Chapter 87: Chapter 86 – Advancement

  Soon, Long Di’s body returned to its previous spatial coordinates and his soul and skeleton reconnected just like before. The screams his body issued came to a stop and its normal impassive demeanour to reign.

  “Gah.”

  The chains bound him like before and yanked him out of the world of flames, and as such, this marked the end of Long Di’s bestowment of the runes of the Marrow Chapter.

  ****

  Whoosh!

  Long Di emerged from the forge. The runic chains released him and flew back into the world of flames.

  The main opening was now closed, and the forge dimmed slightly.

  Uncle Tian Lu only used one hand to control the hammer, but his focus was now split, with part of it being on Long Di.

  It was the first time he saw Long Di’s body, and his earlier wonder of Long Di’s circumstances hounded him.

  “Little demon.”

  “Don’t,” Long Di raised a hand to dismiss this question. “There is no one qualified enough to bear the demons that will be unleashed upon them if I were to… share.”

  There were no changes in Long Di’s expression or his tone, but they now carried weight in Uncle Tian Lu’s mind.

  His eyes roamed the scars that covered Long Di’s body. These were not newly gained scars, these were something that followed him from his previous world.

  They not only covered his spirit, but his body as well. His parents had realised this in his early years. Back when his mother thought that her clumsy husband had hurt him when they saw something like a line on his body, they had been worried.

  As he grew, more wounds appeared on his body, seemingly out of nowhere, driving his parents mad. In reality, this was his spirit adapting to the world and the new body. Once it was fully settled, all the scars and injuries that scarred him mentally had appeared on his body.

  His parents didn’t know what to do at the time. They had spent a fortune hiring physicians and medical practitioners to fix whatever it was that was happening, but nothing worked. What was even more ridiculous, was that some healers even went as far as to say that all these wounds and injuries were present from birth, and were most likely some birth defects.

  Long Huangdi and Long Nuhuang had wanted to kill the healer that brought this up, as they were sure that Long Di was not afflicted with this many wounds and scars at birth. The only reprieve that they received was when they saw that Long Di refused to respond to any stimulation brought to those scars, as if he was unaware of their existence.

  Seeing as how their child wasn’t paying attention to the wounds, and that they didn’t seem to affect him negatively, they laid the matter to rest while keeping an extremely close eye on him.

  When Long Di saw Uncle Tian Lu staring at his body, he thought the latter was disgusted by them and tried to summon a robe from his ring when he realised.

  “Where’s my storage ri- oh my god.” Long Di wanted to slap his own forehead but was afraid the force behind it might cause his head to explode. That was how stupid he felt at the moment.

  How could he forget the fragility of storage rings? Everything was in that ring, the manuals, the spirit stones, everything!

  “Are you looking for these?”

  Uncle Tian Lu fished two storage rings from his robe.

  “How did you-”

  “I had a life before the clan, let’s leave it at that. I knew you forgot about them, so I moved them for safety.” Uncle Tian Lu handed the rings over to him. “I’m sorry if I was staring. I don’t know what you’ve been through, but as your master, just know that I’m here.”

  Long Di just stared at him and said nothing.

  “Are you okay?” asked Uncle Tian Lu.

  Long Di remained silent in the face of his question.

  “Boy?”

  “Huh?” Long Di jumped as if roused from some deep rumination.

  “What happened?” Uncle Tian Lu saw a look on Long Di’s face that appeared only a handful of times.

  “I was watching a performance.”

  When Uncle Tian Lu heard this, he felt proud. The technique he used now to carry out his forging was one of the two defining treasures of his clan. He believed this was what Long Di was referring to.

  ‘That tooth is as profound as ever. How does it move even when he’s no longer talking? It is baffling. If I didn’t know any better, I would think it’s making the same arc swings that his hammer is making. Incredible.’

  Uncle Tian Lu would cough up blood and probably die if he knew what Long Di was thinking at present.

  Long Di summoned a robe that was quickly incinerated by the heat they were currently facing.

