From what Cheng Hao knew, they were pretty much the same, weren’t they? A Spirit who still held the title and one who had retired didn’t seem different at all in his eyes.

The only thing that changed was the addition of the word ‘Former’ before the title… they even kept their ability, their dogma, after all.

“I have a question…” Cheng Hao asked all of a sudden, interrupting and slightly startling the girl.

Xu Ling raised one of her eyebrows in displeasure, but still nodded:

“Sure. Feel free to ask.”

“Why… is the status as an active Spirit so important?” Cheng Hao

“To answer that, I’ll need to explain a certain something to you first, I hope that’s okay for you? Good. Alright then, listen closely and think about this: what would happen if the current Spirit was to meet a danger to the Mountain he could not defeat?” As the woman spoke, Cheng Hao perked up his ears.

The woman noticed this and thus continued her explanation.

“If that were to be the case, the standard procedure would be to find a successor, to whom one would pass the Mountain’s power on... and then that person would be put in charge of defending the Mountain from any danger.”

On the screen, the girl drew two stick figures. One had an angry face, the other had the symbol for soul on its head. The Spirit was visibly smaller than its opponent, so the girl crossed it out and drew another one, bigger than the other small Spirit, but still not as big as the angry stick figure.

“If, once trained to his peak, he is still unable to drive away the danger, the Spirit would simply do the same as his predecessor and pass the title on.”

Just like that, she crossed out tens, dozens of stick figures, until the last, remaining one was just slightly taller than the angry-faced figurine. When this happened, the girl crossed out the other figurine instead, leaving behind the now massive Spirit of the Mountain.

“This will happen until the danger isn’t eradicated. Until then, dozens, maybe even hundreds of Spirits could be nurtured, all to defeat a single enemy. Each of these cycles, we refer to it as a ‘Generation’. The one to defeat the danger would then lower the curtain upon the generation that has just passed, and lift them again to welcome the next! He would then immediately pass on his knowledge about the Spirits to his successor and then guide him on his path…”

The girl sighed with feeling as she looked down at her body:

“I have fought with the very person I am using as a vessel now for a long, long time and finally managed to defeat her… however before me, countless Spirits have fallen at her hands. Now, with her defeat, the burden of the next danger has fallen upon the next generation…”

Cheng Hao stared in awe as more pieces began to fall together:

So this is what he meant when he referred to himself as the oldest of this generation… so he has fought this person and… and…

And the almost completed puzzle suddenly fell apart completely!

Uh? What’s this? What she said does not make sense!

“Wait a second now! How, and why, are you here? If you defeated this ‘Danger to the Mountain’ you were talking about, why did you suddenly appear here? Weren’t you supposed to lead the next generation? If you were locked in that dimension you said, shouldn’t the cycle be interrupted?”

Cheng Hao looked at the girl with suspicion when, suddenly, his face fell. He immediately backed away and smirked as he prepared to use the most powerful abilities he would be able to muster at a moment’s notice. His whole body radiated killing intent and the faint outline of a tower began to appear in front of him…

“You… you lied! There isn’t only one Spirit per generation! I’ve met with another one!”

Xu Ling shook her head and sighed:

“I know this is hard to believe, but please listen to me. That person was not a true Spirit of the mountain. He was more of an impostor, a fake Spirit… the role of us spirits is to protect the mountain. From what I gathered of your stories, this man seems to disagree with that basic principle of us Spirits, so he is not a true Spirit…”

Cheng Hao chuckled bitterly:

“Oh, disagree, you say? This person said the exact opposite of what you said! He said that we Spirits are meant to annihilate all beings on the Mountain, not to protect them from harm! He had his own dogma and what’s more, at the time, he was very much alive and harnessing the strength of the Mountain! From what I understand, only those able to access such strength are capable of using a Dogma! If the things you said up until now were true, he would neither have one, nor would he have been able to use it, as you would have not been there to pass the Mountain’s power on to him!”

The girl flinched as if she had just been discovered sneaking out of her room after being grounded. She chuckled bitterly and shook her head with an apologetic expression:

“This… well… I’m sorry, it must be hard to trust me now, many things do not make sense after all, right? Well, just hear me out for a bit and I’ll clear everything up, I swear!”

Cheng Hao and Xu Ling stared at each other in the eyes. He glared, she pleaded silently. Finally, with a nod, Cheng Hao gave her the sign to continue. The young woman let out a sigh of relief and resumed the lecture:

“Apparently it is a first in the history of us Spirits. No one had ever died together with his enemy. Many managed to kill their opponents, many more were defeated and killed by their enemy, but none had ever actually died together with them.

“This, coupled with the way I chose to die together with my enemy, brought the current situation to a paradox that was never meant to happen…”

The girl fell silent, smiling stupidly at herself. Cheng Hao frowned as he blocked himself from yelling in her face to resume:

“What… paradox?”

The girl’s smile trembled:

“You see… this is the answer to your previous question. What separates a Spirit from a Retired one harnessing one of the many dogmas of the Mountain?

“Well, the way it works is a bit complicated, so I will try to explain it as clearly as I can. Basically, when a Spirit dies, their consciousness is actually kept alive due to their role as vassals of the Mountain! A vassal’s soul cannot die unless it completes his or her duty, meaning, as long as it does not pass the power on, his soul and consciousness shall exist in some form or another!

“However, to kill my opponent I resorted to completely sealing myself and my enemy in a pocket dimension I had created through my own dogma… speaking about dogmas, had I not been an illusion I would have without a doubt given it to you. However, I doubt you’d find it useful, seeing how you already have a dogma of the Will series…”

Cheng Hao frowned:

“Will series?”

Xu Ling lifted her gaze and, with eyes full of contempt, chuckled bitterly:

“Eheheh, did you think you had actually decided upon the name of your dogma on your own? No, that duty is still left to the Mountain itself, who would take into account your past experiences, create a suitable dogma and name it according to the three main Series. From the lowest tier to the highest they are the Seal, Bend and, finally, the Will Series. The names are pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think?”

“My ability was given the name of ‘Space, Bend As I Wish’. It allows me to bend reality as far as my imagination lets me run wild! The shortcomings aren’t too different than your ability’s, the most of them being connected to the requirement of a high cultivation.

“It seems to me though, that your own ability to manipulate Spiritual Energy is, however, even more overpowered than mine, in my opinion. After all, even though your ability is Will-tier, the ability to control spiritual energy seems to be more of a Bend-type of ability, while controlling other’s cultivations are a sign of the ability being Seal-type… truly mysterious!

“What I think it means is that you have only just scratched the surface of your ability! If my deductions are correct…” Xu Ling smiled knowingly: “…then you are even yet to actually awaken the Will part in your Will-type ability! Once that happens, then I’m sure the might of such a skill will astound even the heavens!”

Cheng Hao did not reply and simply glared at Xu Ling, whom had fallen silent.

After more than twenty breaths had passed and the girl had yet to speak another word, he sent a threatening glare her way and summoned the Immortal Ascension Tower: although he was weaker than the other party, the pressure he could emit with such a powerful Martial Way by his side, coupled with the cultivation he had now, would be just enough to collapse this illusory world! And he would have no qualms doing that if the guy(girl) didn’t fucking hurry up with his tedious, albeit interesting, lectures!

Noticing Cheng Hao was growing impatient, Xu Ling sighed: it looked like there was no way around it; she had to get straight to the point, and hope the boy would believe her words!

Xu Ling opened her mouth and resumed her speech.