Speculation
The bamboo house was quiet.
Ning Buhui lay in the rocking chair. He didn't know what kind of bamboo it was woven from; it felt cool to the touch, though his back had warmed it. He closed his eyes, thoughts swirling through his mind. Although he had finished absorbing the inherited memories, what they revealed went far beyond what was visible on the surface.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked at the light overhead, a shade between milky white and pale blue. It wasn't harsh, and he didn't know where it came from. It probably wasn't the same sun that shone on Douluo Continent. It simply hung there, illuminating the entire third floor.
He shifted onto his side, tucked an arm behind his head, and stared absently at the light.
The first thought that surfaced concerned the structure of the tower itself.
The first floor was empty, with nothing but gray mist and a patch of ground to stand on. The second was a little larger and had denser Soul Power, but it was just as empty. The third floor was suddenly ten times as large, with a sky, a stream, Breathing Earth, spirit plants, and this bamboo house. He had always thought the tower was meant for cultivation, with each floor stronger and more useful than the last. But lying in the bamboo house now, he considered it from another angle and suddenly felt something was off.
If every floor of the tower was meant for cultivation, then the first and second floors were far too bare. There was nothing but an empty stretch of ground. You even had to find your own place to sit. Yet the third floor had mountains and water, light and soil, and so many rare flowers and exotic plants growing there. Its layout was complete, clearly the result of careful design. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that the first and second floors were less like places to cultivate and more like prison cells.
That hazy gray mist, those thick tower walls, that space with nothing in it but emptiness. If someone were locked inside, with no Soul Power from outside to absorb, no way out, and not even a place to sit, all that remained would be an empty cage. He shivered. Perhaps the first and second floors had originally been used to imprison something. The gray mist wasn't decoration; it was a barrier.
And the third floor was the tower owner's dwelling.
As soon as that thought surfaced, more followed. The Heaven and Earth Yin Yang Grand Array was on the third floor, the hub that kept the entire tower running. The inherited memories said that the array was the tower's foundation and must not be tampered with. But was the Heaven and Earth Yin Yang Grand Array really just for purifying Soul Power and nourishing spirit plants? He remembered a line from the inherited memories: "The cultivation speed can be adjusted according to the tower owner's will." Looking at it another way, that meant the tower's owner could control the concentration of Soul Power on each floor.
It was thin on the first floor, slightly denser on the second, and so dense on the third that it was nearly liquid. If the first and second floors were places for holding prisoners, then the concentration of Soul Power was a reward. The concentration might depend on what kind of being was imprisoned there. If the Soul Power on a given floor were drained away, the people locked inside wouldn't even be able to cultivate and could only slowly fade away. The higher the concentration of Soul Power, the better the environment and the better the treatment. The tower's owner could adjust the concentration on each floor at will, which meant he could control the life and death of the prisoners on every floor at will.
Then what exactly had this tower held before? He sat up and paced a couple of steps inside the bamboo house.
There was nothing about that in the inherited memories. The tower's history, the identity of its previous owner, who had once been imprisoned on those floors-all were complete blanks. He had inherited only some memories of how the tower itself operated, like a manual containing instructions but no introduction to its author.
He went to the window and pushed open the bamboo shutters. Outside was the spirit plant garden, its Breathing Earth dark and glossy, the stream flowing slowly past. The rare flowers and exotic plants swayed gently in the dim light. Everything was quiet and peaceful.
Many of these spirit plants were not species found on Douluo Continent.
He had spent over a year immersed in the library, leafing through the Soul Beast illustrated guides countless times and reading plenty of illustrated catalogs of rare flowers and exotic plants. He could recognize the Nine-Leaf Lingzhi, Profound Yin Grass, Pure Yang Flower, Star Vine, and Nirvana Vermilion Fruit. But there were others he didn't recognize: those with white petals and black stamens, those with leaves like ice crystals, and those with exposed roots and stems glinting gold. He had never seen them in any book.
A thought suddenly sprang to mind. These might be things from another world.
Three thousand great worlds, three thousand small worlds. The phrase came to mind. In his previous life, webnovel writers had made up that kind of setting, and many books had followed suit. He didn't know whether the idea existed on Douluo Continent, but the plants before him told him that the tower's owner must have been to many places. Those places might be separated by an infinitely vast void, or by countless layers of heaven and earth. The owner had found these spirit plants, transplanted them into the tower, and used the Heaven and Earth Yin Yang Grand Array to nourish them day and night. But what about the owner himself? Where had he come from? And where had he gone?
He walked back into the bamboo house and lay down in the rocking chair again.
What kind of being had the tower's previous owner been? Anyone capable of creating such a tower was certainly no ordinary person, but a god at the very least. Did the fact that the tower had been lost mean its owner had passed away? Or had he deliberately left it behind, like planting a seed, waiting for someone fated to find it? Or, as Ning Buhui had guessed before, had the tower been used to suppress something terrifying, only for him to obtain it through a chance coincidence and accidentally transmigrate to Douluo Continent?
He closed his eyes. The thoughts in his head were like a ball of yarn a cat had clawed at: the more he pulled, the more tangled they became.
He thought about many things: the tower's previous owner, the true purpose of those floors, the three thousand great worlds and three thousand small worlds, and Blue Star, the world of his previous life that he could never return to. If there really were three thousand great worlds, was Blue Star among them? If he became strong enough in the future, might he find a way back? But even if he did return, what then? He had died in that tomb. How many years had passed in that world? Were his friends and family still there? Was his mentor, Chen Shouzheng, still alive? He thought for a long time and finally reached only one conclusion: a place you couldn't return to was called home; a place you could return to was a tourist destination. He didn't know which applied to him, but it was too early to think about any of that now.
He was only level thirty-four. In Spirit Hall, he counted as a minor genius, but on the continent as a whole, he couldn't even make a splash. Once he grew strong enough, he believed the truth would eventually reveal itself.
He rocked the chair, and the bamboo strips creaked softly. Outside the window, the stream flowed on, coming from the white mist and disappearing into it, like the tower's pulse. He watched it for a long time, then closed his eyes and let his mind slowly settle.
First, cultivate.
No matter how many secrets the tower held, who its previous owner was, or whether he could return to Blue Star, those were matters for the future. What he needed to do now was cultivate. He had to become strong enough to deal with those questions first.
The bamboo house was quiet, and the rocking chair slowly came to a stop. Ning Buhui sat cross-legged on the bamboo bed with his eyes closed, Soul Power circulating slowly through his meridians. The chaotic thoughts in his mind finally dispersed, and he immersed himself in his daily meditation.