Chapter 205: True One Magic Treasure—Dream-Like Order!

"Big Brother! I was truly wrong!"

The woman knelt down with extreme speed.

Li Fei stepped forward, suddenly reached out to grab her by the neck, and then violently dragged her into the private room.

Slap!

Li Fei turned and shut the door.

The woman's expression finally changed, revealing a look of terror:

"It's all a misunderstanding, you..."

Li Fei did not give her another chance to speak; he grabbed her neck with one hand and lifted her up, leaving her feet off the ground.

Although the woman knew how to use techniques, she only possessed the physique of an ordinary person and was completely unable to break free. She grabbed Li Fei's arm, and because of the suffocation, her neck and face quickly became congested and flushed red.

Li Fei held the woman with one hand while taking a small medicine bottle from his bosom with the other. He poured out a pill and, amidst her terrified gaze, forcibly fed it to her.

"Cough, cough, cough, cough—"

After Li Fei let go, the woman knelt on the ground, coughing violently.

Li Fei snatched the black wooden token from her hand.

The material of the wooden token was very strange; it had wood grain, but its hardness was no less than steel. It was imprinted with two ancient seal characters that Li Fei did not recognize.

"What did you feed me?!"

The woman finally recovered and looked up to ask Li Fei.

"Poison."

Li Fei looked down at her from above and said calmly:

"With your constitution, if you don't have the antidote within half an hour, you will surely die, and it will be very painful before you pass."

The woman's expression changed drastically, and she hurriedly explained:

"It's all a misunderstanding! I was at my wit's end and desperately needed money, which is why I took the risk. That technique just now would only have made you faint; it wouldn't have truly harmed you. I only wanted to take back this bag of things; I never intended to take your life!"

"I said, I already gave you a chance, and you didn't cherish it."

Li Fei sat down expressionlessly. "From now on, you answer whatever I ask. If your answers don't satisfy me, just wait to be poisoned to death."

"I am a disciple of the Nightmare Sect. If you kill me, my sect will absolutely not let you off!"

Seeing that Li Fei was determined, the woman immediately threatened him sternly.

Li Fei looked at her with calm eyes: "Today, I've set my mind on you. Even if you were a True Person's personal disciple, it would be useless. I said so."

"You..."

Looking at Li Fei's calm eyes and feeling the determination within them, the woman realized that this time she had truly kicked an iron plate.

A sudden cramp in her abdomen caused her to moan, and sweat began to bead on her forehead.

"The poison is starting to take effect. You don't have much time left."

Li Fei 'kindly' reminded her.

"Fine, what do you want to ask?"

The woman finally yielded.

"Your name, your background."

"My name is Zhao Yi, I come from the Nightmare Sect in Qing Province, and I am the nineteenth-generation successor of the Nightmare Sect!"

Zhao Yi said with difficulty, clutching her stomach.

Qing Province was a province neighboring Feng Province.

"Why would a disciple of a major sect be at such a dead end that you'd resort to theft?"

Li Fei continued to ask.

"I was eager for quick success and wanted to buy an elixir for breaking through realms, but I didn't have enough money, which is why I did this."

Zhao Yi spoke at a rapid pace.

"Why didn't you ask your sect for help?"

"The Nightmare Sect didn't have the elixir I needed, and they would only have advised me to cultivate step by step."

"Why are you in such a rush to break through your realm?"

"To take revenge!"

"What kind of revenge?"

"An enemy killed my entire family, but the other party is also in a major power. The Nightmare Sect couldn't help me, so I had to rely on myself."

"What is this wooden token?"

"This is a magic treasure of the Nightmare Sect, called the Dream-Like Order."

"Why did you run to Feng Province to steal money?"

"It's not exactly honorable, after all. Being far from the sect makes it harder to be discovered."

"Good. Tell me in detail where you were born, when you entered the Nightmare Sect, and how you got in."

"... hy do you want to know so much?"

"If I tell you to speak, then speak."

"... was born in Pangbei City in Qing Province..."

Zhao Yi began to answer Li Fei's questions one by one.

Li Fei asked her many details, and she answered them fluently.

