Chapter 9

Back at the Soaring Flame Sect, in a certain scarred elder’s residence, both Lily and Zhu Hao sat on the floor with their backs leaning on wall. Fatigue and worry were etched into their faces. The owner of the house was a few meters away sitting in a chair, his old wizened face betraying no expression as he sat deep in thought. The most odd thing about this scene, however, was the fact that all the furniture had been cleared from the center of the room. The only thing left was a large ball of rapidly spinning red qi hovering less than a meter off the ground.

-----

Flashing back to a few hours ago, the elder was returning to his residence with two unconscious cultivators in tow. Li Jie’s body had suddenly began spewing forth vast amounts of bright red qi, surprising the elder.

‘This boy still had this much qi in him? No wait, his was more pale red... what is this qi?’ He wondered, slightly worried.

It became apparent that the flood of qi wouldn’t stop and was actually coalescing into some sort of spherical shape around Li Jie’s body. The elder wasn’t sure what the qi was, but he had a feeling that something would happen if the qi was allowed to completely gather.

Using his own qi, he began attempting to suppress Li Jie’s qi, but it was like using a twig to stop a tsunami. Scowling at his failure, he snorted and suddenly increased his flying speed by over 10 times. The three transformed into prismatic beams of light that shot across the sky before landing in the courtyard of the elder’s mansion.

Quickly laying Li Jie on the floor as well as setting Lily down to the side, he used both of his hands to create a sealing formation. His hands waved intricate signs in the air and a massive profound energy came forth from his body. The unconscious Li Jie by now was surrounded in a cocoon of the bright red qi, however, it was still thin enough to see his body. He began to rise off the ground, hovering in the air. Sweat soaked his body as it spasmed slightly every few seconds. Various emotions displayed themselves on Li Jie’s face: happiness, anger, pain.

‘Is he dreaming?’ The elder thought, taking a quick look at him. He hurriedly returned back to creating a seal since he was running out of time. The red qi kept growing thicker and thicker around Li Jie.

He had already produced enough profound energy around him to attempt to seal and halt Li Jie’s deluge of qi. Even a small strand of the elder’s sealing profound energy felt like it had enough power to restrain even a charging rhinoceros. But as soon as the profound energy tried to seal Li Jie...

*BOOM*

It was repelled violently by the bright red qi, causing a massive backlash. The elder heard a screech coming from the cocoon at the same time. It was almost as if the qi was alive and saying to him, “You dare attempt to touch me? Very well, then you shall die for your transgression!”

The explosion of qi managed to injure the elder who gave up on the idea of sealing Li Jie.

-----

Lily had regained consciousness shortly after and was utterly confused. In a few short sentences, the elder vaguely explained what happened. Less than half an hour later, Zhu Hao, as an official outer court disciple, knocked on the door to the mansion. He had heard that something went wrong during the final fight, and his two friends were brought to this residence. He was let in by a Lily who had been crying non-stop, believing that the entire situation was her fault.

Back to the present, Lily and Zhu Hao had resigned themselves to watching Li Jie and hoping he would be fine. As for the elder, he seemed to be meditating with his eyes closed, and no one could tell what he was thinking.

“Elder, can’t we go seek some help? My master is strong, he might be able to help...” Zhu Hao said, somewhat meekly since the crisscross of scars on his face made the elder quite the fearsome figure.

In response, the old man just opened a single eye and glanced sharply at Zhu Hao before returning to his meditation. To the young cultivator, that single glance felt like it had seen into the depths of his soul.

In that moment, Zhu Hao instinctively understood that this man in front of him was a supreme existence in the cultivator world. Probably far stronger than his master. He stopped talking and returned to staring at the red cocoon of qi, deciding to trust the elder.

A few more hours had passed. The sun had already passed its highest point in the sky long ago and was steadily sinking in the horizon.

The elder suddenly made a movement with his hand, producing some bread and water from his spatial ring. A single command was uttered, “Eat.”

Although they had no desire to eat, they couldn’t deny the hunger they felt. Against the backdrop of the setting sun, the two ate silently, pinning all their hopes on either the elder performing a miracle or Li Jie waking up himself.

Li Jie did not disappoint. After a sudden brilliant burst of light, a maelstrom formed in the air with Li Jie at the center. He began absorbing the qi cocoon at a rapid rate, his dantian circulating the qi madly in an attempt to receive the deluge of qi.

In just a few seconds, all of the qi disappeared and all that remained was Li Jie, standing gracefully with his hands behind his back. His hair seemed like it turned a shade redder and his physique become even more muscular, pushing the limits for what one would normally consider a 14 year old to be.

“Li Jie, you okay?” Zhu Hao worriedly asked.

Li Jie paused for a few seconds before displaying the most serene smile and his face and nodding lightly, “Zhu Hao.”

Lily ran up to Li Jie and began apologizing, “Li Jie I’m so sorry about the... you with the sword... and hurting...” Her voice began to drift off when she saw Li Jie looking at her with weird eyes, like he was looking at an alien.

“Who might you be, young lady?” The question came out of his mouth.

Silence once again filled the room before it was broken by Lily’s worried, pleading voice.

