Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 616: Goal - Vision of a God

Xu Qing had faced many challenges in his life. Some he had resolved, others he couldn’t.

But when it came to cultivation, Xu Qing couldn’t remember very many situations in which he truly got stuck. That was especially true of matters relating to enlightenment. It was the same with his Sea and Mountain Incantation in his early days, and then all the other various techniques he’d picked up. All of them went fairly smoothly. [1]

The same went for his enlightenment of the Ghost Emperor mountain. Even when attempting to project it externally, he didn’t encounter many significant obstacles. Then there was the golden crow from earlier. Although that process had been difficult, in the end, he just followed through with his idea and soon gained enlightenment. Of course, much of that had to do with advice given to him by someone else. But fundamentally speaking, the actual enlightenment was his own doing. He had always had astounding powers of understanding compared to other people.

But this time, he had no direction to pursue. No outline to fill in. It was easy to say “turn your gaze into taboo poison.” But actually doing it seemed more like a fantasy than a reality. In fact, after three days of constant attempts, he didn’t come close to succeeding.

He could put the taboo poison into his eyes. After all, the poison was already part of him, so he wasn’t worried about it hurting him. Any damage he sustained would eventually be healed by the violet crystal. In some respects, his eyes had always had poison in them. But causing that poison to erupt along with his gaze was different.

“The gaze...” Xu Qing murmured.

There were things he didn’t understand. For example, the word for ‘gaze’ had the character for ‘light’ in it. But what exactly was that ‘light’? And how could he get poison into it, so that whatever he looked at ended up being poisoned?

How would a god do that?

Xu Qing looked exhausted. When he felt the Heir Apparent’s warding spell disappearing, he stood up and walked back toward the Green Spirit Pharmacy. Just when he was about to reenter the mudbrick city, his heart suddenly thumped in his chest.

What if I’m focusing too much on my eyes?

Stopping in place, he closed his eyes and took a moment to assess himself with his other senses. Everything about himself felt the same as before. Closing his eyelids didn’t seem to provide any deeper level of understanding. Everything was dark, which was the result of his gaze being covered.

In that case, what if I didn’t have eyes?

Xu Qing had always been able to treat himself ruthlessly, so without any hesitation, he reached up and dug both of his eyes out of their sockets.

Pain erupted into him as blood flowed out of the empty sockets. He was now blind. As for the pain he felt, it didn’t really count for much compared to some of the other types of pain he had experienced in the past. After digging his eyes out, the power of the violet crystal went to work and started repairing the damage. However, Xu Qing suppressed the violet crystal; he wanted to spend more time exploring the sensation of having no eyes.

That was when he noticed that the darkness in front of him was different from the darkness he saw when closing his eyes.

A tremor passed through him. It was obviously something he had never thought of before. Closing one’s eyes was very different than having no eyes at all. When he closed his eyes, his vision was blocked, and he saw darkness. But right now, he had no vision at all, and therefore, no way to even perceive darkness.

It’s not actually darkness....

He wasn’t even sure what he was sensing at the moment. It was like when an ordinary person closed one eye, which altered their vision because it was missing one section. And that missing section wasn’t dark, nor did it have any color. It didn’t have any information at all. It was as if it just didn’t exist.

“Nothingness...” Xu Qing whispered.

That was the word that popped up in his mind. That was what he experienced after removing his eyes. It felt unsettling.

Shortly after, he sent out his divine sense, and gradually, the world around him appeared in his mind. However, it wasn’t the result of his gaze. It came from energy, the touch of the wind, the resonance of his soul, and the overlay of divine will. Divine will was like an invisible web made from infinite ripples, with him in the middle. Anything that touched that web would, in turn, cause the web to vibrate. The result was a different type of consciousness that existed in his mind.

But it wasn’t an image. An image was something he could see with his eyes. What he perceived with divine will was a sensation. Because of divine sense, most cultivators had a hard time distinguishing between an image and a sensation. As a result, they would just assume that divine sense was an aspect of vision. But as Xu Qing now realized, they were different.

As the feeling continued, a representation of everything around him appeared in his mind, formed from his senses.

The land. The sky. All the buildings in the mudbrick city. The pedestrians on the streets. The distant mountains. He could sense them all, and thus, he could ‘see’ them. However, some things existed in color, while others had no color, and were mere outlines.

Eventually, Xu Qing started walking. He entered the city, and eventually, reached the Green Spirit Pharmacy.

Along the way, he took note of everything he was sensing with this gaze that was no gaze.

“If destiny calls, come buy some medicine; if it calls not, at least look at a specimen!”

Xu Qing heard Wu Jianwu talking up ahead. He looked up, and Wu Jianwu appeared in his senses. He was in full color, with his clothes, hair, and facial expression all accurate.

When Wu Jianwu saw the blood flowing out from Xu Qing’s closed eyelids, his eyes went wide and he stammered. “W-w-what... what’s wrong?”

His exclamation caught the attention of everyone else. Moments later, the Captain, Ling’er, and Li Youfei all saw Xu Qing.

