章 29: The Training Continues
Shin Sumi had been in possession of the Copper Bell for about a year now. She remembered walking completely blind through the depth of the tunnel behind the waterfall.
The little nut had brought her to the bell for some reason, as a hunting animal would follow a prey.
Even since a single drop of blood from her finger ran along the carved lines of the bell, Shin Sumi knew she had become its master.
She had named it Copper Bell because of the tint of blood encrusted on the patinated surface. Originally the bell had been white and strange looking but its new color had made it seem like any normal bell one could find in the mortal world.
But even after many months, Shin Sumi had never had the occasion to test the bell's properties.
"The Copper Bell seems able to change the attribute of Shinsoo for its master. The ravine is dark, cold and silent but the bell allows me to see, hear and feel comfortable. The Myriad Sword Pavilion first shone so brightly that it was blinding but after a ring of the bell my vision was normal again" Shin Sumi recounted the facts she had gathered by experience.
"The first time the bell converted the Yin environment into a Yang sensation to achieve balance for me. The second time it was the opposite."
Shin Sumi had a crazy idea in mind. It had popped up in her brain as soon as she realized the Yang attribute of the Outer Door she had just broken down.
If she was able to trick the door into thinking that her Shinsoo was of Yang type, she would be able to breakthrough swiftly. The Outer Door would then be a simple formality and she would need a lot less Shinsoo and patience in order to pass all the remaining twenty three openings.
For the Yin type doors, she would simply have to reverse the process, her original attribute being sufficient, she hoped.
All of these were mere conjectures but Shin Sumi felt smug. Maybe it could work!
Checking her inventory for how much resources she had left, Shin Sumi climbed out of the chasm once again. She would need at least a few trips out in order to gather enough resources for the opening of the Outer Doors.
And that was not even talking about the ten Spirit Doors that came after the Outer Doors.
"Judging by the change from Primal to Outer, I can't even imagine the ridiculous amount of cores needed to break open a single Spirit Door..."
If the difficulty had gone from one to ten by reaching the thirtieth door, then reaching the fifty fourth probably meant going from a tenfold to a hundredfold difficulty!
Concentrating her Shinsoo in her legs, Shin Sumi leaped through the forest, close to ten meters with each step. The leaves bristled as she flew past.
Shin Sumi had never really felt like an explorer before. She often preferred the comfort of what was around her, without surprises. The only two significant travels, if you could call them that, were when she left the Shin household in East Seaside Village and when she discovered the dark chasm on her first trip to the Dark Sky Starry Sect's training grounds.
Even now, although she had changed a lot over her entering the Immortal world, exploring was not really on her list of things to do.
The dark ravine that was always obscured by the strange Yin Shinsoo permeating the area had been explored a few times by Shin Sumi but never to its full extent. The same way, she had never tried to follow the scar that it formed in the earth from the outside. Until today.
It was more of a bother rather than a source of excitation for Shin Sumi. The fact was that after her constant fighting with the local spirit beasts, their population had diminished by quite a lot.
Each time she went out looking for battle she had found herself trying harder and harder to find interesting beasts that could give her resources.
"I guess the others are hiding from me now..." she thought.
Usually the beasts in the area were left to their own business. This part of the training grounds were only accessible for high level Honorary Disciples and sometimes Liquid Realm Disciples, although the latter preferred training in some of the sect's secret spatial dimensions.
The last few days though, Shin Sumi had been seeking adversaries relentlessly. At first, the beasts were angry and being very territorial, had tried to chase her away or kill her.
But with the level of intelligence associated with their bestial cultivation they had soon realized that she was more of a danger than anything else and had instead gone for the other obvious solution.
They hid away.
Now Shin Sumi had to go to a different place, hoping to find more beasts. She couldn't even imagine how the lower level beasts inside the red borders might feel like. Instead of having to deal with one individual, the animals must have been swarmed by thousands of disciples looking for battle experience.
She arrived to a point where the flat lands of the forests ended after a bit more than an hour of running at high speed. Taking a breath while looking at the scenery from the side of a small mountain, she rested for a bit.
"The Immortal world..." she murmured.
At her food laid the entire jungle. She could barely make out the mountains in the distance that formed the sect grounds. One of them was so high that it reached the neverending clouds.
Even at this distance, Shin Sumi was astonished to discover that the sky never seemed to appear. She was long since used to the gloomy light, even at high noon, but sometimes wished she could cast a glimpse of the clear blue sky she had grown under.
The whole forest area was just one of the sect's training grounds, and it had taken Shin Sumi a long time to cross completely. Adding the fact that her speed was at least ten times faster than that of a mortal on foot, Shin Sumi could only imagine the scale of the sect as a whole.
