Book 1: Skydream Iceworm
Chapter 2.4: Skydream Iceworm
Bei Bei stood up and carefully checked their surroundings as he quietly guarded Tang Ya.
After Huo Yuhao fainted, he entered a dream. He dreamt that he’d entered a pure white space. There were many motes of light within the space, and he couldn’t see the end of it. However, his gaze still seemed to somehow be able to reach every single corner of the space.
Whilst in the midst of understanding the mysteries of the space, it had suddenly turned turbulent. After that, golden lights had interweaved and entered the space.
The golden lights converged into enormous golden rings of light which floated in midair, and the many motes of light within the room started to increase in size due to their appearance.
The ten golden rings of light slowly started to rotate, and a milky white halo appeared within every single one of them. As the halo’s strength increased, they gradually gathered together and formed ten enormous balls of light that floated within the space. The height and the volume of the space increased many folds in size in turn.
At that moment, an unremarkable grey ball of light appeared near one of the golden balls of light. The grey ball’s size was much smaller than the other ten balls of light. Furthermore, the golden balls of light began releasing a strong golden light, as if they wanted to chase it away. However, the grey ball remained tranquil, and continued to float in midair. No matter how much the golden lights attacked the grey ball, it didn’t seem to be affected at all.
In the end, the ten golden lights could only give up on the meaningless task. They turned stable, and flickered with a dim luster.
As Huo Yuhao’s consciousness gradually cleared, the smaller motes of light that were floating in the space gradually sank downwards, forming a faint golden ocean that supported the ten enormous balls of light. Only the extremely tiny grey light remained midair, unwilling to join the large balls of light.
“So you’re called Huo Yuhao.” A voice suddenly echoed out. Following that, Huo Yuhao’s vision instantly retracted, and he unconsciously lowered his gaze. He could only see his naked self-standing above the golden ocean, right in the middle of the ten now-golden-white balls of light.
“Where is this? Why am I here?” Huo Yuhao asked in amazement.
“This is your mind’s sea of consciousness, or spiritual sea. In the future, this will be Brother’s home. This place was too small, so Brother simply helped you expand it. However, your body is just too weak, so I’ll have to make do for now.”
“You’re the Skydream Iceworm? I’m not dreaming?” Huo Yuhao became even more stunned when he heard the voice and tone of the person who’d spoken. Everything that he saw in front of him had already surpassed his knowledge. Not to speak of Huo Yuhao, who was only eleven; even adults would be shocked to the point of them trembling in fear if they were presented with such a miraculous scene.
“Dreaming? If you were able to have such a nice dream, wouldn’t you have died from happiness? This is obviously not a dream. As I said, this is the world within your mind.” The Skydream Iceworm unhappily replied.
Huo Yuhao blankly said, “What’s that?”
The Skydream Iceworm replied, “You really are foolish. How do I explain this to you? Well... let’s put it this way. You know about your eyes—they’re the martial soul that your consciousness calls the ‘Spirit Eyes’. I’ve just gone through your memories, so I know about your previous experiences. The Spirit Eyes are your martial soul, but at the same time also your eyes. Thus, the spiritual sea is where your spiritual energy is stored. If you want to display the might of your Spirit Eyes, you’ll need to convert your soulforce into spiritual energy, then release it using your Spirit Eyes. The specific location of your spiritual sea is your brain, behind your Spirit Eyes. As of right now, your consciousness is immersed within your spiritual sea. The body that you’re seeing isn’t actually your real body, but a body that I’ve created using spiritual energy for the sake of communicating with you.”
Huo Yuhao finally understood a few things after hearing this detailed explanation. The fear in his heart also weakened by a lot. Young kids were much more sensitive than adults at certain times, and he felt that the Skydream Iceworm truly didn’t have any malicious intentions towards him.
“Then, how come you appeared in my spiritual sea?” Huo Yuhao asked again.
The Skydream Iceworm replied, “Didn’t I just tell you? I want to become your soul ring, an intelligent soul ring! As of now, I’ve already become one. However, for the sake of becoming your soul ring, I’ve suppressed and sealed a large amount of my power. From now on, you’ll have a soul ring, and can become one of the human’s so-called soul masters. However, your innate talent is much worse than what I thought. You can practically use the term ‘extremely poor’ to describe it. I really don’t know whether my choice was correct or not.
Huo Yuhao was slightly ashamed as he said, “I admit that my talent isn’t that good. But, I’ll work hard. My innate spirit power was only rank one.”
The Skydream Iceworm gloomily said, “I’ll think of a method to help you improve yourself later on.”
As the length of the conversation increased, Huo Yuhao’s guts did too. “Skydream Iceworm.”
“Call me Brother Skydream.”
“Fine, Brother Skydream. You said that you were a million year soul beast, is that true? Also, why did you pick me? I’ve heard that Soul Scholars can only withstand soul rings that are below four hundred years old. However, since you’re a million year soul beast, how were you able to become my soul ring?”
The Skydream Iceworm suddenly let out a long sigh, “Do you think that I wanted to pick you? I had no other choice! If I’d continued to refrain from making a choice, my life would’ve come to an end. And once I died, my body would’ve most likely become food for those guys in the Great Star Dou Forest! Under my state of helplessness, I could only use this plan to attach myself to you humans. This is also my only way out. Would you like to listen to my story? In the future, we’ll be with each other for a very, very long time. I don’t want to hide anything from you either, so I’ll tell you everything.”
Huo Yuhao nodded his head and said, “Brother Skydream, please speak.”
The Skydream Iceworm replied, “At first, I was just an ordinary Iceworm soul beast. I wasn’t born in the Great Star Dou Forest, but in an extremely cold place located in the northern areas of the continent. We Iceworms are soul beasts that have two innate attributes, spiritual and ice attributes. However, our combat strength is seriously limited by our speed. Thus, we can only be considered very ordinary soul beasts. What’s more, we’re also affected by the presence of natural predators. Very few of us can cultivate longer than ten thousand years. I’m the sole exception to that.”
“When I was thirteen years old, I carelessly fell into a crack in the ice whilst running away from a predator. At that time, I thought I was done for. However, who could’ve known that I’d drop into a ball of ten thousand year Ice Pith? I sank into a deep sleep after that. I was still very weak and small back then, and my body wasn’t even three inches long. That sleep lasted for an entire ten thousand years. When I woke up, I found myself in an icy cave. That ten thousand year Ice Pith had disappeared—it had all been absorbed by me. However, as a result of my slumber, I had thus turned into a ten thousand year soul beast. I was indescribably pleased and surprised back then! However, I discovered that I couldn’t find any way to exit the icy cave at all.”
“I was surrounded by extremely hard ice in that icy cave. Although I had already become a ten thousand year soul beast, our Iceworm clan has always been weak in combat, resulting in me being unable to forcefully break through the ice. Fortunately, there were many holes in the icy cave that I was able to climb through. Thus, I crawled around in search of an exit. In the end, I still couldn’t find an exit, but I found an even larger ball of Ice Pith. The appearance of this new ball of Ice Pith signified that I had food to eat. Hence, I entered another deep sleep. However, this sleep lasted several tens of thousands of years…”