Southern Endless Mountains
At the edge, in front of a small village.
Darkness had descended over the village. The moon hanging alone in the sky shone its light on this lost place, as if guiding the souls of the lost.
It had been over a month since the strongest warrior of the village, their chief, had died.
His death was excruciating – a weird creature tried to break from his body in the middle of the night. After half an hour, the creature couldn’t use any more force and died.
Right then, the village chief broke down, many cuts opening his body from inside. Organs and blood spewed all over, shocking the whole villa chief’s hall to death.
But just after his death, after the villagers went to seek the help of the five strong men, they suddenly realised something even more bizarre and perplexing –
All five had died in their sleep, seemingly random. There was no corpse of a creature in their body like that of the chief’s. No, it was normal, as if they truly just died in their sleep.
After several of their top brass died, the remaining hunters rallied together and chose the seventh strongest hunter of the village, the one about to join the five warriors.
At first they considered leaving the village and building anew somewhere else.
But how easy could that be?
This was the only place in their whole territory where they could build a village.
And worse, if they left abruptly, who knew what those other villages would do?
They would surely hunt them down and take over their hunting territory.
In the end, they kept watch for a whole week.
When they realised the evil had passed, they slowly ceased their actions and returned to living a normal life.
They even felt like their life had improved, their vision cleared and their dreams full of hope.
Looking at the village that was living better now after he had killed the great evil, Teigu felt... satisfied.
"That’s great! It should be like this!
Killing great evil will cause the world to become a better place.
All great evil, everyone who uses these unnatural insects, these disgusting things, deserves to die!
Wouldn’t it be great if the whole world was clear of this harm?
Your dreams and hopes shall become the power of those that came after you!
Without those... those demonic insects, there will be no more unfairness!"
With the last sentence, a will was conveyed from Teigu’s mind to the sleeping village ahead.
Suddenly, from some of the houses, sparks of light escaped.
These houses were the outermost, those where the weakest members of the village lived.
They had experienced the least hope and formed the weakest dreams.
Everything seemed to become better for others, but their situation remained the same.
The gathered dream power wasn’t much nor worth a mention. It was barely able to lit up a bit of light.
But with them as a start, a wave of light seemed to form.
From the outer village to the inner, one light after another started rising.
The innermost villagers woke up from the blinding light, thinking it was morning again.
But when they looked outside, what they saw wasn’t a single sun –
Rather, it was like the twinkling of many stars right in front of their eyes!
Just as they were about to scream and run away, suddenly, they felt themselves stop.
Their body was no longer under their control.
At the last moment of their consciousness, they only saw their body falling...
Another light rose and lit up in the empty starry sky.
Flying in the night sky alongside the moon, it looked like a shower of stars.
Teigu instantly got engrossed in the vision.
What he saw weren’t the stars.
No, he saw beyond. He saw deeper. He saw the truth.
Every star was a dream –
Dreams of eating well and going a month without stomach cramps, dreams of becoming stronger, dreams of marrying, dreams of living well...
"Without the great evil, one day, you all shall make those dreams reality!"
As his words fell, the dreams, too, fell onto his body.
They entered and instantly flew towards the lower dantian.
There, they filled the space!
With ever of their buzz, a small streak of light would escape from their abdomen.
These streaks of light would transform into spiritual power, instantly absorbed by the dantian.
Only after filling 10% of the dantian did the buzzing stop.
It was not that the fireflies were empty – instead, it was that the dantian couldn’t carry any more.
Cultivators strengthened and expanded their dantian over time, which is why they have bottlenecks when they advance too fast or remain at one stage for too long and solidify their cultivation.
The moment the fireflies entered his body, Teigu sat down on the ground and started cultivating.
Or rather, he had closed his eyes and entered the dream realm with his mind, where he was truly cultivating.
Here he also saw the many fireflies.
Unlike their slightly dimmed spiritual bodies outside, here, they were fluttering around.
He looked at them and understood what the transformation meant.
While the fireflies outside seemed to be the real bodies, in fact, they were only the gathered spiritual power.
Their real core, the dreams, entered his dream space.
He could see them flying around.
If he even so wished, he could transform them into dreams and cast them into the dreams of others, use them to strengthen other dreams he generated, cast spells with them, or do many more things.
"The wonders of the dream world are great." Teigu said heartfelt when he looked at the fireflies around.
Over the past month, his mind had calmed down and he had cultivated alone under the guidance the great giant of his dream space.
"What to do next?" he asked himself, unsure.
After the whole village died, he felt a bit lost.
Just then, a thought entered his mind, and he instantly understood.
Since there was an evil cultivator here, there would be more evil cultivators around!
The next step was to go to the nearest stronghold and from there on, he had to hunt these evil insect slaves down!