Seeing Something Interesting

Like many other Forbidden Areas, the Hysteria Region had an Outer, Inner, and Core Region, with each region having stronger beasts and a thicker mist.

And to Xue Bai's annoyance, the place that he needed to go to was on the border between the Inner and Core Region in a gorge. However, while Xue Bai had a way of getting around the hallucinogenic mist in the forest, there was one problem.

The demonic beasts that lived in the forest could also ignore the mist.

After all, those demonic beasts have lived in the Hysteria Forest for thousands of years, so how could they not have developed some sort of immunity to the mist?

No demonic beasts in Hysteria Forest were weak by any stretch of the imagination. It was called a Forbidden Area for a reason. If the demonic beasts were just teddy bears and house cats, it couldn't be named a Forbidden Area.

So while Xue Bai knew how to get around the mist, which plagued any courageous adventurer, he was stuck on the demonic beast problem.

To make matters worse, the gorge that Xue Bai needed to go to was the most dangerous place in the entire forest.

Cultivation bases in the Law Engraving realm were a dime a dozen, while Domain Lords and Law Manifestation realms weren't rare at all.

When he adventured through this place during his playthrough, Xue Bai remembered having to kill an arrogant lion who had a cultivation base not inferior to Yue Zifeng, his Master!

"Wait, I can just void shift now." Xue Bai suddenly remembered.

His Void Traversal Physique could just allow him to escape any life-threatening situation unharmed as long as he could react in time. Coupled with the soul imprint that Yue Zifeng left on him, Xue Bai was pretty much invincible in this place.

'As long as I don't play it stupidly and piss off a demonic beast stronger than Master, then I should be safe.' Xue Bai thought.

"But then, what the hell do I do about you?" Xue Bai murmured as he looked down at his Wind Chasing Horse.

While he definitely needed the horse later, it being around now would be more of a burden than a help since he couldn't bring it into the void with him. But he couldn't just abandon it since it would either die or get kidnapped.

After that, Xue Bai would have no mode of transportation and would also have to pay for the damn thing when he returned to the Imperial City.

Sighing, Xue Bai decided to make a quick detour.

Turning back around, Xue Bai decided to ride to the nearby village and find a stable.

However, as Xue Bai left the forest, he didn't notice the sneers and laughed from the adventurers.

"Look, another fool who got too scared and left instantly."

"Ha! The idiot didn't even last an hour. I won. Ling Han, give me the money."

"Che!"

–

After another to and from the village Xue Bai eventually returned, but as he did, the banter once again erupted.

"Boy, you're too green to be coming to these areas!"

"You already left once. Trust your gut and go back home to drink your mother's milk!"

Though Xue Bai had a cloak and bamboo hat on which blocked anyone from seeing himself, from his low cultivation and thin stature, the adventurers could guess he was rather young.

They assumed that Xue Bai was a young cultivator who was in his adventurous phase. And to prove himself, he chose one of the most dangerous Forbidden Areas to explore to show off at home.

So while their words were insulting and crude at their core values, it was to help Xue Bai, in a way.

In their minds, Xue Bai being here was nothing short of a death wish, so they tried to dissuade him before he went in and killed himself.

Xue Bai, not recognizing their true attitude, was stunned at all of the shouts that came from the crowd, but as he listened, he understood it.

'These idiots think I left because I was scared.' Xue Bai couldn't help but shake his head in amusement.

However, he didn't get angry or try to do an act of face-slapping as any protagonist would. He would never see these people again in his life. So why should he care about their opinions of him?

It would only waste his time and lower his worth.

So ignoring the insults and banter, Xue Bai walked right back into the forest, this time without the Wind Chasing Horse.

Back inside, Xue Bai quickly shifted into the void to avoid the mist and floated his way far away from the entrance and deeper into the forest.

Once he floated a few dozen miles away and made sure that there was no one nearby, he floated toward a nearby tree.

Shifting back into the plane of reality, Xue Bai used his Spiritual Qi to block up his pores and any orifice in his body to avoid the mist before pulling out his Lava Spring Sword.

Following that, he didn't waste a breath of time before slashing open the tree, which oozed out the hallucinogenic mist.

The way to ignore the mist which plagued every cultivator was actually very simple.

