The short, chubby man’s face fully displayed his misery. He did not want to cultivate. He just wanted to live a happy life, slowly gaining weight. That sounded pretty good to him.
He had intentionally not harmed Zi Yi at the Nine Horizons. He really had just wanted to not expose himself.
It’s all Boundless's fault! Why do they have to go around bullying people like that? They changed the atmosphere of the entire Heavencraft Domain! Even Grandmaster is staring at me, wanting to place the future of the domain on my shoulders! But how old am I?
It’s also the fault of those older apprentices and uncles. Grandmaster doesn’t value any of them, which is why I’m here underground, having to suffer.
Consciousness. I have to train my damn consciousness. His consciousness was already quite decent, even if it was not as strong as the arrogant people from the Consciousness Domain. Still, it was certainly not bad.
He carefully walked forward amidst the flickering candlelight. The young man trembled again as he continued his slow walk.
Half an hour passed, but the short, chubby man had only covered a short distance.
A low female voice called out, "Chubby little boy, who sent you here?"
The young man really wanted to snap back. You’re the chubby little one! Your whole family is a bunch of chubby little ones! However, he did not dare to make such a comment. Instead, he put on a simple, earnest smile. "Grandmaster is the one who sent me. Are you Lady Jing?"
"Who’s the current Grandmaster? Ling Zuo?"
"Yes."
"Hurry up and come over here. You look so timid."
The young man nervously swallowed and then quickened his pace.
He soon saw cages with various creatures held inside. Everything he saw was a conscient.
As the short, chubby man looked at the conscients, they all looked back at him.
Some of the conscients had defined forms, while others’ appearances changed based off of the young man’s unconscious perception of conscients. The only commonality was that all of the creatures were sluggish.
They had been imprisoned in the depths of the Heavencraft Domain for far too long.
The Heavencraft Domain was not like the Consciousness Domain. In the Consciousness Domain, Wu Wei’s presence meant that the conscients were allowed to freely roam about. They were even allowed to cultivate and help the disciples of the Consciousness Domain with their training. In contrast, there was no powerful conscient like Wu Wei in the Heavencraft Domain, which meant that the simplest and most reliable method to suppress the captives was to prevent them from regaining their strength.
The Heavencraft Domain had continuously requested consciousness cultivators to consume the consciousness of the captive conscients.
For cultivators, consciousness was just another power that they could cultivate, but for conscients, consciousness was their life. From their perspective, they were being kept in a wounded condition, or even in a state of near death, never able to recover.
The strongest consciousness cultivator here was named Qi Jing, and she was a member of the Qi family. The Heavencraft Domain had paid an exorbitant price to have a powerhouse from the Qi family stay here. Her consciousness had reached the Stellar realm, which was as powerful as a sequence powerhouse.
Qi Jing was from a branch of the Qi family, which was why the Qi family had not particularly cared when she had been hired. After leaving the Consciousness Domain, she would never be allowed to return to the Qi family. The Qi family had sold the woman for resources from the Heavencraft Domain.
The short, chubby man trembled as he continued deeper into the area and finally saw the woman. Her face was withered and her skin was pale, but her eyes were fierce. She was also smiling, though her smile made the young man’s scalp tingle.
He quickly bowed. "This junior is Ling Tong. Greetings, Senior."
Qi Jing observed the fat young man. "Despite your young age, you’ve already become a master craftsman, haven’t you?"
"How did you know, Senior?" the young man asked.
Qi Jing snorted. "If you weren't a master craftsman, Ling Zuo would have never allowed you to come here. After all, this is a forbidden location."
The young instantly responded with a bit of flattery, "Senior, your insight is as bright as a torch, and you can see through everything. I greatly admire you. With you overseeing the Heavencraft Domain, these conscients will never be able to rise up. Thank you, Senior, for all that you have done to help the Heavencraft Domain."
"Shut up. Don’t try that on me!" Qi Jing spat out coldly while glaring at the young man. "Tell me, who attacked the Heavencraft Domain recently?"
"Emperor Slayer."
Qi Jing was caught off guard. "Emperor Slayer? Why did he attack the Heavencraft Domain?"
The fat young man had no idea how to answer that question, so he took a moment to consider things. Right when he was about to speak, one of the underground cages shattered with a loud noise, startling him.
Qi Jing was also startled, and her consciousness erupted as she moved to suppress the disturbance. What is happening?
The imprisoned conscients also had no idea what was going on.
Up above in the Heavencraft Domain, Ling Zuo was dazed, and he stood up, staring at the sky. His expression changed drastically. How could this be?
An overwhelming consciousness descended from the starry sky above. It was like the descent of an endless ocean. The conscient coldly stared downwards. "You want to imprison my fellow conscients? You are courting death!"
Ling Zuo immediately reacted. "Spirit Threads Rule the World!"
The consciousness crashed down from outer space, shaking the entire domain. At that instant, everyone lost consciousness, aside from Ling Zuo. The old man remained awake, and he was horrified as the conscient descended. He dropped to one knee, confusion covering his face. Where had such a powerful conscient appeared from in the Spirit Nidus?
Underground, Qi Jing spat out blood as the consciousness swept past her. It stole away all of the imprisoned conscients. In an instant, Qi Jing also lost consciousness, the short chubby man having already passed out.
Soon, peace returned to the Heavencraft Domain.
Ling Zuo was the only one still conscious. He stared at the ruins of his Heavencraft Domain, overcome with both grief and rage. He spat out a mouthful of blood before collapsing.
On a distant planet, Lu Yin opened his eyes.
He was the source of the consciousness attack that had assaulted the Heavencraft Domain. His level of consciousness allowed him to easily alter his consciousness, which could make him appear as a conscient to others.
When Lu Yin had scanned the Heavencraft Domain, he had not only taken away the captive conscients, but had also examined the domain itself.
He had clearly seen the process of producing spirit threads, and he had found that the materials were nothing special. While rare, there was nothing unique or special about the materials. If anything was special about the spirit threads, then it was the Heavencraft Domain’s unique methods that were used to produce them.
The Heavencraft Domain possessed a unique method for producing spirit threads, and outsiders were unable to produce their own because of that method.
However, Lu Yin had also examined their production methods, and there was nothing special about them either.
Had he overlooked something?
The conscients that he had taken were all extremely weak. Given their condition, Lu Yin would gain almost nothing from devouring their consciousness. They needed to first recover.
Lu Yin shifted his attention away from the Heavencraft Domain to another place. His next target was the Ark Domain.