Chapter 168: Innate Third Layer, Exploring the Mirage Sea Again

True Qi circulated and surged throughout Chen Mo's body, with the Heaven and Earth Mechanism churning back and forth within him.

His cultivation had just broken through; he had now stepped into the Innate Third Realm, and his own strength had increased slightly.

This was merely a minor realm, without any major bottlenecks, so the breakthrough was not considered difficult.

However, upon reaching this realm, the Heaven and Earth Mechanism within a Martial Artist's dantian is sufficiently full.

As long as he is given some time to polish his cultivation, he can then consider attempting to break through to the Xiantian Fourth Layer, causing the dantian to sublimate and transform into a Purple Mansion.

Exhaling a long breath of turbid air to conclude this period of closed-door cultivation, Chen Mo put away his Putan and stood up, walking toward the outside of the cultivation chamber.

A crescent moon hung in the sky, and the entire world was incomparably quiet, save for the roaring and howling of the night Wind.

High above in the heavens, countless snowflakes drifted down with the wind; it was now the end of the winter month, the coldest days of the year.

Dressed in a cyan martial outfit, Chen Mo stepped through the air and left the Capital.

The Capital is protected by an Array, so one truly cannot fly at will, but he possessed the Son of Heaven Dharma Sword, so the Array could not harm him.

Chen Mo's speed was extremely fast; in just a moment, he was hundreds of miles away from the Capital, arriving near a military camp.

This military camp was one he had personally arranged for the Imperial Guards to station in, and even the barracks had only been built recently; there were about two thousand people in the camp now.

With his current strength, exploring this Mirage Sea should not pose too great a danger.

If he could pass through it steadily, or even with ease, then Chen Mo would consider exploring a Mirage Sea of about two thousand five hundred people.

The origin of the Mirage Sea cannot be traced; according to what Chen Mo saw in that Mirage Mirror back then, the Mirage Sea was brought about by a drop of blood.

Yet no one knows to whom that drop of blood belonged, or specifically where it came from.

These matters, let alone in their current era, remained an unsolved mystery even several eras ago.

Perhaps some supreme expert once explored the source of this drop of blood, but as countless amounts of time passed, this information was not passed down.

Later generations no longer know the specific origin of the Mirage Sea, only that it is extremely dangerous within.

All kinds of bizarre creations and living beings evolve within it, and its very existence is an erosion of the world.

Because the world is being eroded, many rules are distorted, making the resistance to the Mirage Sea weaker, and some creatures from the Mirage Sea can even arrive in the present world.

For example, that human-skin lantern was something that should not have appeared; it was only because of the Mirage Sea's erosion of the world that these strange things that should not exist appeared.

Chen Mo looked up at the sky; on the crescent moon emitting blood-colored light, a black shadow loomed hazily.

That black shadow is also an external manifestation of the Mirage Sea's erosion of this world's laws; if this black shadow were to cover it, the entire moon would be completely transformed into a deep red.

Then, by that time, the boundless Mirage Sea Water would likely have already submerged the vast majority of this world's regions, with only a few Ruins Realms and Dongtian Fudi able to linger on for another dozen years or so.

Chen Mo did not fully activate his eyes, merely keeping them within the range of being able to see the black shadow.

Because if he were to try to peer into the black shadow on the moon with all his might, he might fall directly into the Mirage Sea himself.

And under the current circumstances, it would be impossible to say what the situation would be like in the Mirage Sea he entered.

Perhaps several eras ago, predecessors had explored it, and information regarding it had been passed out.

But in this era, while experts have accidentally fallen into it, no one has ever returned alive.

Therefore, the situation regarding that place is completely unknown.

The exploration of the Mirage Sea by the experts of this world only remains at the surface, without entering into a deeper layer.

According to information left by predecessors, although it is unclear exactly how many layers the Mirage Sea has, it is certain that there is definitely more than one.

The interior may contain even more bizarre things, or perhaps scenes completely different from the outside world, and it may even contain the true source and cause of the Mirage Sea.

But to investigate these things requires extremely strong power.

Chen Mo can only stay in the outer layer of the Mirage Sea for now, so naturally, he is far from qualified to investigate such secrets.

In fact, since there have been records in this era, the surface Mirage Sea explored by Martial Artists has never exceeded thirty thousand people—merely the scale of a small city.

