Mais's mind felt as if it were trapped inside a labyrinth. For someone wishing to progress on the path of cultivation, blindness meant not only not seeing the world but also closing the doors to the sea of knowledge in one's face. Parchments inscribed with high-level techniques were nothing more than silent and mute piles of paper to his fingertips. All the resources were in his hands, yet it was impossible to use them. He could only transfer information directly to his mind through jade crystals, in which—according to him—ordinary, low-level techniques were sealed; however, the shallow techniques within these crystals were far from satisfying the massive potential within Mais. At this point, Mais felt as though he could not sufficiently close the gap of his disadvantages.
His blindness was also turning practice into a form of torture. In the past, training used to flow smoothly. There was nothing he couldn't adapt to, and despite his poor cultivation talent, he was very confident in his ability to understand and perceive his surroundings. Therefore, he was not afraid of falling.
He was no longer that person from the past.
The training he did with Jade Crystals was not that bad either. After all, he could learn a technique and become better at it. It was just that the techniques were poor and he didn't have much of a choice. Moreover, there were very few jade crystal techniques in the Ascension Realm and none in the Meridian Realm. This meant that he was certain to experience difficulties in the future. Even though there was much time before he would become a Transcendent or even an Ascended.
Mais continued his training in this manner, but at some point, he must have stopped practicing. In fact, he even felt a bit of a difference. Unconsciously, forgetting that he could not see, he bowed his head.
Mais felt an unusual softness under his bare feet. When he lowered his head, he saw that his feet were sinking into the sand. Something felt strange, but he couldn't understand it immediately. He only realized it when he raised his head and looked ahead.
An endless sea stretched out before him. The sea had a dark red color, like blood. Yet, it rippled just like a normal sea. It stretched all the way to the horizon, the end of which he could not see. This sight had locked Mais in place with astonishment.
'So beautiful...'
Mais could see. And not just the sea.
Right in the middle of the waves, there was a figure with her feet submerged in the shallow waters, standing on the water—and the blood.
Mais took a step toward that direction. The woman stood with her back turned to him. The blood-red dress she wore fluttered like a living flame in the wind; it almost formed a whole with the redness of the sea. Her long, midnight-black hair fell down to her waist, and upon this darkness, a crown woven from fresh flowers, as if plucked from another world, was glowing. The elegance of the flowers formed an impossible contrast with the sea of blood beneath them.
As if feeling Mais's approach, the woman did not break her posture but lifted her right foot out of the water and lightly touched the surface with her toe. Even though Mais was not interacting with the sea of blood in any way, he felt that something in the sea had changed.
Mais felt that ancient and dominant energy emanating from this woman's presence down to his very marrow. This was not like the power of the Sages in Yellow City or Lord Baro; this was the silent authority of someone who held the laws of heaven and earth in her palm. The woman slowly seemed as if she was about to turn toward him. The wind tore a petal from her flower crown and dropped it right in front of Mais, onto those bloody waters.
The moment that petal touched the water, a wave of understanding, sharper, colder, and more massive than anything he had ever experienced in his life, exploded in Mais's mind. It was as if this woman in the dream had come not to force Mais's closed doors, but to tear those doors down from their roots. Mais was completely hypnotized.
He did not understand how it was happening. Nor what was happening. He only knew that a very powerful being was standing before him. And that this person was manipulating him.
The sea of blood beneath the woman shed its turbulent state from a moment ago and gradually grew still. It was such a stillness that it felt as if time itself were frozen. Mais's head was completely confused; he had not yet fully grasped that this place was a dream. However, because of his eyes—no, because of the sea of blood before him and this powerful woman—he could also understand that this place was not real. His wonder-filled gaze focused on the woman in the crimson dress. Something about her was drawing Mais toward her. It was affecting him incredibly. Even though the woman walked in the midst of this absolute stillness, she did not create the slightest ripple or the smallest vibration on the surface of the sea.
The woman slowly turned toward him. Her face was as if behind a veil of mist, but her authority was there with all its presence. "Watch," she said, her voice vibrating through the entire dream space. Her voice was like a mixture of different tones.
She slowly lifted her right foot from where it touched the sea. The sea of blood did not move a millimeter, as if it were completely independent of her movement. Then, the woman slammed her foot back into the sea with a massive, world-shaking momentum.
BOOOM!!
You might expect such a sound to occur, but that sound never came.
Mais, too, expected the vast sea to be split in two by the violence of that blow; however, the result left him in awe. Despite that massive power, only a small, timid ripple formed on the surface of the water. All that destructive energy was as if it had been imprisoned within the silence, into the depths of the sea.
"The First Step of the Red Road's Dance," the woman said, sensing Mais's astonishment.
As Mais weighed the imbalance of this massive momentum turning into only a tiny wave in his mind, he murmured, "Only the first step?" He could not even imagine what the true power of the technique could be. Honestly, even the fact that this was a technique seemed surprising to him. It was as if it were no different from a normal step.
Seeing Mais's curiosity, the woman laughed softly. "Since you have not yet reached the 'Stepping' stage, the power of this first step will remain limited to the Origin Heart Peak," she said. Then the timbre in her voice deepened even more: "But at the Stepping stage... the level rises higher than you can imagine."
The moment she finished her words, the sea of blood blew into the air without giving Mais any warning. The last thing Mais saw was the woman's beautiful face turned toward him and the way she was smiling.
When Mais sat up in his bed, his eyes were burning like embers; that familiar darkness brought by blindness had returned, but this time there was something different. The stinging burning sensation in his eyes was a reflection of the energy flowing in his veins. Although he was not aware of it, his eyes were glowing. When he checked his core, to which he had bound the Blood Tao, he noticed that the core was much denser and much stronger than before.
"Ah! Shit!"
You might think that seeing such a technique would make Mais happy, but Mais did not like the idea of a stranger suddenly entering his mind and showing him things. He knew he couldn't escape in the shock and astonishment he had experienced at that moment, but now that he was awake, he had to admit he was a bit scared. His head was aching. He had assimilated the woman's movements, and that still did not make him happy. That way of speaking, that tone of voice... he felt like he knew her, but he couldn't be sure. Absurd thoughts came to his mind.
"Who was she?"
The headache did not go away. Along with the colorful new memories appearing in his mind, Mais found himself involuntarily picking apart the methods of the technique. He should have been happy to have learned a high-level technique. He thought that was how it should be, but there were so many unknown factors that his head was confused.
Mais had now reached the 'Feeling' stage in the Blood Tao. He wasn't sure how a dream helped him achieve this, but it had happened. As the first breezes of spring seeped through the window, Mais could feel that he was eager to examine the smell of blood inside the room and the insights of this newly acquired technique.
Despite all these hurried emotions, he got out of bed and walked toward the window where the wind was blowing. There, he could smell the forest. Beside the window, for a long time, he fixed his misty gaze toward the direction of the Crimson Path Forest, full of suspicion.