Chapter 76 - True-False Illusion Formation

“Ah!”

Yaan suddenly sat up, gasping for breath, dripping with sweat from every pore of his skin. He looked at the old man and swallowed painfully. He opened his mouth but was breathing too heavily to speak. Luckily, it was fairly obvious what he wanted to ask.

“Your answer satisfied me, so, I’ll help you to dive even deeper into this near-inevitable death you seem to be seeking. Oh, and those three pills were just stimulants, to help you stay awake. The astral spirits were half a second away from taking over your mind, so…you're welcome."

Yaan nodded, but continued gasping, struggling to breath. His heart had never pulsated this fast in his life! He had thought the old man was going to gift him with some useful medications, but the old spirit merely gave him a medicine to forcefully keep him awake, this wasn’t a solution but a short term bandage!

Yaan dazedly stood up, still grimacing, gritting his teeth and fighting his own mind.

“Where…?” This one hoarse word was all he could barely muster.

“The 9th level pagoda.”

When Yaan look surprised, the old man glared at him, whilst continuing to throw strange pills, orbs and potions at his body. He even cast a couple of spells.

“The 9th pagoda shields those within from the spiritual pressure outside. Also, know that you’re here as an exception. Unlike the other 1st through 6th pagodas, certain conditions must be met to enter the 7th through 9th. Especially the 9th, this temple is...well, you’ll understand soon enough.”

“Hey…” Yaan half growled out as he steadied his breathing, slouching and trudging forwards. The old man glanced back and smirked.

“Too much for you already? Tough, I said I would ‘help' so I-”

“No, it's not enough, not nearly enough! I can’t afford to fail this time!"

The old guy blinked, staring at Yaan in surprise for a moment. His eyes flashed with white light, causing his gaze to brighten substantially.

“How does a kid like young have enough mental fortitude to resist all this exactly? It just hit me, I'm only helping you stay awake and stay alive, nothing else…so how come you’re yet to lose your sanity?”

Yaan had consumed the calamity of insanity pill, a neurotoxic poison that led to a deep state of insanity. He used this pill to temper his mind, and truthfully, it really was distorting his mental clarity to a fairly extreme degree right now. However…

“I’m a fiend, I grew up eating insanity…are you going to help or just mess with me until I fail?!” Yaan, clearly not in his right state of mind, was acting very aggressive. The old man didn't seem to care, and he even smiled. He then hit Yaan with the full force of the ‘help’ that he so desperately wanted.

Whoosh…

“There are three trial halls in the 9th pagoda. In the first hall, there are four formations. Here’s the first formation, I’ll apply 20% power for you.” With a strange smile, the old guy waved his hand.

BANG!

Yaan groaned as his body was instantly forced into the ground, completely unable to stand. In his defence, he was seriously poisoned and on the verge of death right now!

“That's the gravity. Any good? Well, let's add the spiritual pressure formation…I think 20% again.”

WAM!

Yaan’s body actually shrank ever so slightly as the surrounding spiritual pressure forced all of his cells inwards. However, despite the agony and his inability to move, Yaan yelled out:

“Not enough!”

“Oh, more you say?” The old guy grinned oddly. “Well, since the gravity and spiritual pressure formations are already on, you must be referring to demonic soul formation, right? Ok then, let's go for the weakest of the 12.”

Yaan was crushed by an even more obscure force from above. He forcefully turned his head, looking up and glaring back at the demonic soul that was trying to pressure him.

Honestly...what a joke. After his meeting with the celestial demon general and that overwhelmingly powerful woman, how could a mere demon trapped in a formation bother him? Enraged, the demon howled out, letting lose its full soul force in an attack towards Yaan. When he just slumped for a brief moment, then leaned back up, both the demon and old man were stumped.

And Yaan, whilst clearly impressed by this pagoda, was now feeling annoyed.

“Old man! You said you'd help, so help! Stop assaulting my soul and body for no reason, I need more mental pressure! Maybe I should just…”

Showing a vicious expression, Yaan groaned painfully as he reached into his spatial ring, then pulled out a 2-Star astral crystal. He slammed into onto his forehead, but the cut had healed over by now. Yaan snorted and directly swallowed it, then used his already controlled spirits to try to force this one...into his brain!

