Pursuit of the Truth

”The child really sensed a second Berserker Mark!”

Amidst the snow floating down from the sky, the old man sucked in a deep breath, and as he looked at the ground, eager anticipation appeared in his eyes.

”His first Mark was the Sky Mark. The second is snow. This snow fell from the sky, but belongs to the ground. It’s caught between the sky and earth. This sort of Mark… is incredibly rare!

”The Berserker Mark reflects the soul. Unless there’s a unique serendipity, most of the Marks are ordinary. This child’s first Mark was the moon, and the moon was not cold, but was made of fire. It’s clear that the fire moon has a large influence in his life!

”That’s why when he Transcended, he sensed… the fire moon in his trance.

”As for the second Berserker Mark, it’s a chilling air that turns into snow… it didn’t appear out of nowhere either. There’s… there’s… some sort of sentimentality lying within…”

The old man mumbled in a pensive silence. A glint appeared briefly in his eyes. He stared at the two figures that were indistinct in the snow on the mountain. He looked at the two of them holding hands as if they were walking in the snowstorm, and those two figures did not disappear for a long time.

”Due to an encounter, the Moon Mark appeared, due to love, the Snow Mark appeared… This child, if he is up to my standards and becomes my disciple… then it’ll be my great fortune, and also his serendipity!”

The old man sucked in a deep breath. He lifted his right hand and pressed it to the center of his brows with a grave expression on his face.

”I can’t use Timeless Creation to enter the child’s Transcendence thoughts anymore. Oh well, he’s worth breaking one of my seals!” the old man mumbled.

A blue light suddenly appeared on his right index finger, which remained pressed to the center of his brows. That light instantly covered the old man’s entire body, causing the sea of blood behind him to turn in to a sea of blue blood. Even the stone statue inside was letting out a strange blue light.

As the blue light shone through the sky, the snow that floated down was also stained with blue. The old man lifted his right hand abruptly and pointed towards the ground.

”The Ancient’s Words, Three Timeless Creations! Bucca, Taureus, Bratus!”

The old man let out a low growl. The moment he spoke, the ground trembled, and an illusionary world appeared out of nowhere, causing the area of thousands of lis to start distorting as if there were multiple layers overlapping with each other.

A vast amount of energy collected from within the old man’s body and a strange totem appeared on his face. That totem… was formed from three odd pictures!

The first picture was carved under his chin. Its pieces looked like the cracks on a tortoise shell, and it was filled with blue light.

The second picture was that of a two-horned bull, which appeared on the center of the old man’s brows.

The third picture was that of a dried up old tree. It crawled up the old man’s face, causing his face to look terrifying.

There was a sword penetrating through each of the three pictures. The three swords were dull, but as of then, one of them was glowing with blue light.

Within the cavern in the mountain covered by snow, Su Ming remained seated. His entire body was covered in a layer of frost. There was also ice crystals spread through the area all around him. He remained unmoving, but there was a hint of loneliness and forlornness on his face.

The lake had disappeared in the world before Su Ming’s eyes. It was replaced with a large mirror completely formed from ice - an ice mirror.

He stood in front of the mirror and saw his own reflection. As he looked into the mirror, Su Ming heard a whisper calling out to him. That sound seemed to be dragging out his soul, causing his will to slowly blend into the mirror…

When his mind became clear, he saw an endless expanse of snow before him. The area was familiar to him.

Compared to the moon in the lake he saw before, Su Ming could see his body this time. It was as if the world within the mirror was not an illusion. It was real.

Su Ming walked silently forward in the snowstorm with a hint of bafflement. The snow was falling heavily and it covered the sky, causing him to be unable to see the stars hanging in the sky. He could only see the snow that was falling so densely that the two seemed to be connected. They danced in the sky and created a veil of snow that blocked his view and his way forward.

Su Ming walked forth without a word as he looked at the snow. Gradually, he felt as if his surroundings grew more familiar. The moment a light chuckle that sounded like silver bells traveled into his ears from afar, he immediately started trembling. He lifted his head swiftly and looked in the direction the laughter had come from.

”This is…”

Su Ming felt shaken. He stomped on the ground and flew up as the snow on the ground jumped into the air. He saw a city through the snowstorm that was not too big in the distance while he was in midair. The city looked like a slumbering beast lying on the floor in the midst of darkness…

”Wind Stream… Mudstone City…”

He could see a lot of invisible ripples spreading out from behind the city. Beneath them, he saw a sealed mountain clearly.

When he saw that, Su Ming trembled harder. He slowly turned around and cast a glance in another direction.

This was the direction to the forest. From this height, he could vaguely see five summits that looked like fingers on a hand behind the vast forest.

