The first bolt of tribulation lightning hit me and I was filled with instant intense pain, like a blue hot fire burned through my meridians, and not the kind I could manipulate with my spirit root. My skin started to carbonize, but the skin seed started feeding on the qi, regrowing more skin anywhere that happened, replacing the inferior dead tissue with superior fresh tissue. I knew it wasn’t fast enough, so I brought out my medical kit and swallowed one of every type of level two healing pill, including the last blood pill. I channeled most of the qi into the pills, hoping that they could keep me alive despite the massive amount of damage I was about to receive.
Under normal circumstances you should never force healing to such a level, as forcing healing to occur too quickly drastically increased the chance that the mitosis in the cells would malfunction, creating defective or dead cells or even cancer, even when you normally wouldn’t get cancer. But in this situation, I was willing to risk it. The reason was simple, the first step in truly entering level three was Rebirth. During your first rebirth, every cell near your meridians, or in my case, near where my true meridians interacted with my physical body, would be flooded with liquid qi. The cells which were in proper symbiotic relationships with the body could shunt most of that qi to nearby cells, allowing 90% of them to survive. In cells that were too weak or those that weren’t properly working together with the rest of the cells, such as defective cells or cancer cells, they would be unable to shunt away most of the qi, and only one in a million of them would survive, but in a weakened state. This meant that the next time a wave of liquid qi went through those cells it would likely be too weak to survive. One would then continue until they couldn’t stand the pain any more, partially completing rebirth, or their cells could now handle the new levels of liquid qi, thus completing rebirth and allowing the qi to flow freely in large quantity.
Thus, as I was healing like this so that I could rapidly break through to level three and undergo my first rebirth, I didn’t fear the possibility of getting a cancer that would soon be cured.
Just as the skin finished healing, I called another bolt of tribulation lightning, then another when it finished again. With every bolt of qi my skin, blood vessels, and nerves grew more durable, refining to render me resistant to if not immune to most damage of its level. Once the skin was no longer absorbing all of the qi, the excess qi started going to my muscles, then my bones, then my organs, and finally my brain. Each system received some damage from the massive inflow of qi, but the pills quickly healed them, using some of the qi to do so. The rest of the qi went into the seed, further refining every system and pushing me closer towards level three.
By the time every talisman was used, and I was fully healed, they had ceased harming me. I started to lift further off of the ground until I was twenty meters above it. I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason I wanted to be off the ground while completing this step. I wouldn’t need to try and draw on the organic matter around me to repair my body as Blue Phoenix had, as I had over a dozen satiation pills dissolving in my continuously refining stomach, rapidly giving up their nutrients to restore what had been used. They might only be level one pills that Maria made for practice, but they should be able to provide everything I needed to undergo Rebirth.
“So, is that it? A bit of forced refinement through the use of pills?” mocked Blue Phoenix. “If you are done with your desperate gamble, then can we continue?”
I smiled. “Who said I was finished?” I asked. I raised my hand and several bolts of lightning fell from the sky onto the enemy army below. Several of the weaker ones were instantly killed, but the level two enemies instead were merely wounded. Now that I was immune to the damage of my own lightning, every time I started to deplete my qi reserves, I would simple make one or two of those tribulation bolts hit me instead, instantly refilling me to full and further refining my body.
While the dumber enemies tried to dodge my attacks and the smarter ones put up barriers to block them, I sent a telepathic message to Chu Van. ‘Gather our allies and go through the portal’. I said. ‘I will escape on my own once I’m finished with my god of lightning act.’
He nodded and ordered five disciples to pick up the five flags, then walk with him to the exit gate. Every time he encountered an ally he allowed them to enter the barrier, and every time he encountered an enemy he had the barrier push them away. This left behind two lines of enemies without any allies mixed in, which I quickly sent lightning at.
“Murderer!” yelled Blue Phoenix, finally reacting to my attack instead of watching and dodging, a look of rage in his eyes. “I’ll rip off your arms, flay you alive and make you beg for a death that I won’t grant!” He obviously couldn’t handle the loss of his allies, but what he said he was going to do to me made me wonder if he was actually a Righteous path cultivator.
He flew from the ground, an aura of flame flying out behind him like a jet thruster, and flew directly at me. I quickly aimed an attack at him, but the problem with the called lightning I was currently using was that it was a slow attack, relying on the qi in the area to gather fast enough that it could hit your opponent. My carpet bombing of the area had depleted most of the qi in the area, causing the local qi densities to fall below even the levels on Ilarya, so I doubted that the qi could gather quickly enough to hit him before he reached me.