And even that was just exploration; they did not disturb too many Mirage Beasts within, otherwise, they might not have returned alive.

There is no help for it; the Mirage Sea is too strong, and the experts of this era are too weak.

They have various methods left behind by predecessors and know how to disperse it for a short time when the Mirage Sea's erosive power against the world grows stronger day by day.

But these are just following a map to find a horse; when it comes to the exploration and utilization of the Mirage Sea, they are far inferior to their predecessors.

Fortunately, there is still the Heaven and Earth Profound Gate; once this gate is pushed open, it can connect to other worlds to resist the erosion of the Mirage Sea together.

To push open this Heaven and Earth Profound Gate requires extremely strong power; likewise, the ancestors of past generations have left countless secret treasures and information within the Heaven and Earth Profound Gate.

It can even be said that the resource accumulation of several eras is stored within it, intended to be left for future generations to use.

Because when an era reaches its end and is about to be completely swallowed by the Mirage Sea, these resources are no longer of any use.

Rather than wasting them, it is better to seal them within the Heaven and Earth Profound Gate.

To utilize these resources and understand the information left by these predecessors, one must push open the Heaven and Earth Profound Gate, otherwise, it is impossible to retrieve them.

Perhaps even the experts who forged this Heaven and Earth Profound Gate several eras ago did not expect this.

That one day, their descendants would be so weak that they could not even produce a single expert of the Heavenly Human Realm.

Chen Mo hurried all the way to the military camp; in the deep night of the winter month, there was no one in the camp except for a few patrolling Scholars.

This place is not a town, so it has no protection from the Dragon Qi of National Fortune.

The Dragon Qi of National Fortune spreads throughout Great Gan and can itself resist the Mirage Sea.

If all the night watchmen in a city were accidentally killed, the Dragon Qi of National Fortune would be activated to temporarily protect that city.

At the same time, the Imperial Court would mobilize all available power to first go to that city to investigate the situation.

If such a situation were encountered, the Imperial Court could even conscript Innate Experts from aristocratic families or sects.

Of course, once the Dragon Qi of National Fortune is triggered, it will inevitably suffer some depletion.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, the Dragon Qi of National Fortune remains in a dormant state and will not protect a certain city for a long time; even in the Capital, they only arrange for more people to be responsible for patrolling and keeping watch at night.

And once any force dares to organize the killing of night watchmen, then not only the Imperial Court but all forces in the world will join hands to completely eradicate the force that did such a thing.

Because anyone who dares to do this is equivalent to an unstable bomb that could explode at any time.

Even the most extreme members of the Demonic Path would reject such people.

Because doing so is entirely a matter of harming others without benefiting oneself.

The Demonic Path acts without scruples, frequently using living people to practice their arts, some of whom are even rebels against the Imperial Court.

But the Demonic Path are not fools; whatever they do is ultimately for their own benefit, not purely for the sake of killing.

Furthermore, they would never risk getting themselves trapped just to destroy the living beings of a city.

Added to this, important cities and locations are not only protected by an Array but also shielded by dragon Qi.

Therefore, incidents where an entire city's populace falls into the Mirage Sea because the Night Watchman was killed only tend to occur when the nation is in turmoil and the world is ravaged by war.

In the world today, although there is war, the overall situation remains stable, so such things naturally happen very rarely.

Chen Mo put on his armor, inspected the state of the military camp, found a weak point in the patrol, concealed his figure, and stepped inside.

Before his eyes, grey mist gradually permeated, and the Mirage Sea, filled with boundless Grey Mist, appeared before him once again.

Only this time, it was different.

This Mirage Sea was no longer just filled with Grey Mist; a thatched cottage had appeared, not very large, about two zhang square.

The interior of the thatched cottage was very quiet, with not a sound coming from it.

Chen Mo became alert immediately; in fact, not just him, many Innate Experts had also explored the Mirage Sea.

It is just that their need for resources has a limit, so their frequency was far from as high as his own.

But from their exploration experience, one thing can be confirmed: once any building appears in a Mirage Sea,

then inside and outside this building, it is highly likely that an extremely powerful Mirage Beast or a fixed rule will appear.

The rule emerges along with this building, but it will constrain everything in the vicinity.

