by Feng Yue
According to ancient literature, there was a radiant city here in the past. Innumerable people lived here and created a glorious culture. Sadly, the times changed. The once-fertile soil had become a barren desert through the changes of aether and rivers. There was no sign of the original glory. The city was now reduced to crumbling walls.
“Is this really the place that fed one hundred thousand citizens?” Ye Qingxuan looked around. He saw a small creek not too far away but the beach was covered white salt. It was undrinkable. Ye Qingxuan dismounted and reached out. He wet his fingers but almost threw up after tasting it.
It was extremely salty and bitter, with a pungent metallic and fishy smell. The underground water here was clearly not drinking water anymore. It might be close to standard after several filtrations, but the citizens here could not even afford it, let alone use it for irrigation. It was impossible to herd livestock or grow anything. Transportation to this place was difficult too. It was hard to develop an artisan industry. There were no specialties either.
“One-hundred thousand people? It’ll be hard to support a couple hundred, right?” Ye Qingxuan sighed. He rose and looked into the distance. An old woman was waddling over with a heavy wooden basket and a cane. Her head was lowered as she looked through the shrubs for wild plants to eat. When she occasionally chanced upon a palm-sized vegetable, it was like she had found a gem.
Ye Qingxuan stopped beside her. “Excuse me, how far it is to Oz?”
The old woman looked up and squinted at him for a long time with eyes covered in cataracts. Her accent was difficult to understand. Finally, she raised her finger and pointed in a direction. The general meaning was that it would take three hours by foot.
Ye Qingxuan nodded. She stared at him. Her gaze was not pleading or full of prayers. It was just blank. Ye Qingxuan could not help but feel sad.
He glanced at the basket on her back and saw dried vegetables, roots, and berries. “This is all you eat?”
“There’s nothing else to eat,” the old woman said unclearly. “It hasn’t rained in months. Everything’s dried out on the ground. No water either…” She looked down at the roots in her hands. “It’s all we can eat.”
Ye Qingxuan fell silent, not knowing what to say. He suddenly realized that it was a mistake to ask. So what if he knew the answer? He could not change anything. Even if he gave her money, what could she buy in the wilderness?
“Sorry.” He did not know why he said that either.
With one last glance, he mounted his horse. As he galloped away, he turned back and saw that the old woman was still standing there, staring at where he had stood. There was nothing there, but her rheumy eyes seemed to see something.
A drop of water fell onto Ye Qingxuan’s face. Stunned, he touched his face. It really was water. Water had fallen from the sky.
Gray clouds had gathered in the sky without him realizing. Thunder boomed in the distance like resounding horns and drums. No, it really was horns and drums.
Booming like thunder and whistling like wind, it roared in the sky and swept through the gray clouds and wind. Ripples appeared in the aether sea and performed a wild and coarse melody. The earth shook with the thunder.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ye Qingxuan froze. Raindrops the size of beans fell from the sky. One drop, two drops… The dry land instantly became wet under the rain. It was raining!
Under the thunderstorm, Ye Qingxuan stared at the clouds. A massive music theory made of aether and incredibly large formula was slowly being organized. The formula stirred the aether sea, guided power from the sky, transformed into wind and rain, extracted water from thunder and fire, and tossed down the countless water droplets. Rain fell in torrents.
“It’s raining?” On the barren land, an old woman dazedly reached out. Feeling the wetness on her hand, she looked up incredulously. A raindrop splashed onto her face, washing away the murkiness in her eyes, and rolled down like tears.
“It’s raining!” She danced and yelled happily, “It’s raining! It’s finally raining!”
326 The True Meaning Within
“It’s raining! Raining!” In Oz, a village in the wilderness, the villagers in rags cheered and worshipped the panting young man as if he was a god. The man had short hair, defined features, and dark skin.
Looking at the pouring rain, he plopped onto the ground. Mud splashed onto him. “Stop celebrating. I haven’t even grasped a bit of the essence from the movement The Tempest. This storm just uses the water vapor in the air. It can only last a few hours. Hurry and collect the water.”
The villagers froze before hurrying back to their homes and flipping through the cabinets for anything that could hold water. The bustling place quickly emptied. Only the young man remained.
“Hey, at least help me up?” he muttered as he pulled himself up. Looking at the large alchemy array surrounding him, his expression twisted in pain. This was enough to buy an entire village, and he had used it all up for a rainstorm. But seeing how these people acted as if they had been saved, he did not know how to ask for money.
“Teacher was right. Doing unprofitable things makes you happy for a while and sad for a lifetime. It took me forever to borrow all that money…and now it’s all gone?” He slapped the mud on him. It quickly dried and fell off; his clothing was as good as new. When the pouring rain fell onto him, it transformed into water vapor and disappeared. “Thankfully Auschwitz is only half a day away. Otherwise, I’d really have to beg for food.”
He felt around his pocket bitterly and realized that it was cleaner than his face. Behind him came the sound of horse hooves hitting mud. He looked back. There, a youth held back his horse and stared back at him. He looked like an Indian with a bunch of weapons on his saddle. He looked like a musician but a musician would not have so many cumbersome weapons. He looked like an arms seller but it did not feel right.