Just then, however, a voice in my head suddenly let out a burst of desperation and something forced itself out of the beast pouch on my waste. It was a large black two tailed sparrow the size of a vulture, with yellow feathers on the backs of its wings which crackled with lightning, accelerating its flight. Xiao had managed to break through to level two from consuming the flood dragon meat, but was still only an initial level two pureblood spirit animal. The only advantage he had was his speed, which he used to fly directly at Blue Phoenix’s face and claw him with his talons.
As Blue Phoenix roared in anger and pain, a gash across one of his eyelids, the tribulation lightning gathered, then lanced out towards Blue Phoenix. The bolt hit him in his chest, breaking his concentration on his flight and sending him flying towards the ground. Now that I had an ally in this fight, one which could dodge not just his attacks, but mine as well, I knew I had to make the most of my advancement opportunity.
Ignoring the screaming and fleeing enemies below and the large bird that was currently trying to peck out one of Blue Phoenix’s eyes, I called the next lightning strike down on myself. This time I absorbed all of it, and felt something shift within myself. To put it crudely, it was like a person that needed to urinate, barely holding in the qi that wanted to explode outwards. Still, I called in yet another bolt of lightning and the pressure within the qi spiked, causing it to be forced from my veins and spinal cord into the rest of my body, almost pure liquid qi touching them for the first time.
This wasn’t like the smith had warned me about, however. There wasn’t enough almost pure liquid qi melting my cells to effect more than a few of the cells directly beside my three meridians. Some of these cells, however, weren’t up to the quality standards, and, while their neighbors were able to send most of the qi into the nearby tissue, they couldn’t shed it fast enough, bursting from the pressure. This allowed the nearby cells to absorb the now more dilute, as it was mixed with cellular fluid, liquid qi, drastically improving their performance and mitosis rate. This, combined with the healing pills, allowed all of the destroyed cells to be replaced within seconds.
Again, I called another bolt of lightning, and again a large number of cells burst, these being slightly further from the site of the liquid chi or those that were weakened in the last round. Again and again I repeated this, flying higher and higher with each bolt I triggered so that I could reach an area which still had dense levels of qi. After thirty or forty strikes, over fifty meters in the air, the cells in my body started to be able to withstand the liquid qi, and five strikes later, none of them died from the strikes unless they were already weakened from the former strikes. I called two more bolts and two more waves of liquid qi flowed through me, polishing off the last of the weakened cells, theb stopped using qi for everything except flight.
I quickly examined myself. My robe was in tatters, the lightning having charred it beyond a state where it could be repaired. I was also covered in an oily black tar, smelling like a mixture of what I assumed crude oil smelled like and body stench. I quickly removed my robe and used the cleaning technique to remove the substance from my skin, then put on my second set of travel robes. It was the last set of clothing I had brought with me, but I could buy more once I was back in High River. From what I could tell, I had successfully undergone my first Rebirth, and the seeds within my body were all but fully grown, requiring me to build more seeds if I wanted to continue advancing.
I quickly landed, hurrying to finish this fight before the portal closed, and noticed two things. First, the portal was starting to lose energy. I knew that soon it would start to shrink until it disappeared, having seen many videos on Earth where level five portals were opened or closed. This would just likely be slower that normal, as it opened more slowly than normal. Second, I noticed that Blue Phoenix had one eye closed and that blood was coming from the socket.
“Where in all the hells did you find a gods damned Roc?” he asked, half yelling. “I thought they were extinct!”
I smiled as if I had known all along. “Only on Ilarya. Here there are birds which still possess the bloodline.” From what I knew about Roc, the lightning and speed abilities they possessed fit well with what Xiao could do.
He gritted his teeth and the grass near him started to evaporate. He opened his empty eye socket and the stream of qi enhanced grass flew into it, and an eye quickly formed. When he was finished and started to look smug, like he was about to start monologing, I flew at him far faster than I knew I could. I wasn’t sure if it was my new level three status, my higher that normal refinement, or the special seeds I had gotten from all of the spirit beasts, including Xiao, but for a second I managed to reach at least two hundred kilometers per hour, far faster than an initial level three should be able to fly. My metal qi covered fist impacted Blue Phoenix’s face, and he flew backwards by ten meters or so, then hit the ground and rolled. I didn’t let up, though, and continued to fly at him, sending him in different directions with each punch, never aiming for where he was blocking. His movements seemed slow to me, like he wasn’t able to move as well as he wanted, likely due to my perception of time slowing.
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The new speed was comparable with someone in late level three, and he was unable to keep up with it. Still, I knew that I couldn’t keep this up for long. I might have better stats than him at the moment, but his level five status allowed him a vast surplus of qi that I couldn’t even approach the limit of, even by channeling the lightning the way I did before.
