Chapter 194: The Arena

Martial halls filled Martial Star Ward, and most people passing through looked vigorous and full of spirit.

All manner of contests were staged here for spectators: challenges between martial halls, competitions for marriage, bouts for money or fame, and even fights to the death.

Ding Songyan made no hurry to seek out Ou Luwen. He wandered leisurely through the streets and alleys, entering martial halls, visiting training grounds, and stopping beside the road to watch one match after another, drawing from them the insights needed for the Unified Way Sword.

Without realizing it, he arrived before a building facing the street.

A crowd had gathered outside, everyone craning to look in, yet no one actually entered.

Candleflames appeared in Ding Songyan’s eyes, with starlight concealed behind them. The building connected to a rear courtyard and extended more than thirty-five meters deep. It was fully furnished with tables, chairs, and stools, while a freshly inked but rather uninspired couplet hung beside the entrance:

"Yin and yang, mountains and rivers, form a realm unto themselves; who can judge truth from falsehood, illusion from reality?"

The horizontal inscription read, "The Sea of Letters Has a Way."

"What is this?" Ding Songyan casually asked a martial artist beside him.

From the content, it seems I have stumbled upon exactly whom I was seeking.

"Hero Ou is using martial arts to make friends and offering a large reward for stories," the man replied with equal parts anticipation and fear.

As expected... Ding Songyan asked with keen interest, "What do you mean?"

The martial artist had nothing else to do and explained in detail, "Hero Ou calls himself the Feaster on the Sea of Letters. He loves storybooks and storytelling above all, but he has found nothing satisfying lately, so he set up this arena.

"Anyone who challenges him and fails to break through his Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth must write him a good story or serve him for three years as a slave. Anyone who succeeds may choose between enough wealth to live comfortably, a martial art capable of founding an entire sect or school, or one favor from Hero Ou."

"He has considerable confidence in himself," Ding Songyan observed honestly.

A favor could mean almost anything. In the hands of certain people, its possibilities were endless.

The martial artist gave Ding Songyan a surprised look.

"Hero Ou is a first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster with the potential to reach the Heaven-Man Realm. Why would he lack confidence?"

Just then, a man with visible physical abnormalities stumbled from the building, his expression vacant and his eyes unfocused, as though he had endured something too dreadful to describe.

He dropped heavily onto the door’s threshold and took a long while to recover before sighing with lingering fear, "The Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth deserves its reputation..."

A slightly ethereal voice drifted from deep within the building.

"Where is your story?"

The man hurriedly pulled a storybook from his robe and returned inside.

After watching for a while, Ding Songyan went several streets away and found a stall selling painted faces and masks.

He browsed for a time before selecting two.

"How much would these be?"

One mask depicted the Golden Boy, with phoenix eyes, straight brows, a white forehead, and a golden face. The other depicted the Jade Maiden, with a jade-colored face and peach-blossom-red makeup.

"Twenty copper coins altogether." The vendor meant to explain which workshop had made the masks and the quality of their materials, but his customer had already taken out a purse and counted the coins.

Ding Songyan tucked the Jade Maiden mask into his robe. Upon reaching a crowded intersection, he discreetly put on the Golden Boy mask.

He soon drew sidelong glances from many passersby, but no one seemed surprised. The people of the Flame Capital were accustomed to nonhuman species of every bizarre appearance and thought little of someone wearing a mask in public.

Indeed, beside the road stood a black-furred Fire-Sated with the body of a beast and the head of an ape, waiting for a noodle vendor to pack away his pots and dishes and hand over the burning coals left in the stove.

The Fire-Sated stuffed a red-hot coal into his mouth, crunched through it, and swallowed.

Their name carried the meaning of being sated on flame.

Only after eating fire could a Fire-Sated breathe it.

Every member of this species is exceptionally suited to cultivating fire-related martial arts, yet he has been reduced to performing in the street for food... It seems ordinary people in Great Zhao are not particularly welcoming toward nonhuman species... Wearing the Golden Boy mask, Ding Songyan looked away and calmly made his way through the streets and alleys back to Ou Luwen’s arena.

The gathered crowd immediately focused on his head and the mask’s golden face, white forehead, phoenix eyes, and straight brows.

Ding Songyan took a single step forward, and they parted naturally to clear a path to the arena. Their expressions were both astonished and excited, as though expecting a fine spectacle.

Upon reaching the entrance, Ding Songyan placed his sword-wielding hand behind his back and deliberately lowered his voice.

"I’m here to have a go at this Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth."

Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, he crossed the threshold and entered.

The scene before him abruptly changed.

He no longer stood in a building furnished with tables, chairs, and stools, but upon a vast ocean stretching beyond sight.

The sea was deep blue, its waves rising and falling. In the distance stood a cloud-wreathed mountain frequented by celestial gods and immortals.

With a tremendous splash, the water ahead surged apart, revealing a colossal creature spanning hundreds of miles.

It was a blue-black giant crab whose iron-hard shell carried an entire kingdom populated chiefly by monsters of the sea. Its two front claws rose so high they nearly touched the firmament.

Ding Songyan did not use the Candle-Star Pupils to examine this so-called Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth, lest he expose his identity. Instead, he used the Celestial Heart imprint to derive another illusion-piercing ability.

At a glance, he saw the sea, mountain, celestial gods, immortals, and giant crab all turn insubstantial, dissolving into overlapping layers of heaven-and-earth qi.

Yet genuine objects hid among those currents of qi: something like a dragon’s tail, another resembling a turtle’s foot, and another close to a crab’s leg.

BOOM!

The blue-black crab smashed its front claw that was vast enough to uphold heaven and earth at Ding Songyan.

In that instant, the mountain seemed wrenched into the air, the sea rose in towering waves, and the entire realm collapsed and overturned.

