7 Despair

[3:21 pm. You glanced at the skeleton that was lying down peacefully and nodded with respect. Not only did this guy leave a detailed and informative booklet for future people, but he even left two things you needed desperately right now: Techniques and Resources!]

[3:21 pm. You rummaged around the small pouch which seemed to be able to swallow up your entire arm and knew from the instructions within the booklet that this was a low-grade spatial pouch, the only spatial item that worked within the Immortal Locking Prison.]

[3:22 pm. Despite not having spiritual qi, you are easily able to open the pouch due to your affinity with space, causing you to be surprised and pleased, also more reverent towards your physique. Within the pouch, you find a small manual with a detailed illustration on the cover of a shadowy silhouette within the Horse Stance.]

[3:22 pm. You knew that this was the Mortal-Grade Martial Art technique, Earthquake Fist. It was one of the more common martial techniques being circulated that was well known because it functioned as a combat art, a body-forging art, and an Internal Energy technique. Most martial arts, even higher-ranking ones, usually are separated into one of the three above categories with a few doing two at once.]

[3:23 pm. You don't immediately open the manual and first check the other things in the pouch. As stated in the booklet, you find two bottles that were carved out of jade and seemed to shine brightly with an ethereal luster despite so much time having passed. On the jade bottles are labels written in the local language, the left one saying 'Neiqi pill' and the right one saying 'Xueqi pill'.]

[3:23 pm. You know from the booklet that the Neiqi pill is an Internal Energy pill meant for cultivation of that aspect while the Xueqi pill is a blood qi pill meant for body forging in martial arts. With a bottle of each, even the shittiest talent in martial arts could reach the Skin Tempering Realm by the time they consumed it all.]

[3:23 pm. You put these things away and blink out of the cell and back into the corridor. After pondering for a while, you advance down the corridor and inspect the cells as you pass them much closer to see if there are any remnants.]

[3:24 pm. However, you naturally fail to find anything. Those of exceedingly high cultivation like Feng Qi were hardly ever locked up on the first level, not having enough gumption to document their lives. Not to mention that this is the cultivation world; the kind of benevolence you are used to on earth is not present here. Here, people like Feng Qi who are willing to hand down things for others after death are the exception, not the norm.]

[3:25 pm. You reach the junction where one could either go right or left. You take a deep breath because you know from Feng Qi's recount that something dangerous existed on the right that caused individuals with far higher power than the current you to perish. As such, you gingerly placed your body against the wall and carefully, slowly peeked over.]

[3:26 pm. To your surprise, there are no cells along this path. There is a small doorway that leads to an office-like room which had a huge set of double doors that were sealed with a giant inscription with complex lines and characters. Just looking at the thing made you feel dizzy, and you had to quickly look away so as not to faint. In the brief time you looked at it, you also felt your bloodline squirm uncomfortably as if something about that inscription made it discontent.]

[3:27 pm. You shook off this strange feeling and checked the other direction. Unsurprisingly, you found that it had a row of cells that stopped at a door that read 'courtyard'. Thinking about where to go, you naturally decided to take the 'safer' left path and checked the cells on your way.]

[3:28 pm. Unfortunately, there's no luck on your side as they are all full of the typical dismayed skeletons who you now knew died from thrashing in pain from Qi Deviation. You hurried down the corridor and reached the door to the courtyard, noticing that there were no such fancy inscriptions on it. This gave you the courage to gingerly push the door open to peek at the other side.]

[3:29 pm. Surprisingly, there was no sound from the door despite its age, and you easily pushed it open to reveal a dilapidated courtyard paved with stone along with patches of grass here and there. You immediately looked up but did not see the starry sky; rather, a tattered yet firm ceiling that provided dim light from outside. You were finally able to tell that it was also daytime here since the light was generated from strange crystals that reflected the sun's rays from outside.]

[3:30 pm. The courtyard was eerily quiet, and despite being well-lit, you couldn't help but feel a certain eeriness. In the end, you saw three other doors in the courtyard apart from the ones you came from: one to the east that was labeled 'Cooking and Dining Area', one to the west that was labeled 'Bathhouse and Washing Area' with the final one being to the north which stated 'Recreational Area'.]

[3:31 pm. You hesitated for a short while, but as each second passed, your eerie feeling grew stronger and stronger until your instincts were basically roaring at you to get out of this place. As such, you charged towards one of the doors, but it was too late.]

[3:31 pm. You lost consciousness and your body was soon eagerly dragged away by an unseen entity.]

[You died.]

Dalvin sucked in a deep breath to calm himself down after that simulation. Another bad end… to be frank, he was beginning to feel the weight of his mortality and especially his fragility in this situation, because he seemed to be at the complete mercy of the messed-up rules here.

Unfortunately, the exact internal rules of the Immortal Locking Prison were unknown to him because Feng Qi did not explore the first floor and only charged down towards the third and below, where immortals were kept.

Not to mention, even then, he did not detail much since he did not spend much time figuring out the rules and rather just tried to blast everything in his way. Even the first level, which should be the easiest to escape from, was a death trap for Dalvin.

And even if he escaped, so what? He would now be within the streets of the Immortal Ascension City, where other such anomalies - though supposedly weaker and less fatal - existed, and he would need to make it the entire way out of this city to now be in the relatively 'safe' world of Tianzi.

Immediately, Dalvin felt his eyes burning as he fought back tears and despair. His breathing became rough, and his heart began to pound in his chest as fear surged into his heart, his mind constantly working up fatal scenarios based on what his simulated self had experienced.

Outside his cell, the left path led to death. On the right path, apart from some leftovers from a dead guy, the left path at the junction led to death while the right path led to an even scarier death.

Every single path he could take led to death for the current him!