I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 230: A Hidden Gate?

He buried his face in his hands. Xuan Qing sat beside him, swinging her legs like an innocent child caught stealing cookies.

Her legs accidentally tapped Victor who still looked sore.

"Oops..." she drew the word out with a guilty grin.

"I’m going to seal your legs together," Victor groaned.

She patted his shoulder with mock sympathy. "You love me."

"Keep dreaming."

---

(( Later That Night ))

As the others dozed or patrolled, Aeri plopped down opposite Victor with her legs crossed.

Her perceptive eyes settled upon Victor with a look of curiosity.

"You’re stronger than your realm should allow," she said without preamble. "You know that, right?"

Victor looked up warily. "So?"

"So..." She jabbed his forehead with a finger. "Why do you fight like a brute when you have a Void Emperor Bloodline?"

Victor stiffened. "How did you—"

"You said it earlier, genius." Aeri snorted. "Also, you’re a Nascent Soul Real cultivator yet you seem like you don’t use all the boons you possess."

"Eh? Why do you say so?" Victor questioned.

"You have no soul weapon neither are you linked to any beast through soul force... Just wasting your talents as a Nascent Soul Realm player," she shook her head.

"Huh? Soul force?" Victor was clueless.

"Seriously? Who is your master?" She was shocked that Victor didn’t even know what this was.

"I have none," Victor answered candidly.

"No master? No sect? No one to teach you to channel your soul force?" Her jaw dropped.

He shrugged helplessly. "I’m figuring it out?"

"Moron." She reached into her sleeve and flicked a wisp of silver qi at him. It struck his forehead, blooming like frost, then faded. "Soul attacks. Nascent Soul cultivators can project killing intent to crush lesser minds. Or wrap their spirit around a beast’s core to tame it."

He blinked. "You mean like... taming the Lion Serpent?"

Aeri snapped her fingers. The golden massive lion beast voiled its huge head down, huffing warm air at them like an overgrown cat. "Bonded. This girl is my mount, my eyes in the sky, my war beast. Tamed her once I got to the Nascent Soul Realm."

Victor rubbed his temples. "I feel like an idiot."

"You are an idiot," Aeri teased, then punched his shoulder lightly. "But lucky for you, I’m here to make you less of an idiot for now. Let’s practice."

She rose while extending her hand.

Victor grasped it as a reluctant grin tugged at his lips.

"Alright, teacher."

Behind them, Xuan Qing giggled under her breath. "I’m telling my father you have a girlfriend."

"Say that again and I’m leaving you in the swamp."

...

...

The campfire’s embers had long since died down, replaced by the soft pulses of lamps and the quiet absorption of qi due to cultivators in meditation.

The Blight Swamps slept fitfully under a canopy of shivering mist and croaking frogs, but beneath that thin veil, unseen eyes watched.

Victor, however, was not one of those asleep.

He sat cross-legged atop a broad root that curled above the swampy ground like a coiled dragon’s back.

Beside him, Aeri Fan stood with her arms folded and her eyes half-closed as she reached out with her spiritual sense.

Earlier, she had sparred with him, demonstrating the delicate control needed to wrap soul force around an enemy’s mind...

Fang Chen, or rather *Fang Chen the clueless prodigy*, absorbed everything hungrily.

He had asked her a hundred questions — How far can a soul thread reach? How does one keep it intact against a stronger will? How can soul force be layered atop killing intent to cripple an opponent before they even draw a blade? She had answered each patiently, with that exasperated affection that said, *this idiot is a diamond, but still an idiot*.

Now, in the hush of deepest night, they kept watch while the others rested in meditation poses scattered among the roots and flickering spirit stones.

"Focus on your core," Aeri murmured, barely louder than the swamp’s whispering breeze. "Feel your core pushing outward. Then hold them back."

Victor exhaled... He felt the movement within him, like the deepest part of his being was about to explode out.

His hair drifted upward like smoke as his body emitted a blue glow.

Aeri laughed under her breath. "You look terrifying. If I didn’t know you, I’d flee."

He cracked one eye open. "So what now..."

"When you try attacking in this state... It comes out as a soul attack," she stated.

Victor got up and wanted to draw his blade but didn’t even know what to attack. The trees and vegetation around him didn’t have souls so there was nothing to test this on.