  “What the-”

  “You haven’t realised it?” questioned Uncle Tian Lu, who had now poured most of his focus back into his forging. “The heat here has not gone down that much. You are not affected because your body has undergone massive changes.”

  “I see,” said Long Di, who was now inspecting his body. “I don’t sense much difference now though, apart from my body being stronger. Is this normal?”

  “Yes,” answered Uncle Tian Lu. “The true cultivation aspect starts when we initiate the Bone Chapter. We’ll do that tomorrow.”

  The difference that Long Di was referring to was the presence of somatic essence in his body. He felt it from several sources so far, and he felt no such energy in his own body. Hearing that this would be rectified with the inclusion of the Bone Chapter put him at ease.

  “Is that chapter going to kill me too?”

  “You were not dead.”

  “Uhm, I’m thinking I was. I mean, I’m no expert, but I’m no amateur either.”

  “No, you weren’t!”

  “Listen, you might not believe me, but I’ve read that more than 2% of all deaths are fatal.”

  “Leave me! Leave me now, little demon! Leave me before I invite destruction upon myself!” Uncle Tian Lu was going to go mad if Long Di stayed here much longer. The earlier feelings of pity he had for him were gone.

  “So what you’re saying is that me imparting knowledge to you is the same as inviting destruction? Not gonna lie, you’re not painting a pretty picture for yourself at the moment. The only thing you got going for yourself is your tooth.”

  Uncle Tian Lu’s hammer swing wavered and nearly lost its intended trajectory.

  Boom!

  “LEAVE!”

  …

  “Sheesh. You cannot have a decent conversation with the man.” Long Di emerged from the stairway and could smell the fresh air that greeted him immediately.

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  A short distance away, beyond some ruins, was a forest. It seemed relatively peaceful, and was a stark contrast to the literal hell that he was just in.

  “Alright, so I’ll be receiving the Bone Chapter tomorrow. I guess I should use this time breakthrough to the second Star Core of the Core Flame Evocation realm since I have time. Stupid Destiny Scale is really hampering me on this.”

  Long Di was in some unknown part of the village. He wasn’t even sure if he was still in the village, since the place was devoid of people in general. The only thing that led him to believe that it was even a part of the village, was the familiar scattering of ruins that littered the place.

  “Someone should really clean this place up. On a side note, I feel really light without those weighted gears dragging me down.”

  Long Di felt the effect of the absence of the gears he wore previously showing itself. The gears had remained intact for the most part up till he had arrived in front of the forge.

  When the runic chains dragged him inside, the intense heat incinerated the armour!

  Long Di desperately wanted to know what skewed laws of physics allowed metal to be incinerated into what he assumed was a gas, while his body was able to survive the experience. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the possible repercussion that could come after looking a gift horse in the mouth, so this was something that would definitely be looked into AFTER the Bone Chapter   was completed.

  “This is as good a spot as any.” Long Di said to himself after finding a relatively secluded spot. “I wonder if this is how Zoro feels after getting lost so many times?”

  He was in a part of the forest that was relatively near to the clearing. He didn’t want to stray too far from where Uncle Tian Lu was forging, besides; he was only going to be advancing in his cultivation.

  Dum!

  After sitting cross-legged on the forest floor, Long Di summoned his nine black cauldrons.

  One could see how as the nine black cauldrons rotated, the surrounding spiritual energy was like a flood as it rushed into the black cauldrons without reserve!

  The cauldrons automatically refined the spiritual energy for Long Di without him needing to even lift a finger. This was one of the many advantages of a cultivator’s cauldrons. Considering the grade of Long Di’s cauldrons that continued to confound anyone who saw it, the amount of spiritual energy his cauldrons took in at any time was extraordinarily tremendous.

  When Long Di felt the spiritual qi that now entered his body, he compelled it to follow the main meridians that comprised the great path.

  After it completed a full cycle, he then took advantage of the main meridians and the supporting minor meridians that were the foundation of his cultivation technique.

  Whoosh!

