Source baptism
"Hah...hahh." Kaelen collapsed on the ground, back first. Gasping, he faced the clear sky, a wide grin on his face.
"That was a great fight..." A satisfied expression painted his face as he slowly closed his eyes and slowed down his breathing pattern. He rested, having expended a lot of energy battling the beast.
"Crack, tisk…" While he rested, completely vulnerable on the ground, rustling noises came from the direction of the forest. He turned his head to see shadow cat approaching, however fearfully. It glared at the body of the bear, seemingly trying to judge whether it was truly dead.
"It's dead. I killed it. You don't have to be afraid," Kaelen announced to the fearful beast. However, it still looked afraid. Kaelen watched it, confused. "Why is it afraid of the dead body of the bear?" he asked himself.
"Could it be… it's not dead!?" Exclaiming, he got up in a sitting position and fiercely glared at the dead bear. The bear did not move an inch; copious amounts of blood kept leaking from the huge hole in its stomach. Weirdly, there was no accumulation of blood on the ground. It seemed to be sucked away.
"The blood, where is it going?" He crawled to the side to see the other end. A shocking sight befell his eyes.
"What in the…" He gasped in horror at what he saw; the bear's body stood near the edge of the lake and all the blood coming out of it moved independently towards it, as if something was calling upon it.
"Oh no. Where did it go? Shit, did I enter the territory of another beast while fighting that bear!? I specifically told myself I had to be careful of this. Damnit." Gritting his teeth, annoyed at his negligence, Kaelen quickly took a dozen source stones and some meat from his storage ring.
"I need to hurry and recover as much as I can, or when whatever is in that lake comes out, I'll be in great danger," he said to himself.
Before he began his recovery, he looked at the fearful leopard once more. "So that's why it was afraid."
"Psst. Go, go." He signaled it to leave immediately, for it might attract the beast faster.
The leopard paused for a bit, a light flashing in its golden eyes. Then it turned around and ran back into the forest.
Watching it go, Kaelen blew a sigh of relief. He swiftly closed his eyes and began recovering.
A dozen minutes or so passed. Kaelen had managed to recover a bit of his Qi, thanks to his 720 primordial meridians. However, he gauged that it would take him a few hours to recover his Qi and energy completely. Not only that, but the many wounds on his body would take much more time because of the demonic energy preventing it from healing fast.
"Fck… If that monster comes out at any moment, I will be in a very dire situation." Large beads of sweat dripped down his face, as he grew anxious.
Somewhere within the mountain, an 18-year-old girl, with a face carved by the gods, sat against a beautiful silver wolf. The two watched the boy struggle with great interest.
"Yue Lang, can you tell what bloodline that boy has?" Curiously watching the boy, the moon fairy asked the wolf.
"Hmm… I'm not sure. It is obviously a dragon bloodline; however, I am not certain which one it is," the silver wolf replied, peering at Kaelen who rushed to recover in the distance.
"Me neither. However, it seemed to be on par with my own," she softly mumbled, her amethyst irises glittering with light.
"You mean his bloodline is also?" The wolf turned to her and asked.
"Yes, it seems to originate from them…" She lightly nodded and confirmed her suspicion.
The big wolf turned into a silver light and transformed into a fifteen-year-old-looking boy. Shock could be seen on his face.
"But how!? Why would someone like that be in the true martial ancient great world?" He turned to her, filled with disbelief.
"I'm just as surprised as you are. Though the True Martial Great World has an illustrious past, it does not explain the boy's presence on this planet. When I entered this world, especially around the area controlled by this sect, I sensed a few unusual energies that shouldn't have appeared here. My guess is…" She took a deep breath and looked up at the empty void.
"My guess is the war with the beings of the Ring of Twilight has caused terrible chaos within the Ring of Dawn, which may have caused the destruction or disbanding of certain clans and races to prevent total destruction. Especially… those that exist within the Heavenly Hell and Earthly Heaven junctions where the two rings intersect," she softly mumbled.
The wolf boy furrowed his brows and turned back to look at Kaelen. His gaze seemed to cross the distance as he looked at the silent lake that absorbed the blood of the demonic bear.
"He will face great danger if we don't help him. Do you not want to interfere?" He asked the girl.
The moon fairy pursed her lips. "It's not that I don't want to, but he probably does not want me to. Not to mention, someone is watching us…" Her face turned towards the courtyard at the foot of the mountain.
..
