Chapter 156: The Cultivation Tower

After saying these words, Dugu Shang fell silent, a complex gleam flickering within his eyes. His own words had carried him back into his personal realm, a bygone era, as though he had drifted entirely into memory.

Though Dugu Shang had merely asked questions without offering explanations, Zhou Yi had already pieced most of it together.

Had it been someone else—someone truly native to this world—upon hearing those inquiries from Dugu Shang, they would surely have been left thoroughly bewildered, completely at a loss. But Zhou Yi was different; the soul residing within him actually belonged to another world entirely.

"The seven continents and four oceans?"

Zhou Yi lowered his head in deep thought. He understood now. The realm he had inhabited previously was, in truth, merely equivalent to a single state or province upon that planet from his past life. The martial world he had known was nothing more than the martial world of a single state or province!

The martial world was only so vast, yet the world itself was far greater!

The martial world was merely the martial world as he understood it, representing nothing more than the territory he happened to inhabit. The Peerless Island, however, was entirely different; it existed in relation to the entire world!

"If the martial world I previously knew was roughly the size of a province in my past life, that would still be manageable. Judging by the number of people on Peerless Island, it cannot be excessively massive. But what if it is the size of an entire state? With so many people from Peerless Island scattered across the land, calculating how many are drawn from each state on a century-long, fixed generational cycle, and subtracting the mortality rate on the island, the actual scale of this world is simply beyond imagination!"

Zhou Yi mused and calculated silently in his heart, leaning toward the first possibility. After all, if the martial world was only the size of a single province, then by averaging out the population per province and roughly estimating the total number of people on Peerless Island, one could broadly deduce the overall size of this world.

Even calculated this way, the world was by no means small, but compared to reckoning it by entire states as basic units, it was vastly smaller!

The exact reality remained unclear to Zhou Yi, but one point was certain: whether the martial world was the size of a province or a state, this world could not possibly be small. As the world expanded, the power of Peerless Island—which faced the entire world—would naturally wax or wane in response!

In Zhou Yi's mind, the current strength of Peerless Island was already terrifyingly formidable. If it were to be even slightly larger, that strength would become an even greater trouble to deal with!

"Sigh!" After pondering for a long time, Zhou Yi suddenly let out a faint, lingering sigh. What was the use of thinking so much about this right now?

Whether the world was large or small, or just how immense the power of Peerless Island truly was, what difference did it make to him? Either way, he was currently incapable of defeating them, so overthinking was pointless!

He turned his head to glance at Dugu Shang, who was still immersed in his own world, narrowed his eyes slightly, and then turned back. Hesitating no longer, he strode forward and pushed open the massive doors, stepping inside.

Thud!

The heavy doors closed automatically behind him. The sound of the closing doors startled Dugu Shang, pulling him out from the depths of his memories.

"Have you gone in?"

Dugu Shang gazed at the heavy doors, which had returned to a state of dark, profound, and absolute tranquility. Then, lowering his head, he murmured in a voice only he could hear, "I hope you... can break out of this cage!"

"You are the only one who still holds even a glimmer of possibility now!"

...

Pushing open the doors, Zhou Yi stepped inside. The doors sealed shut behind him, and the dark field of vision before him instantly brightened. A myriad of brilliant colors materialized before him the moment the doors closed, shimmering faintly.

Zhou Yi paused in his steps, gazing at the various glowing colors flickering before him, his eyes sweeping across them one by one before coming to rest upon a misty orb of light at the center.

The moment his gaze landed upon it, the misty orb seemed as though a switch had been flipped. The previously motionless colors began to twist and wind like serpents.

Threads of light moved in unison, intersecting and crossing, rapidly combining to form distinct characters.

"Dharma Script?" Watching the colored lines on the misty orb assemble into written words, a familiar, profound aura washed over his consciousness, and a term naturally surfaced in Zhou Yi's mind.

"Are these the rules written in the Dharma Script?" After roughly glancing over the meaning conveyed by the script, Zhou Yi narrowed his eyes.

Having scanned it once and found nothing abnormal, Zhou Yi concentrated his focus and earnestly read the Dharma Script on the misty orb a second time.

After a long while, Zhou Yi finished reading every detail of the Dharma Script. As his gaze drifted away from the orb, the colored lines composing the script on the misty orb rapidly blurred and soon dissipated into nothingness.

Once the Dharma Script faded away, Zhou Yi paid it no further mind, turning his thoughts inward to ponder the information he had just gathered from the text.

The Tower of Cultivation, though called a tower, in reality possessed only a single level. While it appeared externally to be stacked tier upon tier, internally, there was indeed only one level!

However, this single level differed vastly from the conventional meaning of a single floor. Within this level existed numerous individual spaces. These spaces were layered atop one another like a stack of sheets of paper; though numerous, they did not actually occupy a massive amount of physical space in reality!

This single level of the Cultivation Tower was akin to that stack of paper, with each sheet representing a separate spatial dimension, and all the primordial spirits of heaven and earth existing across this multitude of spaces.

For anyone entering the Cultivation Tower, the first task was to locate the specific spatial dimension containing the particular primordial spirit of heaven and earth they required. Next, they had to earnestly comprehend its rhythm, establish a connection with it, and finally follow that established connection to enter the corresponding space. Only then could they utilize that specific primordial spirit for cultivation!

One could say that although all primordial spirits of heaven and earth could be found here—saving one from traveling all over the world in search of them—the actual difficulty of utilizing them for cultivation was scarcely any less than the difficulty of searching for them in the first place!

First of all, simply locating the space corresponding to a given primordial spirit was no simple feat.

The Cultivation Tower possessed a complete array of primordial spirits of heaven and earth, ensuring that one need not worry about failing to find what they needed—which was a blessing. Yet simultaneously, this was also a curse!

Having an overwhelming abundance of primordial spirits meant having far too many choices. Without a specific method, one would be forced to test them one by one just to find the space housing the desired primordial spirit!

With good fortune, one might find it quickly, but with poor luck, it would become quite troublesome; spending several months searching would hardly be unheard of.

This was the first challenge one had to face when cultivating within the Cultivation Tower.

Second, one had to comprehend the rhythm of the corresponding primordial spirit and establish a connection.

Everyone who came to the Cultivation Tower to cultivate did so because they had acquired a formidable cultivation technique and wished to practice it!

The reason they came here was that practicing the technique necessitated finding the corresponding primordial spirit; they came out of absolute necessity rather than prior familiarity.

Consequently, they were entirely clueless regarding these primordial spirits, possessing zero understanding of them. Under such completely unfamiliar conditions, attempting to comprehend their inherent rhythms was a challenge whose difficulty could well be imagined!

It would be fine if one possessed great innate talent, as it wouldn't take much time. But if one's talent was lacking—well, then things would get interesting, and the time required might very well exceed the duration spent searching for the space in the first place!