A few months ago.
"Are you leaving again?"
Turning, I saw Yuyu standing at the entrance to my room.
We were at the Wind Palace, and words of me leaving the main planet had already spread among the royal family. With Yuyu being an acquaintance of theirs from the last time being here. It was only a matter of time before she knew of my departure.
"Yes, I have some matters to attend to," I said.
"Why? Why not stay at the academy, where it's safe, where not many people, crazy like that bastard of a servant are, why are you pushing yourself to the unknown?" she said.
"Because I have to," I said.
"That's bullshit!" she said.
And that was the first time I heard her curse.
I frowned, why is she that angry.
"You're only doing whatever you want, you don't even care about the feelings of the people around you. How far do you wish to climb in cultivation? To what end? Why are you tiding through so many dangers?!" she asked.
Questions I couldn't reply to these at once. Gotta hand it to a woman, if she wants to make you flustered she can do so with ease.
"I don't know what you mean, isn't the goal of cultivators to reach the peak?" I replied
"It is, but no one is urging you to rush there! You're already an ascendant! Do you know how far of a goal that is to the majority of cultivators? Not I, nor Liang Yu could have even dreamt of reaching the Ascendant stage in our lifetimes, I would have been satisfied to have died at the Soul Transformation stage, but now you come and push the bar so high, how are we supposed to feel?!" she asked.
I was about to say, 'What does that have to do with me,' but I knew for a fact that if were to speak those words, something terrible was going to happen.
"How are we supposed to catch up, you're going faster than us, you're climbing higher than any of us. While we're struggling, I fear if I were to close my eyes, you'll reach a level so high I'll have no will to ever follow after you, slow down Shen Bao, it's not healthy…" she said.
I looked down at my hands and realized that she wasn't speaking out of jealousy or envy, but pure concern.
It was true, it only took me twelve years of cultivation to reach the Ascendant Stage, which is probably unheard of. I haven't stabilized my cultivation at all. I've been moving constantly without stopping. It would almost feel like shallow cultivation in the eyes of the inexperienced.
Though I trust my knowledge and understanding of what I'm doing. It isn't good to keep rushing things. Not to mention, I wasn't planning on aiming for the Saint Cultivator rank anytime soon.
"I've been also thinking that my progress was too fast," I said.
"Too fast is an understatement, your progress is dangerously reckless," she said.
"True, and I'm planning on slowing down. My next venture has a specific goal, and I'm not planning on increasing my cultivation rank. So don't worry about it," I said.
"That's not the issue at hand, if you were to go out of the Wind Realm, the people you made an enemy of will know of it, and they will hunt you down. I'm not just talking about the Su family whose daughter and servant you killed right in front of their Patriarch, but the other cultivators, those with enmity toward the Poison God. The acolytes who want your book, the Black Tower whose dealings with the Fire King had been revealed. And the Fire King himself who must know by now that you escaped death at planet Si Xue. You have too many an enemy, and too few an ally, the Wind Kingdome can only protect you while you're inside its territory, and the Heavenly Academy is too far to support you in times of need," she said.
I approached Yuyu and rubbed her head, "You worry too much. I can hide my appearance and Qi, I can easily fool people around me. My Qi signature is unique enough that I can be mistaken as a mortal. So don't worry about that, As for other matters and other rulers, they can't touch me, since they don't know where I'll be heading. They can put up a bounty," I said as I waved a hand over my face.
"But they'll never find me if I don't wish to be found," I replied.
She looked at me and frowned, "Since when were you able to change your face?" she asked.
"Poison injection, by applying paralyzing poison on specific junctions of my face, I can reshape it to look different. Small changes in facial structure can completely change one's appearance." I said
I then linked my forehead to hers and said, "So, don't worry, I'll come back later."
She looked me in the eyes and said, "You've been missing, for five years. Five agonizing long years. I couldn't help but feel helpless, as I couldn't do anything to assist or help. You gave up on escaping to help us run away. Do you know how frustrating it was for us to just run away while you were captured…" her eyes began wallowing as tears began gathering around them.
"Ah, tears… I haven't cried in a while…" she said as she hastily rubbed her eyes and backed away from me.
"Just… don't die, Shen Bao," she said and turned to leave.
"Such an awful man you are," I heard.
Turning, it was Master Rain.
"How the hell do you do that? You always appear out of nowhere," I asked.
