Chapter 614: Targeted Deity's Gaze

Xu Qing had encountered many difficulties throughout his life; some he resolved, others remained insurmountable.

However, when it came to cultivation, Xu Qing rarely felt stuck, especially concerning comprehension. This was true whether it was the Haishen Art from earlier or the series of cultivation methods he learned later. He had always practiced them smoothly.

Even understanding Ghost Emperor Mountain was straightforward, and subsequently manifesting it posed no significant obstacles. The same applied to the Golden Crow, which, though slightly challenging, was quickly grasped due to his clear thought process.

Of course, external guidance played a significant role, but fundamentally, it was Xu Qing's exceptional comprehension. His comprehension had always been astonishing.

Yet, this time, he was lost, without direction or a clue.

How to transform the poison ban into his gaze—this task sounded easy but was incredibly ethereal to achieve. Xu Qing had tried continuously for three days but still couldn't succeed.

He could integrate the poison ban into his eyes because the poison ban was merged with him, allowing him to disregard its harmful effects. Even if it lingered, the purple crystal could restore him. So, to some extent, his eyes could perpetually contain poison.

But it was only "in" his eyes; he couldn't project it through his gaze.

"Gaze..." Xu Qing fell silent.

He didn't quite understand what kind of light a gaze was, or how he could infuse poison into it to instantly poison everything he looked at.

"How do deities achieve this?"

Xu Qing looked exhausted. Feeling the princely restraints around him dissipate, he stood up and silently walked towards the pharmacy. Just as he was about to step into the earth city, a thought struck Xu Qing.

"Perhaps I'm too fixated on my eyes?"

Xu Qing paused, closing his eyes and quietly sensing, but everything remained as usual. Covering his eyelids didn't seem to offer him more understanding. The darkness he saw was merely the absence of light when his eyes were covered.

"So, what if I had no eyes?"

He was a person who was harsh on himself. Without any hesitation, he raised his hands and pressed them firmly over his eyes, exerting force.

Intense pain erupted, and blood streamed down his eye sockets. His eyes were blinded. This sharp pain surged through Xu Qing's senses in waves, but compared to the pain he had experienced in the past, it was nothing.

His blinded eyes would slowly recover under the power of the purple crystal. However, Xu Qing suppressed the crystal's healing power, wanting to experience this state more fully.

The darkness before him now was different from the darkness he saw when merely closing his eyes!

Xu Qing's body trembled. This was a point he hadn't focused on before; he hadn't realized that being blind was different from just closing his eyes. When his eyes were closed, his vision was blocked, and what he saw was black. But this time, there was no vision, and thus no concept of black.

"It's not black..."

Xu Qing murmured. He found it hard to describe this sensation. It was like a normal person closing one eye; their vision narrowed, as if a part was missing. And that missing part wasn't black; it had no color, no visual information feedback—as if it had been erased.

"Void..."

Xu Qing spoke softly. The word appeared in his mind. This was the scene he experienced after being blinded. It made Xu Qing feel somewhat unaccustomed.

After a long time, Xu Qing spread his divine sense. Gradually, the world reappeared in his mind. Everything was perceived not through sight, but through scent, the sensation of wind, the resonance of his soul, and the coverage of his divine念.

Divine sense was like an invisible network, composed of countless ripples that spread out from him as the center. When it touched anything, it would generate feedback, sustaining this continuous fluctuation. This, in turn, formed an awareness in his mind.

Awareness was not a picture. A picture could be seen and reacted to intuitively, but awareness was a feeling, a sensation. Sometimes, for cultivators, due to the existence of divine sense, it was difficult to distinguish between pictures and awareness, leading them to instinctively believe that divine sense was merely an extension of vision.

But in reality, at this moment, Xu Qing understood it was not. In Xu Qing’s perception, everything around him that now appeared in his mind was something he himself constructed through this external sensing. Whether it was the earth city, the sky, the ground, the surrounding houses, the pedestrians on the street, or the distant mountains, he could perceive them all, he could "see" them all.

However, some possessed color, while others had no color at all, merely being an outline.

After a long while, Xu Qing quietly stepped into the earth city, into the pharmacy. Along the way, he was constantly experiencing everything in this state, experiencing this gaze that wasn't vision.

"Those who are fated to meet will buy elixirs from a thousand miles away; those who are not fated should still take a look!"

From afar, Wu Jianwu's voice reached Xu Qing's ears. Xu Qing looked up, and in his perception, Wu Jianwu's figure appeared, imbued with color—his clothes, hair, and even his expression.

"You, you, you... what happened to you?"

Wu Jianwu's eyes widened. He looked at the approaching Xu Qing, at his closed eyes, at the flowing blood. His mind was shaken, and his voice drew the attention of others. Soon, the captain, Li Youfei, and Ling'er all noticed Xu Qing approaching.

