Ning Cheng stepped into the soap bubble-like Traceless Gate, and what appeared before his eyes was a desert. His spiritual consciousness could cover this desert, but when it reached the edge, it encountered an endless void. He simply couldn’t reach or even sense the end of it.
Ning Cheng waved the Twin Wings of the Heavenly Clouds and rushed out of the desert, only to enter the boundless space beyond it, that had no colour nor shape. Rather, it felt as if he was inside a continuously transforming three-dimensional or even four-dimensional space. One could sense the existence of a spacial pocket before it suddenly disappeared. However, one couldn’t truly enter these spacial pockets even if you charged in its direction for infinite years.
There was no direction, no positional markers, and no aura of life in this space between spacial pockets.
Powering the Twin Wings of the Heavenly Clouds continuously for a few days, Ning Cheng discovered that the desert which he previously saw had disappeared entirely. Instead, he had suddenly appeared in a different empty grey space. The ground, the sky, even the air in this space had a lonely feeling to it.
Ning Cheng sighed before stopping. No matter how vicious the methods of the Traceless Immortal Pond were, the Traceless Gate was the real deal. It truly was a location with countless spacial conversions. The desert he experienced before was a spacial pocket. At the same time, the empty grey area in front of him was also another spacial pocket.
In this place, as long as you kept moving, you could potentially move from one spacial pocket to another, or you might end up trapped in one of them forever and never get out.
The Traceless Gate truly was a location best for gaining enlightenment in the Laws of Space, and no other place felt more suitable for understanding the Laws of Space than here.
Ning Cheng took out the several jade strips that he had purchased and found the ones with positional instructions for treasure pockets inscribed on it. Ning Cheng sneered in his heart while looking at it. He didn’t know if these jade strips indicating treasure truly had any treasures in it or not. But he felt sure that as long as he went to the places marked on it, he would face a battle.
Ning Cheng didn’t particularly care about fighting. He wasn’t even afraid of facing off against Chuan Xinlou head-on. At most, the Traceless Immortal Pond might use array formations to shackle their targets. As a Starry Sky Grade 9 Array Emperor, how could he take any of it seriously? It’s just that he didn’t want to waste time on such annoying things; he had come here with a purpose, and that was to perceive the Laws of Space.
Putting away the jade strips, Ning Cheng began to start switching between the different independent spaces within the Traceless Gate. Though, it wasn’t under his control. He would appear in a different spacial pocket every time he stepped out of one.
Time flew by as Ning Cheng wholly immersed himself in continually switching spaces, trying to sense the different spacial transformations. He wanted to gain at least a sliver of insight while changing spacial pockets with every jump between two pockets.
As he transitioned through spacial pockets, he also took in the environment within the various spacial pockets. Desert space, swamp space, forest space, ocean space, mountainous space….
He even encountered a few grey spaces, empty worlds, a realm filled with nothing but wind blades……
He experienced spacial collapses, spacial dislocations, space cracks……
In this place, he even experienced spacial folding, spacial distortions….
When Ning Cheng still studied in school, he had once pondered over the issues of space and time. There, he had learned that space and time were essential attributes in the universe, and that time was an irreversible concept. But after Ning Cheng realised the Laws of Time, he understood that as long as one’s ability reached a certain level, one could reverse time. It’s just that this reversal is a relative one, and only within a specific range.
He could use the Sunset’s Twilight Spirit Technique to force time to come to a standstill, but this spirit technique could last for only a single breath at most. Once exceeded, he could no longer control it.
Imagine if someone could reverse the ‘time’ of the vast starry sky, what kind of terrifyingly powerful spirit technique would it be?
Ning Cheng frowned. He wanted to feel the Laws of Space, so why did he keep thinking about time? However, he also believed that this approach might be the right one. In any case, from his past understandings, time and space couldn’t separate from each other. If a person could control the space of the entire universe, couldn’t his Laws of Time also affect the whole universe in the same manner?
