Yang Qing's silhouette had a dual glow to it. Half of his body was earth yellow while the other half was blue-white. He had a calm yet peaceful glow to him that made him seem ethereal and one with the surroundings around him.
The grass and the ocean would sway with every breath he exhaled and the moon and the sun would rotate with every breath he inhaled. Every blade of grass before him was the equivalent of an early-stage monarch-grade treasure.
Everything around him was the manifestation of his palace realm. When a cultivator broke through to the palace realm from the core formation realm, their core would be melted down by the tribulation lightning and would be reformed into an environment that had the cultivator's own Dao as its foundational outline.
Those who could be considered as quasi palace realm cultivators were those whose dao seed had already taken root in their core and all they needed was to trigger the tribulation lightning to melt their core down so it could be fed to the Dao seed that would later sublimate into an environment that was the embodiment of that Dao seed.
Breaking through to the palace realm could be considered the one breakthrough realm with the least risk involved even when compared to the foundation establishment realm which has been known to have a few fatalities along with the core formation realm.
As long as you had a stable Dao seed, you were almost guaranteed a breakthrough to the palace realm, which is why the palace realm has some of the youngest recorded experts around, with the current record holder being an 11-year-old palace realm expert from the Flowing Valley sect, which is one of the two holy lands in the Southern continent.
That cultivator broke through almost ten years ago and the news created a storm when it broke out. However, it is rumored that the young palace realm cultivator had a special physique that made it easy for him to step into the palace realm at such a young age.
After the breakthrough, he was named as one of the sect's legacy leaf saints which was the highest rank one could hold as a disciple and those who held such a rank would be groomed as the next candidates for the sect master position and other higher ranking positions such as the supreme elder.
The Order has had a few young palace realm cultivators over the years, with the youngest recorded palace realm cultivator being 14 years old. The holder of that record was Zhu Li, the creator of five purple-grade cultivation arts. He was also the younger brother to Dean Zhu Lao who created the top tier gold grade technique, the Shadow void steps.
Other than Zhu Li, there have been a few others who were close to his age when they broke through for example Zhang Qingge who broke through when she was 17 years old and also had a record of fighting an early-stage palace realm cultivator from the Order to a draw for almost half an hour before she finally had to concede, when she was still in the core formation realm.
As long as you gained insight into some type of Dao and internalized to be part of you, you'd gain the qualifications to be a palace realm cultivator.
However, despite the ease of breaking through to the palace realm, most cultivators choose to take their time to be sure of the type of Dao they want to focus on because once they take that step it can never be undone and it will affect them moving forward, especially when trying to overcome the tribulation of the domain realm that has the highest fatality record across all realms.
Cultivators thus spend a lot of time trying to study different Daos if they have the talent for it, to try and find which Dao suits them best and which will in turn help them later in their cultivation route, especially when forming a Dao heart, which is one of the prerequisites for breaking through to the domain realm.
The palace realm could thus be considered a gateway and a bridge to higher realms. Therefore despite how easy it was to break through, considerable effort and thought are needed at this stage as it affects how far one will reach in the later realms.
The basis of the realm is to familiarise and deepen one's own understanding of the Dao and internalize it. Within their internal space, there will be an abstract manifestation of their understanding which will be in the form of an environment, For example in Yang Qing's case that manifestation appeared in the form of a large land filled with grass, an ocean, and a sun and a moon.
His palace realm was still in its rudimentary stages at the moment since he was only in the first stage of the palace realm. At present, there was only one type of plant in the area which was grass and the ocean had no vibrancy to it, while the sun and the moon above had minimal effects on their surroundings. As Yang Qing's understanding of Dao deepened, a Dao charm would be produced which would add more variety to the area in terms of different plants and herbs even animals at some point, and the area will have the semblance of a real functional ecosystem.
The palace realm had three minor realms namely; the outer palace, the inner palace, and the core palace. Every improvement was a representation of a qualitative jump in their understanding of their Dao, which would in turn be reflected in their inner space.
Because he had a purple core, Yang Qing had been looking forward to reaching the core palace stage the most, because he was told something else would form the moment he reached that stage due to his purple core, which would be a boost to his chances of attempting to break through to the domain realm.
He has always been curious about what it was but none of the instructors told him anything since they said the experience was unique to the owner, he would only find out when the moment came.
....
Presently, Yang Qing was trying to sense every area within his palace realm to the minute of details. Since the passive effects of his Yin Yang jade bone physique were still growing along with his cultivation base, he had a feeling the physique had most likely imprinted itself to his palace realm in some way. If it did, then he would not need the body rebirth potion his grandfather and the medicine valley had created and could use his palace realm as a conduit to sense his physique.
"I hope this works," Yang Qing muttered as he slowly circulated his cultivation art while immersing himself deep into every area of his palace realm. Nothing was overlooked as Yang Qing looked to wholly insert his will into everything that had manifested in his palace realm, down to even the tiniest of cuticles on a single blade of grass.
Unbeknownst to him, his silhouette started to produce a pulse-like light green glow that would alternate to an ocean blue color at measured intervals. This change didn't stop there, a subtle transformation started happening in his palace realm as the sun and moon started blinking with a gentle glow. With every blink, they'd affect the sky above them and their surroundings. On the sun's side, it looked like dawn was arriving and on the moon's side, it seemed like nighttime was soon approaching, which even caused small gentle rising tides in the ocean.
An hour almost passed by with Yang Qing stuck in the same position as he was when his grandfather left, however unlike before they left, there was now a small circle beneath his feet. Half of it was green with a golden glow and the other half was dark blue with a white glow. Slowly the golden glow and the white glow started overwhelming the green-colored and the dark blue-colored circle respectively, till the circle turned half white and half gold yellow with dots of blue and green mixed at the center of the circle.
Inside Yang Qing's palace realm the sky was split in the middle with one half being night and the other being day. Yang Qing's body mirrored the same change in the sky.
Within his mind, as he submerged himself into his palace realm, he saw millions of small lines traversing all over the ground running in different directions at a speed that was at times slow and at times blindingly fast, and he was but a drop freely flowing along those lines without any form of direction or autonomy.
Yang Qing almost gave up halfway in, when he didn't detect anything within those lines as he was guided along, but he persevered on and that perseverance finally bore fruit when all of the lines seemed to converge together as they led into a crystal clear lake that had a small tree growing in the middle of it.
The tree was smooth like it had been made of green jade and it had leaves of different colors, sizes, and types almost like every type of leaf on the planet was on that small 2-meter tree. The tree was also enveloped by a mist that had faint shining lights of different colors. Yang Qing wasn't sure, but he could faintly hear a voice coming from within that mist and it was in an unfathomable language that he couldn't quite understand. A part of him wasn't even sure what he was faintly hearing could be classified as language.
"Are those Dao markings?" Yang Qing wondered in shock as he saw inscrutable glyphs appear on some of the leaves on that tree. Just as he was about to move closer he felt something forcible eject him from the area and when he came to, he saw himself in the middle of his parents' compound.
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