Tang Ze went to bed extremely happy that night.
What he had been aspiring for and searching for with so much effort he had achieved in the most unexpected of places.
Who would've thought that the Komainu would have an ability like that? Celestial beasts truly were amazing - no wonder the sects put so much effort into raising them.
Now, he could call himself a real cultivator! Granted, he was only at the first minor realm of Qi Condensation, meaning there were plenty of mortals who outpaced him when it came to cultivation.
But now, his cultivation journey could finally begin. And he was only trailing behind right now because he had started out from less than zero. With time, he was sure that he too, could advance through the ranks rapidly.
If nothing else, by leveraging the power of his talent, he could gain abundant resources in the future through things like the upcoming Novice Tournament. If he could secure an abundance of resources for himself, he could make up for the gap that currently existed between him and the other Initiates.
However, all of that could wait for later. For now, he had to rest. While the Komainu had allowed him to breakthrough to the Qi Condensation realm in one go, it had also made him feel extremely tired as a result. It was as if he had spent the whole day hiking back when he had no super strength or endurance at all.
For now, he needed to get some rest.
That night, Tang Ze dreamed.
The same dream as before....
Tang Ze had dreamt of this cavern ever since he had come to this world.
Actually, that wasn't fully accurate, now that he thought about it. He had only had this dream ever since joining the sect. His other dream, the one in which he was walking down a busy street on Earth… now that was a nightmare he'd had over and over even before he'd come to this world.
Still, it was odd that he kept coming back to the same cavern in his dreams, which made him wonder if it was based on something like a video game or movie he had seen in his past life which he had forgotten about, but had remained in his subconscious ever since.
Anyway, it was better to dream of this place than the other dreams which plagued him. This was much better than the usual nightmares he'd otherwise get of being back on Earth, so he wasn't complaining.
The clear water below, the strange heaviness of Qi in the air, and that weird patchwork dress - all were here just as they'd always been. Even though this dream was a bit confusing in that he had no idea why he kept coming back here, at least it was a somewhat peaceful and overall harmless dream.
Tang Ze was used to feeling like something was watching him while he was in this space - though he had once seen the spirit of a woman here.
There had only been one time though when he had spotted her, back during that night when that traitor Xu Feng had tricked Tang Ze into lending him a hand… or tongue to be more accurate.
Just as he turned around, he saw her form yet again, and then immediately retreated two steps.
Before, she had been near the edge of the lake, quite a distance away from him, but as he had turned now - he saw that she was right in front of him!
Even though this was a dream, he couldn't help but feel startled by her sudden appearance.
"Finally, I see that you've come to be able to notice me," the specter said.
"Ah... huh?" Tang Ze asked. Though this was quite lifelike, it also had the strange mental haze that being in a dream had. As such, his thoughts felt slightly sluggish. "Ah... who are you?"
The woman sighed. "My name is Xian Yue. I have been calling out to you for so long - but your cultivation base was so weak that you couldn't notice me. Thank heaven that I can actually speak to you now."
Tang Ze took a moment to process those words. Before this time, he had the ominous feeling as if he was being watched while he had been in here, though he had only seen this lady once… right! A thought suddenly occurred to him.
That was when he had been wearing the Supernatural Sam costume while he fell asleep! It was probably the costume's powers which had let him see her that time, but he had been woken up by Xu Feng before the two of them could talk that night.
He hadn't worn it again because that costume had been heavily damaged when he had 'fought' Tang Ru ('fought' being in quotation marks given it wasn't much of a fight as much as a one-sided pummeling) and he had not made a new one, mainly because working with ghosts had already gotten him into so much trouble he didn't want to meet another one.
That was why he hadn't put two and two together before, not realizing that it was that costume that had made that woman appear in his dreams. He had thought it was just a coincidence or variation of the dream somehow, but there had evidently been more to it.
He wouldn't have slept in a Supernatural Sam costume anyway, it was far more productive and comfortable to sleep in the special pajamas he'd made so that he could gain immense strength even as he slept.
This woman was beautiful in the same way that a lot of the women in this world were beautiful - in an odd, almost alien sort of way. Though again, just like with Zheng Mei, Tang Ze couldn't say that she looked bad per se - just that she was beautiful more in the sense of how an object like a painting might be beautiful, rather than like a person would be beautiful. There was just something… slightly inhuman about the way she looked. Not enough for it to have some kind of uncanny valley effect, but just enough that it felt odd in a way that he couldn't really put his finger on what it was exactly that bothered some part of his mind regarding her appearance.