“Zhu Hao, what do we do? He started acting like a prince and he doesn’t even remember me anymore!” Her voice started to crack as the tears began welling up in her eyes.

Before he could answer, Li Jie, who was startled by Lily’s tears, quickly dropped his prince act and explained, “Sorry, I was faking it! It’s just that you two had such a serious look on your faces I couldn’t help but to mess with you...”

He started chuckling nervously when, without any warning, Lily’s fist slammed into his gut, causing him to clutch his stomach in pain.

He weakly looked up to see Lily with her back to him, crossing her arms in an angry pose. What he didn’t notice, however, was the smile of relief stretched across her face.

Looking to Zhu Hao he said, “I deserved that didn’t I?”

His friend looked at him for a few seconds and then began laughing crazily, tears forming in his eyes. All the stress that had accumulated throughout the day disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place.

Once he was able to finally stop laughing, he wiped the tears away from his eyes and said, “You know, sometimes I’m scared at how mature you are for your age. But it’s times like these when I realize you’re still just a kid.”

Though Li Jie and Zhu Hao had just met Lily today, through this ordeal, they all felt their bonds of camaraderie had become just a bit stronger.

-----

That night, Li Jie was meditating in his new outer court disciple robes. He wasn’t back at the mansion where his mother lived, but rather was living in a small single room apartment allotted to all outer court disciples.

Earlier today, after Li Jie thanked the scarred elder for trying to save him, the elder informed him that both Lily and Li Jie had passed the exam. He then procured the disciple robes and secured housing for both of them, finally sending them off with a wave of his hand.

In meditation, Li Jie sent his spiritual sense to the core of his dantian. When he had woken up from his short coma, he had no recollection of what happened in his mind. The only thing he felt was that something in his dantian had shifted. The first thing his sense noticed was a small scarlet pearl floating near his core. Detecting qi coming from the peal, he attempted to refine it. Over an hour later, he had refined enough qi to reach a 1/10th of the way to level 5 of the Nascent Realm--a pace almost a thousand times faster than normal.

‘What the hell is this qi?! It’s hundreds of times more pure than the qi of the world!’ He paused in his thoughts, reexamining the pearl, ‘Not to mention that even after refining that much qi, the pearl doesn’t look like it’s even changed in size at all!’

After pondering it a bit more, Li Jie understood that the pearl was formed from the red cocoon that his friends told him about. But why did it appear in the first place? How was the qi so profound?

He decided to set aside his questions and stop cultivating for the night. Raising his cultivation too fast would create an unstable foundation for future cultivation. Li Jie wasn’t sure if that rule applied to him as well, but he didn’t want to take the risk.

However, he still felt as if there was something still inside his dantian, waiting to be discovered. His spiritual sense sank deeper and deeper, until it approached the fiery crest that his ancestor had granted him.

To his surprise, he saw that of the four small magical formations and one big formation that made up the crest, another one of the small ones had been revealed. Now he could see two of the small formations.

Li Jie could hardly contain his excitement. After all behind the first magical formation, he had discovered the supreme martial technique, “Phantom Blazing Step”. Li Jie felt that the first formation hid even more secrets, but he wasn’t strong enough to unseal them yet.

But as soon as his spiritual sense touched the second formation, vivid, lifelike images filled his mind. It wasn’t just a few images, but hundreds of thousands of complete images. In addition, a plethora of noises, smells, feels, and emotions flooded his brain.

They forcibly dragged Li Jie out of his meditative state, causing him to take some damage to his dantian. He spat out a mouthful of blood and sank to the floor, his overprocessed mind trying to sort out all the new information without frying itself.

A full minute passed before he managed to sit back upright with difficulty.

‘What was that? I saw another world... Another cultivator named Li Jie who looked like me... and Zhu Lei... he could pass for Zhu Hao’s older brother...’ His fatigued mind barely managed to think.

Li Jie had remembered everything from that day; from playing with Sasha in the river to meeting Zhu Lei--he recalled it all. But he didn’t have enough pieces of the puzzle to fully understand what was going on. All he knew was that his dream had something to do with the fiery crest bestowed by his ancestor.

Setting aside the matters of the dream, he focused on one last piece of enlightenment he had gained from the second formation. He waited for a few more minutes to recover his mind and body. Then he circulated his cultivation base, concentrating qi near his upper back. He suddenly felt a burning sensation along his entire back, the pain threatening to render him unconscious. Li Jie gritted his teeth and sent even more qi to his upper back. After a few more seconds, he suddenly shouted, “Go forth!”

Two blobs of fire appeared on the left and right side of Li Jie’s upper back, each one roughly the size of a fist. The pain abruptly faded away after the two blobs materialized. Li Jie, using a bronze mirror, examined the two blobs, ‘That’s rather disappointing, I didn’t think they would be so small. I suppose my cultivation just isn’t high enough yet...’

Although he wasn’t satisfied with the results, he shrugged, knowing that eventually he will be able to do it properly. Finally done checking his body, he took off his sweat-soaked robes and fell onto his bed, his tired body gratefully welcoming the sweet embrace of sleep.