It took Yang Qing several bites of his Kung Pao chicken before he got the nerve to continue reading the rest of the list.
But to ensure the sensation he felt earlier didn't sneak up on him again he decided to take out a few dawn fire sunstones and place them in different areas of the office bringing some much-needed light and warmth to the room.
The dawn fire sunstones were like gentle miniaturized suns. They were known for absorbing the yang energy of the surroundings and releasing a heat that neutralized cold yin energies and also had a restraining effect on evil spirits and ghost cultivators.
Yang Qing infused some of his yang flames into the stones to increase their abilities a few notches.
Once he confirmed everything was okay and he wasn't being stalked by some dark remnant or maybe even the grotto's spirit since something that was able to create the dark remnants, was bound to be just as insidious, only then did Yang Qing continue with his reading.
"I can't believe the description left me so on edge.." Yang Qing muttered with a wry smile.
"Luckily there wasn't anyone to see. But these dark remnants, if they're the personification of one's heart demons, while the bulk of them are bound to be problematic, surely it can't be all of them, and they may not necessarily be working together.
If we assume they're born with their egos that mirror the cultivator they came out of, then there's a high chance they are working independently and may not necessarily be one team, not unless the grotto influences how they see each other giving them a sense of kinship.
If it's confirmed that they do exist, I wonder how the Order will deal with them," wondered Yang Qing as he scratched the small stubble on his chin.
Considering the potential identity of dark remnants being materialized heart demons, ideally, they should all be exterminated if their identities are uncovered.
However, heart demons come in different forms. They were obsessions, regrets, doubts, and other intense feelings that a cultivator could not get rid of or come to terms with. They continuously linger, eating away at the cultivator.
Some are born out of hatred and vengeance, others from shame, others from jealousy or envy, others from greed, others from regret, and others from a strong sentimental attachment to something that conflicts with what the cultivator has been led to believe or know.
Heart demons start small like some lingering thought which continually feeds off the cultivator until they become heart demons. Ridding one of their heart demons either comes through acceptance or letting go and the reasons one had them were countless. As long as you could feel you had the potential of developing one.
There were countless triggers for example a cultivator who leaves home to pursue the dao or some other reason to make his parents proud or to change their circumstances. That cultivator has the potential to develop a heart demon in two instances: One of them is if he/she never reaches the height they thought they would and develops a level of shame and dejection so deep because they couldn't do what they set out to do and it develops into a heart demon.
The other way was if the cultivator does manage to reach the heights he hoped for, then rushes back home to tell his/her parents of the news only to find they died, which could be due to tragic or natural causes. That cultivator develops a seed of regret for not being there in their parent's final moments, or to help them in case the death was caused by outside forces, and then that lingering regret grows over time into a heart demon.
Presented such a case, if dark remnants were born from the two scenarios, Yang Qing without hesitation would purge the former if he came across it. A heart demon born out of shame of not reaching the heights one envisioned, there was no doubt on how volatile the dark remnant born out of it would be. An intense desire for strength and achievements, and weakness and short fuse when anything highlights the weakness of its shame.
But when it comes to the latter, not unless the remnant did something that broke the guiding rules of the Order, he wasn't sure he would purge it just because it was a heart demon.
What he imagined was something born out of regret would do what gave it birth in the first place, and in such a case, the dark remnant may go stand vigil over the parent's grave to its last breath, since that was the thing that gave it existence.
In such a case, was it truly right for him to intervene?
"Well, these are just speculations in the end. It has to be confirmed if they exist, and if they do exist, the Order has people who can think further than I can, they'll be the ones to decide what to do when the time comes.." said Yang Qing with a deep sigh.
His recent experiences made him somewhat sensitive to the whole matter of the grotto considering, not too recently he had a budding heart demon of his own.
If the Order didn't help him deal with it and he ended up stumbling into the grotto, what would his heart demon be like?
However, he immediately shook his head free of those thoughts as he brought his attention back to the next two most perilous zones, with one of them, being declared as potentially calamitous.
"Sword, egg, and a mature dragon vein?" Yang Qing grew more perplexed when he saw the title of the most dangerous zone, that the special inquisitor and the Yen Xu dared not venture in too deep and even requested the presence of someone from the spirit council on what to do next.
'In the northern region of the range, there is a crevice hidden under dense layers of what looked to have been a degraded gold-grade concealing formation array.
The array looks to be at least 50,000 years old based on the degradation...'
"50,000?!" The number made Yang Qing raise his brows.