“Big Bro Xu Qing!” Ling’er cried anxiously, rushing over and throwing her arms around him.

Xu Qing tousled her hair and smiled. Ling’er was also represented in color to him.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s just cultivation.”

Sounding confused and sad, Ling’er replied, “But... what kind of cultivation involves ripping your own eyes out?”

Xu Qing said a few more comforting words, and then walked into the medicine shop with her.

Based on what he could ‘see’, the Captain looked astonished, Li Youfei was visibly stunned, and Ning Yan’s eyes were wide. Nethersprite was boiling water, and the Heir Apparent sat there looking at Xu Qing.

Xu Qing patted Ling’er’s back, then walked over and sat down next to the Heir Apparent.

After a moment of thought, he said, “Senior, I can’t do it. Even after digging my eyes out, I can’t get the poison into my gaze. And when sensing the world around me, I’m unable to create a poison onslaught with divine will.”

The Heir Apparent lifted his cup and took a sip of tea. He was about to launch into another cryptic bit of advice, but then he looked at Xu Qing’s mangled eyes and decided to be a bit more direct.

“Digging out your eyes was a good idea! Now you need to figure out a way to experience the vision of a god. Use it to look at the true world around you.”

“Vision of a god?” he murmured. “True world?”

“That’s right,” the Heir Apparent said, sounding very profound.

Xu Qing thought about it for a bit, then stood and bowed. As Ling’er looked on anxiously, he went into the back room, sat down cross-legged, and pondered the situation.

How come the world I perceive has some color, but other things aren’t in color...?

He had the feeling that the key to everything lay in the answer to that question.

The night passed.

The next morning he looked up. He felt like the answer was forming within him. After checking his surroundings and confirming that everything was in color, he sent a voice message to the Captain.

“Eldest Brother, do you have anything on hand that I haven’t seen before?”

When the Captain, who was on the main floor keeping an eye on Nethersprite, listened to the message, his eyebrows shot up. Smiling enigmatically, he strolled into the back room, looked down at Xu Qing, and then produced an item with a flourish.

Xu Qing scanned it with divine sense. Based on the smell alone, he could tell that it was a medicinal pill. Specifically, it was a cursequelling lozenge.

“Something else,” he said.

The Captain’s eyes glittered. Flashing a very meaningful smile, he thought for a moment and then took something else out. “How about this?”

Xu Qing looked over and saw a bodice. A moment later he shook his head.

Intrigued, the Captain kept taking things out. When Xu Qing saw the growing collection of random things, he wasn’t sure what to say. Eventually, the Captain took out something that didn’t register as being in color.

Xu Qing looked up. “What’s that...?”

Resting on the Captain’s palm was a small blue statue that he had acquired a long time ago. It was an item of worship from a small, random species. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it, and it had been in the Captain’s bag of holding for so long he’d forgotten about it.

“It’s a statue,” the Captain said.

Xu Qing nodded. His senses were telling him that the Captain was indeed holding a statue, though it was little more than an outline to Xu Qing.

“What color is it?” Xu Qing asked.

“Red,” the Captain said with a meaningful smile.

All of a sudden, Xu Qing’s senses were telling him that the statue was red. He nodded and was about to say something.

Before he could, the Captain said, “Huh? Oh, my bad, little Ah Qing. It’s actually white.”

Xu Qing frowned.

Chuckling, the Captain put the blue statue down in front of Xu Qing. “Little Ah Qing,” he said quietly, “for certain reasons, I can’t give you any advice. But I’m leaving this statue here for you. When your eyes recover, take a look and see what color it actually is.”

The Captain left.

Xu Qing’s heart raced as numerous thoughts proliferated in his mind. Releasing his hold on the violet crystal’s powers, he let his eyes start recovering.

A few days later, he opened his eyes and looked down to find a blue statue in front of him. The sight of that statue caused him to reel. Any thoughts of a red or white statue collapsed, replaced by the color blue. This process left him feeling profoundly shaken.

Colors can be deceiving.... Is what I’m seeing true and real? In my previous state, the things I saw around me in color were only that way because I’d personally seen them before, or at least had a concept of what they were like. That’s why I could form an image of them.

But I couldn’t form an image of something I hadn’t seen before. They were just outlines, without any color....

What’s more, my perception of the color of this statue changed based on what the Captain told me. And that goes to show... the thing that determines what you can see, and in fact, the very structure of the world around you, is not your eyes. For mortals, it’s the brain that actually determines what is seen. For cultivators, it’s the soul that determines what you sense.

Xu Qing inhaled sharply, and his eyes shone with enlightenment.

The eyes are basically a window. I was going down the wrong path. Putting poison in the window will do nothing more than create a stockpile there.

If I want the poison to be part of my gaze.... I need to put the poison in my soul. If the soul has poison, then when the window opens, whatever I look at will be invaded by my gaze!

Except now I can’t help but wonder... is the world I can see the true and real world the Heir Apparent was talking about?

1. Wow, what a callback! The Sea and Mountain Incantation was first mentioned in chapter 1! It was last mentioned in chapter 177. ☜