Even now, as she sat on the foot of the mountain, she was still deep within the confines of the Blue Mountain Range.
As if some kind of universal truth dawned onto her, for the first time she had an intuition about how big the world must be.
Following the change of the landscape, Shin Sumi met a bunch of new species. She was even attacked by a small goat with incredibly strong curved horns that pointed to the front.
The Rock Spear Mountain Goat had proven to be a good adversary but sadly had escaped Shin Sumi's sword when it realized that it was no match for the young girl.
Thankfully the nimble spirit beast wasn't the only inhabitant of this part of the mountain.
Little by little, Shin Sumi's stock of resources replenished, the grey nut adding new pages to its book.
As she fought new species, Shin Sumi discovered that the comfort she had found previously by being used to the same spirit beasts could have been dangerous, had she stayed in the same part of the forest for all of her training.
The same tricks and attacks wouldn't necessarily work on every target, and once more Shin Sumi felt her battle prowess climb steadily.
She was forced to leave the mountain after a particular incident though. As she was pursuing another Rock Spear Mountain Goat she stumbled onto a nest of insects the size of an infant's fist.
Having never fought a swarm before, Shin Sumi was at a loss when faced with a hundred or more flying jet black insects, their translucent wings thrumming with powerful vibrations.
The only thing Shin Sumi could do was running with all the speed she could muster. She waved her sword a few times behind her back but the small creatures evaded every of her swings.
It was only by jumping in a stream of mountain water that she was able to hide from the Black Wind Bees for long enough to make them lose focus and leave her alone.
If Shin Sumi's body had not been refined countless time with the best quality of spirit stones, her physical strength would not have been enough to allow her to escape and hold her breath underwater for this long.
She could only shiver at the thought of what state she would have been in if the bees had successfully attacked.
Shin Sumi was completely out of juice, her Shinsoo drained till her last drop, when she felt it was safe enough to leave the stream.
The sound of the Copper Bell, light and crystalline even underwater, had reminded her of what she had to do next as it provided her some warmth in the cold flowing water.
Shin Sumi walked in the obscurity of the night back to the chasm, for the first time in a long time needing the warnings of the little nut between her breasts, completely defenseless in the face of danger.
It made her realize that despite how far she had gone from being a mortal in a small village, life was something that could be taken away at any time in the cultivation world. There was always stronger, such was the cruelty of pursuing the Dao.
Shin Sumi fested upon her fresh crops until her Shinsoo levels were back to normal. Her cultivation base had long since stabilized since her last breakthrough.
"The only thing I need to do now is fill my dantian to the brim with spirit beasts cores and open as many Outer Doors as possible. But first..."
Shin Sumi took out the Copper Bell from her bag of holding. Holding it out in the darkest of night in the darkest place there was, Shin Sumi mused at how bright the bell appeared.
A few passing snakes hissed as they were forced away by the shine.
"Or most likely by the Yang energy emitted by the bell" thought Shin Sumi.
In the warm reddish light, her finger followed the engravings on the surface.
They had been carved in characters she did not understand and thus could only imagine what was written.
As the bell closed in on her forehead, Shin Sumi sent a bit of Divine Sense towards the magic artefact. Ever since she had obtained the mysterious object, that was something she had done countless times.
Some kind of warm sensation rapidly spread from her head to the rest of her body, scattered by the simple act of touching it with Divine Sense. It showed how powerful the artefact must have been.
"Such a strong Yang force..." she wondered as always.
In the spiritual perception of her Divine Sense, the Copper Bell was akin to a bright ball of light. Everything about that ball resonated with Yang type Shinsoo, brighter than ever.
When she had tested the bell previously during the day, the ball had seemed a lot less fierce. Because the Dark Sky Starry Sect was always obscured by clouds and mostly because Shin Sumi herself was of Yin attribute, she could only imagine how the Copper Bell would appear if she tried to send Divine Sense into it in a strong Yang environment.
She imagined it being cold and dark instead of how it appeared now.
Shin Sumi took a deep breath and concentrated on her dantian. When she was ready, she sent her flow of Shinsoo in the direction of the next Outer Door.
She didn't go in with the intention of breaking it open, instead opting for a peaceful approach. First she had to ascertain the Shinsoo attribute of the door.
Shin Sumi didn't even know if using the Copper Bell would aid in any way in her Shinsoo Opening, but if it did, it would be useless to attack a Yin type door with Yang energy.
And that was precisely the case of the thirty second door.
