Chapter 103: Nine Sea Gods Trial 10, Return Home
Chapter 103: Nine Sea Gods Trial 10, Return Home
Word count = 1724 on 10/28/2023
Bo Saixi looks at the result of the completion of Xue Tie's 8th trial alongside the injured 7 pillars. They take in the extravagant armor set that had materialized over what may have seemed like hours to Xue Tie but was actually less than half an hour. Xue Tie quickly realizes this fact as he gets used to the feeling of his own body again.
He attempts to send a mental command to the armor to retract and it luckily listens, seemingly merging into his body by turning into small wisps of fire that seem to brand themselves on his body. So each part of his body has a small fire mark on it. For his head it just merges onto body sides of his cheeks to indicate the dual forms of his headgear. It looks a fair bit strange but they all disappear from view shortly after and will only appear when it needs to be called upon again.
Xue Tie takes a deep breath and asks the high priestess. "What is the final trial that the sea god so kindly is providing me?"
"I have learned the details earlier but the final task is to ascend to divinity within a year."
"Wait what? Why?"
"The sea god claims your foundations are strong enough, you should settle your mortal affairs before ascending. Completing this task will earn you the sea gods friendship."
She states.
"That seems like a scam but ok. The moment I obtained the death rune on my head and abandoned my original martial spirit. I had already theorized that I would be able to ascend in such a time period so it doesnt really change my existing plans. If nothing else then ill begin to head out. I've been away for a while" He sprouts his leathery wings and takes flight once more.
"Godspeed to you, young god" The sea gods apostle wishes Xue Tie luck.
Xue Tie takes less than an hour to arrive back at the mainland continent. He already has a plan at hand for what he desires to do next. As such, he turns to the south-west and begins traveling to the Great Star Dou Forest.
2 hours of traveling later due to the disparity of difference from the very eastern coast to the center of the continent and more specifically the center of the Great Star Dou Forest. Strange enough, as Xue Tie arrives near the center area, he is attacked by poison and wind blades from within the forest rooftops. The trees part to reveal two spirit beasts, a 99k year old Venom lord scorpion and a 120k year old emerald eagle. They gaze upon Xue Tie who had immediately burned up their attacks. The eagle begins to sweat profusely as it's eyes adjust to Xue Ties flying form.
"A.A.A….Ah, the human lord, I apologize for my attack. I suddenly sensed an approaching object and an energy signature I didn't detect so I had the nearby strongest assist me in attacking. I apologize for my actions as I didn't recognize you." The eagle begins to stutter out it's words as it tries to explain it's action. Xue Tie naturally understands that his transformation of energy and change in martial spirit must have delivered a new sensation to the beasts.
"Hmm. very well. Escort me to Di Tian for business. As punishment, I will decline on enhancing your physique this day"
"Such magnanimity, I accept my punishment." "You can go back home now" The eagle accepts his punishment and shoos away the scorpion beast who is on the verge of being 100k years old. As such it is on the level of human intellect and while it is not worthy of knowing who Xue Tie is. It is smart enough to realize that even though Xue Tie is a human, it holds a high status amongst the king level beasts that it can casually demand to meet the Beast God.
As such, it takes the strange route of acting coquettishly towards Xue Tie. Who, if actually knew that such a state was possible for a scorpion beast or what such behavior looked like. He would have thrown up. A thought that if the Sea God asked him to be friendly with the scorpion would have surely caused him to fail the sea god tests.
Luckily he is clueless to the behavior and along with the much slower eagle, it takes another hour for them to reach the true center of the forest which is the Beast Gods lair…next to the Golden Eye Black Dragon who serves as the true Beast Gods protector.
As Xue Tie sets down upon the ground, his body fully visible to all the surrounding beasts who have made it a habit to be nearby in case Xue Tie came around are confused over the lack of spirit power that the now visible Xue Tie possesses.
Even Di Tian raises his head in confusion and asks, "Human emperor, what has happened to your martial spirits."
"I simply laid witness to the true error of my ways and discarded my original martial spirits and rings for something greater. I am but a step away from ascension and thus seek to uphold my end of the bargain from last time. While I do that, since i'm in a good mood, You may extend the range from 5 beasts to 20."
He simply explains and sits down cross legged as the death mark on his forehead glows a black light, a black flame arises just before Xue Tie's chest and begins gathering more and more. The others have no clue what he is doing but a sense of anticipation rises in Di Tian as well as the hidden Beauty Gu Yuena, the Silver Dragon King who is part of the original Dragon god and recovering from an injury struck down upon her by the Asura God. Her mental scan naturally lets her know of everything that happens in the core region and even beyond it but she cares little for the weakling beasts.
She naturally knows what Xue Tie just said and can feel what he is doing or at least can guess it but since Death energy is foreign to her. She has no clue for the exact purpose of his actions or the final product. She is still intrigued by what he plans to do as part of his end of the deal.
In the meantime, Di Tian gathers 20 king level beasts (aka 100k year old beasts), and lines them up neatly. There are insect types, a crocodile king, a beaver beast, snakes, foxes/wolves, a bear king, and a few others who are behaving like domesticated animals as they await the chance of a lifetime.
It takes half an hour for Xue Tie to form 2 shining black orbs. He stores one away and stands up to hold out the other to Di Tian. Here it is. An orb compressed on death energy, suited to 'kill' divine wounds. Should make it so that her ladyship will heal in at least 20 years or so.
Di Tian's aura rises which causes the lined up beasts to panic a little.
"How do you know?" He questions as he never revealed Gu Yuena's presence during his request, Which was in truth a request to provide assistance in the event that a dragon such as Di Tian himself chose to ascend. Xue Tie instead knows because of his past life.[1]
Xue Tie continues to look nonchalant in the face of Di Tian's pressure. He is still holding out the orb. To let his arm rest, he tosses the orb into the nearby crystal clear lake that serves as the silver dragon king's resting place.
"I accept" A soft voice that causes the lined up beasts to become drowsy in adoration, Di Tian instead relinquishes his killing intent while Xue Tie just shrugs. He shifts his other hand towards the beast and black flames cover all of them. Small gaps in the flickering flame reveals the beasts are unharmed and only after another 3 hours do the flames dissipate. This reveals the beasts mostly unharmed. A few of the weaker ones are a bit covered in blood due to their own body being too weak for the entire strengthening process and thus their veins popped as a result.
Xue Tie takes out a blood potion and splashes it on the 2 or 3 that are injured. He then begins to walk away.
"I'm going home now. May we meet again in the divine realm, I may stop by once more to introduce my substitute for future experiments. They will wield my trident." he says, taking out the original martial spirit trident which has been split off from the soul and turned into a high quality weapon and artifact in the making.
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[1]: One thing that always confuses me, part of what i've heard is that after tang san ascended in canon, he teamed up with the other gods to kill off the golden dragon king who had also ascended. But part of the confusion is why Gu Yuena was injured in the first place. Or rather what happened to the original dragon god.
Part of my own confusion is when I was reading sl3, sl2 was mentioned a bit and how Tang Wulins sister gained a fraction of the golden dragon king's power while the rest was sealed in Tang Wulin. That is 10k years apart. So Gu Yuena would have learned about the golden dragon king's death in sl2 no? Why the large gap in time to awaken again?
My own theory is that in sl1, both silver dragon and golden dragon had merged together and that is why they went ballistic in the divine realm and somehow. Tang San was able to separate them again, The silver dragon was cast away into the mortal realm again to recuperate while the golden dragon was fought for a long time before being sealed, that is how Tang Wutong got a bit of the dragon kings power but then the dragon king broke free many years later and killed off to merge into Tang Wulin for sl3.