Zhou Yi seemed to have had a bizarre dream.
In his dream, he passed through the eternal starry sky, through endless circles of light, and saw balls of light of various colors.
He heard indistinct murmurs, whispered conversations, and shrill screams.
After an unknown amount of time, he was awakened by the sound of waves.
The moment he woke up, as if he had a god's perspective, the picture of his surroundings clearly flooded into Zhou Yi's mind.
Zhou Yi found that he was on a small island with an area of about five square kilometers. A few miles around the island, a strange gray fog was filled.
Between the gray fog and the island, he could see the black sea water. Under the moonlight, it looked deep and mysterious.
However, Zhou Yi always felt that there was a sense of foreboding in the sea water.
It was night.
Although the island was surrounded by gray fog, the sky above was bright and clear with stars and moon shining together.
Zhou Yi tried to pull his vision back to the island, and with a thought, the scene on the island also emerged in his mind.
There is a village consisting of dozens of stone houses on the island.
There is a small mountain in the center of the island, with a few acres of thin fields on the mountain. A few weak and withered green vegetables in the fields sway in the sea breeze.
On the beach at the foot of the mountain, some fishing nets and a few dilapidated fishing boats are drying.
Judging from the environment, this is an inhabited island, but poor and backward.
Zhou Yi himself is standing on a stone platform in the center of the village.
Yes, standing!
Zhou Yi was shocked to find that the object of his consciousness was not a person, but a stone as big as a head.
There is a circle of golden lines in the center of the stone, which looks like a huge eyeball from a distance.
Zhou Yi wanted to move his body, but found that he could only stand there blankly, motionless.
Shit!
This discovery made Zhou Yi burst into curse words.
His memory was still stuck on the night when he stayed up late to work overtime in his previous life.
He asked himself that he hadn't done anything bad in his previous life. He was just a homeboy who loved playing games and even enthusiastically shared some websites with netizens. How could he have traveled through time and become an immovable stone!
As soon as Zhou Yi took a look around the island, he felt sleepy.
As soon as the thought of "Could stones also get sleepy" popped up in his mind, he fell into a deep sleep.
When Zhou Yi regained consciousness, he was in a space the size of a basketball court.
There were clusters of light balls of different colors floating in the air. Some of these light balls were as big as tables and chairs, and some were as small as fireflies.
In the middle of these light balls of various colors were some black light balls as black as ink.
Looking at this fantastic scene, Zhou Yi muttered to himself, "Is this a dream! Stones can also dream?"
Zhou Yi walked around the space and found that there was nothing here except balls of light.
When he was about to reach out and grab a black ball of light to study it, he was awakened by a steady voice.
"I beg the Lord of Sacrifices to bless my Chen clan again and protect the people of Sanyin Island."
The man paused and continued.
"If the Chen clan can produce another cultivator to revive the Chen clan, I, Chen Xuanlin, am willing to dedicate my body and soul to the Lord of Sacrifices."
As the man's voice rang out, Zhou Yi found that his consciousness could probe out of the stone ball again.
Zhou Yi then discovered that the space where the ball of light was floating was the inner space of the stone ball where he was possessed, and it was not a dream.
Outside the stone ball, a middle-aged man with a lot of white hair in his hair was kneeling devoutly in front of the stone platform, lowering his head and muttering something.
The man was dressed simply, with many patches on his plain long gown, but still clean and tidy.
The man's dark face was full of traces of wind and sun, but his eyes were bright and spirited.
As the man knelt down again and again, Zhou Yi could clearly feel wisps of white mist floating from the middle-aged man to the stone where Zhou Yi was.
With these wisps of mist, Zhou Yi clearly felt that his mental strength seemed to be a little stronger than before, and he was no longer so sleepy.
Huh?
Zhou Yi was shocked! Being worshipped can strengthen your spirit?
Zhou Yi silently pondered what the man had just said.
This place is called Sanyin Island, and the man called himself Lord Sacrifice Spirit. Could the stone ball that he possessed be the sacrificial spirit that the man was talking about?
Zhou Yi had not yet fully understood his situation, so he did not make any movement or response, but just quietly watched the people kneeling below.
Behind the middle-aged man, another male voice sounded.
"Brother Xuanlin, don't worship, it's useless. The sacrificial spirit of our Chen family has long been silent. I don't know how many years ago the Chen family last produced a cultivator."