A few minutes later, the toxicity of the Nether Spring Poison intensified, and Zhao Yi was drenched in sweat from the pain:

"I've answered everything! Can you give me the antidote now?!"

"No rush, let's go through it again."

Li Fei said flatly.

Zhao Yi stared at him angrily: "What exactly do you want?"

Li Fei did not answer and continued to ask about some of the details he had already inquired about.

After interrogating that spy from the Meijia Kingdom last time, he felt it was necessary to learn some interrogation techniques; he might use them in the future.

Therefore, afterward, he specifically found several books on interrogation through Li Lei and spent time studying them.

At this moment, he was using an interrogation technique on Zhao Yi: confirming whether the other party was lying by repeatedly asking about certain details.

Furthermore, during the second round of questioning, Li Fei mixed in some of the information Zhao Yi had provided earlier, intentionally getting it wrong to lure her into making a mistake.

Under the condition of being poisoned and in unbearable pain throughout her body, it is very difficult for a person to concentrate, and the difficulty of weaving lies is high. Coupled with the professional interrogation techniques Li Fei was using, unless she was a very strictly trained spy, she absolutely could not lie in this situation!

"In what year did your master, Zheng Gao, give you the Dream-Like Order?"

"... he forty-first year of Hongguang."

"You just said it was the forty-second year of Hongguang."

"I, I remembered wrong! Give me the antidote quickly!"

"No, you are lying. Your master is not named Zheng Gao; you just said your uncle was named Zheng Gao."

"I, I misspoke, I'm in too much pain, a slip of the tongue! My, my master is named Fan Guo, and my uncle is named Zheng Gao."

"No, I was tricking you. You just said your master was named Zheng Gao."

"... ou!"

"You can keep making it up; I can afford to wait."

Li Fei looked calmly at Zhao Yi, who was already slumped on the ground.

This woman did indeed have some quick wit, and even her improvised lies could sound plausible, but unfortunately, she had encountered him, someone who understood caution.

In the end, she still gave herself away.

"You, you are just a pervert!"

Zhao Yi couldn't help but curse.

"You have less than twenty minutes before the poison kills you."

Li Fei remained unmoved and said calmly.

"What, what do you want exactly?!"

Zhao Yi's voice finally carried a sobbing tone; her emotions were nearing collapse.

"I want you to tell the truth."

"... am indeed named Zhao Yi, and what I learned is indeed the technique of the Nightmare Sect, but I am not a member of the Nightmare Sect."

"Where are you from?"

"I am from Datong Prefecture!"

"..."

Next, Li Fei repeatedly questioned Zhao Yi according to the interrogation techniques he had learned. Only after confirming that she was telling the truth did he give her the antidote.

This woman named Zhao Yi was also only seventeen years old this year; she was an orphan from Datong Prefecture who had been adopted by an old Daoist priest.

The old Daoist priest had taught Zhao Yi knowledge related to techniques since she was young, and when she turned fifteen, he even found an implant for her, allowing her to formally step onto the path of cultivation.

But not long after, the old Daoist priest died due to qi deviation while practicing, and only before he died did he tell Zhao Yi his true identity.

This old Daoist priest was named Zhao Renjie, and he was a traitor to the Nightmare Sect.

Eleven years ago, due to a moment of greed, Zhao Renjie stole the Nightmare Sect's supreme treasure—the Dream-Like Order.

From then on, he defected from the sect and fled to Feng Province.

Over these years, Zhao Renjie lived under an assumed name within Datong Prefecture, possessing powerful skills but not daring to show his face, fearing that he would be found by people from the Nightmare Sect.

He never stopped thinking about using the Dream-Like Order to break through his realm so that he could walk in the world openly, but unfortunately, his aptitude was insufficient, and in the end, he fell short of success.

Zhao Yi inherited all of his estate, and relying on sorcery and the Dream-Night Order, she took up the trade of thievery on the train.

As for the reason she stole money, it was much the same as what she had said before: it was to scrape together funds to purchase the resources needed for cultivation.

Martial cultivation is already expensive enough, but cultivating sorcery is even more expensive than martial arts!

