Hou followed the compass, moving through different corridors until the compass pointed to a single door. It was a sliding door like that of the design Hue had taught him.
He slid the door to the side, on the other side was a bright light. Hou could not see anything of the room but chose to step through anyway.
Stepping into the light, Hou saw the light dim and he saw where he was. There was a bright green field with a sky pure blue. In the middle of the field of grass was a small house.
Made of ordinary wood, a small house. It had two or three rooms. There was the central room which was open to the land, then separately in the back was a small bedroom.
Hou opened up the door to the bedroom, seeing a small rolled up blanket and mattress.
In the central room, there was a hearth in the middle and to the side was a small metal container. Hou did not recognise it and asked Yue,
"Looks to be an alchemical furnace. I never delt with it much so I cannot say much about it. And like Nine Clouds Purple Miasma said cultivation has changed somehow, I don't know if my alchemy is the same principles."
Hou looked at the furnace and lifted it's top. It was vaguely spherical and had many fancy flourishings. Then Hou stopped looking about and sat on a small cushion on the wooden floor.
Hou took out the piece of paper from his robe and looked at it. Hou looked at it and while he could see that it was just scribblings he could somehow understand it.
It read:
This will be your home from now on, you are a probational member of the Nine Clouds Sovereign Sect. Do all your work in here, you have all you need. Under the floorboards there is a barrel of food pills. They will sustain you with only one a day. In the box you were given, there should be enough resources for you to begin your cultivation journey. I will teach you everything you need to know tomorrow, for now rest and relax.
Hou read the note and the folded it up, placing it back into his robe.
'Well I can't be imprisoned here, I should first make sure the Hou sect is safe. I don't want to overly focus on them, but I won't be able to focus if I don't know if they are fine. I don't know how long it's been since I became a rock to survive the tribulation.'
Hou imaged the sky above the Hou sect and activated his gateway spirit will. He let out his inner world in front of him. He fed it qi, it's power should have occured and there should be a gateway.
But instead nothing happened, the spirit somehow failed to activate!
"Master I can't use my spirit wills, do you know why?"
"I...don't know, you've not been poisoned and everything seems fine. It's just not activating? Maybe ask Araxis?"
Hou swapped out Yue for Araxis as his second draw on his wills.
"There shouldn't be any magic formation unless somebody awoke their real consciousness but I should be able to sense that. I can't say, it shouldn't be suspicious to ask Nine Clouds Purple Miasma though."
Hou was anxious about the people he wanted to protect but he knew he couldn't escape so gave up attempting it more. Instead he tried magic, sitting down he astrally projected. Then in the magical world the light array was different, he couldn't pinpoint why but it was different.
"Don't." Araxis butted in and interrupted Hou's magic.
"Something seems off doesn't it?" Hou was also suspicious about this feeling.
"..yes but I don't know why, logically it seems fine but... I wouldn't trust it"
So to sum it up, Hou couldn't use cultivation and magic was suspicious. Hou was essentially trapped into accepting Nine Clouds Purple Miasma' tutelage for real.
'Theres nothing I can do right now, I should wait for Nine Clouds and see whether everything is fine. If he does anything suspicious I'll attempt magic despite the weird-ness'
Hou sat up from the cushion and moved into his bedroom. He unraveled the mattress and went under the blanket. He was warm but not stuffy and as he closed his eyes the lights dimmed. The light shining from outside dimmed and the sky turned dark as if it was night.
The next day Hou woke up and searched under the floorboards for his food pills. When he did find them he pulled the large barrel out of the ground. Even though this body was different it retained much of his strength, approximately a quarter of when he was using the strength spirit wills without doing anything.
"This body is amazing, is it something like your one you made Yue? Made up of the dao and maybe it mixed up some of those strength spirit wills for my strength and Nine Clouds made me stronger?"
"Yes that's what it seems like, your body exhibits a similar composition to how I made my body but it's also better. Not in every aspect but in strength it's perfectly melds."
Hou nodded feeling somewhat thankful to Nine Clouds Purple Miasma, but he was still aware who he was. He was the man Hou needed to kill, he imprisoned his people and hurt them for no reason.
As Hou was eating a food pill, a palm sized orb of brown material, somebody stepped out of the sky. All around the plot of land, there was only sky, like a floating island in a barren sky. However, Nine Clouds Purple Miasma stepped out of the sky in a burst of light.
"I assume you are enjoying yourself, how was your room?"
"It was good, thank you"
"Come sit down let me officially greet you into the Nine Clouds Sovereign sect. There are a few things you need to do before you can join however. Firstly just sign this contract, just move your consciousness into this orb. I know you can do it, I saw you in the astral world."