Eventually I stopped to rest and recover my spent qi, letting him get up after rolling the dozenth time, and he looked furious. “That’s it, I don’t care any more. Let the realm fight me. If I must defy the heavens for my revenge, then I will do so, and neither of us will survive this.” He raised his hand to the sky. “Rend the Heavens” he said, and a line formed in the sky, then opened like a giant eye lid. Within I could see nothing but a vast nebula of stars and soon the air started being sucked into it. “You may be able to survive a tribulation,” he said, a look of mad glee on his face, “But can you survive the celestial void?”
I started flying away as best I could, but with even the qi being pulled into the portal to deep space I was barely able to pull away from it. Xiao, however, wasn’t so lucky, and went flying towards the opening, his own flight relying on air and therefore subject to the air currents. I reached out and shrunk him, then put him in my bag. If nothing else I would buy him a few more seconds of life.
I tried to call tribulation to myself, but there wasn’t enough qi left in the area for it to do more than buy me a few seconds. Just as I thought I was going to run out of qi and be pulled into the vacuum of space, something else caused the qi in the area to start gathering into lightning. Both Blue Phoenix and I looked up to see the tribulation not hit one of us, but hit the tear in the sky. The opening quickly started to collapse, and after the third bolt of qi lightning the opening was completely closed.
Blue Phoenix looked up in surprise. He had expected us both to face mutual destruction, but instead the tribulation had just counteracted his spell. He raised his hand, considering using the same spell again, but the sky started to darken rapidly. Before he could use it, another bolt the size of the one that closed his portal hit him.
There was an explosion and a ball of plasma more than fifty meters in diameter formed, throwing me backwards over one hundred meters. The extreme amount of heat coming off of the area caused hurricane force winds at the plasma ball’s surface, but out here it was only a swift twenty kilometers per hour, something I could easily withstand. As the plasma ball started to weaken, another bolt hit it, reigniting it and speeding the wind up to over thirty kilometers per hour. I managed to brace myself against the hot wind with a stance from my hand to hand training and a minute later the plasma ball faded until only superheated air was left. I placed a fire shield around myself to absorb any heat that hit it, and flew into the area that had once been a plasma ball. The ground glowed red hot as smoke and other gasses came out of the ground. It would likely harden into basalt once it cooled.
I looked for his storage bag, as it likely contained a large amount of wealth, but the only thing I saw that was out of place was a small cloud that seemed stationary. It didn’t look like it was made of water vapor though, and had tiny darker spots in it that almost made me think that it was damaged. I flew closer to take a look and the cloud flew at me. I barely managed to dodge it and flew straight up to get away from it and it followed me, almost as if it were attracted to me. I tried to get away from it, increasing my speed to my maximum, but like some sort of heat seeking missile it kept getting closer. When, twenty seconds later, it was only ten meters from me, I saw something fly at it and stick to it, a paper talisman. The white ball lost considerable speed and a second talisman joined the first, causing it to slow to the speed of a mortal jogger.
‘HOW DARE YOU TRAP ME, MONK!’ boomed a voice in my head. That’s when I noticed Mishana walking over.
“I can not allow you to take the body of an innocent person. I will take you out of this place, and ask my master what to do with you once we are all safe.”
‘Do you think you can hold me with borrowed power?’ the voice asked, and I realized that it was an older version of Blue Phoenix’s voice, sending sound telepathically instead of easier concepts.
‘I do not need to hold you long. I only need to hold you for another minute until we can leave the hidden realm. Then Master Tiangu can deal with you.’ Blue Phoenix continued to rant, but Mishana pulled out a bronze alms bowl, put it underneath him, and placed a lid on the bowl, sealing him inside. Mishana then bowed to me. “I must thank Benefactor once again for saving the lives of my fellow monks and myself.”
“You just saved me from possession, so consider us even.” I responded. “I assume that was his soul?”
Mishana nodded. “Indeed it was. Though we really shouldn’t talk here. The gate has already started to shrink, and we will be trapped if we don’t leave now.”
I nodded. “In that case, hop on.” I threw my sword on the ground and got on it. Once Mishana was on the sword as well, I flew over to the battlefield where I grabbed anything which obviously had qi. I knew I was missing a few items, but I would have to leave them for the beasts of this place to salvage. Over three dozen storage bags and over two dozen magic items flew at me. I shrunk them and shoved them in my backpack as quickly as I could. I didn’t bother looking at what I had, as we needed to leave. The portal was already only about one point two meters across and still shrinking, so I grabbed Mishana and threw him through, then stored my sword and flew through on my own.
When I arrived on the other side, I turned around and saw the portal close about three seconds later. I turned back around to see Mishana standing up and dusting off his kasaya. I landed beside him. “Do you want me to teach you the cleaning technique? It’s not that difficult to learn.”
