Pursuit of the Truth 817 Five Echelon

Su Ming's face turned stern as he looked at Zhou Kang. He had helped him not just because he had wanted to test the mysteries of this place, but more importantly because he wanted to obtain some information about this place from Zhou Kang.
This sort of thing was incredibly useful to him. At the very least, it would help him to walk fewer circles, and that would mean that he would be making his stone monument grow to a million feet at the fastest speed possible, being able to move before the others.
However, unless there was some sort of unique situation, no one would be willing to tell another this sort of information based on personal experience. After all, if someone else succeeded, it would mean that their chances of dying would increase. This Divine Essence's legacy was in truth a competition.
No one would tell someone completely unrelated to them their experiences and let that person gradually walk ahead of themselves. More importantly, those experiences could be said to have been bought with an endless amount of time. They were what the people here have obtained after making numerous circles and walking into various dead ends. The value of these experiences was, in a way, incredibly valuable.
Su Ming needed this knowledge because he clearly knew that if one person had appeared in the foreign land to come after his life, then the forces of power from the four Great True Worlds keeping a lookout over the Barren Lands of Divine Essence must have certainly increased his bounty. While he did not know what sort of reward was offered this time, it was clearly enough for a person to dare to enter the foreign land at the risk of their life.
And if a single person was willing to come here, then it meant that the reward by the four Great True Worlds would definitely bring more people, and as more and more of them entered, the shadow of death would fall on Su Ming's head again and again.
'If a person comes, then the possibility of me dying will be one out of one hundred thousand. If one hundred thousand come... I might not certainly die. After all, every single time the selection comes, it will choose between one hundred thousand people, and since it doesn't have any sort of pattern, even those who had just obtained their stone monuments might be chosen.
'But by that time the threat of death will reach an incredibly terrifying rate. The only way out of this… is to use the shortest amount of time possible to make my stone monument one million feet tall. Only by doing so will I have the greatest possibility of avoiding being selected.'
Su Ming sucked in a deep breath. He knew that he had made the right bet. With his actions, he would show his sincerity in order to obtain Zhou Kang's experience. This was a trade.
"What are the details of the inheritance's test in this place? How can I make my stone monument reach one million feet tall at the shortest amount of time possible?" Su Ming asked languidly, his voice relaxed, not showing a single hint of his thoughts and emotions.
Zhou Kang did not speak right away. He only looked at the stone monument that had once belonged to Si Ma Yue. After a long while, as if he was mumbling to himself, he softly spoke up.
"Three thousand years ago, I was just a cultivator in the middle stage of World Plane Realm. Since her father entered a foreign land and never came out, that's why… I accompanied her to this place.
"Int the blink of an eye, three thousand years passed. During this time, we were constantly struggling here. but it wasn't for that stupid inheritance. Those who obtain the Divine Essence can become a Sublime Paragon, but I don't care about that. I only wanted to get out of this place alive with her.
"We worked hard continuously. My wife, Yue Er, her potential was far greater than mine, but in this place, potential is meaningless… Over the period of three thousand years, she had only managed to make her stone monument reach two hundred thousand feet… I didn't want her to be alone in this place, hence I gave up three chances of making my stone monument reach one million feet, so that I could be with her.
"Because even if I managed to make my monument reach one million feet, if I was the only who managed to get out, what use would there be even if I was given a thousand years of freedom? It'd be completely useless… I gave up those three chances and stayed here with her instead." Zhou Kang did not answer Su Ming's question, but continued mumbling to himself.
Su Ming listened to him and did not interrupt. He could feel that Zhou Kang's love for Si Ma Yue had already surpassed the love for his own life. He was also shocked that Zhou Kang had three chances of making his stone monument reach one million feet, and it had only been… three thousand years since he started.
"Yue Er was more intelligent than I am, and she had greater knowledge than me regarding this place. During the first five hundred years, we examined our experiences within each of our worlds in the stone monument. Each of us gradually figured out the things that all the seniors of this place valued like treasure and spoke not a word of. The all delighted in watching those who came later to tread the long and winding paths they had taken themselves in the past.
"We discovered that what we experienced in our worlds was different… but the answer we obtained in the end was the same. This so called Divine Essence inheritance is in truth divided into ten stages due to a person's body," Zhou Kang mumbled softly, and Su Ming immediately began listening even more attentively.
"Yue Er and I weren't clear what Divine Essence was. We only knew that it could grant a person the possibility to become a Sublime Paragon. The eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and heart are the Five Illusory Echelons.
"The limbs and torso are known as the Five Corporeal Echelons.
"When you add all of them together, you will have the complete ten stages. With the completion of each echelon, you will be able to make your stone monument grow to one million feet…" Zhou Kang's voice echoed in the air. When it fell into Su Ming's ears, his heart trembled.
"Almost all those who come here will receive a vague notice that they need to use their hands to touch the stone monument. Only then can they activate the training from the legacy. Yue Er and I started like this as well.
"It was only five hundred years later that we noticed something off, but it was already too late. We could no longer turn back and could only continue moving down that path.