What was ‘space’? ‘Space’, on the surface, was just the distance and the open area between two points. But after cultivating to the level of Ning Cheng, one would realise that ‘space’ was far more complicated than that initial simple thought. Maybe two things could look adjacent to each other, yet there might exist an endless space between the two.
It was just like the many spacial pockets within the Traceless Gate. Even though two spacial pockets might look adjacent to each other, they had a measureless distance between them. This principle also applied to the ‘distance’ between the different interfaces and positional planes, just like how Cang Wei had explained to him. That is, facing a ‘wall’, the Laws of Space would allow you to ignore this ‘wall’.
Ning Cheng started to feel a growing headache as he continued to think about it. He wanted to force himself to stop trying to ponder over this problem, but he just couldn’t stop himself.
Time continued to disappear in Ning Cheng’s perception. After an unknown amount of time, Ning Cheng suddenly slapped his head. ‘Space’ might be a very complex topic, but did he have to think about it so deeply? He only needed to ‘grasp’ the distance between two things regardless of the space between them.
He could already use his spiritual consciousness to grab things from afar, which in essence was a forceful compression of the space between him and that object. Even if the ‘object’ was in a place far away from him, separated by countless planets and countless interfaces. As long as his spiritual consciousness could reach it, he could, in theory, grasp it with just a thought. He could compress this space into nothingness in an instant, or even turn that object into oblivion.
Regardless of physical objects, even the laws were the same. As long as there was a beginning to a law, even if the law underwent countless transformations, it would still have an end. If one could ‘grasp’ these transformations, one could easily reach the end of the law, even if one just started understanding it.
……
If someone saw Ning Cheng at this time, one would see Ning Cheng constantly switching spacial pockets within the Traceless Gate. At the same time, they would also see him punching out from time to time. He would even form handprints from time to time and even grasp at something. Faint traces of a law’s dao charm would appear around his body but would fluctuate erratically.
At this moment, Ning Cheng had wholly immersed himself into this feeling of walking enlightenment. He wanted to grasp the distance between two different spacial pockets. That’s right, Ning Cheng wasn’t trying to capture the distance in the same space, but rather immersed himself in grasping the material distance between two different spacial pockets.
That’s because Ning Cheng had no master to learn from; otherwise, Ning Cheng would never do such a nonsensical thing under the tutelage of a master. Even Ning Cheng didn’t know that he was doing something utterly absurd right now. As the saying went, one shouldn’t try to run without first learning to walk.
Usually, when it came to sensing the Laws of Space, one always had to start from the most basic knowledge; that is, compressing space through speed. When one’s speed reaches a particular level, that level of speed will compress space to almost nothing. Only after compressing space in front of you to nearly nothing would you be able to start sensing the Laws of Space slowly and then start walking towards the real Laws of Space. At that time, even without attaining such speed, you could use the understanding of the law to compress the spacial distance between two points.
It was also similar to Ning Cheng’s first contact with the Laws of Time. Before, his Sunset’s Twilight could only compress time infinitesimally close to a standstill. During that moment, the flow of time would become extremely slow. However, that wasn’t the real Laws of Time. But it was the best way to understand the Laws of Time.
As for Ning Cheng, he was trying to compress a significant distance within space right off the bat and even wanted to control a range of different spacial lengths with his hands. It was merely a futile dream, even for Ning Cheng. If Ning Cheng’s cultivation increased by a thousand times, maybe then Ning Cheng might accomplish something like it. But now, Ning Cheng’s strength didn’t seem enough to support it.
The Traceless Gate had all kinds of spacial pockets, and Ning Cheng, who had immersed himself in perception, unconsciously switched between these spacial pockets at an insane speed.
One year, two years….
