Murim's Weakest Princess

Deep within the crevices of the mountain, Yan Ping felt as if she was slowly losing her mind. After shutting down her five senses while leaving her cultivation core alone, she felt like she was spiralling endlessly in the void for thousands of years. At some point, she forgot who and what she was doing. It was a path full of uncertainty. However, in those moments, the silver bells would ring and drag her back before she drifted off permanently into the afterlife.

Soul cultivation was a perilous endeavour, far more dangerous than spiritual cultivation. Without a compass or a map, Yan Ping could only explore one step at a time, with her spell formation serving as a safety rope, ready to reel her soul back to safety if she wandered too far.

Previously, Yan Ping had mistaken the astral body for a form of soul cultivation. However, after hearing Anji’s experience, she had a revelation. The astral body was not soul cultivation but a spiritual technique to separate the mind from the physical vessel. Intrigued, Yan Ping experimented with the technique and found it to be the missing bridge between spiritual and soul cultivation. However, she soon discovered that the astral body was too sensitive to energy of all kinds, rendering it useless for understanding the soul arts.

Unlike the inner world or the cultivation core that was full of sensations, the soul was like a piece of driftwood with no destination. Yan Ping tried her best to seek the tingling itch that Anji described in the middle of her forehead. However, that sensation never occurred, even when she was not doing anything. Her mind kept wandering, and not having a target to focus on made Yan Ping impatient.

Eventually, Yan Ping had to give up and stop trying to brute-force her way into soul cultivation. She did not want to chant the sutra because she was not a believer in God. However, she had a monk friend who claimed that the sutra was the soul’s only path to enlightenment. Much like how the Doctrine of the Mean was the foundation for martial arts, Yan Ping decided to give it a try.

Recalling the Heart Sutra she was taught, Yan Ping pondered about the meaning of the chanting verses as she meditated in the void.

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form does not differ from emptiness, and emptiness does not differ from form."

In the void, there was only emptiness. Yan Ping did not know where emptiness began or ended. It simply existed, and it was exactly where she had been stuck for the past few weeks. With no sensation, perception or reaction from her actions, Yan Ping was forced to face her own consciousness, going in circles.

"All things are marked by emptiness — not born, not destroyed, not stained, not pure, without loss, without gain."