baiyuyi 39: The Results of Powering Up

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Chapter 39: The Results of Powering Up

Yuan Chenglei clenched and unclenched his fist, marveling at all the sensations he was currently feeling.

It had been several days since that unfortunate … the series of events that … uh… the Heavenly Lightning Tribulation he had undergone.

Thanks to his drastic power up, Yuan Chenglei had been persuaded to take off from university again as he struggled to adjust and control the True Qi that now ran through his meridians.

It was already easy for cultivators to make mistakes when their cultivation improved with such drastic leaps and bounds, but since Yuan Chenglei was such a beginner, it was even easier for him to fall into qi deviation as he struggled to learn how to circulate his qi, Laoban had said, so it was recommended that Yuan Chenglei shut himself in the bookstore and really focused on getting himself back under control.

Okay, yeah, Yuan Chenglei understood the benefits of closed cultivation and all that, but Laoban, you don’t understand! If he takes too many days off of university, Mama Yuan’s gonna come kick his ass for goofing off and wasting tuition!

Of course Yuan Chenglei wasn’t going to actually protest, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was the only cultivator who was worried about his mom getting on his case for not studying.

How did other cultivators get away with this – oh right, most of them come from cultivator families who would rather their kids get ahead in cultivation rather than get a degree.

Yuan Chenglei sighed as he stood up from his meditation, staring down at his arms.

Laoban had followed the medicinal paste up with a pill, and last night a medicinal bath, but the scars from the ghost pot’s ghost energy were still there. To the cultivator’s eye, anyway.

The blackened veins had lightened considerably to the point where they were barely noticeable, especially to the mortal eye, but even Laoban’s OP pill-forging skills couldn’t completely remove the effects instantaneously.

This was damage done by ghost qi, after all. It would take a little longer for Laoban’s ministrations to completely remove the traces. (It was already amazing that Laoban could heal it at all, but Yuan Chenglei didn’t know any other immortal apothecaries so he didn’t have anyone to compare Laoban to.)

Yuan Chenglei was a little more disturbed that when he really concentrated on directing his qi to his hands, they would start glowing a pale, cold light.

Supposedly, this phenomenon should only manifest when one had practiced certain types of specialized qi style cultivations to a high degree, but apparently the battle between the ghost qi and Yuan Chenglei’s own True Qi was enough to cause this phenomenon.

Yuan Chenglei’s ghost fire attribute, much like his lightning attribute, was something that had to be nurtured in order be able for him to actually do anything with it, but its reliance on ghost qi should have made it difficult for the not-dead Yuan Chenglei to manifest.

However, since his constitution had somehow made it possible for Yuan Chenglei to absorb ghost qi to nourish his cultivation, naturally it also made it possible for him to convert his True Qi into ghost qi as well, and the glow of his hands apparently signified the conversion.

It was pretty easy to change his hands and arms from ‘glowing’ to ‘on (ghost) fire’ too, which often made Yuan Chenglei want to clutch his head.

He’d much rather have mastered his innate attribute, the lightning one, first! Lightning is waaay better than this creepy ghost fire-!

Not to mention, Laoban had been hypothesizing that the reason this mutated spirit root gave him ‘ghost fire’ might have been because it was possible for Yuan Chenglei to grow a fire spirit root at some point.

Did that mean his cool fire powers were gone before he even got them!?

Cry cry cry…

Sometimes Yuan Chenglei felt like the universe was out to get him.

Because!

The First and Second Stages in cultivation were all about developing your qi, opening your acupoints, and clearing your meridians, allowing you to feel yourself get stronger and stronger. Once you reached ‘maximum capacity’ for improving simply by doing those three things, you were ready for the Third Stage.

And what was the Third Stage?

Simply put, it was time for the more drastic ‘version up’ for your physical body.

Now.

Now see here. Yuan Chenglei had certainly read a lot of xianxia novels about this kind of stuff before, and they certainly hadn’t made him look forward to it.

Reforging bones and regrowing muscles, snapping tendons and tempering the skin… all of them come with a large amount of excruciating pain!

So if the First Stage was about developing the basic flow of qi through the body by opening the main meridians and yin and yang seas so that one could perform the Second Stage’s more thorough and detailed opening of all the acupoints and meridians, then the Second Stage and its full opening of the meridians and refinement of True Qi was so you wouldn’t die while undergoing the torturous transformations of the Third Stage.

Right, the Third Stage.

The one that most cultivators never broke through, and quite a few died in.

… … So why did Yuan Chenglei get to skip the ‘fun intro’ part of cultivation and jump straight to the ‘intense pain and agony’ part!?

