Chapter 1007: $ Travel

Above the sky, beneath the gale layer hidden by the clouds, Li Qi sat on Chang Qiao's head.

Chang Qiao maintained her original form, circling in the gale layer in a 'cruising' posture, appearing quite excited.

"So, Chang Qiao, what are you here for?" Li Qi asked the True Dragon beneath him.

"Ah? I just saw Li Qi you were here, so I quickly followed!" Chang Qiao immediately replied.

Li Qi sized up Chang Qiao before him.

She really didn't seem to be lying; she simply discovered Li Qi and happily followed.

This also fit her persona.

Li Qi made a hand seal and calculated for a bit, finding no entangled Karma lines behind him, so he shook his head: "Well, your timing is quite coincidental. I'm currently exploring the Northern Spirit Dao. Do you know anything about it?"

"Oh, talking about the Spirit Dao, good, good, I know these things best." Chang Qiao flicked her tail: "If you're here for a tour! I'll be your guide!"

"I'm not here for a tour; I'm here to investigate the situation of the Spirit Dao. I see this place is full of stowaways, so the depths of the North Pole should be the same, right?" Li Qi asked.

"Li Qi, don't you know these things just by looking? You're a Great Power now, so you shouldn't be confused by this, right?" Chang Qiao seemed a little confused.

If he just wanted to see the entire North Pole, Li Qi could see it all with a glance. Why use such a clumsy method?

Li Qi, however, smiled: "Sometimes those things aren't so credible. It's more tangible to experience them yourself."

"Does listening to me count as experience?" Chang Qiao asked.

"Isn't this asking you to show me around? Listen and look at the same time," Li Qi said.

"Alright! Leave it to me!" Chang Qiao immediately agreed, and excitedly conjured a mirage pearl.

A mirage pearl can create illusions, but it also has another function: it can record the specifics of the surrounding environment, essentially replicating everything around it one-to-one.

The so-called 'mirage' is actually a projection of things from other places, and a mirage pearl naturally has this effect. It can be said to be a perfect quality camera, capable of recording even touch and taste. For Mortals with insufficient observation abilities, it's essentially identical.

"Are you filming this to sell it?" Li Qi asked.

"Of course I won't sell it! I'll definitely release it for everyone to see! Everyone will surely envy me to death," Chang Qiao said cheerfully, showing that she had a very big heart.

One must know that Li Qi was no longer the fourth-rank from back then. Many, many billions of years had passed, and Chang Qiao could still treat Li Qi with this attitude. Her psychological fortitude was truly something else.

Moreover, Li Qi discovered that Chang Qiao also had a sense of 'shared glory'.

It was as if Li Qi's success also brought her prestige.

A strange mentality.

However, Li Qi wasn't too bothered by it.

"Then that's fine. Let's go to the inland first. On the way, you can also tell me about what you've encountered living here. You should be living here, right?" Li Qi asked.

"More or less. I usually live near Yao Wanchi, but I also have a traveling palace in the world, right near here." Chang Qiao began to swim, talking to Li Qi while heading towards the depths of the North Pole.

Li Qi listened to her narration.

According to Chang Qiao, the North Pole was a very peculiar place because material resources were extremely scarce there.

Perhaps because the Spirit Dao had made some arrangements here, this place lacked the abundant resources found in other parts of the world.

The primitive people Li Qi saw were actually the common state here.

Li Qi's guess that "life inside would be better" was actually non-existent, even in the depths of the North Pole.

It seemed that 'treasures' naturally didn't exist here, and even the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi was so thin that it didn't resemble the world. Crops and various mineral veins were also very barren.

Moreover, in the North Pole... one cannot abstain from food.

Yes, Li Qi was also very surprised about this point. This rule couldn't restrict him, but Chang Qiao felt it: one would get hungry in the North Pole.

You must eat; you will feel hunger, and even a fourth-rank cultivation is useless.

This was also the reason Chang Qiao came to this place.

Hunger, for her, was actually a kind of enjoyment. First, get hungry, and then eat, and the food would taste much better. Therefore, Chang Qiao built a traveling palace in the North Pole and would come over to eat something whenever she had nothing to do.

