Xia Ruofei was even a little numb to the passage of time.
In the beginning, he was still worried that his spirit body would leave his body for an extended period of time, resulting in all sorts of unpredictable and bad outcomes. However, he helplessly recognized the reality — all his worries were useless. He could only try his best to do what he could do as quickly as possible.
Xia Ruofei couldn't remember how many small spaces he had experienced. Typically, if the laws were relatively simple and the structure was relatively simple, he would spend about ten days to a month. If the laws were more complicated, it was very normal to be trapped for a few months.
Xia Ruofei had even encountered extremely dangerous situations a few times. After breaking through a small space, he would suddenly fall into two or even more areas where space overlapped. The spatial laws in such areas were extremely chaotic. If he couldn't find a safe area to dodge in time, his spirit body would be injured or even destroyed.
If his spirit body was destroyed, his soul would truly dissipate.
Therefore, this was the first time Xia Ruofei encountered this kind of spatial folding area. The situation was really dangerous. Fortunately, his calm mind played a role at the crucial moment. He used the shortest amount of time to find a relatively stable area, allowing his spiritual body to settle down in a safe place.
Even so, his spirit body suffered quite a bit of damage.
Thankfully, the space inside the ore seemed to be connected to the outside world. In other words, the rich spiritual energy of the Archean Realm in the Ring-Tu space where the mysterious ore was could also seep in. Therefore, Xia Ruofei spent about a month studying the laws of the folded space while absorbing the spiritual energy to recover his spirit body. Finally, his spirit body gradually recovered.
It was also because he could constantly absorb the spiritual energy from the Ring-Tu space that he was confident that he would be able to break through one day.
Recovering his spirit body in about a month was actually considered very fast. Furthermore, Xia Ruofei could sense that his spirit body had recovered after being injured by the shattered space. It was faintly more corporeal than before. From the looks of it, there were benefits to rebuilding after destruction.
However, it was easy for his spirit body to recover, but it wasn't so easy to break through such a complicated folded space.
This was the first time Xia Ruofei encountered such a layered space. He had been trapped for five years.
Xia Ruofei studied the rules of this layered space area almost without sleep or rest. After the two types of space overlapped, the complexity of the rules increased exponentially. The effects and interactions between different rules were almost endless. Xia Ruofei patiently deduced and comprehended little by little. Finally, in the fifth year, he successfully broke through this area.
As Xia Ruofei's understanding of the Spatial Laws deepened, the speed at which he cracked the Spatial Laws also started to increase.
This was especially true for those small independent spaces where the laws were relatively simple. At first, he would need to spend a few days, but later on, his speed would become faster and faster. Sometimes, he would be able to complete it in one or two days.
Moreover, this kind of independent small space was the most common. After Xia Ruofei encountered it many times, he already had a lot of experience.
Even if it was an area where two small spaces overlapped, when Xia Ruofei encountered it again, he wasn't as flustered as the first time. Basically, he could steadily protect his spirit body first and then slowly crack it.
And as the number of times increased, the speed at which he cracked this kind of space area also slowly increased.
Xia Ruofei's most miserable time was when he was trapped in an area where three small spaces overlapped at the same time. The Spatial Laws in this area were called chaotic! In the first ten years, Xia Ruofei didn't even have a clue. All the laws seemed to have become a pot of rotten porridge. It was also like a huge ball of tangled hemp. He couldn't find any way to break through at all.
Even with Xia Ruofei's strong will, when he encountered this kind of situation, he couldn't help but feel a trace of despair.
He gritted his teeth and persevered. Finally, in the eleventh year, he caught a flash of inspiration in his mind.
As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. He was afraid that he wouldn't even be able to find a breakthrough. Once he found the right and effective breakthrough, even if the process behind was still complicated and difficult, he would still be able to see the hope ahead.
This time, it was the same. After Xia Ruofei grasped that fleeting inspiration, this incomparably chaotic Spatial Precepts gradually began to become orderly in his eyes. He used a full thirty years of painstaking effort to slowly peel off the cocoon and move forward bit by bit with difficulty. Finally, he gnawed on this hard bone.
These small spaces and overlapping spaces seemed to be endless. After cracking one, what awaited Xia Ruofei in front was always another more difficult space area.
As time passed year by year, Xia Ruofei began to encounter spaces that he had cracked before.
In other words, to a certain extent, he was already going back on the same path, but he still didn't see a trace of hope of cracking this mysterious ore space.
Of course, Xia Ruofei had already confirmed that these small spaces were actually moving, so he wasn't really going back on the same path.
Whenever he encountered a space that he had cracked before, Xia Ruofei would stop for a short while to re-understand the laws of this space.
After so many years of accumulation, Xia Ruofei's understanding of space had long been ten times or a hundred times better than before. Now, looking back, when he had just entered, his understanding of the Spatial Laws was actually very shallow.
Therefore, when he re-comprehended it, he would often gain new insights.
As the saying goes, one can learn new things by revisiting the old.
Furthermore, whenever Xia Ruofei encountered a small space that he had been to before, he would not break through from the same spatial node again. Instead, after revisiting the old and gaining new insights, he would choose a relatively weaker spatial node and easily break through it.
He naturally did this to avoid falling into an endless loop.
Just like that, Xia Ruofei's spirit body shuttled through seemingly endless spatial regions year after year.
Sometimes, he would stop occasionally.
Every time this happened, an inexplicable sadness would arise in his heart.
After so much time had passed, his Primordial Realm body that was sitting cross-legged in the Ring-Tu space had probably turned to mud long ago …
Even if he could break through the mysterious ore's inner space and return to the Ring-Tu space, what would he do without his body?