"I didn't appear out of nowhere, I was always here, you just didn't see me. Anyway, are you sure you want to leave things like this, for you, it must have been five years of torment and agony, but for her, it was five years of decaying hope, slowly killing her? She was traveling a ridiculously long journey hoping to find assistance and aid to come and help you. Think how awful it must have felt for someone to have their hopes grounded down every single passing moment thinking that they should have tried something to help you, and debating either to turn back and try and find you, or go get distant help which will probably be too late," he said.
"Everything turned out alright," I shrugged.
"Oh, believe me, it didn't, you may not realize it now, but you're doing the very thing that you denied back at the fall of the Mortal Divider."
I frowned unable to understand Master Rain's words. He wouldn't speak words randomly, meaning that his words had some subtle hints for me to grasp on.
"Don't worry about it now, when the time comes you'll understand, anyway. You should be heading out soon, once the Ceremony is over, a lot of vessels will be departing this planet, take the opportunity to leave among the chaos. Zhang Tian already prepared a method for you to leave. So ready up," Master Rain said as he left the room.
There was a letter on the table sealed by the Wind Realm Royal seal. I opened it and followed its instructions.
***
Back to the current time.
"What a weird planet," I muttered as I was descending through this planet's hostile atmosphere.
I've had a smooth sail through my pathing across space. Though I didn't have the Thunder Bull with me, I had the second-best thing. My own hoverboard. And thanks to Zhang Tian's radicicolous gift of Saint Qi crystals. I was able to improve upon the hoverboard and make it go faster, and sturdier. Still, I almost died going to this damn forsaken place.
Through my venture, I happened upon a spatial rift remain that seemed to have recently opened. I was pulled toward it because it had interesting fire energy coming from it. Something mystical it felt, a flame so pure that one would do anything to get their hands on it.
Yet when I arrived all I saw were the corpses of cultivators that were turned to cinders with barely any bones remaining. They didn't have any holding bags on them, so whoever attacked them was probably the owner of that flame, and they must have been 'human' for stealing the holding bag.
If the source of the flame was a beast it wouldn't have cared for the material possessions of cultivators.
The problem was that the fire Qi in the corpses hadn't fully dissipated, and when I was investigating it, a portion of that Qi flared up and struck me in the chest.
I would have died if I didn't react fast enough, but my Hoverboard was slightly damaged. So my trip was going to be postponed.
Whoever is able to control a Qi that pure is probably a monster among monsters, and I'm better off not meeting them. Being greedy I the way of cultivators, but I'm not stupid enough to be blinded by greed and die in the process. There is a limit to how one can be greedy and I know my limitations.
I fixed the hoverboard as much as I could and headed to this stupid ass planet which was by no means friendly.
The atmosphere was thick, enough that the contact with it was so rough it was constantly exhausting my hoverboard's Saint Qi barrier. It almost caused it to crack.
Not to mention, the moment I got out of the atmosphere and into the air space of the planet, I was assaulted by winged creatures, Moths the size of airplanes, and then birds that seemed to be preying on these moths.
The Qi in these creatures reminded me of the Grizzly Spider back at the Ancient Sect. They were Saint Class beasts. Something I can't afford to fight and should only focus on escaping from.
Looking down at a way to escape, I saw a giant forest that seemed to extend infinitely. It was so strange that one would think the world's sea turned into a forest. and the tree sizes were absurdly huge, so they should work wonderfully as a means to hide.
I dove down away from the Arial monsters and arrived in the forest. But just as I was about to scan the area around me, I felt the calling of something that was familiar.
My own Veridian Flame surged out as if it was pushing me to go in a certain direction.
Not knowing the full layout of the area I'm in, I used my Divine Sense to scan the region. Only to immediately regret it.
My Divine Sense which was far stronger than before as I reached the Ascendant Stage seemed to weigh down upon the world. It was by no means as strong as Zhang Tian's Divine Sense nor as dense as Master Rain's Falling Rain's Divine Sense. But it was powerful enough to cause an uproar in the forest.
Many beasts have known of my existence as I have known of theirs. But that wasn't the most important thing right now, the Veridian Heart Flame which belonged to me homed in on something in the distance and with my Divine Sense still spread, I realized what it was.
There was a child on the verge of death, no. That child should already be dead even from afar I know he'll not be able to survive. But he had the Veridian Heart Flame, a version of it that was far stronger than mine. And he was about to be killed by another person.
So, I rushed forward. I needed information, and the best way to gain information is to get it from someone who had nothing else to lose. Especially if the person is about to die. I might as well come in and assist him. Worst case scenario I gain nothing, but if I'm lucky, I might gain something good.
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