"What's more, Sanyin Island is a desolate place, without a trace of spiritual energy. Even if the tribesmen have the qualifications to practice cultivation... they can't do it."
"The fog will clear in three days, so we might as well make more preparations. When the fog clears this time, we don't know what kind of island we will encounter, alas."
Seeing Chen Xuanlin still kneeling and worshiping, the person who spoke sighed again:
"Alas, Brother Xuanlin, you have been worshipping for decades, what's the use? Not to mention that the sacrificial spirit will not appear again."
"Even if it appears, Sanyin Island... it is impossible for practitioners to appear again."
Chen Xuanlin still worshipped seriously, then stood up and said:
"This is the sacrificial spirit belonging to the Chen family. Even if there is only one member of the Chen family left, the worship cannot stop."
"Gan Er, go to the meeting hall and wait for me first. I'll come after I clean the altar."
Seeing Chen Xuanlin's persistence, Chen Gan Er shook his head and sighed, turned and left.
Chen Xuanlin chattered away as he swept the dust around the altar.
"The Chen family has been on Sanyin Island for over a hundred years, declining from a large clan of several thousand to a small clan of only a few dozen. Who knows when even these few will be annihilated in this sea of death?" "
Alas, I lack immortality, and none of my clan members can cultivate. Are the Chen family truly trapped on this island forever?"
Chen Xuanlin sighed again as
he finished cleaning the altar .
"Hopefully, next time the fog clears, I can safely come and worship the Master of the Sacrifice Spirit."
Chen Xuanlin glanced up at the stone sacrificial spirit where Zhou Yi was, then slowly departed.
Zhou Yi remained motionless until Chen Xuanlin left. After all, he didn't understand his situation, and he didn't know what would happen if he were to reveal himself.
Zhou Yi, taking advantage of this moment of awakening, once again carefully scanned the island.
He discovered that there were fewer than thirty or forty residents on the island, and most were emaciated and pale from malnutrition.
Their physical fitness was even worse than that of ordinary people in their previous lives.
Zhou Yi didn't know what the white mist that had emerged when Chen Xuanlin knelt down to worship had been.
But with that wisp of mist, Zhou Yi felt much more refreshed and less sleepy.
Furthermore, he noticed that the people on the island seemed to be connected to him by a thin white mist.
However, the mist connecting these islanders wasn't as dense as the one connecting Chen Xuanlin.
Zhou Yi looked at his location.
It was in the open space in the center of the village, on a stone platform.
The stone spirit he possessed was placed on a hard black wooden stake. A thick layer of ash still covered the stone incense burner in front of him.
The structure resembled an open-air altar from his previous life, with Zhou Yi as the deity being enshrined.
It seemed that people frequently came to worship here.
Zhou Yi pondered for a moment, and a realization dawned on him: he must have traveled through time to the island's sacrificial stone.
He simply didn't know what this sacrificial spirit was, and what status it held for the island's inhabitants.
Zhou Yi speculated that the white mist connecting the islanders to him might be the embodiment of the power of faith; the stronger the faith, the thicker and more powerful the mist.
Zhou Yi scanned the island again, finding nothing special. The mental energy he had just regained was depleted, and he felt a wave of drowsiness set in.
With his mental energy drained, Zhou Yi's consciousness returned to the interior of the stone sphere, filled with multicolored light.
The sky filled with light balls appeared before his eyes again.
Unable to understand the situation outside, Zhou Yi focused on studying the space within the stone sphere.
He reached out and grasped a nearby white light ball, a string of words forming in his mind.
"Chen family collection of third-grade skills, thunder-based skills: Crazy Thunder Body Training Skills."
Zhou Yi was stunned and grabbed another ball of white light.
"Chen family collection of fourth-grade magic, wood-based magic: Green Snake Ghost Step."
"Chen family collection of third-grade skills, water-based skills: Jade Water Refining Notes."
...
Zhou Yi looked at the thousands of light balls of various sizes in the sky, and his shock was understandable.
Do cultivators really exist in this world?
If these light balls are the skills and magic skills once mastered by the Chen family, then how glorious the Chen family must have been in the past.
Zhou Yi could not connect the group of pale and skinny mortals he had just seen in the village with this sky full of light balls.