Although he clutched his hair in dismay, Yuan Chenglei eventually shrugged.

Eh. It is what it is.

Besides, it would still be a while until Laoban would let him do those sorts of things.

As a Third Stage cultivator, Yuan Chenglei was practicing an overwhelmingly low amount of techniques and had an even lower amount of experience in … everything, not just combat.

Flicking the ghost fire from his arms, Yuan Chenglei began making his way back towards the mountaintop with the exit back to the bookstore.

Having Laoban’s Secret Realm to cultivate in sure was convenient~. It even had signal so he could contact the outside world on his phone!

“Jing-mei? How are you doing? It’s almost time for breakfast – woah!”

As Yuan Chenglei approached Zhao Jinjing, she just about collapsed from exhaustion. He had to use a second movement technique, A Thousand Leagues in a Step, to move in front of her to catch her.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, anxiously lowering her so she could sit on the ground.

“I… I’m fine…”

Yuan Chenglei didn’t believe her. Her face was so pale, as if she’d run too hard for too long.

And just saying, Jing-mei’s been a cultivator a lot longer (relatively) than Yuan Chenglei, so it shouldn’t be that easy for her to reach such a state.

“You shouldn’t push yourself too hard -” Yuan Chenglei began to say, but stopped.

The only time Zhao Jinjing tended to push herself hard was usually when she was secretly (but not secretly enough; it was pretty obvious) competing with Yuan Chenglei.

Yuan Chenglei sighed.

“Hey, is it because I broke through?” he asked, although he didn’t really need to.

Still, his heart hurt a little as Zhao Jinjing looked away, a bit embarrassed and a bit sullenly.

Yuan Chenglei sighed, patting her on the head.

Man, adolescence was tough. On one hand, Zhao Jinjing seemed to eat up all the doting he and Laoban, well mostly it was Yuan Chenglei doing any sort of doting, but Zhao Jinjing seemed to crave it. On the other, though, she seemed to have some sort of competitive complex regarding cultivation when she compared herself to Yuan Chenglei.

Unfortunately the difference in the way both of them cultivated was like comparing a speed skater and a figure skater, in Yuan Chenglei’s opinion.

Sure, Yuan Chenglei might be ahead in terms of distance, but since Zhao Jinjing has an entirely different grading scale!

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say Yuan Chenglei’s grading scale is the one that’s totally different.

“Jing-mei… you know you shouldn’t compare yourself with me, right? I’m a freak of nature even by Laoban’s standards,” he said.

“I… I know that… but…”

Even if she understood, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t still feel anxious about it.

Zhao Jinjing may not have been cultivating her entire life, but she went through foundation building earlier, and she had lived among cultivators.

It can’t be helped if she felt inadequate when a mortal just shot through all the stages, even if she knew it was unreasonable.

She just felt like she wasn’t doing enough.

As she caught her breath, Yuan Chenglei frowned.

He didn’t know if it was because he started cultivation at an older age, but he was beginning to understand that the stages in cultivation all built up on top of each other, and if one didn’t build a stable enough foundation in each stage before proceeding onto the next one, it was likely that it could fall apart in the later stages.

However, Yuan Chenglei didn’t know enough about cultivation to know whether Zhao Jinjing’s impatience was dangerous or not.

“If you push yourself too hard, it could have the opposite effect and damage your cultivations,” he cautioned.

“I-I know-!” Zhao Jinjing yelped, but then she guiltily looked down at the ground while tugging on the hem of Yuan Chenglei’s shirt.

… Yup. Adolescence really can be a confusing time.

Yuan Chenglei patted her on the head gently. He didn’t intend to lecture her, and he knew her feelings were getting all jumbled up. If only he could give her some advice, but it’s not like he knew what he was talking about.

So instead, “Jing-mei, it’s not a bad thing that you want to get stronger, so let’s talk to Laoban about it,” he said.

Zhao Jinjing looked at the ground.

“… He’s already been instructing me,” she said hesitantly.

Yuan Chenglei tilted his head a moment before he understood.

“Jing-mei, Laoban isn’t going to be upset if you say that you want get stronger faster. He said it at the beginning, right? That he was willing to teach us what we’d want to learn, not just what he wants to teach us.”

Maybe a master in a sect or something would be offended if his disciple questioned his training plan, but … well, Yuan Chenglei wasn’t really 100% sure that Laoban had anything like a ‘training plan’ to be questioned in the first place. Not that Yuan Chenglei was going to say anything about that, but…

Zhao Jinjing just docked her head a little as her breathing evened out.