Speaking of which, this ore's space was rather magical. His spirit body had been here for so many years. According to the records of the cultivation manuals he had experienced, it should have gradually been worn down. A spirit body that had left its physical body could not survive for long. Even if it could absorb spiritual qi to replenish itself, it could not prevent the wear and tear. This was the law of nature.
Only when one reached the Out of Aperture realm could their spirit body freely leave their physical body and float outside for long periods of time.
However, after being in the ore's inner space for so many years, Xia Ruofei's spirit body did not suffer any wear and tear apart from occasionally falling into complicated and dangerous spatial layers. Furthermore, his spirit body's injuries could be smoothly recovered after absorbing spiritual qi. Furthermore, every time he recovered from an injury, his spirit body would become more corporeal.
If it wasn't for the pain of a spiritual injury that was ten times or a hundred times more painful than a physical injury, Xia Ruofei couldn't help but want to torture herself.
However, as long as one experienced a spirit body being injured, the pain would definitely be unforgettable. It was absolutely impossible for them to take the initiative to try it again. Just thinking about it would make their hearts tremble.
Just the thought of his physical body possibly dying made Xia Ruofei feel somewhat discouraged.
If he broke through the ore's inner space and returned to the Ring-Tu space, without the protection of his physical body, his spirit body would probably only be able to survive for a few years before being completely worn down.
In comparison, it seemed that staying in the ore's inner space was a better choice!
A bad life was better than a good death!
However, every time this thought popped up in his mind, Xia Ruofei would quickly cut off his own thoughts.
He directly told himself, "This must be an inner demon! An inner demon born from the long passage of time! It wants me to be trapped in here forever! "
In fact, the rules of these small spaces inside the ore were not complete. In Xia Ruofei's eyes, these primitive small spaces were always lifeless, without the slightest trace of vitality. If he were to be trapped in here forever, it would really be worse than death.
People often pursued eternal life.
The ultimate goal of a cultivator's cultivation was usually eternal life.
However, was eternal life really so tempting?
After spending a long time in the ore's inner space, Xia Ruofei understood a truth: Eternal life without any hope or goal was even more terrifying than death.
Death often meant that everything was over, and eternal life meant that no matter how painful it was, one could only continue to live in pain.
When Xia Ruofei was in elementary school, he once read a short sci-fi story. The background of the story was about an alien civilization that achieved immortality through technological means. A huge server saved everyone's memory in real time. At the same time, everyone's DNA was also saved. At that time, the alien civilization had already eliminated all diseases. If a person died in an accident, the immortality machine would use their DNA to replicate an identical person and implant their own memories. This way, immortality was achieved.
Think about it, this is a scene that people yearn for!
But what about the actual situation? It was the exact opposite.
This alien civilization had banned reproduction after achieving eternal life, which meant that the population of this civilization would never change.
In the first 10,000 years, everyone was reveling to their heart's content. They had played with everything they could, because they already had endless lives.
As time passed, the humans of this civilization became more and more empty. They were tired of all forms of entertainment. They even treated life and death battles as games. Two armies would kill each other on the battlefield just for the thrill of it.
Later, some people had a mental breakdown, and the endless life made them feel despair.
Many people began to try to commit suicide, but whether it was suicide or an accident, the immortality machine would resurrect this person very accurately, and those who tried to commit suicide failed without exception.
Therefore, everyone began to try to destroy the immortality machine, but the highest level of protection and extremely strong recovery ability made all their efforts futile.
Everyone could only live in emptiness and despair, with no end in sight.
The ending of the story was also somewhat unexpected — in the end, time defeated the immortality machine. After countless years, the immortality machine itself could not withstand the erosion of time and finally stopped working.
When everyone heard this news, the entire civilization cheered — we can finally choose death!
When the young Xia Ruofei first saw this story, he could not understand it at all. At an age when he just had a certain understanding of life and death, how desirable was "immortality"? How could he really be "tired of living"?
After experiencing a long time in this ore space, Xia Ruofei also really understood this story.
Without the simultaneous development of spiritual civilization, immortality was really a super terrifying thing.
It was also because of this that Xia Ruofei's belief was very firm from the beginning to the end, and that was to break open this ore space, even if he could not survive for long after returning to the Ring-Tu space!
Of course, in such a long time, Xia Ruofei could not be comprehending the spatial rules all the time. After all, he was a human, not a machine.
However, because he did not have a physical body and was only in the state of a spiritual body, he could not cultivate. Therefore, during this period of time, he pulled out the large number of ancient books he obtained from the inheritance jade talisman from his mind and slowly studied them, treating it as a supplement.
Of course, most of the time, he was still comprehending the spatial rules.
It was just that this period of time was too long, and even if he only spent a small part of time "not doing proper work", the accumulation was quite considerable.
Xia Ruofei had basically studied all kinds of ancient books in the inheritance jade talisman.
If it was only "stored" in his mind before, then this precious wealth of knowledge had really become Xia Ruofei's own things now.
In this way, Xia Ruofei spent year after year of loneliness in the ore space.
On this day, he faced the stacked area of three small spaces in front of him and breathed a long sigh of relief.
He had been trapped here for three years, and today, he finally comprehended the rules of this area — now, his understanding of the spatial rules was very profound. He still remembered the first time he fell into the stacked area of three small spaces and almost lost his life. In order to break out of that area, it took him decades.
But this time, he had completely comprehended it in just three years. It could be seen that in this long time, he had made great progress in the area of spatial rules!
Xia Ruofei's spiritual body followed a strange path and floated toward a seemingly dangerous spatial node without any hesitation. He did not receive any attack and directly passed through the node. When he was breaking through space, he had long been able to do it as easily as lifting heavy weights.
This time, after Xia Ruofei's spiritual body broke through this spatial area, he did not feel the familiar spatial aura. Instead, he felt a burning sensation all over his body, as if he was thrown into a pot of boiling oil …
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