“Thank you, but I already know it. I just need more practice before I can use it without damaging the fabric.”
The elders from the Eternal Flame sect angrily approached us. “Where is Blue Phoenix? Did you trap him in the other realm?” They seemed both angry and concerned about the possibility of losing an elder because they couldn’t find their way back.
“I have him here.” said Mishana, pulling out the bowl. “But I must speak with my master about what to do with him. He committed crimes which must be answered for.”
“You killed him?” the other elder said, assuming that we had tried to enact justice and ended up capturing his soul.
“The hidden realm killed him. He used a technique called ‘Rend the Heavens’ and the realm sent tribulation to close it. When he tried again, it utterly destroyed him. Even his soul was damaged, though he was healthy enough to try and seize Li Kev’s body.”
“Then you must return him to us.” the lead Elder demanded.
“I don’t believe they should.” said the Golden Saber elder Swift Wind.
“Nor do I.” said Master Tiangu. “From the testimony of our disciples, plus those of the White Tiger sect, it is obvious that he attempted to kill them, and would have succeeded if the Defender of the White Tiger sect, Li Kev, wasn’t in possession of a level four defensive artifact, which he allowed them to use to escape.”
“Furthermore,” said Swift Wind, “Both my sect and Prajna Temple signed non-aggression pacts with your three sects when your war began, promising not to join or give preferential treatment to your enemy. In exchange, you promised to not attack us or our people, and allow us to move freely through your territory. By your elder’s actions in attacking our disciples, he was in violation of the treaty, and must be punished. The only other option is for your sect to condone his action, to dissolve the treaty, and risk us joining your enemy’s side.”
The Eternal Flame Elder scoffed. “Of course we don’t want to do that. We value your sects too much, and won’t do anything to harm that relationship. That said, we cannot allow a high elder to remain in custody, no matter if he is guilty or not.”
“Then what do you propose?” asked Mike, stepping over. “Do you wish to ransom him back for punishment in your sect?”
The bowl started to rattle, and Mishana handed it to Master Tiangu. He opened it, but as soon as the soul floated out he raised his hand and reinforced the barrier talismans on it. “You may speak in your defense if you wish, but I cannot allow you to leave my custody until the issue is resolved.” said the monk.
‘White Tiger Sect is in league with demonic cultivators.’ said Blue Phoenix telepathically.
“We have already heard such allegations as well as your arguments from those members of your sect which left the hidden realm.” said Swift Wind, who then summarized the arguments made inside. “I found your argument here just as unconvincing as our disciples did.”
‘And what about the fact that their protector wantonly slaughtered over forty of our disciples?’ asked Blue Phoenix.
“Killing one person in defense of another’s life may be a sin,” said Master Tiangu, “But it is not a crime. Nor is it evidence that someone is a demonic cultivator. If it were, then many cultivators and most city guards would be suspected demons.”
There was a pause as the people gathered here thought about the situation. “It seems we are at a bit of an impasse,” said the Eternal Flame leader. “While I can admit that High Elder Blue Phoenix violated the treaty when he ordered the disciples to attack those of the Golden Saber sect and Prajna Temple, and will gladly pay restitution to settle this matter, I cannot allow him to remain in your custody, nor will I give money to a demonic sect like the White Tigers.”
“But we have seen no evidence that they are demonic.” said Swift Wind. “My sect refused to aid you in the war because we found your evidence to be uncompelling and circumstantial at best, and now you present us with even poorer evidence, which can easily be argued against, and wish to use it to bully a small, newly established sect. Tell me, what does that say about the Eternal Flame sect? Does it make you think of them as honorable?”
The Eternal Flame elder scoffed, conceding that it did present his sect as bullies. “Fine, as Prajna Temple is in possession of our high elder’s soul, following his arrest for crimes against them, including the death of three monks, I will offer one million stones for his return. Furthermore, I offer an additional thousand for each level one cultivator lost by Prajna Temple or Golden Saber Sect due to his actions, and ten thousand for each level two cultivator. I do not make such and offer to the White Tiger sect, but from what I hear they didn’t lose anyone in that attack, so I wouldn’t have to pay them anyway. If you believe White Tiger deserves recompense, you are more than welcome to give them part of your share.”
Swift Wind, Mike, and Tiangu discussed it briefly telepathically, then Tiangu spoke up. “I agree to your terms.” he said. The elder quickly counted the stones into a new storage bag and threw it to monk Tiangu, and the monk released Blue Phoenix from the talismans. The soul flew slightly towards me, but when Monk Tiangu raised his hand in preparation to use a technique, Blue Phoenix decided to follow his allies and leave.
