible headache, and it was for a seemingly useless cause as well. The only good thing that seemed to have come from his newly found cultivation was the shiny new white blade that had been added to his arsenal.

'Thank goodness it didn't turn out to be some ugly lump of sharp metal! If I'm going to cultivate blades, it at least has to be done right like this. What kind of universal idol would be caught waving around giant silverware anyway?"

Having established a firm opinion on the subject of his dao path, Yu Yin felt an urge to try out his new toy! He waved his hand causing the white crescent blade to disappear from his soul abode and materialise in the real world. Yu Yin grabbed it and slashed at a nearby tree, yet he failed to cleave through it. A large cut could be seen scaring said tree but the damage was still minimal compared to what Yu Yin was expecting. It didn't take long for him to realise why.

'My attack failed because I didn't mobilise my soul power properly... I probably would have had better luck just punching that tree..."

Thinking about his pathetic display of "power" that he had just displayed, Yin kicked the air in frustration, scraping the ground and causing a cloud of dust to fly up into the air!

"Damn the heavens! How the hell am I supposed to become the most valued person alive if I can't even cut down a damned tree?!"

A gust of wind swept through the area in response to his question, the leaves of the tree fluttering in the gentle breeze. It almost gave the illusion that the tree was laughing at him; mocking him for his incompetence. A few veins bulged on Yu Yin's head.

Even if was just nature playing tricks on the eye, Yu Yin really didn't take kindly to being looked down upon by an inanimate object.

"Tch! [ACCELERATION]!!"

He swept now glowing crescent blade across the tree, slicing it clean in two! The resulting shockwave of this devastating slash wreaked havoc on a few more of the towering wooden plants behind it, breaking off huge chunks of bark as it went past. Yu Yin blinked a few times at the damage he had done before letting out a sigh and moving along with his journey.

'I suppose it was ludicrous to think that I could use soul power perfectly on my first try. I guess that even if a person cultivates to the pinnacle, it would all be useless if they don't know how to use their power. Much like bloodline magic, soul cultivation is a skill that needs to be practised to reach perfection."

He continued walking blade in hand, dicing up the scenery with his weapon every now and again.

"For now, I don't need to worry about my strength too much thanks to my [Acceleration] blood skill. That doesn't mean I should neglect my cultivation. I need to first focus on learning to control this stupid "cloud vision" and "soul abode clairvoyance". Following that, I can develop my control over my soul power. I'll wait until I can manoeuvre the full 10% of my awakened soul I have access to before advancing my cultivation!"

Had Layla been here, she would have informed Yu Yin that his theory wasn't actually correct. The real reason he failed to cut the tree was that he hadn't actually executed a soul technique, an established way to unleash soul power. The [Myriad Blades of the Endless Night] only specified how to conjure blades out of soul power, not how to use them. What Yu Yin tried to do earlier was equivalent to a mortal swinging at a piece of lumber with an axe. An incredibly strong mortal maybe, but the results were still the same. It would be idiotic to expect a normal person to slice a tree into two!

However, Yu Yin's solution to this unfortunate misconception made this situation nowhere near as unfortunate as it first seemed, as the worlds would soon see. He wandered on through the boundless forestry, isolated and alone, yet seemingly not bored. This could be seen by the smile on his face as all kinds of hell were being unleashed on the scenery as he passed along!