It had a unique feeling.

However, from the perspective of these stowaways, the North Pole could be described in just two words.

"Barren," Chang Qiao uttered two words.

After speaking, she looked down: "Li Qi, we're here. This is already the inner circle of the North Pole. There are already cities. Do you want to go down and see?"

Li Qi nodded: "Okay, let's go down."

As he spoke, he also looked down curiously.

He saw a city, not well-developed, almost like a small feudal-era town, its scale even less grand than a Baiyue provincial city.

However, if the surrounding farmlands were added, the scale would be very large.

Besides the city itself, a large number of terraced fields could be seen around it. For countless centuries, the inhabitants here had patiently maintained these rural farmlands.

They modified mountains and forests, gradually trimming slopes of various sizes into cultivable terraced fields.

Thousands of square miles of land were piled up by the local people, transforming barren rocky slopes into small, flat areas, and then using the excavated stones to build stone walls for protection.

This was work that could only be completed over countless centuries. It meticulously carved out all the scenery here. This unique beauty was exquisite and natural, even astonishing Li Qi.

This place was actually quite well done. From Li Qi's Shaman aesthetic perspective, it was quite good, and the balance between living beings was very well maintained.

Such a large area of cultivation... was it really because they needed to eat?

Unable to abstain from food, barren wilderness, thin Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi—to say this place was even shabby compared to the world was an understatement. A good Feng Shui treasure land in a ninth-rank world would be more fertile than this place.

Was it intentional by the Spirit Dao?

Li Qi didn't know, but he would soon know the answer, because Li Qi had lifted some of the 'instincts' on his Physical Body.

As a second-rank, Li Qi's very existence would affect his surroundings, and the environment would also find it difficult to affect Li Qi in return.

For example, if Li Qi stood on the surface of a Guixu, the Guixu itself would even accelerate its evaporation because of it, as Guixu distorts space-time, but when Li Qi stood there, space-time would automatically stabilize to Li Qi's perceived time.

For the Guixu to distort, it would need to expend more energy, ultimately leading to accelerated evaporation, and perhaps even its direct disappearance.

This was because Li Qi, for his own comfort, would make the surrounding world conform to him.

Of course, this wasn't absolute. Li Qi himself could easily lift this power, allowing the outside world to affect him.

He wanted to experience what the 'hunger' of the North Pole was like.

After lifting his control over the outside world, Li Qi clearly felt a special force awakening some of his most basic 'sensations'.

The power of the Spirit Dao?

No, this wasn't the power of the Spirit Dao, this was the nature of the world itself—?

That didn't seem quite right either, did it?

Li Qi, as a second-rank, was also a bit confused at this moment.

The sensation awakened by this force wasn't merely 'hunger', but feelings such as cold, warmth, hunger, and nausea.

In other words, what was awakened were the subjective feelings that Mortals experienced every day.

It was just that this force was clearly unable to interfere with existences above the third-rank, so just now, Li Qi's surroundings easily suppressed this force from taking effect.

And now that the suppression was removed, Li Qi suddenly felt 'suffocated'.

Why was he suffocated?

Li Qi pondered for a moment, and then, he suddenly subconsciously 'breathed' in.

The feeling of suffocation instantly disappeared.

Ah, so it was such a simple matter. Li Qi had just forgotten to breathe. After all, for a second-rank, neither breathing nor hunger needed to exist.

But, thinking carefully... breathing, such a primal thing.

Breathing, eating, shivering, sweating—these are the most basic psychological sensations brought by primal instincts, and also the most direct 'psychological sensations'.

You don't need any Acquired learning; you are born with these feelings. They are inherent to you, they are 'a priori'.

So-called a priori knowledge is knowledge that is completely independent of empirical observation, not requiring 'empirical accumulation' to be Acquired, hence 'a priori', meaning 'existing prior to experience'.

This structure is not Acquired from experience, but is innate.

Therefore, it can be imagined that such a priori knowledge, which obtains universal properties of the world, inherently possesses universality and necessity.

Yes, sensations and knowledge that can be accessed without learning must be closer to the essence, otherwise, how can the source of this knowledge be explained?

