Chapter 678: Ghost
Hui Yue looked at the sylph with curiosity. They truly were creatures without much desire. They could not indulge in food or drinks as it would taint their pure bodies. They wore clothes made from Ancestral Worldpower, so fabrics held little interest to them too.
They could not reproduce so although they valued friendship, love was something they did not experience often. Little Green was quite the exception from usual sylphs and spirits.
Since these spirits held no real desire towards worldly things, it was hard to trade with them or make them share their knowledge. The only reason these sylphs had tried to help Hui Yue and his friends was because they had assisted them in the war against the beasts.
But what spirits really liked to hear about was stories. These could be ancient stories about the world they lived in, sagas about long lost heroes, or just casual recollections of one’s own trips.
Most spirits would never leave the world they were born on, and because of this, they wanted to know more about the outside world. What were they missing out on? What was this vast galaxy truly like?
They also liked hearing stories about the everyday life of humans. Humans had been extinct in the Archaic World for a very long time, and although some of the spirits were as old as the world itself, they had never really had much interaction with humans.
It had been eons since humans had last lived in the Archaic World; a time long passed before the many worlds were thrown into chaos. Now the Archaic World was a place with dense Ancestral Worldpower and countless broken worlds.
While the humans had been unable to bear the passage of time, some spirits had managed, and these spirits had become the most fearsome creatures in the entire galaxy.
Spirits increased their strength by absorbing the Ancestral Worldpower in the surrounding area at the same time as they comprehended the dao.
Unfortunately, comprehending the dao was much more difficult for spirits than it was for humans. They did not have much connection with the dao, and therefore they often specialized in using Ancestral Worldpower skills instead.
All of this was new information for Hui Yue and his friends, so they listened intently to everything said by the sylph as he welcomed them into his mansion.
They walked through random rooms and corridors before reaching a large library. Everywhere they went was devoid of people. No servants could be seen in the entire mansion; only their group seemed to be present within the entire building until they reached the library where they saw another spirit.
This spirit was not a sylph, but a male ghost. His entire body was transparent, but otherwise, he looked like a normal human being.
Ghosts were created by sentiment and an overwhelming amount of Ancestral Worldpower. If someone that died had a strong grievance or if they had an unyielding longing, their sentiment could give birth to ghosts.
These ghosts were not ghosts of the experts who had died, but they felt a strong connection with the emotion that someone had felt before dying.
If someone had died with immense killing intent, the ghost that was created would have an immense killing intent that would be hard to suppress.
If a ghost were born with the emotions of longing, that ghost would always be searching for something. This something could be a significant other, a specific place, or a loving family.
As for what emotion a ghost contained, one could not see just by looking at the ghost, but after speaking with them for some time, the emotion would often surface.
When they entered the library, at first the ghost looked confused as he looked from one expert to another, yet after a short moment, he smiled and started grinning.
“Humans!” he exclaimed. “Real humans! Come, sit down, sit down!”
He acted like the host, but the sylph did not show any signs of caring. The ghost’s arms spread out, and he had a great smile on his face.
“Come, tell me about the world outside of the Archaic World. Tell me about the lifestyle of humans. I want information; I want to know about everything!”
Hearing the longing in his voice, Hui Yue instantly guessed that this ghost had a sense of longing making up his core, a sense of longing towards the outside galaxy.
“I will tell you about our world. I will tell you about the world outside of the Archaic World and about the outer perimeter, but in return, I need you to help me.”
Hui Yue paused for a moment to let his words sink into the ghost’s mind. The more he heard, the brighter his eyes shone, and the wider the smile became.
“What help can I possibly provide you with?” he asked tentatively. Although he truly wished to know about the outside world and the outer perimeter of the Archaic World, he was not silly enough to agree without knowing exactly what he was agreeing to.
“I hear you have traveled from the inner regions of the Archaic World to here,” Hui Yue said, and the ghost nodded his head as it was, after all, no secret.
“I am looking for a specific world,” he continued. “A world where the entire world is filled with herbs as far as the eye can see. A world where there is a sentient pill. A world where there is a human residing.”
The ghost frowned. “You want information about this world, and as a way of paying me all of you will tell me about your own worlds and the entire galaxy?”
Hui Yue nodded his head. The information might seem trivial to him and his friends, but for this ghost, it was as important as the information about the Alchemist God and the herb world was to Hui Yue.
