Mirror Dream Tree-V.4.165. Seal
Merin wakes in darkness.
For a moment, he thinks he is dead.
Then weakness crashes over him—raw, suffocating, unfamiliar—like he has been thrown back to the days when he was nothing more than a mortal.
His breathing turns ragged.
His eyes widen.
No Saint Essence answers his call.
No Dao responds.
No Chess Field stirs.
It is as if an immeasurable seal has been pressed onto his existence, crushing everything except his consciousness.
Cold spreads through his limbs.
Panic flickers—brief, sharp—before being crushed by shock.
He tries again.
Nothing.
Not essence.
Not Dao.
Not even the faintest resonance.
Only his spirit remains awake, intact, watching helplessly from within a body that feels fragile, heavy, and painfully real.
Merin jerks upright.
The motion is clumsy.
His body responds slowly, muscles weak, joints stiff, his balance unsteady as if he has never cultivated a single day in his life.
A hoarse sound escapes his throat.
He freezes.
That sound—
It is too loud.
Too uncontrolled.
He raises his hands in front of his eyes.
They tremble.
No aura.
No refinement.
No hidden strength beneath the skin.
Just flesh.
Merin’s heart pounds harder.
He forces himself to breathe, to think.
Shock gives way to analysis.
He scans inward with his spirit.
There—
His Dao is still present.
Sealed.
Wrapped in something vast and ancient, layered so densely that even his spirit cannot pierce it.
Not destroyed.
Suppressed.
Deliberately.
His gaze sharpens.
Someone has done this to him.
Merin slowly turns his head, eyes adjusting to the dimness.
The room is small.
Stone walls, rough and cold, faintly illuminated by a single dim source he cannot yet identify.
No windows.
No formations visible.
No obvious exits.
The air smells old.
Stagnant.
He listens.
Silence answers.
Merin steadies himself, lowering his feet to the floor, feeling the chill seep into his skin.
This book was originally published on NovelFire. Check it out there for the real experience.
For the first time in an immeasurable span of years—
He is powerless.
Merin’s gaze fixes on the door, his body tensing as faint sounds reach him from the other side.
Footsteps.
Movement.
Soft, human noises.
He closes his eyes and releases his spirit.
It spreads—
Then stops.
His spiritual perception is locked within a few meters of his body, crushed against an invisible boundary that refuses to yield.
It cannot pass through the walls.
It cannot leave the room.
Still, he exhales quietly.
Within that narrow range, the sounds sharpen.
He hears voices.
Familiar ones.
Silan.
Mengui.
And the sound of cooking.
For the first time since waking, a trace of warmth settles in his chest.
Is he… in human territory?
Merin steps forward and pushes the door open.
Light spills in.
Mengui is sitting on a piece of simple furniture, her feet not quite touching the floor.
She looks up instantly.
Their eyes meet.
A smile blooms on her face.
She stands and walks toward him, her steps quick but careful.
“Father, are you okay?”
Merin exhales and gives a faint shrug.
“I’m okay,” he says dryly.
“As a mortal can be.”
From the open kitchen connected to the room, Silan’s voice carries over.
“Your cultivation is sealed because you were poisoned,” she says, calm but tight.
“Nine Nether Corpse Poison.”
Mengui reaches him and takes his arm, supporting him gently as she guides him back toward the furniture.
“Father, don’t worry,” she says softly.
“Senior Silent Thunder is trying to find a way to heal you.”
Merin slowly sits down, his brows furrowing.
“Senior Silent Thunder?”
Mengui sits beside him, nodding.
“Senior Silent Thunder is a Quasi-Supreme of the human race, from the Human World lineage,” she explains.
“He saved your life.”
Merin’s eyes narrow slightly.
“My life… how?”
Mengui’s expression hardens with indignation.
“Father, that black needle was from the Quasi-Supreme of the Ancient God Clan—Divine Source Lord,” she says.
“He would have killed you outright if Silent Thunder Supreme hadn’t intervened.”
Merin nods slowly, absorbing the information.
“Did he say anything about the poison?” he asks.
Mengui hesitates, then answers honestly.
“Nine Nether Corpse Poison is extremely difficult to dissolve,” she says.