Rather than advance, Ding Songyan retreated by stepping forward and instantly entered the Celestial Heart state.

His spirit-intent rose high and looked down upon this world. He grasped the flow and transformation of every current of qi and found the sole reality among countless illusions.

Clang!

Frostshade left its sheath. Swordlight flashed and struck a point entwined by innumerable currents of heaven-and-earth qi.

Beneath the enormous crab claw, the crystalline sword looked as slender as a hair, yet it held back the colossal limb as firmly as a pillar pinning the sea in place.

The towering waves immediately collapsed, followed by the immortal mountain beyond the sea.

An instant later, the blue-black crab spanning hundreds of miles collapsed piece by piece, while the vast ocean transformed into countless white bubbles.

In the courtyard behind the building, a figure rose from a reclining chair and blurted, "A Supreme Master?"

Before he finished speaking, he saw a man in a cyan scholar’s robe and Golden Boy mask cross through the shop and enter the rear courtyard.

The golden face, white forehead, phoenix eyes, and straight brows of the mask were clearly reflected in the arena master’s eyes.

The arena master wore a brocade robe and stood about 1.8 meters tall. He had a roundish face, kindly brows and eyes, and an overall air of comfortable prosperity.

When the distance between them narrowed to twenty meters, he suddenly trembled faintly, and sweat inexplicably appeared on his forehead.

Rather than alarmed, he looked delighted and said in puzzlement, "Not at the Heaven-Man realm..."

If a Supreme Master with the power to suppress yao truly stood before me, I would probably be unable even to speak. My entire body would go weak if I tried to flee!

Ding Songyan had already sheathed his sword. He laughed in a deliberately deep voice.

"A minor trick, hardly worth mentioning."

As though returning to his own home, he casually sat on a stone stool in the courtyard and looked at the arena master.

"Are you Hero Ou Luwen?"

"Did you come specifically to find me?" Ou Luwen was forthright enough to sit down as well.

The reclining chair began rocking on its own despite the lack of wind.

Ding Songyan inclined his head slightly.

"Master Xiaozhang asked me to come and speak with you."

Without waiting for Ou Luwen to respond, he glanced behind him.

"Nurture monsters, conceal true forms, and form a domain unto oneself?

"Is your great interest in stories connected to your cultivation art, Hero Ou?"

Through the Celestial Heart imprint’s illusion-piercing ability, he had already seen Ou Luwen’s true form: a pitch-black stone naturally riddled with apertures, though its exact origins remained unknown.

Illusion-piercing naturally countered methods that used illusions to conceal true forms. Arts relying upon genuine transformation were not so easily exposed, because the transformed appearance was no falsehood but completely real. At most, someone might notice a flaw, such as a fox tail that could not yet be fully hidden before the art reached lesser mastery.

Seeing Ding Songyan’s mild attitude and lack of hostility, Ou Luwen sighed.

"Yin and yang, mountains and rivers, form a realm unto themselves. Deriving a true Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth is extraordinarily difficult. It requires all manner of stories as its foundation before the illusion can approach reality closely enough to conceal the truth.

"This is also my Heaven-Man method. If I succeed, a world will form around me. Anyone who steps within will lose themselves in a mirage, enjoying an entire lifetime and never breaking free."

Forming a domain unto oneself carries something of creating one’s own world, but within the Mirage Dragon Illusory Realm, he still cannot truly turn illusion into reality... This has certain similarities to my Establishing the Six Directions and offers something worth learning. Mm, it could also add new variations to the Dream Sword and Nightmare Sword. I should find an opportunity to discuss this properly with Ou Luwen. When it comes to inventing stories, I have an enormous library of "reference material"... Ding Songyan considered his words before asking, "Does everyone have a different Heaven-Man method?"

"Different martial arts have different Heaven-Man methods, while each person must find their own path to the Spirit Platform." Ou Luwen now knew the person before him was not a Supreme Master and suspected he might be seeking a Heaven-Man method. Ou Luwen was generous and helpful by nature as a man—no, as a yao—so he did not conceal this information.

Ding Songyan sighed.

"I am almost tempted to hand Master Xiaozhang over to you, but since I promised to mediate on his behalf, I cannot go back on my word."

"A promise is worth its weight in gold. Naturally, you must honor it." Although Ou Luwen’s heart trembled and his limbs felt weak, he began to admire the man in the Golden Boy mask.

Ding Songyan thought it over and said, "Master Xiaozhang has not worked on those stories for years and has long since lost his touch. He cannot recover his former skill overnight, no matter how much you pressure him.

"Why not give him one year and require only one installment each month, allowing him to gradually recover his inspiration and skill? Let that serve as my reward for overcoming the Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth. What do you say?

"Master Xiaozhang actually has the same idea, but he remains unwilling to agree so easily and moved elsewhere last night to avoid you. If you find him again, however, he will comply."

"Agreed." Ou Luwen accepted without hesitation.

The man before him was at a similar cultivation level and possessed abilities that strongly suppressed yao. His willingness to speak civilly and negotiate showed a heroic heart and a refusal to abuse his advantage.

If Ou Luwen refused to settle matters gracefully, he might be made to.

Ding Songyan nodded gently and began casually discussing the matter of forming a domain unto oneself with Ou Luwen.

After a while, he picked up his sword, rose, and turned toward the building at the front.

The martial artists and idlers outside watched the man in the Golden Boy mask emerge at an unhurried pace and disappear around the corner. Confusion filled their faces, for none knew whether he had successfully overcome the challenge.

Less than fifteen minutes later, they suddenly saw the doors to the Immortal Realm of Hidden Truth slam shut.

Ou Luwen’s voice came from within.

"This arena is now closed."

What... The people outside looked at one another in bewilderment.

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