"let's go! Follow me" Lao Zu gestured for Hou to follow and jumped over the table, landing just outside the door he entered in.
Hou hurriedly stood up again and ran around the table to catch up. He looked behind at Mo Huai,
"Uh, bye. See you later I guess?"
Mo Huai pin he'd his glabella,
"Good luck Hou. Lao Zu, come back after, I still have more to tell you!"
Lao Zu smirked and nodded, then he kicked open the door. It showed a bright white corridor. It reminded Hou of the pavilion in Mo Huai's land, made of clouds.
Hou followed Lao Zu and stepped through the door, feeling the air change. He felt like he was in a kind of vacuum.
As he was standing still acclimating to the feeling, Lao Zu closed the door and asked,
"Anything wrong?"
"It feels off, like something's missing"
Lao Zu exhaled out of his nose and swung his arms around Hou. He looked at him face to face,
"Good senses, I'm sure you'll do well. Do you have any guess what might be different?"
Hou thought for a second, ultimately coming up with nothing,
"There's no qi, or very little. It's just a safety thing. If you rely on qi, it's so easily manipulated I just got rid off it" Lao Zu flashed a smile at Hou.
"Your sounding like my master now, he also warns about qi,"
Lao Zu let go of Hou's shoulder and started to walk in front while speaking,
"Yes, I would assume so. It's more like your master is sounding like me. I always warn others of qi, it seems like a quick way to gain lots of power but it's not the best. Not to say it doesn't have uses though, in treasures or formations or qi arts it is powerful but be wary if it."
Hou looked down, and nodded. He walked forward and followed Lao Zu. They walked through a bright white corridor, the walls made of clouds.
Then they made it out of the corridor into a large atrium, massive open area. It had the bright baby blue sky shining masses of warm light into the centre of the atrium.
In the centre, illuminated by the sunlight was a lake. Full of shining clear liquid. Not water, it felt much...crisper. Hou couldn't tell where from, but he felt it was familiar.
'where do I know this liquid from, I've seen something like it before...'
"So this is the Sky Solidifying Spring?" Hou asked while pointing to the illuminated pool in the centre of the room.
Lao Zu walked back a few steps and adjusted Hou's hand. He moved it up, up into the sky.
"Nope, but that is,"
"That? What?! I see nothing"
Lao Zu patted Hou on his back and started to walk on the air in front of him,
"Then maybe you can feel it, don't look with your eyes. Look with your intuition."
Lao Zu continued walking up into the air leaving Hou standing below. He watched as Lao Zu walked into the air, walking towards the centre skylight.
Hou disregarded Lao Zu's advice and instead tried to fly, he swung his wings outwards and jumped. However as he was flapping in the air, he felt the drain on his mental energy was even stronger than before, and he was slowly being pushed down.
Lao Zu sat down in the air, and put his hand on his chin, he laughed aloud. He pointed at Hou's wings,
"Don't try to cheat. It feels hard doesn't it? There's two reasons for that. Those wings use qi around to supplement your mental energy and laws, which of course doesn't work in here. But that's not the only reason, care to guess why?"
Hou tucked back his wings, folding back flat against his back. He started to fall back to the ground and he rolled to soften his impact. Slight puffs of clouds flying off the floor as he hit.
He patted his robes and looked up and Lao Zu sitting carelessly,
"Is it because of you?"
"Well, everything is because of me so yes. But more specifically, this is my domain. I control everything here, if I don't want you to fly... You would not fly. So try again, no flying. Like I said, use your intuition. The path you need is in front of you, you just to to take it."
Hou cracked his neck then took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and focused inwards. He felt his quasi-Nascent Soul, the combination of the soul and consciousness. He tried to spread it outwards but now it seemed constricted, he could not spread it far.
Hou thought for a few more moments, as he did he could feel something. All around him his intuition was being released and sent back. He didn't need to spread his consciousness far, he could possibly sense everything around with the quasi-Nascent Soul.
For a few minutes. Hou collected the view around him with his intuition. It was slower than usual but Hou felt this was because he did not know how it worked, he could only let it do it's thing.
As it was collecting the world around him, he found was Lao Zu was talking about. All around him were paths and stairs upwards, but they were incorporeal.
How could he reach them?
Then Hou had a thought!
'He said I just need to take it, perhaps it's about the mental. I just need to believe that it will work and it will. Like how Mo Huai said, thoughts change the world even without directly applying mental energy!'
Hou opened his eyes and looked to Lao Zu with a smirk, he shouted up,
"I figured it out!"
Lao Zu's eyes flashed, the orange-gold orbs tracking Hou as he made his attempt.
Hou stepped up, he just believed that it would work and took the leap of faith. Hou's gut screamed no, this was madness. But if the world was subject to belief, then doubt was the only true chasm he needed to surpass. He walked up pretending there was a step there and did it again. Slowly he rose into the air, walking on seemingly nothing but air.
In reality, he was walking on special laws which would only activate when believed. The mental energy spent to believe would be sent to effect the world and make the laws physically stable.
Each step resonated with his physique, already returned to the Celestial Law Amplifying state, the laws under his feet rippled. The air thickened and turned solid, letting him push of it to the next step.
He took another step but he lost his belief, it wasn't maintained, his foot slipped. It went through the 'step' which caused his belief to waver even more and he fell. He took a deep breath and spent more mental energy, focusing on his belief that there are stairs.
As he walked up the stairs, Hou carefully maintained his belief while talking to Lao Zu,
"So what is the liquid below?"