Unlike the Ruins Realm, the rules produced by the Mirage Sea will change according to a set temporal pattern.

When the moon rises next time, the rules of this Mirage Sea will change again, but the thatched cottage will still be the same one before his eyes.

Unless Chen Mo destroys it, and then the Mirage Sea undergoes evolution once more.

Looking at the thatched cottage before him, Chen Mo condensed True Qi in his hand, forming a feathered arrow that shot straight toward it.

"Whoosh!" The feathered arrow struck the thatched cottage, causing countless thatch stalks to vibrate.

However, the thatched cottage did not collapse or shatter, but remained standing there quietly.

"Creak..." A harsh, teeth-gritting sound rang out, and the old thatched wooden door suddenly opened on its own.

A human figure emerged from within the wooden door; the figure was strange, its body bloated, without facial features, like a balloon about to explode.

Yet from the first moment it appeared before Chen Mo, its torso and even its face began to change constantly.

Patches of skin and muscle, like clay, were being continuously kneaded and reshaped.

Chen Mo watched closely; this person was imitating him, and on its body surface, the armor he wore had already appeared, and its facial features were becoming increasingly similar to his own.

"One, two, three, wooden person, no talking, no moving!"

The bloated figure suddenly spoke, its voice sounding exceptionally old.

Its mouth was still wandering back and forth across its face, seemingly looking for a suitable position, yet after changing again and again, it remained unsatisfied.

Chen Mo suddenly sensed an extremely powerful suppressive force, pinning him firmly in place.

The Mirage Sea Water here seemed to be pressing down on him, making him unable to break this rule.

The bloated figure's eyes stopped moving and stared straight at him.

Chen Mo also discovered at this moment that as long as he stared at the opponent, it likewise could not make any reaction.

The rule's restriction was aimed at everything in the vicinity, whether it was Chen Mo or that Mirage Beast.

But when he blinked slightly, in that instant, the torso and facial features on the opponent would wander again, beginning to further imitate him.

Clearly, the rule here was that only when he observed the opponent could the opponent not move stealthily.

As it became increasingly similar to Chen Mo, the smile on the Mirage Beast's face also appeared somewhat smug.

Chen Mo no longer blinked, staring fixedly at the opponent; he could naturally control his physical body to perfection, so even not blinking for several days and nights was fine.

But if this continued to drag on, it would be meaningless for him.

The Qi and Blood within Chen Mo's body began to surge; he prepared to forcibly break this rule.

Whether it is the Mirage Sea or the Ruins Realm, if there are rules, then there are solutions.

A more clever method is to find the loopholes and flaws of this rule through constant trial, so as to unlock the rule here or minimize its restriction on oneself.

Besides this, there is also a more brutal solution, which is to rely on sufficiently formidable strength to break the rule's restriction.

Whether it is the Ruins Realm or the Mirage Sea, all have strong and weak points.

The Mirage Sea that Chen Mo had stepped into was only on the scale of two thousand people and was not connected to other Mirage Sea Water.

As long as the power he exerted surpassed this Mirage Sea, then this rule would absolutely be unable to restrict him.

With this thought in mind, Chen Mo acted immediately; this rule only prevented him from moving or changing at will, but his physical body was still under his control.

The Qi and Blood within his body were continuously stimulated and vibrated, and his strength was also climbing further.

The 150,000-jin threshold, the 200,000-jin threshold, and the 300,000-jin threshold were broken one after another. The Qi and Blood, like wolf smoke, shot straight into the sky, stirring countless grey mists into turmoil.

The True Qi within Chen Mo's body also began to run wild; the extremely rigid and yang True Qi, like violent magma, constantly attempted to burst outward.

Seeing this situation, the Mirage Beast's expression was clearly somewhat flustered, yet it still dared not make any move, only able to stare straight at Chen Mo.

The rule that it had cleverly used to restrict Chen Mo had now instead become a cage binding itself.

Chen Mo stared straight at the Mirage Beast, a smile gradually appearing on his face; as long as his power was strong enough, the so-called rule could not restrict him.

"Greedy Wolf Style, twelve times the force!"

His figure moved suddenly, his speed extremely fast, like lightning cutting through the night sky.

The pair of Giant Hammers in his hands carried boundless force, smashing straight down toward that Mirage Beast.

(End of this chapter)