When subduing astral spirits, this was, absolutely, the worst way to attempt it. This was giving the mentally brainwashing parasite free access to your control centre! Normally, it would take you over instantly…

After a few seconds…

"Still not nearly enough! More, anything else, something new! Attack my mind! Use your most mentally torturous move possible!"

Yaan had a feeling that his only way to survive was to move forwards. He also felt that if he pushed the strain on his mind far enough, he would break through a certain limit…

It seemed that finally, the old powerhouse had grown tired of Yaan yelling at him. After seeing Yaan in a somehow partially competent state, combined with his irksome attitude…the old man decided that he would fulfil this kid’s ‘wishes’.

As a blue light illuminated the ceiling, ground and walls, Yaan could immediately feel a pressing sensation within his head, as if his thought process was being crushed.

And it was only just beginning.

As the formations continued to build up, Yaan painfully forced himself to sit up, then crawled towards the centre of the hall, gasping with each movement of a limb.

“So you finally decided to stop playing around and brought something out that can actually train the mind?” Yaan laughed crazily through the pain, which became exponentially more excruciating as he closer approached the central rune. He knew that previously, the old spirit was merely testing his ability to endure those other formations, only this mental targeting formation could truly help him right now.

Oddly, the body and soul pressures had actually been removed entirely at this point, leaving only the formation which targeted his mind. Even so, just this one formation was so much more difficult to resist!

Not only was the old man steadily ramping up the intensity of the true-false illusion formation, which caused the pressure on Yaan’s mind to grow beyond his pain tolerance, but this pain only grew worse and worse as he approached that central rune!

“Stop. Enter that rune, and you will enter the actual true-false illusion. Even at the current 15% intensity, you’re hardly able to resist…and once the intensity surpasses 25%, the low setting will be activated, making it impossible to fight through the illusion with anything other than the mind itself.

Yaan stared at the old man, then crazily grinned, continuing to crawl into the circle. He paused just before reaching the edge, making the old man believe that he’d finally found his brain…instead, Yaan reached into his spatial bag and swallowed multiple medicines. He wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else within the illusion, so his body and soul needed to be in a state where they could heal themselves without external assistance.

After swallowing those high ranked and fairly rare pills, Yaan glanced at the old man and asked a final question.

“Can this formation trigger the initiation into the psyche path? If it can, then does it need supplements, or a certain intensity?”

“Sigh…” The old man slowly shook his head, as if reminiscing on the difficulty of the challenge that Yaan had embarked upon, even after so many had failed before him.

“For you…this illusion formation is your greatest hope…but entering when you’re under the influence of the calamity of insanity pill, as well as all those astral spirits…”

“What intensity will I need to assure success? Yaan asked as he took the final step into the rune, causing his consciousness to blur heavily as illusions bore down upon him. The old man remained silent for a long while, before finally looking at Yaan deeply.

“For you, at your level, with your present state…25% activation will provide reasonable odds, 50% activation will give you good odds.”

“Define good…” Yaan stared, now staring in the centre of the rune and watching as the room rapidly faded away from his vision.

“Perhaps a 10% chance of success? That's assuming that you survive, keep your sanity and pass the trial though.”

As the old man began to fade from his sight and ears, Yaan asked for something somewhat extreme!

“What about 100%? That should be the full illusion, the proper trial, right?” Yaan asked, seeming to have calmed down somewhat now.

“Indeed, the full activation is difficult, but maybe that is truly what you need…fine then. But just so you know, the full activation of the formation will trigger the complete true-false illusion world trial. If you truly wish to do this properly, then you should aim to complete the trial perfectly. There are different gradings for your completion of the trial, but there’s no point explaining this, since you’ll forget as soon as you enter. If you are able to remember these details, then you are already walking along the path towards perfection.”

Seeing that Yaan was remaining silent now, the old man continued.

“But remember this…all things in this inheritance were placed by master, an entity obsessed with physical strength and with his own internal ability. It was only a casual musing that I overheard by chance, but master once pondered over the possibility that all paths can eventually converge back into body tempering…now, for the true-false illusion to be properly activated once again, I hope that you will emerge neither insane nor dead.”

With that, everything finally went dark for Yaan. He forced himself to remain standing on his feet as he looked around. However, the longer he looked around for, the more he forgot about his current situation…