Yuan Chenglei wasn’t sure if she had understood or not, but her mood seemed to have evened out a bit.

This sort of thing wouldn’t become her heart demon or anything, right? It would be better if Zhao Jinjing could come to terms with her loss before it started affecting her cultivation. Oh.

Yuan Chenglei wondered if that’s why Laoban hadn’t been pushing Zhao Jinjing to progress in her cultivation. At some later stage, cultivation will start involving more mental strength, so maybe Laoban wants her to have some more time to accept the deaths of her father and the Surging Waves Sect.

It seems difficult to be a Master…

Yuan Chenglei’s sympathy disregarded the fact that his anomalies were probably very much part of the difficulties Laoban was experiencing.

—

After Yuan Chenglei confirmed that Zhao Jinjing would be alright, he exited Laoban’s Secret Realm.

It was still early in the morning and the bookstore was still dark.

Yuan Chenglei wasn’t exactly sure where Laoban was; he hadn’t seen him in the Secret Realm. Did Laoban have multiple Secret Realms or something? There were a lot of times when Yuan Chenglei could swear up and down that Laoban hadn’t left the store, and yet Laoban wouldn’t be anywhere that Yuan Chenglei looked.

As Yuan Chenglei pondered the mysteries of Laoban, he flicked on the store lights and got ready to open the store.

And about had a heart attack from the two figures practically plastered in the glass of the door.

A large, tall, intimidating bald man in a black trench coat, and a whispy, white, ghostly figure behind his back.

Expert Ghost Scholar, Sisi … that’s freaking terrifying!

Thankfully, with the increase in cultivation came the increase in the ability to recover from being shocked out of his wits, and with a quickly circulation of qi (to make sure everything, including his heart, was working), Yuan Chenglei was able to calm down in an instant, going over to unlock the door and let the two of them in.

“Expert Ghost Scholar, Sisi, good morning,” he said politely, as if he hadn’t been about to pass out in fright.

“Good morning, Little Friend Chenglei. I’m relieved to see you’re doing well,” Expert Ghost Scholar replied. He was still wearing sunglasses, even when the sun had barely risen.

“I’m doing really well,” Yuan Chenglei replied, then thought better of it and said, “I’m doing a little too well.”

Expert Ghost Scholar just chuckled.

It’s true that this Little Friend had undergone a situation that would have easily killed a stronger cultivator, but it was also true that he had broken through a Stage at the same time. So honestly, it could have gone either way, leaving him in a poor state or boosting him to a better state. Of course, for the Ghost Hunters, it was MUCH better if White Jade Wings’ disciple was in a better state after that fiasco!

As Yuan Chenglei brought the stool from behind the register so that Expert Ghost Scholar could be seated, he asked, “So what is Expert here for today? Is it something I can help you with?”

“I’m here to inform Senior White Jade Wings about the results of the previous matter,” Expert Ghost Scholar said.

“… Are they things I’d want to know about?” Yuan Chenglei asked.

“Hahaha.”

Expert Ghost Scholar was laughing pleasantly, but Yuan Chenglei made up his mind.

He REALLY didn’t want to know.

Thankfully, Laoban happened to leave his ‘room’ right at that time.

Right, so there’s definitely more to Laoban’s Secret Realm than just the mountain peaks. Yuan Chenglei had been running ALL over those mountains, practicing the new movement technique, and he didn’t catch a single sign of Laoban, so there has to be something …

… Or it could be that he’s too weak to sense Laoban’s presence if Laoban didn’t want to be found. One or the other.

“Ah, Laoban, Expert Ghost Scholar is here,” Yuan Chenglei called out, as if Laoban couldn’t see for himself.

Or, more likely, Laoban had already known about Expert Ghost Scholar’s visit and came out for that reason.

But Laoban didn’t call him out on that and just greeted Expert Ghost Scholar and Sisi with a brisk nod.

Expert Ghost Scholar stood up quickly, greeting Laoban with cupped hands.

“Senior White Jade Wings, my apologies for intruding. I brought a missive from the Ghost Hunters Head regarding … that matter.”

As he spoke, Expert Ghost Scholar presented something that looked like a jade seal from out of nowhere.

Laoban chuckled as he took it.

“It would have been fine to simply send an e-mail,” he said, long, slender fingers turning the jade this way and that before tucking it into his hoodie’s pocket.

“The Elders thought that this situation warranted a more formal approach,” Expert Ghost Scholar said.