Every time one practices sorcery, it consumes precious materials, and these materials are money. Besides that, the daily maintenance of the Dream-Night Order also requires money; this is even more costly than raising a martial artist.

There might be rogue cultivators in martial arts, but there are almost no rogue cultivators in sorcery, because it is simply too difficult to earn the money required for cultivation by relying on one's own strength alone.

"You say this Dream-Night Order is the supreme treasure of the Nightmare Sect; is there any story behind it?"

Li Fei held up the black wooden plaque in his hand and asked.

Although the poison had been neutralized, Zhao Yi still looked at Li Fei with fearful eyes.

Now, in her eyes, this guy who looked full of integrity and absolutely like a good person was simply the most terrifying devil!

"This Dream-Night Order is different from ordinary magic tools; it is a True-One Magic Tool."

Zhao Yi honestly cleared up Li Fei's confusion, not daring to lie again.

Only after sorcery cultivation reaches the Possession Realm can one refine magic tools.

Martial artists in the Dao Foundation Realm constantly incorporate different implants to construct their martial foundation, while Great Mages in the Possession Realm similarly constantly integrate new implants into their magic tools, thereby strengthening the magic tools and eventually refining them into their life-bound magic tools.

Only by gestating a 'True Spirit' can it be called a life-bound magic tool; this is the origin of the name 'True Spirit Realm'.

Further on, the True Spirit of the magic tool continuously grows stronger until it transforms from acquired to innate, becoming a magic treasure; the path of sorcery is then considered to have stepped from the 'True Spirit Realm' into the 'True-One Realm', and one can be called a True Monarch!

If a True Monarch falls, the life-bound magic treasure they left behind will drop from innate back to acquired, turning back into a magic tool.

But this kind of magic tool is naturally more powerful than other magic tools, and it is also easier to be refined into a magic treasure again.

Because this kind of magic tool was left behind by a True Monarch of the 'True-One Realm', it is called a 'True-One Magic Tool'.

Every True-One Magic Tool is a sect's supreme treasure, which can be passed down from generation to generation to preserve the hope for the sect to produce a True Monarch again!

"With such a good thing, Zhao Renjie was still just a Great Mage of the Possession Realm before he died?"

Li Fei asked doubtfully.

If the other party could become a True Person of the True Spirit Realm, relying on the Dream-Night Order, he would no longer fear the Nightmare Sect and would not have to hide his head and show his tail; in that case, his name would certainly have resounded throughout the entire Feng Province long ago.

Zhao Yi sneered:

"The old man dreamed his whole life of stepping onto the peak of sorcery and becoming a True Monarch of the current age, but his aptitude was too poor; even becoming a True Person was a struggle. Although a True-One Magic Tool is powerful, wanting to refine it into one's own life-bound magic tool is more difficult than a normal breakthrough. The old man's aptitude was poor to begin with, and he chose the hardest path to walk, so he spent eleven years and still didn't succeed."

Li Fei nodded, understanding.

A True-One Magic Tool only has a natural advantage in the step of becoming a magic treasure; before that, using it to break through realms is actually even more difficult.

"If the old man had died later, I would definitely have broken through to the Divine Transformation Realm long ago, and today I would never have fallen into your hands no matter what!"

Zhao Yi suddenly said with a look of resentment and injustice.

She had only used one year to break through from the Embryo-Nurturing Realm all the way to the late stage of the Body-Breaking Realm; afterwards, if it weren't for Zhao Renjie dying and her having no one to guide her, she might really be a mage of the Divine Transformation Realm by now. This aptitude was indeed very good, and she was qualified to mock Zhao Renjie's lack of aptitude.

Li Fei was noncommittal upon hearing this, fiddling with the Dream-Night Order in his hand, his mood quite good.

He hadn't expected that he would encounter such a thing as picking up a treasure just by going out; he had thought only protagonists in novels had such treatment.

"If you want to save your life next, tell me the cultivation techniques of the Nightmare Sect, as well as how to maintain and use this Dream-Night Order."

Li Fei said to Zhao Yi in a flat tone.

(End of chapter)