So, how are these sensations obtained?

Physical Body? Receptors? Or... 'consciousness'?

Li Qi suddenly realized that this might be some kind of opportunity for the Spirit Dao. This wasn't a power deliberately set by the Spirit Dao, but the original source of the Spirit Dao's inspiration.

"Hmm? Aren't you coming down?" Chang Qiao landed on the ground, surrounded by terrified crowds, but she was already very accustomed to the gazes around her, only finding Li Qi a bit strange.

What was wrong with her idol? Still in a daze?

"Oh... nothing, just thinking about something." Li Qi came back to his senses, feeling the primal sensations in his body.

Infants don't need to learn to feel cold or warm.

Moreover, the sensations of cold and warmth cannot be expressed to others. You can never feel whether someone else is cold or warm.

This is what was once called the 'high wall' of self-consciousness.

As long as this high wall exists, it's impossible to understand others. Even if someone tells you they are cold or hot, you cannot feel their sensations.

This is also the origin of the Demonic Dao's 'solipsism'.

And if we shift the perspective to the Spirit Dao...

While thinking about these things, Li Qi walked down from Chang Qiao's head and looked around.

The surroundings were like an ordinary town, and the people living there were also these stowaways, but they had evolved from primitive people to the technological level of the feudal era.

Or rather, it appeared to be the feudal era.

If true feudal-era Mortals were here, they probably wouldn't be able to survive at all.

And there were many onlookers.

He could also see a few fifth-ranks flying towards them. The pressure of the Heaven and Earth in the North Pole was quite high, so the performance of these fifth-ranks seemed significantly weaker than outside.

But... that's a good thing, right?

If they went to the outside world, their combat power would also significantly increase, just like weight training.

Before long, those few fifth-ranks had already landed in front of Li Qi, and the surrounding idlers had also been dispersed.

One of the fifth-ranks walked up to Li Qi and said: "Sirs, I am the City Lord of Oulu City. May I ask who you are...?"

"We're just passing through for tourism, no need to pay too much attention to us." Chang Qiao swayed her body and transformed into human form, still the same flamboyant young girl from before.

She was indeed flamboyant. Chang Qiao seemed to love dazzling outfits. Her entire body, from scales to eyes, seemed to be covered in glitter, and her nails were very long and shiny.

Her skirt also had a slit on one side, revealing her left thigh, and the faintly visible greenish Dragon scales on it also had a rainbow-like reflection.

In Li Qi's eyes, she shimmered like a light bulb.

She was simply too ostentatious.

"That's right, we're just here to sightsee in the North Pole and see the specific situation. We absolutely won't cause trouble, please rest assured," Li Qi said.

Those fifth-ranks seemed relieved upon hearing this.

After all, even without considering Li Qi, just looking at Chang Qiao, the power of this True Dragon was by no means ordinary. They probably couldn't defeat this True Dragon. Since the other party was willing to show goodwill and state that they wouldn't cause trouble, it meant they were sincere.

"In that case, we won't disturb you. By the way, please keep this item, sirs. Wearing it can avoid many thoughtless conflicts." The City Lord respectfully said, then took out a wooden carved牌子 (token).

It seemed they were very experienced, with a complete set of procedures for dealing with passing Great Power.

No wonder the reactions of the other people around them were also quick to disperse.

It seemed that the plot of Great Power playing dumb and pretend to be a pig to eat the tiger was not common in the North Pole. There was a mature method here to deal with passersby.

Li Qi took the wooden token, which had some spells engraved on it and an energy crystal embedded in the back, giving the wood special abilities.

It was roughly similar to a circuit board and chip: drawing special patterns with silicon and tin on a piece of plastic, then attaching a battery, and thus an electronic device is born. Chip design actually isn't too different from drawing Formations.

Technological means at this stage are all similar.

Li Qi took the wooden token, bid farewell to these City Lords, and walked with Chang Qiao towards a nearby area.

He was going to get something to eat.

Li Qi felt he had already grasped—

He had grasped the unique aspect of the North Pole, what the Spirit Dao sought.