The two of them smiled bitterly, one side with his mouth hidden and the other with his eyes hidden. Somehow, their expressions were still perfectly readable.

“Is there something else?” Laoban asked suddenly, “I don’t think they’d send Cultivator Ghost Scholar simply to hand over a jade tablet.”

Expert Ghost Scholar scratched his bald head sheepishly.

“That’s true. The Elders would like to inform Senior White Jade Wings of the Mingling of a Myriad of Sects that will take place in two days’ time. Although we naturally have no say over Senior’s time, the Elders would find the presence of either Senior White Jade Wings or Senior Ascending Steps to be very reassuring.”

Wow~ that was expertly worded. Yuan Chenglei almost felt like clapping.

Senior Ascending Steps is Chef Gaojie, right? So basically, the Ghost Hunters really want Laoban or Chef Gaojie at this gathering. The Mingling of a Myriad of Sects… Yuan Chenglei wondered whether, or rather thought it was certain that, Expert Jiayi would be there too.

But if the Ghost Hunters wanted one of the two Bigshots to appear then… Yuan Chenglei thought he could smell gunsmoke in the future.

Cultivator politics, or just cultivators that wanted to take advantage of the Bigshots’ absence – neither felt particularly reassuring in Yuan Chenglei’s opinion.

Laoban lightly tapped his fingers on the counter as he hummed lightly.

“I suppose I should show my face once in a while,” he mused, eyes narrowing a bit.

Eh? You’re going to remove the face mask? Yuan Chenglei thought, but wisely kept it to himself.

“If Senior White Jade Wings believes it to be the best course of action,” Expert Ghost Scholar said deferentially, but inside he was thinking, Oh thank GOD.

Now he didn’t have to be yelled at by those stick-in-the-mud Elders; he not only delivered the message without offending the Bigshot, he even got the Bigshot’s confirmation to attending! Probably.

“How are the Ghost Hunters’ ghosts? Many of them seemed to have some corruption,” Laoban asked.

He left the so the Ghost Hunters would be at a power disadvantage if there’s trouble at the Mingling of a Myriad of Sects unsaid. Only Expert Ghost Scholar picked up on it. Yuan Chenglei was too immature in the cultivation world to realize the connection, and Sisi was, well…

“We all healing! And Sisi even got a little stronger! Sisi can now possess people with no problems!”

Ahen-! Sisi proudly placed her hands on her hips and puffed her chest out.

“That’s not true, it’s only because Friend Chenglei’s vitality was so high that there were no adverse effects.”

Ghost Scholar gently chided Sisi as he diverted the topic from the Ghost Hunters’ (lack) of combat strength.

Sisi pouted.

“Sisi thinks it went well due to her efforts. If Cain doesn’t believe Sisi, she’ll prove it!”

Almost like she was taking a running start, Sisi drew back a bit, facing Yuan Chenglei with intent.

“No, stop!” Yuan Chenglei threw up his arms in a panic.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, Miss Ghost,” Laoban said at the same time, “There have been some changes since you last set up residency in this particular person, and I think it would be dangerous for ghosts who try to possess him.”

Yuan Chenglei didn’t know how to feel about the amused sound in Laoban’s face.

Sisi tilted her head in confusion but stopped obediently.

Ghost Scholar alternated between looking at Laoban and Yuan Chenglei, also clearly confused.

“Then, there were some side effects from the Ghost Pot?” he asked, somewhat apprehensive.

“…”

Side effects.

Yeah, sure, they could call them that.

Laoban chuckled. “There were some. One being the ability to absorb ghost qi in order to nourish his dantian.”

Expert Ghost Scholar froze, mind paralyzed as he tried to work out HOW in the WORLD a living, breathing, human cultivator could possibly be anything but poisoned by ghost qi, but Sisi tilted her head.

“Eh? What does that mean?”

“It means that it’s quite possible that Little Cheng’s cultivation might devour you if you possess him recklessly,” Laoban said, amused by the airheaded ghost.

At that, Sisi recoiled, darting across the room to hide behind Expert Ghost Scholar.

She wailed, “Scaredy-cat is now an enemy of ghosts!”

“That’s -!”

Yuan Chenglei paused mid-sentence.

Wait a second, it’s not like he wants to get along with ghosts or anything, so being an enemy of ghosts should suit him just fine.

So why did he have an urge to defend himself?!

Yuan Chenglei was now a Third Stage cultivator, and yet fate was throwing him around just as carelessly as before.

---

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<a/n: I always get a little stuck in the in-between times in a story. It may have taken too long to break down the writer’s block, but luckily it came out alright. >