God Of Crafting

Chapter 189: Encounter in the white (1)

'This feels really comfortable...' Chihiro thought as the constant gust of warm, mana-rich air continued to blow right into and past him, constantly providing him with much more spiritual energy than he could ever hope the artifacts back at his cultivation garden would produce.

Just by the amount of spiritual energy alone, the core of this factory—even though it was far from running at full power—was better than anything he had ever encountered, including the cultivation pods back in the spiritual realm.

But this place... it was much more than just rich with Qi. By every possible judgment criterion that Chihiro could come up with, his cultivation garden, which he had spent years building, decorating, purifying, and equipping, was... inferior.

Be it the amount of Qi he could absorb, the purity of said Qi, or the density of the spiritual energy that only made it easier to absorb swiftly as opposed to the trace amounts he could get back at his retreat...

'Heck, I have no idea how, but this place seems to be even quieter than my garden...' Chihiro thought, not exactly sure how he was supposed to feel about it all.

Whatever the correct feeling was for the moment, however, Chihiro couldn't care less. Or rather, to be more precise, he couldn't afford to distract himself thinking about it.

No.

'Don't let those thoughts distract you. Right now, if you want to honor all the effort the kids put into this place, you need to focus!'

This factory wasn't something that Chihiro had simply received. It was the result of long, combined efforts by his daughter, his son-in-law, and himself, along with a considerable financial investment to make it all happen.

It didn't matter who was the biggest contributor nor what the most important part was. All that mattered was for Chihiro to pull his weight and successfully advance, so that he could become a rock that would break the waves of trouble the world was bound to throw at his small clan now that it had taken its first step towards greatness.

Now that it had taken its first step... towards true, proper, and wholesome freedom.

A freedom that could only ever be obtained when one secured political, social, financial, physical, and mental independence from others. And while Chihiro did well enough already in terms of social, financial, physical, and mental departments...

For him to secure political freedom for his clan, for his daughter, son-in-law, and all the retainers that put their trust in him, he absolutely had to advance to the next stage; he had to break past the bottleneck he had already failed to shatter once.

'Calm down, focus, and...'

Chihiro took a deep breath.

It was at this point, however, that the spiritual energy seemingly gained a consciousness of its own, flooding just the right points, just the right places within the man's cultivation to perfectly sustain his growth process, helping him weather through this attack of inner demons.

Bit by bit, Chihiro's core bloated, grew thicker, and almost more tangible...

Only for the man to suddenly realize that what was happening right now wasn't an attempted breakthrough at all.

That, he had done at some point in the past, failing to even take notice.

No.

Right now, what this strange guide of Qi that he had never encountered before was doing, was helping him reinforce his increased cultivation, feeding right into the parts of it that Chihiro, inevitably, had failed to cultivate as much as he had the others.

'What the...' Chihiro gulped his saliva down, fighting off his desire to just forget about everything and focus on this feeling of guidance, hoping to obtain greater enlightenment by studying it than he could ever achieve by just cultivating.

And just like that, as if the desire to do so were a key that unlocked doors Chihiro had never known existed, he suddenly found himself stranded in a sea of white.

'A subspace of sorts?' Chihiro thought, eager to learn from this weird, unexpected experience.

There was nothing but white. He stood in a sea of white, the sky was nothing but endless white, even the horizon itself was just more of the white.

It was all white... with the exception of a golden, vaguely humanoid figure standing just a bit ahead with its head angled slightly back... and with its missing face making it impossible to tell whether it was looking down and in Chihiro's direction, or up and away from him.

A figure that Chihiro could vaguely recall from the events that had transpired back before his attempt at the breakthrough, back when Tim tried to birth the divinity.

'Could it be...'

Chihiro gulped his saliva down, sensing a distant yet extremely oppressive aura from this golden, faceless being.

Thus, having no better idea of what he was supposed to do, Chihiro took a step forward, raised his chin, and asked.

"Are you the one who guided me?"