Although Zhou Bai really wanted to quickly unlock the ugly drawing, he had so many points that it would be too conspicuous to redeem them all at once, so he decided to spread it over several days.
The next day, during a special class, Ying Hui came to him and said, "The Elder’s dream has opened again."
So, Ying Hui led Zhou Bai to the Elder once more, watching as Zhou Bai lay down into the pit of flesh and entered the Elder’s dream.
Christina: "Can’t I go in?"
"It’s too dangerous for you," Zhou Bai replied. "I’ll go in first and see what’s happening. If it’s not a big deal, I can learn and then come out and teach you. The dream makes it too easy to expose your existence."
So this time, Zhou Bai entrusted his body to Christina to operate, to help guard his physical form, just in case.
His consciousness followed the force from the Elder’s Primordial Spirit and directly entered the dream.
…
Amidst a swath of blue light, Zhou Bai opened his eyes to find himself facing a limitless blue sky stretching endlessly in all directions.
Standing in this boundless blue heaven, with a slight movement of his heart, he discovered he could move in any direction he thought about.
"Is this the dream?"
While he pondered where the Elder might be, a song drifted over from afar.
"This song…" Zhou Bai listened intently but, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make out the lyrics, only vaguely grasping the direction from which the song came.
The more he strained to listen, the more irritated he felt, stirring Zhou Bai’s thoughts into excitement.
With a thought, he drifted in the direction of the song, seeking to find out who was singing.
Soon he saw a tree growing from the blue sky at his feet. It seemed quite short, seemingly only two meters tall, completely green, with a woman lying on its trunk.
The woman was clad only in a white robe, her long hair flowing with the robe in the wind. Her black hair looked just like silk, and she bore some resemblance to a girl named Xiaopei.
The woman lightly hummed a song with her mouth slightly open, exuding an immortal and carefree aura that enraptured Zhou Bai momentarily.
Zhou Bai looked at the woman lying on the tree and puzzledly asked, "Who are you? What are you singing?"
The woman turned to look at Zhou Bai and laughed, with her laughter suddenly echoing from all directions.
"You come into my dream to find me, yet you don’t know who I am?"
Zhou Bai: "Are you the Elder?!" After seeing so many elderly men and women along the way, he had not expected the Elder to be such a young and graceful woman. However, he realized that since this was a dream realm, anything was possible.
"Don’t call me Elder; it sounds terrible," the woman snorted and said, "You can call me Jiaojiao."
"Jiaojiao?" Zhou Bai awkwardly repeated. "Teacher Ying Hui asked me to come here to learn the five Supreme Divine Powers."
"Supreme Divine Powers, huh?" Jiaojiao shook her head, her messy hair brushing against her face. She sighed and said, "Ice Soul Freeze Light, Tianhe Star Explosion, Time Rebirth Technique, Supreme Mysterious Divine Thunder Breath, Great Black Flame Fire Dragon Formation— which one do you want to learn?"
"Which one?" Zhou Bai felt hesitant. "I don’t really understand any of these. Can you introduce which one might suit me?"
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"Hehe, suit you?" Jiaojiao scoffed. "None of them suit you. Practicing any of them will mostly likely turn you into something neither human nor ghost. What’s the use of learning these?"
"As long as I don’t become deformed by practicing them, it should be fine," Zhou Bai said. "I don’t think I will become deformed."
"Hmph." Seeing Zhou Bai’s confident expression, Jiaojiao seemed irritated, "I’ve seen plenty of people who declared that and then distorted the truth."
Jiaojiao turned to look at Zhou Bai, "The five Supreme Divine Powers were rarely seen peak Taoist skills even before the distortion by the Heavenly Dao, each requiring great fortune, great opportunity, great determination, and great wisdom to successfully cultivate.
After the distortion of the Heavenly Dao, although fortune became chaotic and opportunities muddled, even stronger wisdom and determination were needed for successful cultivation."
"Even if Ying Hui and the others think you have the aptitude, you would still need to start from the basic Twilight Taoist Skill and meticulously cultivate your way up to the level where you can cultivate the five Supreme Divine Powers."
"Next, I will test whether you have enough aptitude to cultivate the five Divine Powers, but even just for the test, there might be life-threatening dangers. Are you willing to try?"
Zhou Bai shivered slightly and after thinking it over, he resolutely said, "Then I’d rather not try."
Although Zhou Bai had discovered the presence of Pei and the others and felt great pressure to strive for cultivation, it didn’t mean he would disregard safety. One of the three main rules of cultivation is never to be recklessly ambitious.
And joking aside, he had the "Nine Disasters Divine Chart," so why would he fear not being strong enough in the future? Zhou Bai felt he would be strong in the future even without cultivating the Twilight Taoist Skill—he just needed to hurry up.
And with a test that posed a threat to life, he thought better of it.
Jiaojiao, hearing Zhou Bai’s response, paused in surprise before exclaiming angrily, "You’re giving up just like that?"
"Yep."
"Damn, they actually told me you’re the strongest talent at the Dao School now? What a joke," Jiaojiao fumed. "With your attitude, you wouldn’t have even passed the entrance examination a hundred years ago."
Zhou Bai scratched his head awkwardly, "I’m just more afraid of dying, and since I am not learning, can I go now? I still have things to do today, and I haven’t had lunch yet..."
"Shut up!" Jiaojiao shouted, "I intentionally said the test was life-threatening just to scare you; actually, it’s not dangerous."
"Oh? Really? You scared me there," Zhou Bai sighed in relief. "Why did you want to scare me?"
"I!" Jiaojiao, seeing Zhou Bai blame her, grew even angrier, "Isn’t it to put pressure on you all? To raise the stakes of the test! If everyone knew the assessments weren’t deadly, then what’s the point of testing? I’ve been lying here for over a hundred years, and you’re the first to just give up.
Damn, how did someone like you even get into Dao School?"
Zhou Bai shrugged, "What should I do then? I still think we should forget it; this Twilight Taoist Skill seems too dangerous and not quite right for me." After saying this, he turned to leave.
"Get back here!" Jiaojiao grabbed Zhou Bai, "You’re not leaving without taking the test today!"
As she spoke, she gently pushed Zhou Bai, and he suddenly vanished.
Immediately, Jiaojiao thought, and a scene appeared before her, showing Zhou Bai’s current situation.
…
Zhou Bai found himself surrounded by darkness.
He looked left and right, finding only pitch-black darkness; he tried extending his Primordial Spirit to sense around, but he couldn’t detect anything.
"Did I enter into a different dream?" Zhou Bai thought, "I’ve entered the Great Elder’s dream, and it looks like everything here can change with just her thoughts, so does this count as the test now?"
"This is the test." Jiaojiao’s voice echoed from all directions in the darkness, "You will spend a month’s time in this void, this nothingness, this world where there is nothing, and if after a month…"
Zhou Bai interrupted, "A month? Wouldn’t I starve by then?"
Interrupted, Jiaojiao was slightly displeased but still explained, "Can the time in a dream match the time in the real world? In the real world, you’d only be here for a little while."
"Oh, that’s good," Zhou Bai tried lying down and found he could, so he laid down.