Chapter 68: What a Waste of Your Maxed-Out Consciousness Body

by cnwebnovels

The powerful whirlwind grew faster by the second, visibly so. This was no longer a matter of applying force of consciousness—the whirlwind itself had begun violently drawing on both our reserves.

The clatter of colliding debris inside the vortex grew louder and louder. The whole City Lord’s Castle could probably hear it.

Black and White Wuchang couldn’t help creeping back. They crouched outside the hall doors, peering in through the crack, one above the other.

Inside, neither of us could stop. We’d both lost control of it. Because whoever let go of their power wouldn’t just lose—they’d take a massive backlash. That kind of injury struck the consciousness body directly, far more agonizing than any wound to the flesh, and it would carry through to the true consciousness body back in the real world. After all, the metaverse itself was nothing but a stage for the human mind.

Watching the situation spiral out of control, we were both drenched in sweat, staring at each other with rising alarm.

The man who’d shape-shifted into a statue had long since returned to human form, and even his sitting posture had grown unsteady.

Then, out of nowhere, an enormous illusory finger reached in and touched down lightly at the vortex’s center. The whirlwind seemed to hit some invisible brake and slowly ground to a halt.

Only then did the man on the altar and I feel the weight lift. We each drew back our force of consciousness and turned, utterly spent, toward whoever had extended that giant finger.

The owner of the finger stepped out from behind a screen at the rear of the hall—an ordinary human size. Clearly, the illusory finger had been nothing more than his force of consciousness given visible shape.

He was a Daoist in blue robes, with a very long beard, holding in his other hand a horsetail whisk white as jade. He had the bearing of an immortal sage.

The man on the altar was the first to scramble down. He bowed deeply to the Daoist. “City Lord. Your disciple has embarrassed you.”

The Daoist smiled faintly, lifted a hand, and sent a stream of energy toward him to help restore what he’d lost. Then he turned to me. “I didn’t expect even a rank-ten force of consciousness to hold you down. You truly are extraordinary.”

This fellow was so preoccupied with his disciple he hadn’t even glanced my way. I was worn out too, so I didn’t bother answering. I sat on the cushion, closed my eyes, and slowly recovered on my own.

The Daoist said to me, “I am Feng Du, the Lord of Ghostdark City.”

The city lord—this strong? His force of consciousness could take physical form.

Privately, I was glad I’d come along. If I’d refused Black and White Wuchang and let this man come knocking himself, that would have been an embarrassment.

“Greetings, City Lord,” I said. “But I’m injured and can’t stand, so I’ll skip the bow.”

Feng Du wasn’t in any hurry. He sent his disciple away first, then settled himself heavily onto the altar and looked at me.

“An hour ago,” he said, “the Inspection Pavilion sent word that a Spirit-Calibrating Ruler in Ghostdark City had read a full-scale measurement. I was somewhat skeptical. Now I believe it.”

I looked at him. “You called me here just to test me?”

“Not quite,” Feng Du said. “The test only confirmed whether the report was true. I wanted to see for myself what sort of anomaly could produce a reading that abnormal.”

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” I said. “What do you want?”

“I want to know who you are,” Feng Du said. “Don’t spin a story—just tell me what you yourself know. The Shadow Pavilion is waiting on my report.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed,” I said. “I have no intention of telling you anything.”

“No need to be so arrogant,” Feng Du said. “It’s not as though I don’t already know your record. I only want what lies beyond it. Since you won’t talk, let me lay it out for you. You may correct me wherever I’m wrong.

“Your real name is Gu Beichen. You came from the Mundane World. Correct? And in the Mundane World, without ever installing a Wisdom Capsule, you somehow learned same-frequency sensing and penetrating-wave ability on your own—then secretly replicated the Sweepers’ various skills inside their own base. That alone defies explanation. A normal human brain isn’t built for that. What’s stranger still, while mastering invisibility, you also learned to shield your own consciousness body. Even Soul Hunters can’t manage that. Among elite people, only those from the Shadow Pavilion can. That is deeply abnormal.

“We keep a complete Sweeper management system. Your file was forwarded to the Shadow Pavilion long ago. I’ve studied your history myself and still can’t account for it. That’s why I was sent to confirm it in person.

“But naturally, what interests me more is how you did any of this at all. Who is your true body? You definitely aren’t a person. I mean, neither an elite person nor an ordinary person. You probably simply aren’t human. So tell me: what exactly are you? Who are you?”

“If you’re looking to pick a fight and hurl insults, be my guest,” I said. “I can’t beat you anyway, but I can trade insults just fine. You’re the one who isn’t human. Your whole family isn’t human!”

“See,” Feng Du said, “you’ve gotten worked up. I wasn’t insulting you at all. I was reasoning with you. Perhaps you yourself don’t even know that you aren’t human—which is why you assume I’m mocking you. Let me offer an analogy. My family once kept a pet dog, raised from a pup to old age. Quite adorable. We all loved it dearly. But we always knew it was a dog. The dog itself, however, never knew. It believed to the end that it was one of us—a person. It guarded the door, watched the house, even squeezed itself into every family photo. Your understanding of yourself right now is exactly like that dog’s.”

