Chapter 60: Spiritual Realm
Ethan\'s mind was flooded with questions at that moment.
Is it really her? Wasn\'t she sealed?
How is she out of the Water Mirror?
But wasn\'t she some sort of beast?
Various thoughts raced through Ethan\'s mind, and Bai Yu, who was standing just a few meters away from him, seeing his confusion, spoke calmly.
"Yes, it\'s me, or rather, a part of me," she said.
"A part of you?" Ethan asked, still confused.
"Yes, I\'m still sealed beneath the Water Mirror, but I managed to release a part of my consciousness after the Seal of the Seven Sages\' Amphora loosened a bit," she explained, dispelling some of Ethan\'s doubts.
Bai Yu had already told Ethan before that to have greater control over the artifact, he needed to become stronger.
It seemed she was right, as soon as he reached the fifth level of body refining, the seal on the artifact loosened slightly as well.
"Well, I\'m happy for you, but tell me, what exactly has changed from before?
I mean, are you still confined within the Sea of Consciousness, or can you also leave this place?" he asked.
This was the question that interested him the most.
If it was just that she could navigate beyond the Water Mirror, there wouldn\'t be any issues, but if she could leave this place entirely, Ethan wasn\'t sure what new troubles he might find himself in.
Why did he think this could lead to trouble?
From what he knew, Bai Yu had been trapped here for a long time, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.
Even though Ethan occasionally had the chance to converse with her, such opportunities were rare, as he had spent all his recent time refining pills and consolidating his cultivation foundation.
So it wasn\'t wrong to say that Bai Yu\'s life hadn\'t changed much, even after meeting him.
Ethan could only imagine what it felt like to be locked away in a place isolated from the rest of the world for centuries.
He knew that if it were him, he would have gone mad by now, so he feared she might cause trouble once she was free.
"Well, in a way, my situation hasn\'t changed much, from before.
I\'m still sealed here, but unlike before, when I could only perceive the outside world, now I can actually see it," she said, her expression still serene.
Then she began to walk, and in a few steps, she was standing right next to Ethan.
"And I must say, you are exactly as I expected you to be," she said, examining Ethan\'s face.
Ethan unconsciously took a few steps back.
\'I can\'t say the same about you,\' he thought.
Clearing his throat a little, he said, "I see."
"Do you know what level I need to reach in the future to completely break the seal?" he asked.
Simply cultivating to the mid-stage of body refining had already begun to affect the seal.
According to this logic, with every half-step towards the next stage, the seal should loosen more and more.
Ethan had no idea how much further he needed to advance for the seal to completely break, but he could say one thing:
if the seal loosened enough, he had no doubt that a being like her would eventually be able to free herself on her own.
"I\'m not sure, I\'ve never been sealed before, much less by an artifact of this level," Bai Yu replied nonchalantly.
"But if I had to guess, I\'d say the seal won\'t be completely released until you reach at least the Spiritual Realm," she said, after thinking for a moment.
"Spiritual Realm? What stage is that?" Ethan asked, confused.
From what he knew, there were only five stages of cultivation, ranging from body refining to body and soul integration.
He had never heard of another stage beyond this, moreover, she hadn\'t said it was a stage, but rather a "realm."
Bai Yu, who still seemed to be pondering something, made a strange face for a moment, but then her expression changed slightly as if she had understood something.
"Ah, perhaps here in the mortal plane, people are unaware of the existence of the various cultivation realms."
Cultivation realms?
Hearing this, Ethan\'s mind clicked, and a few bits of knowledge from his previous world flashed through his mind.
\'If I remember correctly, in some of the Xianxia books, there was often a power system like this,\' he thought, nodding slightly as if he had understood something.
In the novels he had read in his previous world, there were often different types of power systems, but in Xianxia novels, the power system was always somewhat similar among them, with differences varying from novel to novel.
It was often the case that cultivation levels were grouped into certain categories, which in turn were classified based on strength and other factors.
Thinking this way, Ethan wondered for a moment if the so-called Spiritual Realm was the realm entered after the stage of body and soul integration.
He didn\'t have to wait long to receive an answer to his supposition.
"You see, due to the low concentration of spiritual energy in the mortal plane, its inhabitants can only reach a certain point in their cultivation," she began to explain as if she were a teacher giving a lesson to her student.
"This point should be the stage of body and soul integration.
This stage is also considered the final stage of the mortal realm.
But the path of cultivation doesn\'t end here.
After the mortal realm, there are two other cultivation realms:
the Spirit Realm, which is the realm accessed after the mortal realm,
and the Divine Realm, the realm of the Gods."
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FRANK_LEE_JUNIOR:
I apologize for my absence in the last two days.
I wasn\'t feeling well, and therefore wasn\'t in the condition to write or do anything else.
Anyway, here I am now, healthy as a fish again.
See you tomorrow.