Every tree in the forest, while producing the mist which was oozed out through its bark, also produced a special sap that it held inside. The sap would make any cultivator immune to the mist when swallowed and consumed.

So after slashing the tree almost in half, Xue Bai dug his hand inside the core of the tree and rummaged around until he found the golden brown sap sack which contained the immunity.

The sap sack wasn't big, just about the size of a grapefruit, but from the crystal brown color that it shined, any cultivator would know it wasn't a simple item.historical

After he grabbed the sap sack, Xue Bai instantly shifted back into the void. Since Xue Bai wasn't sure if the sap sack was a known thing in the Northern Continent, he didn't want to take a chance and accidentally reveal it.

If someone saw him, it would cause too much hassle that he wanted to deal with.

He quickly swallowed two drops of the sap in the void and refined it. The process didn't take long, and after a calm ten minutes in the void, refining, he felt the drops be refined, and he once again deactivated his physique.

From what Xue Bai knew, every drop of the sap would last 6 hours, and two drops were long enough for what he planned to do. If not, he could also shift back into the void and refine another. And the sap sack he pulled out from the tree had at least another few dozen drops of sap, so Xue Bai was fine for a while.

However, after he appeared in the Hysteria Forest, he didn't let his guard down and still tested his condition by taking in deep and full breaths of air, trying to allow as much of the hallucinogenic mist to enter him.

Thankfully even after a dozen deep breaths, Xue Bai felt nothing change within him. He saw no illusions, no emotional shifts, or even a decrease in mental capacity.

"It works." Xue Bai nodded happily, "It still seems that the memories are useful."

Content, Xue Bai pulled out his map to determine his location.

"100 miles east, 23 miles northwest..." After he found out where he was, Xue Bai made a few mental notes of the route he needed to take.

The process didn't take long, and after he organized himself, Xue Bai shifted back into the void and started to float to his destination.

If his body weren't severely weakened, Xue Bai would've liked to go back to his roots and take to the trees, and run up in the Hysteria Forest's canopy.

Sadly, he couldn't. So in order to not waste time, he used his fastest mode of transportation and drifted in the void like a fish in the water to reach his target.

Xue Bai was calm as he floated through the void at full speed. Occasionally he would see a strong demonic beast resting in peace or groups of cultivators sneaking around with a shield of Spiritual Qi protecting them.

Not everyone was like Xue Bai and could ignore the mist. So without the sap, other cultivators could only block their pores and orifices with their Spiritual Qi and hope for the best.

And while this would also drain their Spiritual Qi much faster and therefore lower the amount of time they could stay in the Hysteria Forest, what else could they do?

They wanted riches and knew that only by sacrificing something could they hit it big.

Of course, some people tried to find other ways to get around the mist, like, for example, antitoxin pills that could help a cultivator ignore the mist or maybe a type of gas mask, but nothing worked.

The pills didn't work since the mist could inflict dozens of different poisons, not just one, and the gas masks didn't work since the mist could enter through the pores and not just the orifices.

So without any other options, adventurers could also use the most simple and barbaric way to get around the mist.

Xue Bai didn't care about their plights, though, and after a quick and curious glance, continued on his way.

Every once in a while, when his physique was about to force him out of the void, Xue Bai would float up into a tree and get out himself. There, safe in a canopy, he would calmly rest until he could reactivate it.

The repeated use of his physique made Xue Bai feel more and more at peace in the void. At first, just the idea of floating through the menacing and ruthless purple void slightly terrified him. But after going in and out of it so often, Xue Bai felt calm in it.

While scary to most, to Xue Bai, it was a chance to get away from the chaotic and ruthless cultivation world.

There was no sound, no shouting, no anger, no greed, just nothing but the same purple radiance his bloodline gave him.

It was as if he was born to stay in the void.

Xue Bai knew that this feeling came from his bloodline, but since he also felt at peace in the void, he didn't resist it much.

The closer resonance he felt with the void would only help him navigate through it, so resisting the feeling would only hurt him in the long run.

Time passed without any disturbances, but just as he was about to cross into the Inner Region, Xue Bai passed by a lake, and at the edge of it, he saw something interesting that made him put his plan on hold.