"Because we used our hands to touch the stone monument, that's why… the first Five Echelon path we chose became the Five Corporeal Echelons. We used our right hand to touch the stone monument, that's why the first thing we had to train was our bodies' right hand, then it would be our left hand, and then it would be our entire body… Only once we did that would our stone monument reach five million feet.
"But our guess was that the people who came here didn't necessarily need to first tread the Five Corporeal Echelons, because this path was too hard. It did not contain any form of consciousness, and we could only use our bodies to feel our way through. The difficulty of this path is something those who have not experienced it do not understand.
"It's different for the Five Illusory Echelons. They need understanding and a form of epiphany. It might seem even harder compared to the other path, but in truth, if you want to receive a great serendipity, then you must first walk down the path of Five Illusory Echelons. After that, you will possess a conscious will of things, and you'll move faster down your path."
Zhou Kang's words caused Su Ming's pupils to constrict, and he suddenly said, "Senior Zhou Kang, do you mean that if my body first touches the stone monument, then it will be the first to receive the refinement of Divine Essence? It'll have to get used to this Divine Essence or at least come to remember it, then with the body as foundation, I will have to slowly understand the Five Illusory Echelons, and from then… eventually make my stone monument reach ten million feet?
"And if I don't take this path, I'll be using my consciousness and my soul to get used to the Divine Essence first? And once I remember that feeling, it'll have to spread to my entire body?
"This makes it two different paths: In one, a person trains from the outside of their bodies to the internal parts, and the other one is where they train from the internal parts to the external ones."
Zhou Kang fell silent. After a moment, he averted his gaze from the stone monument that once belonged to Si Ma Yue and moved it to Su Ming.
"This was the guess of my wife and me, and it remained so until two thousand years ago. At that time, a person sat down before his stone monument and meditated for three hundred years, then with his own comprehensive abilities, he understood this. His name… is Xing Yu. Right now, his stone monument has reached two million feet.
"Don't use your body to touch the stone monument. Use your eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and heart to form a faint connection with it. This will make you move in fewer circles, and it will also… make your chance of success greater.
"You might not be very quick, and there is even a possibility that you will be slow… but based on our observations, there were quite a few people who had arrived during these two thousand something years, and there were quite a few of them who made their stone monuments reach a million feet. During this, it is only natural that some people died, but Xing Yu is still around.
"That's why Yue Er believed that those who walk down the path of Five Illusory Echelons will have a much lower possibility of death compared to other people. This is only a guess, because only a short time has passed and those who train in the path of Five Illusory Echelons are too few in number, so we couldn't contain too much proof.
"You can choose to believe me or not," Zhou Kang said calmly. His voice echoed in the area.
"This is what we experienced. Also, no matter what sort of method you use to touch the stone monument, you will still need to fuse with the world there. That is an illusory world… in which everyone's experiences are different. It's born based on your memories...
"In fact, some of the memories that even you don't know of will be revealed. Based on what I experienced, if you fix your mind on a certain period of time the moment you begin to fuse with the monument, then there will be a high possibility to see the world that belongs to that time."
Nostalgia appeared in Zhou Kang's eyes at those words. He lifted his right hand and slowly pressed it against the stone monument. Su Ming might not know the details of the things the man saw, but he could guess that here was definitely a woman in those memories, and her name was Si Ma Yue.
"All of these are my experiences. I've told you everything... You… take care of yourself." As Zhou Kang spoke softly, his body gradually faded away, and a vortex appeared on his stone monument. A hand suddenly reached out from there and grabbed Zhou Kang's right hand, yanking him inside.
"The last thing... is a guess Yue Er made four hundred years ago. Perhaps it's also the reason for her death… She told me that she suspected that the foreign land was a great scam!"
Zhou Kang disappeared, but his voice still reverberated in the air. Su Ming sat there with a dumbfounded expression. He looked at Zhou Kang's stone monument, and after a long moment, he sucked in a deep breath.
The area returned to silence. However, Zhou Kang's voice still echoed in Su Ming's head. A long while later, a brilliant light shone in his eyes, and his gaze slowly landed on his stone monument, which was right before him.
This stone monument was only twenty thousand feet tall. Compared to the others, it was really insignificant.
'No matter what, I still have to walk down this path. I can't believe Zhou Kang's words completely, but there should be some truth to them… Five Illusory Echelons, huh..?'
Su Ming did not choose to use his hands to touch the monument. Instead, he just sat there and stared at it. Aside from using his eyes to look, his heart did not think, his body did not move. All his sensory organs besides his eyes did not do anything.
'If it's the Five Illusory Echelon, then I will start with my eyes!' Su Ming sat down and meditated quietly. Time passed slowly.
One day, two day, three days… In the blink of an eye, another month passed by. During it, Su Ming rarely blinked. He just stared at the stone monument. His entire mind and body were focused on that sight, and he ignored everything else around him.
When he even forgot about time, he saw a vortex appear on the stone monument. He saw a great suction force within it, and once it sucked in his gaze, an eye appeared within the vortex. The moment this eye looked at Su Ming, his body became indistinct.
"Time, after I became the God of Berserkers. Location, ninth summit… when Morning Dao Sect's Dao Yuan arrived!" At the instant Su Ming became indistinct, a bloodcurdling murderous intent appeared in his eyes.
As his voice echoed in the air, he disappeared!