Putting the bell away, Shin Sumi inhaled deeply with a collection of red beast cores on her lap. Half a breath later, the previously peaceful Shinsoo flow in her meridians started rotating aggressively. At the same time as she tried to pry open the Outer Door, the Flowing Shinsoo breathing technique purified the energy from the cores.
The process went completely according to her predictions. Since the door was of Yin type, it didn't reject her energy as much as the Yang type doors. The opening was still much more difficult than that of a Primal Door, but it was nothing out of her expectations.
After spending close to a quarter of her total Shinsoo level on the finally opened door, Shin Sumi once again calmed down the energy flow within her.
Her cheeks were red with excitement when she ascertained the attribute of the next door, the thirty-third.
"Yang type! I can finally try the Copper Bell!"
She had been anxious to try her idea for a long time now, to the point where she had to forcefully calm herself down in order to resume her cultivation.
Holding the bell in one hand, an orange yellowish core in the other, Shin Sumi expanded her Divine Sense to its limit in the direction of the bell.
Fearing repercussions and a backlash from her cultivation base, Shin Sumi had always refrained from trying to grab the fierce white ball of light that she felt in the bell. But ever since the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword came into her possession, she understood much better how the magical bonds between an artefact and its master worked.
As of now, Shin Sumi firmly believed that no matter what she did, as long as that bond wasn't severed she would be fine while using the bell.
Her Divine Sense closed in on the ball of light from all around before tightening. The warmest sensation she had ever felt reverberated throughout her whole body.
It felt as if she was on fire from the inside, but instead of burning her, the fire was gentle. Instead of the fierce and powerful flames she was afraid of, the inimaginable warmth held only good intents towards her.
Following her every order, the ball of light nestled within her dantian, its light shining onto her internal flow of Shinsoo.
Although it was colorless, Shin Sumi could only describe the flow turning from a white blue to a red tinged grey as it slowly changed attribute.
When the changed was complete, Shin Sumi sent the Shinsoo towards the thirty-third opening, carefully at first but then with more passion.
During the entire time she was immersed in her current state, Shin Sumi easily broke through three more doors.
It was only by the time she had destroyed the thirty-sixth door that she opened her blue eyes.
The night had since long gone, replaced by day. Shin Sumi still hadn't retracted the Copper Bell's power from her dantian but she was happy to realize that even now it still affected the way she viewed the ravine around her.
It was actually something she had been really careful about when absorbing the bell's light earlier. Part of her Divine Sense had stayed out looking for clues like the absence of sound or a coldness to appear. If such a thing had happened, it could only mean that Shin Sumi's body was defenseless against the powers of the chasm and it's writhing mass of black snakes.
"Surely they would love it to bite me" she teased the slithering animals, ignoring their hissing.
Shin Sumi was in a joyful mood. She had found a way to surpass the difficulty of opening the Yang type doors!
There were still thirteen days until the end of the training period preceding the Rising Star Tournament. In such a short lapse of time, Shin Sumi had made more progress than anyone in the sect in ten times that amount of days!
During the following week, Shin Sumi alternated between fighting spirit beasts for their core and opening Outer Doors, stabilizing her cultivation base while she explored different areas around the chasm and the jungle.
She only went as far as the mountainous zone after the immense forest valley once, when there were five days left for training.
She had opened forty six doors in total and was closing in on the Spirit Doors.
She had been pursuing a Brown Slime Toad when she felt the ground tremble under her feet.
Shin Sumi looked around her for a split second but it was a sharp pain that brought her to jump to her left suddenly.
The nut had slipped from the folds at her breast level to her right arm without her noticing. The next instant a boulder in the shape of a enormous tortoise crashed exactly where she had been standing.
The nut had saved her life with its painful warning.
"A landslide?!" Shin Sumi exclaimed. "No, this rock... wait... Uh?"
Shin Sumi gaped with astonishment and a strong feeling of pressure. The rock before her slowly unfurled its head.
It was a gigantic tortoise three times taller than her and at least five times longer!
What she had thought to be rock was actually a spirit beast. And a huge one at that!
The Stone Leaf Tortoise closed its jaws with impressive strength. A defeaning 'CLACK' struck Shin Sumi, forcing her to take half a step backwards.
The tortoise's shell was pointy at the front, rounded at the back and had a stone-like texture, which was the reason behind its name.
It was the first time Shin Sumi saw this kind of animal, or even a spirit beast that big for that matters.
Shin Sumi jumped backwards on the slight slope of the mountain side. Her burst brought her almost ten meter away from the tortoise.
"I must have entered its territory. Such a strong pressure, this is not good. A spirit beast like this is one I can not offend!"she thought.
"I have to get away. Quickly!"
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