The small oval of her face was embraced by her long hair that parted on either side - when she was alive it had likely been black, though it was a bit harder to tell as it looked like nearly all of the colors had been bleached out of her visage. A raiment embroidered with lilies at the borders adorned her, and her feet neatly poked out from under it all.
If there had been color to her skin during life, it was completely gone now, leaving it completely devoid of color. She was not completely see-through like Xu Feng's ghost had been, being far more solid in that aspect.
She actually looked nearly solid enough to touch, and were it not for her extreme pallor, lack of colors other than black, blue and white; and the odd white glow that surrounded her - he might've mistaken her for a living person.
"So, you're a ghost?" Tang Ze asked.
She shook her head. "No, I am much more than a ghost. I am the soul of an Eternal Soul cultivator."
Right - Tang Ze had learned a thing or two about the higher realms of cultivation. And by that he quite literally meant a thing or two, as he was more occupied with whatever could help him get to the first minor realm of Qi Condensation and little else.
The process of ascension to enlightenment involved several steps. The first two stages, Qi Condensation and Qi Refinement allowed the body to quickly uptake and utilize Qi for its own purposes.
To become more than a mortal, it was necessary to temper both body and soul. In Golden Core stage, the cultivator's own body would develop into a golden core - capable of handling the rigors of refining the soul.
Tempering the soul required more effort - which is why the next two stages Nascent Soul and Eternal Soul were both dedicated to the same. Both of these cultivators had tempered their souls so that they could remain in the world even after their bodies were destroyed - though they would be largely powerless until they found another vessel to occupy.
This was the soul of an Eternal Soul cultivator - capable of persisting in this world without its body for several centuries or even millennia!
As he contemplated this, Tang Ze had a burning question in his mind which he felt that he just had to ask.
"Why are you wearing clothes?" Tang Ze asked.
"W-what?" Xian Yue asked him. "Why are you asking that?"
"I mean to say, why do you have clothes when you're a spirit? Do you take your clothes with you when you die? Do clothes also have souls?"
"Would you prefer I present myself to you naked?!"
"That would make more sense, honestly."
"Why you shameless-" Xian Yue began, furiously blushing which brought out a slightly darker tinge to her cheeks, before Tang Ze put a hand up to stop her before she could begin her tirade.
"Lady, I am a man who deals in various kinds of clothes," Tang Ze said. "That's what I do - make various kinds of costumes. Given that this is my trade of sorts, I naturally want to know about all kinds of fabrics, and I was just curious as to what these spectral clothes were made of." What would a ghost's - or soul's fabric feel like? Could he cut it or sew it like regular clothing or did it need special instruments for that? It looked solid enough to touch, but could he actually do so? His reasoning was so on point that even Xian Yue began to take him seriously, after all it was partially due to his talent that she was seeking him out so desperately. That is, until he added something else: "That's why I wanted to request that you remove them - for scientific purposes, of course."
"To think that you would say such things with such a straight face!" Xian Yue said, cheeks turning dark again. It was odd to see someone 'blush' without their face turning red and only turning slightly darker. "It's rather impressive in a negative sense of the word."
Tang Ze shrugged. "I mean, not really. This is all just a dream, right? So what does it matter what I say - wait, no…" he suddenly had a horrified expression on his face. "…this isn't just a dream!?" His thoughts had been rather sluggish because of the dream-like state they were in, but of course, he wouldn't have said something like he had earlier asking her to undress herself if he thought he was talking to an actual woman!
But as the gears in his head turned, slower than usual, but they turned nonetheless - he realized that based on their whole conversation right up till now, it was far more likely that this was real and not a product of an overactive imagination. Why else would this cavern always remain exactly the same when he dreamt of it? Why else had he only seen this woman twice, there being a logical explanation for the same both times? Dreams don't work on logic!
Xian Yue shook her head. "You are dreaming, but this is as real as anything else in this world." She sighed - it would take her far too long to explain things while Tang Ze was dreaming, and as it was, she would eventually need his actual physical presence where she was. "I need you to come to this cavern, it is located under Ling Yuan mountain. Come visit me, there is a favor I have to ask of you."
Tang Ze still had a thousand questions in his head, but the world around him started to dissolve. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what I said earlier -" he had begun to apologize, but Xian Yue interrupted him with a frantic look on her face.
"Ah - you're waking up. No matter, forget about everything else - remember! Ling Yuan mountain!" Xian Yue said, her face turning to fog as Tang Ze opened his eyes.