“It contains the Dao imprint of the Nine-Flower Quasi-Supreme.”
“To remove it, your Dao must reach the Nine-Flower stage.”
She lowers her voice.
“For you… They say it’s almost impossible.”
“With a Saint King lifespan and spirit, comprehending your Dao to Nine Flowers shouldn’t be achievable.”
Merin listens in silence.
Then he smiles.
Not bitter.
Not forced.
Calm.
Five thousand years, he thinks.
A Saint King’s lifespan.
Enough.
More than enough.
Afterwards, he returns to his room.
He closes the door, sits cross-legged on the floor, and closes his eyes.
He begins to comprehend.
His spirit is restricted.
The poison interferes constantly, dulling perception, slowing every realisation.
What once took moments now takes days.
What once flowed now resists.
Still, Merin does not stop.
Frustration rises.
He suppresses it.
Pain follows.
He ignores it.
He continues to comprehend the Laws, refining his Dao fragment by fragment, flower by flower.
Slow.
Relentless.
Unyielding.
Because surrender has never been an option.
After months of stalled cultivation, Merin changes his approach.
If his Dao is blocked from advancing through force, then he will advance through meaning.
His Dao has always pursued a single end—
to turn the virtual into the real,
the false into the true,
illusion into existence.
If direct comprehension is sealed, then he will approach from the side.
Illusion.
Not as deception—but as structure.
He turns inward and begins practising with his spirit alone, reaching toward the Law of Illusion, testing its edges, feeling where it overlaps with reality.
If illusion can be refined to the point of coherence, then perhaps his Dao can bloom its first flower without brute force.
He decides to begin with sound.
To shape illusion through sound, he must first master it.
Merin orders a flute.
Simple.
Portable.
Breath-driven.
He leaves his house and seeks a master.
The flute master is old, mortal, his fingers bent with age, his breath thin but controlled.
Merin learns not through cultivation, but repetition.
Breath.
Tone.
Pause.
Years pass.
At first, the sound is hollow.
Then uneven.
Then slowly—alive.
Merin learns how sound carries emotion before meaning, how it bypasses thought and settles directly into perception.
He learns silence as carefully as he learns notes.
When he finally masters the flute, he does not celebrate.
He goes to a garden.
Small demons live there—low-intelligence creatures, sensitive to sound, easily startled.
He plays.
At first, nothing happens.
Then a demon pauses.
Another tilts its head.
Merin adjusts the rhythm, not forcing illusion, but suggesting it.
The sound bends.
A demon stumbles, seeing something that is not there.
Another curls up, reacting to fear without cause.
Merin continues, refining the illusion until sound alone builds an environment—
a false forest,
a false predator,
a false safety.
The demons react as if it is real.
He stops.
The illusion collapses.
He understands.
Sound is not an illusion.
It is a doorway.
Next comes scent.
Merin seeks a scent master, a cultivator who has abandoned combat to study fragrances and emotional resonance.
From him, Merin learns that scent is memory.
One breath can rewrite the past.
He learns extraction.
Blending.
Layering.
Years pass again.
He practices by releasing faint scents into controlled spaces—
fear without threat,
comfort without warmth,
nostalgia without memory.
Demons enter the illusion before realising they are trapped in one.
Some walk in circles.
Some lie down and sleep.
Merin learns restraint.
Too strong, and the illusion shatters.
Too weak, and it fades.
Balance is everything.
Then taste.
Then sight.
Then touch.
One by one, Merin masters sensory illusion—not as trickery, but as structural replacement.
Each sense becomes a thread.
Together, they form a weave.
He practices with Silan.
She stands across from him as he creates a garden that is not there.
She reaches out.
Her hand stops.
She smiles.
“You’re closer,” she says.
Merin nods.
He feels it too.
Something shifts.
His Dao stirs.
Not violently.
Gently.
A bud forms.
The first flower is not yet open—but it exists.
The Law of Illusion responds.
One morning, as he practices in silence, a familiar pressure enters the courtyard.
Merin opens his eyes.
Silent Thunder Lord stands before him.
“I found a way to heal you,” Silent Thunder says.
Merin rises slowly.
And listens.
.
!
V.4.165. Seal
Comments