“You’re the dog,” I said. “Your whole family are dogs! Don’t take offense—I’m not really insulting you either. Since you want to reason it out, let me break it down for you. None of you actually understand this. In a dog’s eyes, you’re not just dogs—you’re a whole pack of foolish dogs. A dog does nothing its entire life. It simply waits for you to wait on it: food, medicine, playtime, every last need attended to. You even call yourselves poop-scoopers. Meanwhile, you wear yourselves ragged every single day just to get by, and on top of that you still find time to play with the dog. You think you’re the superior species, but really, the dog is exploiting that very belief of yours to coast through life untroubled. You think the dog understands nothing? Wrong. The dog lets you believe that on purpose. It uses cuteness as a weapon to control you, nests itself inside your household, and manipulates your whole family into serving it without lifting a paw.”

Feng Du’s expression darkened.

“I have no wish to quarrel with you,” he said. “We’re both adults here. I’m merely discussing an academic matter with you—trying to understand where your abnormality comes from.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “If you know, feel free to tell me. Because I’d genuinely like to find out myself.”

Feng Du studied my face for a long moment before finally speaking. “Perhaps that last remark of yours was sincere. It seems we won’t get much further today. Very well. We don’t intend to make things difficult for you—we simply want to observe you. You’re free to come and go as you please. But I’d like you to take up a post here in Ghostdark City. Choose whatever you like, from judge to Yama King. If you’d rather open a shop and do business, that’s fine too.”

I was caught off guard. “You’re being this generous? You’d even hand me an official title?”

“We’re not necessarily your enemies,” Feng Du said. “Besides, the Inspection Pavilion only asked us to look into you, not to detain you. Your resistance background is no secret—your entire history is, in fact, transparent to us. We know it well. So long as you don’t personally join the resistance, that’s all that matters. Otherwise, you become an enemy. Your gifts would become a weapon, and there would be no place left in heaven or earth willing to shelter you.”

Given what he’d said, I saw no reason to provoke him further.

There was no point to it anyway. I couldn’t beat him.

Still, I wondered—what exactly was this man’s background? Who was his true body back in the real world?

And who, or what, was the Inspection Pavilion? Inspectors dispatched by the Shadow Pavilion itself?

“Well then, if there’s nothing else,” I said, “I’ll be on my way. If I ever decide I want a post here, I’ll come find you.”

“Come or don’t, as you please,” Feng Du said. “Still, let me offer one small suggestion. You ought to take a proper look around Ghostdark City. Since you’ve already come this far to the City Lord’s Castle, why not see more of it? Others would kill for a chance like this, and never get it.”

I smiled. “Why the sudden kindness? Offering me an official post, giving me a free tour?”

“I already told you,” Feng Du said. “We only want to observe you, to understand your true nature. Naturally, we’d rather you stay somewhere within our sight.”

“But why should I cooperate with you at all?”

“Because it would benefit you a great deal,” Feng Du said. “Ghostdark City is buried several kilometers underground. Surely you don’t imagine it was built merely to gather a few casinos and settle disputes?”

I paused. “Wasn’t it?”

“Who has that kind of time to waste?” Feng Du said. “I’ll tell you the truth. The real purpose behind Ghostdark City is to harvest force of consciousness. As for you—your consciousness body may be astonishingly thick, but your force of consciousness itself is seriously lacking. You struggled that hard against a mere rank-ten. What a waste of your maxed-out consciousness body.”

“Now that,” I said, “has genuinely caught my interest. But I don’t understand. How exactly does Ghostdark City harvest force of consciousness?”

“The harvesting comes from spillover,” Feng Du said. “If the whole world were filled with peaceful people, then—as the Buddhists say—there would be no clinging to appearances, and very little force of consciousness would spill out. And people at peace tend to seek out open, spacious places. How would you harvest anything from them? But gather a great many obsessive, extreme personalities into a sealed, confined space, where people openly display their rage and cling hard to appearances, and a great deal spills out. That’s why this place is so saturated with it.”

“Is that so?” I asked. “Then why can’t I sense it?”

“Because your insight into force of consciousness is still lacking,” Feng Du said. “What is force of consciousness, after all? Nothing more than four things: cognition and control, the driving force of will, psychological awareness and regulation, and the activation of subconscious energy. Only by placing yourself among the suffering, the obsessive, and the extreme can you rapidly perceive and understand those four aspects on the same frequency, thereby improving your own force of consciousness. Understand this: force of consciousness is, at its root, a form of self-perception. And Ghostdark City is the finest place there is for that kind of experiential insight.”

I hadn’t expected this at all. I’d braced myself for a brutal fight, and instead not only had hostility turned to peace, but I’d walked away with no small amount of insight into growing my force of consciousness.

Sincerely, I said, “My thanks for your teaching, City Lord. I understand now. You won’t mind if I look around—including your City Lord’s Castle?”

“Encouraging you to explore this place was my own suggestion,” Feng Du said. “I won’t interfere. But if you run into trouble or danger, don’t expect help from me either. That will be entirely your own affair.”

I cupped my hands in salute and walked out of the Northern Yin Fengdu Office.