“Who are you?”
“Me?” The young man smiled and adjusted his turban. “An Indian who sells swords. You?”
“Sam,” the man replied seriously. “Everyone calls me Hammer. You…are you here to challenge me too? Let’s start after I take a break.”
Ye Qingxuan thought for a moment and shook his head. What a joke! Challenging a Resonance level musician under this situation? It was Modifications which countered him the most too. He would rather pass.
Seeing Ye Qingxuan shake his head, Sam’s expression grew regretful. “What a pity.”
“Huh?”
He looked at Ye Qingxuan longingly. “Before I left, my teacher told me that if I meet musicians who challenge me, I have to beat them. I can take their money and belongings too…”
Wait, what kind of logic is this? Your teacher has problems too! With that logic, does your school come from bandits?
“Uh…” After some hesitation, Ye Qingxuan asked, “Actually, I have a question.”
“Huh?”
“If you need water, why did you do all that to make rain?” Ye Qingxuan asked seriously. “Wouldn’t it be easier to find the right place and make a well?”
Sam froze. He gaped at Ye Qingxuan. His eyes were filled with shock and respect. There was also a tinge of enlightenment and confusion. Basically, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ was written all over him.
“You can do that?” he exclaimed, hitting his head. “Why didn’t I think of that?!”
This isn’t a matter of thinking of it! Friend, how badly do you lack common sense? Ye Qingxuan wanted to insult him but he could only chuckle and move on.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, something flashed in the sky. Lightning streaked across the sky. The surging aether waves had reached their climax and somehow began transforming with the earth-shattering boom. They instantly heard the sound of crystallization. It seemed that something had come to this world under the guidance of the waves.
“No…way?” When Sam processed everything, he gazed at Ye Qingxuan blankly. Ye Qingxuan could not believe it either. He wiped his face
and said, “Let’s check it out first.” He turned his horse around and galloped toward the direction of the sound.
Sam’s body shot up like a rock. He was enveloped in layers of gas and crashed forward in the same direction. An instant later, he dropped from the sky, creating a giant hole. He landed ungracefully and stumbled. He quickly climbed up and pounced toward the sensing.
Immediately after, the youth covered in electricity activated the Governor and sprinted over. He landed beside Sam soundlessly. The two stared at the thing before them and held their breaths.
It was a long, long silence. The rain continued to fall and drenched them.
Sam took a deep breath and sighed. “Worth it.”
-
The heavy and freezing torrential rain turned the earth into a swamp. Ye Qingxuan and Sam lay on the ground and stared at the thing before them like idiots. Before them was a blooming sunflower. It seemed to grow from nothing. The lower the stem went, the more translucent it became. In the end, it became nothing. However, the giant pale yellow petals bloomed like the sun.
It seemed to glow in the darkness shrouded by black clouds. It was too beautiful to look at directly or touch. Rain and wind passed through it like illusions, unable to move it. It was so small but the entire world seemed illusory in comparison.
After staring for a long time, Sam said with uncertainty, “Is it really…”
“Yes, it’s the Cereus.” Ye Qingxuan nodded. He reached out to feel the ‘sunflower’ but his fingers went through it as if it was air. In his vision, he saw his hand dissipate to fog before the flower and regroup after leaving it. The flower was the one that did not exist. However, before it, everything else turned into apparitions. It made no sense but it was real.
Ye Qingxuan sighed. “One of the four living natural catastrophes, the Cereus.”
-
To musicians, the categories and names of natural catastrophes were a required course. Some natural catastrophes were kept secret for various reasons but most were not. This included the Cereus.
In reality, it was way at the bottom of the danger list, along with the Star Ring. The latter was an aether river in the sky; the former was a mysterious plant. They had no effect on mankind. Except for providing topics to discuss.
The true body of the Cereus did not exist in the material world. What they saw now was just a projection from the aether world, like an object’s shadow when sunlight fell upon it. Different from Hyakume, it had no influence other than the fact that it looked like a plant. It never reacted to interferences or interacted with other things. It even ignored the other natural catastrophes. Nothing could touch it either.
According to observational records, it appeared through pure coincidence. It would appear periodically anywhere that had an overly high density of aether and messy music theory. It would appear silently, bloom silently, wither silently, and disappear silently.
It would be categorized as a ‘phenomenon’ like the Silver White Tide rather than one of the four living things if not for its various botanical characteristics, such as growing toward the light.
“What a miracle.” After gaping for a long time, Sam nodded in satisfaction. “Teacher was right. It always maintains distance between itself and the outer world. It looks like a hair’s breadth away, but no matter how you approach it, the distance will never disappear. It doesn’t want anything to do with anything.”
“Really?” Ye Qingxuan replied mechanically as he stared at the Cereus. He did not even know what Sam had said. The man seemed to say a lot before realizing that Ye Qingxuan was not listening. This ‘Indian’ youth sprawled in the mud and stared at the Cereus with fiery eyes as if it was a diamond. He murmured something and wild waves of aether rippled around him. He seemed to have received something. Enlightenment?
Sam was a little dazed. How could someone receive enlightenment from something like this? It was too weird.