"Brother Xu Qing!"

Ling'er grew anxious, quickly running out to hug Xu Qing. Xu Qing stroked Ling'er's head and smiled. Ling'er also had color in his perception.

"It's nothing, I'm just cultivating."

"But... what kind of cultivation requires digging out your own eyes?" Ling'er cried.

Xu Qing comforted her and walked into the pharmacy. In the scene that appeared before his eyes, the captain looked incredulous, Li Youfei was full of shock, and Ning Yan's eyes were wide. You Jing continued to boil water, and the Prince sat nearby, looking towards him.

Xu Qing patted Ling'er's back, walked to the Prince's side, sat down, and pondered for a moment. After a long pause, Xu Qing spoke softly.

"Senior, I still can't do it. Even after digging out my eyes, I still can't let the poison scatter in my gaze. Even in this perceived world, I can't let the poison infest through my divine sense."

The Prince picked up his teacup, took a sip, and was about to offer subtle guidance as before. But after a moment's thought, he looked at Xu Qing's blinded eyes and decided to be more direct this time.

"You were right to blind your eyes!"

"You need to find a way to perceive the gaze of a deity, to see the true world."

"The gaze of a deity? The true world?" Xu Qing murmured.

"Exactly," the Prince said meaningfully.

Xu Qing fell silent. After a moment, he stood up and bowed. Amid Ling'er's nervous concern, Xu Qing returned to the familiar back room, sat cross-legged, and pondered.

"Why, in the world I perceive, do some things have color and some don't?"

Xu Qing pondered, feeling that this might be a crucial point.

A night passed.

The next morning, Xu Qing looked up. He vaguely had an answer in his heart, so he sensed his surroundings. Everything had color. A moment later, Xu Qing suddenly transmitted a message to the captain.

"Senior Brother, do you have any items I haven't seen before?"

The captain, who was staring at You Jing in the main hall, raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, a knowing smile appearing on his face. He walked to the back room, and seeing Xu Qing, he raised his right hand and pulled out an item.

Xu Qing's divine sense swept over it, and he smelled it with his nose. It was an elixir, a Curse-Breaking Pill.

"Another one."

The captain's eyes gleamed with interest, and he smiled meaningfully. After thinking for a moment, he pulled out another item.

"How about this one?"

Xu Qing saw it was a belly-band, so he remained silent before shaking his head.

The captain became interested and continued to pull out various items. Xu Qing looked at the messy assortment, feeling somewhat speechless. After a moment, he felt the captain seemed to have pulled out another item.

But this item, in his perception, had no color.

Xu Qing suddenly looked up. "This is..."

The captain's gaze fell upon his palm, where there was a small blue雕像. He had obtained this item years ago; it was an object worshipped by a small tribe, nothing extraordinary, and he had kept it in his storage bag for years, even forgetting about it himself.

"This is a statue," the captain said, looking at Xu Qing.

Xu Qing nodded. In his perception, the object in the captain's hand was indeed the outline of a statue.

"What color is it?" Xu Qing asked.

"Red," the captain said with a deep smile.

Instantly, in Xu Qing's perception, the statue in the captain's palm turned red. Xu Qing nodded, about to speak, when the captain suddenly added, "Oh, I was mistaken, little Ah Qing. It's white."

Xu Qing frowned.

The captain smiled and placed the blue statue in front of Xu Qing, whispering softly, "Little Ah Qing, due to certain reasons, I cannot guide you directly. But I'll give you this statue. After your eyes recover, go see what color it truly is." With that, the captain left.

Xu Qing's mind churned with numerous thoughts. He released the purple crystal's healing power, letting it surge into his eyes, and quietly waited.

After several moments, Xu Qing opened his eyes and looked at the blue statue before him. The moment he saw the statue, Xu Qing's mind boomed. His previous perception of red and white collapsed, becoming blue. This process brought him immeasurable shock.

"Colors can deceive... So, is what I see now truly real?"

"The reason why, in my previous state, some things in the world had color and some didn't, was because the colored ones were things I had seen before or were within my cognition, so I could spontaneously form their images."

"As for things I hadn't seen, I couldn't form an image, only an outline, without color..."

"And the captain's words, causing the color in my perception to change, indicates that..."

The source that determines what the gaze sees and how the world is structured is not the eyes. For mortals, it is the brain that determines what they see. For cultivators, it is the soul that dominates, determining what is seen and felt.

Xu Qing took a deep breath, clarity dawning in his eyes.

"The eyes are merely a window."

"My previous approach was wrong. Even if I integrate the poison ban into this window, it would just accumulate there."

"To integrate the power of the poison ban into my gaze..."

"I need to infuse the poison into my soul. If my soul is poisoned, and it projects through the window, then everything I look at can be infected by my gaze!"

"I wonder if, at that time, the world I see will be the true world the Prince spoke of?"