Chapter 850: Can the Leopard Change its Spots? (1/2)

Chapter 850: Can the Leopard Change its Spots?

Meng Hao stopped in place and stared blankly at a vague illusion that suddenly appeared in front of him. He saw a middle-aged man wearing a long white robe, sitting cross-legged in front of the well.

The wall surrounding the well was suddenly intact, and a simple hut could be seen attached to it, the sides of which were covered in bottle-gourd vines.

The middle-aged man seemed to be gazing eternally at the well, as if he were locked in a single moment for all eternity.

It was a simple vision, almost ordinary, but Meng Hao felt himself trembling. The voice in his ear penetrated into his mind and echoed through his soul.

He thought of many things, many people, many objects.

He wasn’t sure when, but at some point, he had walked up, sat cross-legged in front of the well and started staring at it. His mind filled with perplexity and struggle, as if the ancient voice from just now was allowing the dilapidated Ancient ruin here to interfere with his willpower and make him lose himself.

Inside, he was fighting against the pressure, and based on the intensity of his willpower, he was able to maintain a scrap of consciousness that prevented him from losing himself.

After two hours passed, the perplexity in Meng Hao’s eyes slowly faded away, and was replaced with a bright light.

“What an incredible Dao Projection!” thought Meng Hao. Sweat pouring down his forehead, he took a deep breath and thought back to the daze he had just been in, and it frightened him. If there were any deadly forces in this area instead of just good fortune and chances for enlightenment, then Meng Hao would have been in great danger just now.

“Divine sense will allow me to find more of these Immortal ruins, and my willpower will enable me to fight back against the pressure. As for intuition, that is what I need to gain enlightenment. That… is what leads to creativity.”

After a moment of silence, Meng Hao continued to sit there cross-legged, recalling everything he had just seen.

“There must be an object which, when I see it, will make me think of someone,” he murmured. He opened his bag of holding and swept it with his divine sense. Suddenly, he paused, and his eyes flickered awkwardly.

“Uh….” He hesitated for a moment, then pulled out a stack of paper from his bag of holding.

“Every time I look at this particular promissory note, I think of the resplendent Taiyang Zi….

“And this paper makes me think of Ji Xiaoxiao.

“This one makes me think of Song Luodan.

“And this one… Li Ling’er. This one is Sun Hai. It’s too bad I don’t have a promissory note from Fan Dong’er. Ji Yin didn’t write one either.” After looking over the promissory notes, he smiled wryly and realized that the enlightenment he had experienced didn’t seem to be the same as that of the middle-aged man in front of the well.

The man obviously missed an old friend or acquaintance, or perhaps a significant other. Meng Hao’s experience was quite different than that.

Sighing, Meng Hao put the promissory notes back in his bag of holding and rose to his feet. After looking at the ruins one last time, he flickered off into the distance.

“I don’t think the enlightenment of that place suits me,” he thought, shaking his head. “If it did, how come I would think of promissory notes in a place that was clearly designed to make one think of old friends?” He turned into a beam of light that shot off into the distance.

Of course, his divine sense was backed by eighty percent of the power of a true Immortal, so when he sent it out to search for another ruin, he quickly found one, and then flew in that direction.

What he found was a dried-up old river.

The only thing left behind was an empty riverbed, and pressure once again radiated out as Meng Hao neared. This time, there was no voice, only pressure, and this pressure was stronger than that which he had experienced at the well.

He sat down cross-legged in the riverbed and wrestled against the pressure for about an hour. When he returned to his normal state, he was panting, and more sweat poured down his forehead.

“If there are 99 sets of ruins like this, plus an intact Immortal pavilion, then that means that the more enlightenment I gain, the better my results will be when I create my divine ability.

“However… I’m only at the second ruin and it’s already so difficult. I wonder how many ruins some of the others have reached enlightenment in.” Meng Hao frowned and looked at the riverbed. Fighting back against the pressure with his willpower, he began to experience a vision.

He saw water flowing up into the sky, and boundless waves. This river seemed capable of shaking Heaven and Earth. As it flowed upward, it cut a huge rift through the sky.

“I bet if I can understand this river,” he murmured to himself, “I’ll be able to create a divine ability that has to do with flowing water. When I unleash it, a celestial river would appear all around me that would sweep over everything.” After thinking about it, he decided that such a divine ability would definitely be powerful. Therefore, he continued to sit there cross-legged, silently trying to reach enlightenment.

However, after six hours flowed by, he opened his eyes in frustration. After all that time, he wasn’t even able to organize his thoughts.

“When I look at the river, I know that it can lead to enlightenment about a divine ability, but I can’t stop thinking about the river beneath Mount Daqing, the bottle gourd I threw into it, and the slip of paper that was inside.” Scratching his head in puzzlement, he remembered how he had written down his great aspiration onto that note, and how he still hadn’t achieved that goal. He couldn’t help but sigh. [1. In chapter 1, Meng Hao put a piece of paper in a gourd, and then threw it into the river. It was never explained what specifically was written on the piece of paper, but now we have a clue….]

“It seems this place doesn’t suit me either,” he thought.

Standing, he sent his divine sense out to look for more ruins.