Actually, it was totally worth it for most musicians to go thousands of miles to personally see the Cereus. However, it was just a rare sight for most. After all, not being able to interfer it meant not being able to research it. They could not even touch it. Without its appearance, it basically did not exist. And what value did nonexistent things have?
After thinking for a long time, Sam left without bothering Ye Qingxuan anymore.
Ye Qingxuan remained in the mud. He stared at the sunflower before him and mumbled something, deep in thought. Only the rain sounded in the silence.
As it pitter-pattered and the aether waves changed, the Cereus bloomed and slowly began to wilt. The petals withered, fell, and scattered in the wind. The flower bloomed and wilted.
Ye Qingxuan stared as the Cereus disappeared. The petals faded one by one as well. In the end, he could barely see the Cereus’s silhouette clearly. The final dreamy golden petal fell, withered, and floated in the wind.
Ye Qingxuan reached out mindlessly. His thumb and forefinger closed around the floating petal. He seemed to catch it but, at the same time, did not. The hallucinatory petal disappeared.
Ye Qingxuan remained in his position. He stared at his fingers blankly as if the nonexistent petal was still there. “I see,” he whispered.
Boom! A thunderous sound shot out from his throat. The rain on him shook, turned around, and spread into the sky like fire! These were flames transformed from water vapor. Amidst the fire-like rain, the youth’s eyes lit up.
“This is how it is…this is the change of aether, interference of nature!” This was the core essence of the School of Abstinence! To this school, everything on this world was an image of aether. Therefore, there was no difference in nature. Everything could be constructed through music theory and could be changed through interference of nature. Therefore, by changing music theory, he could create fire and burn the rain.
The Cereus’s existence seemed to be still, but that was only to the ‘outer world.’ It was actually maintaining its independence by continuously changing its nature, stubbornly keeping distance from the world and breaking the connection of theory.
It was like a moat. It was on that side while everything else was on the other side. They could see each other but could not meet. What linked this process was the essence of ‘interference of nature.’
During his moment of enlightenment, the unclear understanding he had received during his days in the Naica Cave of the Crystals and his deepest confusion were linked together.
Ye Qingxuan had finally touched upon the core of the Seven Questions for Musicians—the true meaning behind the question of ‘abandon oneself.’
Since everything in mankind’s eyes was constructed by aether, then did this include himself? Did the concept of ‘self’ come from aether as well? He sank into deep thought.
327 Retreat When Difficult?
The camp outside Auschwitz was under the same thunderstorm that night. The high gray walls were covered by dark clouds. There was only darkness in the world; there were no stars or moonlight. Only darkness and rain.
One could see countless raindrops falling from the sky and the dim lights of the grouping area through the city gate that was ajar. The city gate was dozens of meters high and seemed to be made of iron. It was rusted from years of wind and rain. Without maintenance, it was practically impossible to push now. They could only manage a crack a meter in width for people to pass through.
The lights were dim under the rain but illuminated the figures standing before the gate. Their clothing was all different. They had come from all over the world; the only similarity was the almost tangible aether waves and animosity exuding from them.
Even if they had a truce, sparks practically flew from their eyes when they stood together. It was obvious that if someone made a move, the others would break out without any hesitation. However, they were restraining themselves now and no one shattered the truce.
They were all participants in the Auschwitz trial—the strong ones who survived the journey here. The others had all died, retreated, or esca
ped. Those who could remain here were the next generation of elites and prodigies from each school. They represented the dignity and pride of their schools. If one overlooked the musicians who had already become accomplished, the musicians present would be the mainstay of the next generation in twenty years. They represented the future of each school. This was why they forced themselves to be calm and…‘unite’ to some extent. This would lessen the problems later in the trial.
According to the proposer Colt Flagg, the journey here was difficult for everyone so why create new enemies?
Many of the hot picks of the trial were moved by his words and came here so they could keep all variables outside Auschwitz before the deadline. Simply put, they would make the unqualified ones give up after finding out how difficult it was.
The participants included Colt Flagg, Revelations musician and representative of the Rock Institute; Choir musician Paul Bunyan from the archipelago; the Hauser brothers, Summoning musicians from Burgundy; Ariana, a Mind Musician; Rebecca, representative of the School of Illusion Voodoo Crypt; and more.
Most people would be smart and turn around as soon as they saw this group. Even if they didn’t, it was okay. They would just be invited into a friendly duel before entering Auschwitz. Private battles were not allowed inside the city so was it better to create the winner beforehand? Of course, they did not go overboard. Unlike the secret fatal attacks in the wilderness, they would stop once the point was across.
“After all, the Sacred City is watching.” Someone looked up into the sky with a half-smile.
-
Thunder clapped amongst the pure black clouds. The rain poured in sheets. Occasionally, lightning would streak across, illuminating the figures flying in the air.
They had strange postures and seemed to come from different places. However, they all radiated with strong aether waves that slightly distorted the material world, changing it into the aether realm. This was a Scepter’s power. They were all of the Scepter level! But in this solemn atmosphere, someone suddenly sneezed and pathetically took out a handkerchief to blow his nose.