However, he decided to try expanding his cultivation aura in this state...

Fwwhooomm~

[ Activating Soul Pressure ]

Everyone within a one mile radius instantly felt a quake in the very depths of their soul.

Aeri felt the pressure despite being a peak nascent soul realm Cultivator and fell to her knees.

"Oops..." Victor instantly paused and retracted his aura.

His body reduced it’s glow and slowly died down.

"Dude... What the hell?" Aeri Fan grumbled alongside the others who were initially cultivating on the other end.

"Sorry," Victor apologized but Aeri chuckled in response.

"You’d have died flailing with half your power untapped," she bumped his forehead with her knuckle and turned away while stretching her limbs.

"I’m going to cultivate a bit. Keep watch. Try not to disrupt the entire swamp."

"Ha ha."

She drifted deeper into the trees, leaving a faint qi trail like a scented breeze.

Victor sat and crossed his legs again.

He closed his eyes but this time he did not practice soul force.

He pressed deeper into the ocean of his own being.

[ Bloodline Resonance Activated ]

[ Integration: 60% ]

Not enough.

For what waited in the Ancient Groves, he needed every fraction of his void inheritance awake and obedient.

He inhaled the swamp’s dampness and rot fell away, replaced by the endless hush of a starless abyss within.

His heart drummed once, twice, then slowed to match the pulse of that inner darkness.

The arrow-like markings on his body grew brighter, resonating with a strange harmony as he cultivated the integration of his bloodline.

Somewhere in this trance, he felt the edge of his awareness slip beyond his own skin.

It crawled outward, threading through leaf, root, water drop and then something clawed at it.

A flicker which was gone in less than a second. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

He frowned.

He pressed further and the flicker returned, brushing the rim of his sense like a moth wing against glass.

It came from the waterfall where they had wasted hours searching.

He narrowed his perception, sharpening it to a spearhead.

Down through the mossy stones... deeper... through churning foam where the waterfall crashed into its basin with a force that would pulp a mortal man...

Beneath the surface, almost hidden by shifting currents... Was a seam in reality itself.

It spread open like a slut waiting to take a man in... Then shut.... Then open again, but this time five feet to the left.

He sqinted his closed eyes tighter with a half amused, half alarmed expression.

A shifting dimensional gate? In this swamp...?

He forced his sense through the aperture during one fleeting heartbeat the moment it reopened.

...and what he glimpsed beyond made him recoil.

His eyes snapped open. "What the fuck was that?"

Dawn was already breaking.

The others were stirring, yawning, rolling their shoulders to shake off stiffness.

"Up! Everyone up!" he barked with urgency that needed no explanation.

They all knew that something was probably wrong so they jumped to their feet.

Aeri appeared, looking like she’d wrestled with the spirit world and won. She raised a brow. "Find something?"

He pointed downriver. "Bottom of the falls. There’s an opening. A hidden dimensional gate. It moves, it shifts, but it’s real."

Juno cursed under his breath. Brin just cracked his knuckles in anticipation while Mirael adjusted the crimson stash of arrows strapped to her back and grinned.

"Well," Aeri Fan said brightly, "better than scouring rotten bogs for eternity."

They packed quickly, each securing gear and talismans.

Even Xuan Qing who was still blinking away sleep, perked up at the mention of a hidden dimension.

She skipped to Victor’s side and held his sleeve.

"You’re amazing! Can I have your eyes?"

"No."

She pouted, then squealed when he flicked her forehead hard enough to leave a red mark.

---

They descended the slippery cliff trail in a single file despite the roar of the falls growing from a distant hush to a bone-shaking thunder.

Mist drenched them long before they reached the basin’s edge. The pool at the bottom churned like a pot of boiling jade.

One by one, they stepped into the shallows, bracing against the force that battered them sideways with every breath.

Even with cultivation-enhanced muscles, the waterfall’s sheer impact made lungs seize and eardrums ache.

Juno bellowed over the noise. "What now, smart boy?"

Victor pointed to the center, where he sensed the seam flickering like a lightning bug behind a curtain of stone and foam.

It happened to be underneath the water fall...

"Wait for my mark. Then dive *together*. If we’re scattered, we might end up who knows where."

Aeri stepped close with her soaked hair plastered to her neck. "And if you’re wrong?"

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