  As this happened, the spiritual qi that was cycling in his body peacefully suddenly picked up speed and started to race through Long Di’s meridians like a rampaging dragon!

  He could clearly feel the bottleneck separating him from the second Star Core of the Core Flame Evocation Realm, and he needed it gone!

  When the spiritual qi followed the path of his cultivation technique, it absorbed the tribulation lightning energy contained within!

  Shu!

  “Again?”

  Something happened during the breakthrough process. What made tribulation lightning so special was the divine aspect of his destructive capabilities.

  Its divine nature rendered it near impossible to go against. This was why Long Di could easily go against those more powerful than him. However, he could feel the divine nature of his tribulation lightning being sapped away, and of course, he knew why.

  Ever since the Destiny Scale had gone to sleep, he had been absorbing the trace of divine energy present in his tribulation lightning. This, in turn, caused it to turn into normal lightning qi.

  He should have known that something was off when the Destiny Scale said what it did before going under.

  ‘I apologise in advance for your divinity, my ass.’ Long Di remembered what it said word for word.

  ‘Hold on…’

  He was preparing to expel the Destiny Scale from his body so he could regain access to his tribulation energy when a thought came to him.

  Back when Long Di was still the embodiment of every cultivator’s destruction, he knew for a fact that he was some distance away from the bottleneck of the second Star Core.

  However, for some reason, during the time it took for the Destiny Scale to find itself in a coma and the time it took for him to have a newfound respect for barbeque chicken, the bottleneck not only lost its immeasurable distance but even loosened itself considerably.

  ‘So that’s it.’ Long Di deduced that once the cultivation technique ran the way that it was supposed to, that the divine nature of the tribulation lightning energy was what caused him to have a hard time returning to peak condition, despite having a decent destiny.

  Even though there were many types of energy present in spiritual energy, some were more abundant than others. As for energy of a divine nature, there were only trace amounts of it present. The only reason that Long Di was able to effectively cultivate this type of technique in the first place is because of his destiny.

  If it were anyone else, it would have taken them years to simply fill their dantian. Not to mention filling it, you would have to consider the container that held just as much as the dantian in their body along with the ocean’s worth of spiritual energy required to cultivate it and to attempt any sort of breakthrough.

  After weighing the pros and cons, Long Di decided to keep the Destiny Scale inside him. He didn’t plan to abandon it, he only wanted it absent while he attempted his breakthrough, but seeing as how it brought more good than bad, he let it be.

  Besides, when it woke up, he would regain his tribulation lightning, so there wasn’t that much to worry about. One of the things that he hated in cultivation novels was the trope of being nerfed.

  Boom!

  The dragon-like lightning qi poured into the pearl of the second cauldron!

  It was much easier to absorb the lightning qi when the divine aspect was no longer slowing it down. He no longer attempted to stop the Destiny Scale from its absorption, so the process was much easier.

  However, the second pearl was taking a while to transform into a Star Core.

  “More!” Long Di increased the absorption speed to its limit and drew the spiritual energy from miles around!

  As the energy poured into the pearl, it started to dim and brighten like a flickering flame. Beads of sweat rolled down Long Di’s head.

  He could feel that he was emptying the spiritual energy on a level that would be detrimental to the surroundings.

  To ease up on the environmental expenditure, he started to use the spirit stones to supplement him with the energy he needed.

  It didn’t take long for the stones to turn to dust. He quickly took out another two to replace them.

  Before long, the core brightened and shone with an intensity that was blinding in nature.

  “Now!” Long Di charged up a sea of lightning qi in his dantian and his crystal core and sent it gushing into his second pearl!

  Boom!

  Suddenly, a shock-wave of lightning spread from Long Di’s body for miles, flattening the portion of the forest he was in!

  Within the dust that arose because of the rippling surge, sat Long Di in silence, with only his cauldrons to accompany him.

  Shing!

  Krrssh!

  The second pearl had finally lit up! Sparks of lightning could be seen dancing around the black cauldron, making it the second of Long Di’s nine to host a Star Core.