In just a blink of an eye, four years passed by with Ning Cheng still in such a state. Perhaps there never had been a person like Ning Cheng. As during his enlightenment, he had continually switched spacial pockets at a rapid pace for four years. He seemed to have fallen into a strange state where he would never give up until he grasped the distance between two different spacial pockets in his hands.
In Ning Cheng’s heart, he kept moving infinitesimally closer to success. He did not dare to stop, fearing that he would suddenly wake up from his enlightenment and would forever lose the chance to do it again. Therefore, during this period, he continued to switch spaces while trying to grab the distance between them.
There might be countless other cultivators in the Traceless Gate who came here to perceive the Laws of Space. But this place also had infinite spacial pockets. No one knew the exact number of spacial pockets within the Traceless Gate. Therefore, even though Ning Cheng moved around a lot inside this place for many years, he never met even a single person.
But with so many people within Traceless Gate, it was only a matter of time before you meet other cultivators.
Ning Cheng suddenly woke up on hearing a slightly hoarse shout, which also woke him up from his enlightenment.
After waking up, Ning Cheng realised that he had fallen into an obsession-like feeling of wanting to grasp space. Moreover, it was already the fourth year since he entered.
Ning Cheng looked at a dishevelled female cultivator in front of him with a little gratitude, “Did you wake me up?”
The female cultivator quickly took out a set of robes and put it on before speaking up in a cold voice. “Do you still have any shame in giving such an excuse? If you want a woman, you might as well say it directly. There’s no need to use such a method.”
She had never encountered another person in this spacial pocket. Therefore, the female cultivator never thought that a celestial essence hand would suddenly stretch out to grab at her robes in this spacial pocket. Caught up in enlightenment, that hand had caught her off guard.
Want a woman? Ning Cheng suddenly frowned but quickly understood what had happened. He had fallen into an obsession to grab space and invariantly grabbed at her.
Now that Ning Cheng had sobered up, he fully realised the absurdity of his perception. He wanted to grasp the distance between two different spacial pockets, which was equivalent to catching something in one interface while standing in another.
As for grabbing this female cultivator, in truth, it was nothing out of the ordinary but also a pure accident. Most of the spacial pockets inside Traceless Gate were dead spaces. Except for a few, most of them didn’t contain any life. Sensing fluctuations from spiritual power, anyone would have grabbed at it, especially when immersed in an obsessive epiphany. This female cultivator had early-stage Eternal cultivation. Moreover, she cultivated in such a large empty spacial pocket, while giving out quite powerful spiritual power fluctuations. Ning Cheng had unconsciously tried to grab on to the source of these fluctuations.
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t intentional……” Ning Cheng cupped his fists and apologised. In truth, this female cultivator truly had a beautiful appearance, but Ning Cheng didn’t think about it at all. However, casually grabbing at an early-stage Eternal female cultivator’s robes, it also didn’t look good for him.
When the female cultivator heard Ning Cheng apologise, she felt a lot calmer. But unexpectedly, after Ning Cheng said those words, he didn’t explain it anymore and instead fell into silence. Without hearing an excuse, the female cultivator started to feel upset again.
Ning Cheng couldn’t give an excuse even if he wanted. He had suddenly recalled something; that is, he could grab something in another spacial pocket from another pocket. Didn’t it mean that he had successfully taken the first step?
Thinking of this, Ning Cheng forgot about the apology. Instead, his eyes glowed with surprise before saying to the female cultivator, “I’m going to grab at you now……”
While talking, Ning Cheng raised his hand and made a grabbing motion.
The female cultivator was approximately ten meters away from Ning Cheng. But when Ning Cheng raised his hand and made that grabbing motion, these ten meters of space seemed to have disappeared suddenly. He didn’t use the Traceless Spirit Technique. Yet, the same time his hand reached out; Ning Cheng suddenly appeared in front of this female cultivator. It seemed as if the spacial distance between him and the female cultivator had disappeared after he extended his hand.
“Laws of Space……” Ning Cheng and the female cultivator exclaimed almost simultaneously.