“I can do that,” he finally said with a sigh. “I was born eons ago. When I was created, humans still lived within the Archaic World.”
“There once lived a young boy. He was nothing special, just the son of an ordinary farmer.”
“When he was young he was told stories about the immortals. He heard that some young men and women had the talents and ability to become Gods. He heard that they could fly towards other worlds and that they even had the power to break the fabric of reality.”
“This young man was filled with longing. A longing to see these immortals, to become one of them, and to leave the world one day and experience the vast galaxy outside.”
“Unfortunately, this young boy did not have the talent to become an immortal. He could not even become a cultivator, and his heart was filled with regret, but his longing never died.”
“Even as he grew older and got married he would often dream about the outside world. As he got children and grandchildren, he would tell them all the stories he had heard throughout his life, and they would listen with excitement.”
“Since he was no cultivator, he soon grew old, but in his heart, the longing of a lifetime had only grown stronger, and as he died, this longing for the outside world became a sentiment that gave birth to me.”
“I spent a long time in the world he was born trying to suppress my need to leave, my need to see the outside world, but as the years passed by like water I found it harder and harder to ignore the urge to leave.”
“Eventually, I had no other option than to start my travels. I am a ghost, and because of this, I am able to leave the world I was born on. I am not a sylph, so I do not owe anything to the world that birthed me, but I kept feeling that it was very dangerous to go to the worlds outside of my own. I felt that it would be the end of me if I went, but even so, the longing within me could not be contained.”
“As the eons passed, things changed. Fewer and fewer humans were born, and humans started to become a rare species, and slowly they became extinct. As the change started to happen, I was still only a simple ghost. I did not realize that this had something to do with the place I lived becoming what is now called the Archaic World.”
“As time went on I had to leave. I could no longer stay behind, and I left the world, unaware of the fact that I was within a place called the Archaic World.”
“I traveled from world to world. I visited so many worlds but stayed away from the ones that seemed as if they were collapsing. I was able to keep my life while traveling from place to place and during my travels, I met many different life forms. I experienced many different cultures, and I was astonished to see that every world I visited had no humans. They had not only gone extinct in my world but also everywhere else as well.”
“I traveled through the innermost regions rather fast as I was eager to experience the rest of the worlds and see how far I could go; I did not want to look back.”
“When I reached the middle area though I started to slow down. In the middle area, I came across humans from time to time, and I started to gain an understanding of what kind of place I was trapped within. I realized that the Archaic World was not the entire galaxy.”
“Hearing this, I was eager to leave the Archaic World, but as a ghost, leaving is not easy. Many humans see us spirits as slaves, and although I am in no way weak, I am also not able to fight against many humans. This is why I am stuck here in the middle area. I dare not continue forward, but deep within me is an uneasiness that I cannot let go of. I am afraid that I will never find peace unless I travel across the entire galaxy and see it all.”
The ghost sighed and shook his head, “However, the world you are looking for… Is one that I have indeed seen.” he said, and his words were like thunder to Hui Yue and Little Green. Their already focused expression turned even more focused. Their eyes widened and their fists clenched. Was the Alchemist God there? Was the world within the innermost regions or the middle area? How long had it been since he had come across this world?
“I told you before that I understood that this was purely the Archaic World and not the entire galaxy because I spoke with a human about it right?” the ghost asked and Deng Wu nodded his head alongside all the others. Hui Yue was immobile; he was just staring at the ghost, waiting for the next words to be spoken.
“There was one man in a world I visited. He was middle-aged and always wore a smile. He told me many things about the outside world, and about the Archaic World too.”
“Can you describe this man to us?” Hui Yue asked breathlessly while looking at Little Green. If it were the Alchemist God, then they would be able to find him, but if it were not him, then it would prove to be a problem for them. If Little Green could say that it was really him, then they would be delighted.
“He wore green clothes saying that the color reminded him of someone important,” the ghost started his explanation. “He was middle-aged, and his skin was bronze from being under the sun so much. His hair was black with gray streaks, and he was always seated together with the sentient pill, speaking with it about alchemy. He would sometimes go on a trip through the garden, but he would not pick any of the herbs. He did not create any pills in all the years I stayed with him, he just discussed alchemy with his pill-friend.”