Chapter 551: Stuck in Confusion

In the garden of the Time Wheel, Su Che and Tian Yin began their thousand-year cultivation. In fact, through these crises, their bond deepened rapidly, and long-buried romantic feelings began to emerge. Especially when alone with Tian Yin, Su Che inevitably had the thoughts befitting a man.

However, inside the private domain of the Sky-Devouring Rat, Su Che always felt as though every move of his was under surveillance, making it extremely uncomfortable to cultivate affectionately with Tian Yin. Their first time together certainly couldn’t happen in such an environment—better to endure for now…

The third layer of the Immortal Prison consumed the essence of a Great Perfection-stage alchemist, granting it the ability to craft various grades of the “Heaven and Earth Mysterious Yellow” elixirs. With sufficient materials, it could produce many of the elixirs that the Great Perfection-stage alchemist was skilled at.

Moreover, with millions of types of spiritual flames at its disposal, its alchemy efficiency was more than ten times, or even dozens of times, higher than that of ordinary alchemists.

The various rare spiritual herbs from over a dozen witch clans’ inhabited planets proved useful within the Immortal Prison. Currently, the ratio of elixirs produced was 80% yellow-grade and 20% dark-grade.

At Su Che’s mid-Transformation Divine stage, consuming yellow-grade elixirs was sufficient, with dark-grade elixirs used every three to four days as a supplement—this was the ideal situation.

Elixirs aided in the cultivation of true energy, and as for the essence, it was even easier. Over time, the shadow soul energy accumulated in the Immortal Prison would surely outpace Su Che’s ability to consume it alone.

Thus, Su Che occasionally gave a certain amount of pure soul energy to Tian Yin, Heng Yi, Lin Feng, and others, which greatly accelerated their cultivation speed.

From then on, pure soul energy, once extremely precious to others, became another specialty of the Immortal Prison—just like life energy—needless to be conserved and freely expendable.

Throughout their daily cultivation, Su Che would occasionally bring his relatives out of the Immortal Prison to reunite. By now, his parents each possessed a Yuan Ying-stage body, truly embarking on the path of cultivation.

The reason it was called “cultivation” rather than “immortal cultivation” was that the path of immortal cultivation was full of hardships, trials, and violence, whereas cultivation focused on nurturing the mind and adopting a relaxed attitude without forcing anything, which suited his parents’ temperament better.

Although progress on the path of cultivation was relatively slow, with Su Che’s care, they could enjoy a long life. Perhaps one day, when Su Che ascended to immortality and took them to the immortal realm, they would encounter an entirely new world. With such a good son, there was no need to worry about anything—just wait to enjoy life… With the support of numerous spiritual pills, it took Su Che only thirty years to reach the later stage of the Transformation of the Spirit. Originally, this was a goal he should have achieved during his last visit to the Wheel of Time, but it failed due to a lack of spiritual pills. Now, he had finally achieved it. Another nearly hundred years passed before he finally reached the supreme stage of the Transformation of the Spirit, ready to advance to the Void Refinement stage at any time. The Void Refinement stage referred to a process of elevating one’s primordial spirit, integrating it with nature, with the universe, and with certain seemingly intangible cosmic rules—essentially entrusting the primordial spirit within one or more of these rules to initially grasp the power of the “Way.” In other words, cultivators must truly find their own Way before they can entrust their primordial spirit to such cosmic rules, thereby mastering deeper and more powerful forces of the universe, nature, or rules. Simply put, it was a process of exploring and understanding one’s own Way. Once one truly understood the Way they pursued, they could advance to the Calamity Crossing stage. “What is my Way?” During the middle stage of the Transformation of the Spirit, Su Che seemed to have a fairly clear definition of his Way. But for some reason, when he actually reached the supreme stage of this transformation and was on the verge of truly grasping his “own Way,” he suddenly became confused. If he couldn’t figure it out or comprehend it, it would be impossible to entrust his primordial spirit to his “own Way,” and thus there would be no possibility of advancing to the Void Refinement stage. “Previously, I thought the Way I pursued was very simple—good deeds bring good rewards, and evil deeds bring bad ones… But this seems like a cosmic rule I established in the Immortal Prison world, with no direct connection to the universe where I reside.” “So, does such a cosmic rule of good rewards for good deeds and bad rewards for evil deeds truly exist in this universe?” “If it does, why are there some extremely wicked people who can still achieve immortality and become true immortals?” “Even some utterly evil individuals can enjoy a revered status in the immortal realm, along with a lifespan as long as that of the universe itself.”

“Such people, who can reach such a level of cultivation, what kind of retribution will they face?”
As Su Che learned more about the immortal realm, more and more questions arose in his mind. Now, he even began to doubt the ‘Way’ he was pursuing—how could he possibly entrust his original spirit to it?
So, Su Che paused his cultivation and sought advice from Heng Yi, Lin Feng, and Miao Li, who were already at the Lingxu stage, regarding his understanding of the ‘Way of Self’.
“Master, what I pursue is the Way of Earth—its solidity and stability. It’s very simple and clear,” Heng Yi said first. “To entrust one’s original spirit to the Way one pursues, the simpler and clearer it is, the greater the certainty of advancing to the Lingxu stage. As for your statement that ‘good deeds bring good rewards, and evil deeds bring bad rewards’…”
Heng Yi cautiously reminded him, “Everyone knows this principle, but it’s truly too abstract and elusive… It’s more like a desire or expectation among sentient beings in the world, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s one of the Heavenly Laws.”
“Yes, Master,” Lin Feng nodded as well. “What’s more important is that there’s no definite definition of good and evil in the world. Every race and every form of life has a vastly different understanding of good and evil compared to humans. Even what humans consider great evils, other races may see as normal, like eating and drinking. And what humans consider good deeds, some other races may detest deeply. Yet, no matter which race it is, they’re all under the rule of the Heavenly Laws. Can you say that human thinking is the truth and the thoughts of other races are wrong?”
“That’s right!” Miao Li’s original spirit also sent a thought. “If a human who thinks of himself as highly virtuous uses his power to force other races to accept and obey his views on good and evil, isn’t that itself a great evil?”
After hearing what his three subordinates said, Su Che seemed to understand a lot, yet he became even more confused…
“What is good and what is evil? How can I not even figure out this most basic thing?”
“Lin Feng and the others are right. The concept of good and evil upheld by humans doesn’t necessarily apply to other races… Often, narrow or one-sided notions of good only create greater evils!”
“In that case, the principle of ‘good deeds bring good rewards, and evil deeds bring bad rewards’ that I established for my Immortal Prison World, even if not wrong, is it still one-sided and narrow?”

Unable to understand it all, Su Che knew that he would lose the “Way” he had been pursuing for so many years!