”Dark Mountain…”

Time trickled by slowly. He did not know how much time had passed by. When the chuckle that sounded like silver bells appeared again, this time much closer than before, Su Ming snapped out of his daze. He did now know when, but some time ago, two lines of tears fell down his face.

”Have I come home..?”

Su Ming lowered his head in anguish. He saw a girl walking closer to him on the snow as she laughed happily.

He saw a foolish looking boy behind the girl. There was happiness on his face, along with exasperation as he chased after her.

Laughter echoed in the air, and it was carefree. When the boy caught up to the girl, he played with her in the snow…

Su Ming watched all of it quietly. He looked at the naivety in the boy and his carefree attitude, observed the brightness in the boy’s eyes, and the face without the scar.

He also looked at the girl, the girl who exuded a wild and untamed beauty. Her sparkling, big eyes contained a dream, her look making others intoxicated.

”Is it a dream..?”

Su Ming felt his heart clenching in pain. His body slowly descended from the sky and he stood beside the boy. He looked at the familiar people before him sitting in the snow holding hands as they uttered familiar words.

He could see them.

Yet they could not see him.

”Su Ming, what will we become in ten years..? Are we still going to be as carefree as we are now..?”

”Are you still angry?”

”Don’t be mad.”

”I’m not mad.”

”Ten years later, we’ll definitely still be as carefree as we are now… And by that time, my level of cultivation will definitely be very high!

”The elder told me yesterday that I’ll be staying in Wind Stream Tribe in the future. I’ll receive the same guidance as Ye Wang from Wind Stream’s Elder… Perhaps in ten years’ time, I’ll be close to Transcendence Realm.”

The words that sounded like the boy’s fantasies traveled into Su Ming’s ears. He sat down quietly beside them. As he sat next to the girl and looked at her, a gentle look gradually appeared in his eyes. After a long while, the pair of youths stood up. As they laughed, the boy picked the girl to carry her on his back. She buried her head in the boy’s back with a shy look and the two of them went away into the distance.

”You look silly…” the girl whispered softly.

Su Ming could not hear her clearly in the past. Now, as he stood by her side, he heard her.

It was as if he could not control his own body. He followed the pair of youths and walked with them through the snow until they arrived in Wind Stream City.

He stood in the city and watched the girl sweeping away the snow off the boy’s body with a shy smile on her face.

”Su Ming… it’ll be an important day for me seven days later… I’ve always spent that day with my grandma in the past… This year, I want to spend that day with you… alright?

”That’s a promise…”

The moment Su Ming heard the words once again in his current situation, the pain in his heart reached its peak. It made his face pale and he took a staggering step back. His chest clenched in pain and his fingers dug into his flesh, as if he was trying to stop his anguished heart from beating so that he would not be in pain again.

He stood by the side quietly with a conflicted look on his face. That conflict was clearly due to grief stemmed from sorrow.

”That’s a promise. Seven days later, no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing, I’ll definitely come and find you…” Su Ming mumbled, saying the exact same words as the boy by his side. He did not miss a single word, but the meaning of their sentences was different due to the difference of age and time between them.

As he mumbled his words, Su Ming saw the girl blushing. She ran back to Dark Dragon Tribe’s lodge with a shy look. He looked at the boy laughing happily and foolishly as he walked in another direction.

Su Ming’s laughter eventually fell silent and turned into a sigh. It echoed in the air, just like when he had heard it in the past when he did not know who eventually sighed…

”I see, so I was the one sighing in regret…”

Su Ming lifted his head and looked at the sky before he closed his eyes.

When he opened them once again, he was no longer in the world within the mirror. He was standing before the ice mirror instead. A white flower appeared in the mirror.

The flower looked like snow and the white hue made it seem as if it possessed a spirit.

The whispers calling out to him were coming from the flower in the mirror. It was as if everything that Su Ming saw just now was because he fell into a trance before the mirror.

There was a faint figure behind the flower in the mirror. That figure was becoming clearer, and Su Ming could see that he was a man with white hair.

The man had a freezing presence. His white hair floated in the hair. There was no scar on his face, but his features were strikingly similar to Su Ming’s. He was staring at Su Ming with a cold look from within the mirror.

There was a mark of a snow flower on the center of his brows. He wore a white robe, and when his cold gaze met Su Ming’s eyes, Su Ming saw mercilessness within them.

”Only when you are merciless will you be heartless. Only when you are heartless will your heart turn cold… Only when you are cold can you command the cold in the world… Only when you are merciless and heartless can your heart turn cold, and only then will you find the Path!

”Place your emotions in the mirror. When you turn around, do not take them away…”

The whispers calling out to him were indistinct. He could not discern whether they were mere illusions or he really heard them. The man in white continued looking at Su Ming with an aloof gaze, as if he was waiting for him to choose.