Long Aotian was sitting cross-legged, bare-chested as he gazed up at the utmost peak of the mountain. Naturally, he had noticed the arrival of the two mysterious beings that landed a day ago. The mountain was covered in his dragonic might so he could feel everything that happened within.
Seeing the two were not malicious, he decided to ignore their presence. He was also confident they wouldn't be able to do anything under his watch.
"Those two... they aren't from this world."
He mumbled, then turned towards Kaelen, who faced a tough situation.
"Sight… If it was Yu Hao in your position, I would've helped, but I know you can deal with this by yourself, Kaelen," he said softly, before closing his eyes to meditate.
Back near the lake, Kaelen rushed to recover while he watched the bear be sucked dry of its blood. Its massive body had now shrunk by more than half in less than thirty minutes.
"I feel like if I move, that thing inside will rush out..." He thought about escaping to a safer place, but he sensed something was watching his every move.
"The thing has definitely reached the Innate Spirit Realm… It might even be in the silver or gold spirit stage; its divine sense is incredibly powerful for a monster beast."
"It will soon suck the bear dry of its blood; I sense I won't be able to recover by then. Maybe… maybe I should try breaking through instead. The additional boost of elemental energy will make this fight much easier, and the breakthrough will accelerate the recovery tremendously. Let's do that." Changing his plan, Kaelen decided to break through Elemental Resonance.
The breakthrough is relatively straightforward. Prior to Xiantian, a cultivator could not withstand elemental energy. Therefore, he must thoroughly refine his entire body until it is sturdy enough to withstand the terrible power. After which, he must connect with the elemental source of his affinity in the surrounding and receive its baptism, allowing him to wield it as he would Qi.
Kaelen closed his eyes and perceived the elements in the surrounding. Though his eyes were closed, he could 'see' countless threads of energy of three colored energy hovering in space. The most present energy was transparent; it had no quality but seemed to be the source of life. The second was a blazing gold one; it was extremely powerful and shone with a brilliant light. The third was actually two types of affinities - a greyish-brown energy mixed with a crimson energy. It seemed to be a mix of annihilation and slaughter, exuding a terrible atmosphere.
"The first one is heaven and earth energy, the second is sun elemental source, and the final ones should be annihilation and slaughter… To think I would have three elemental affinities and all three would be mystic attributes." Kaelen's heart began pounding as he saw his elemental affinities.
Solar, annihilation, and slaughter. Those were all 'mystic attributes'; rare elements that were either separate from the nine elements of nature (fire, water, metal, earth, wood, wind, light, darkness, lightning) or a fusion of two or more natural elements like golden thunder or sand (a mix of metal and earth). Mystic attributes were a weird one, since they could be extremely powerful like 'void, space, time, death, life, etc., but they could also be relatively useless, like cloud and mist. Consequently, it wasn't always the case that a mystic attribute was better than a natural element. Truthfully speaking, any element had a degree of evolve-ability, and if elements were directly connected, an extremely talented cultivator could manipulate his natural element into more profound forms. For example, a cloud and fire attributed elementalist could form lightning, or fire and earth into magma, which was also a mystic attribute. Most elements had a close connection with each other and if one was talented enough, he could learn to control a different element. As such, a lot of cultivators had one innate element and cultivated a second one over time.
Kaelen, however, directly had three elements, and all of which were insanely powerful and rare mystic attributes. Annihilation, needless to be said, was an attribute in the same category as time and space; it was the apex of destruction. While solar and slaughter energies were slightly worse, solar was the peak of fire type energy, while slaughter was a weird one, as it didn't just have an outside effect but also affected the user, increasing his strength while decreasing the opponents. It was an 'ailment' type of attribute like poison and demonic elements.
"This was quite simple; having opened my sea of consciousness already, this process is hundreds of times easier for me than for others, since I have divine sense. I can easily perceive the element sources in the air. Old Dai said you can only perceive elemental energy you have an affinity with, and you will only be able to perceive it once, while breaking through Elemental Resonance. The closer your affinity with the element and the stronger your mental ability is, the more easily you will perceive your elements."
"Now, I must connect with them and receive their baptism." Kaelen focused his mind on connecting with the elements, then began drawing their source energy. First, he went with the slaughter and annihilation source, since they seemed to be tied together; he would go through both at once.
He pulled the greyish-brown and crimson energy into himself and circulated them around his primordial meridians first.
"In order to awaken my elements, I must bask my meridians and the rest of my body into the elemental source for dozen revolutions." The two sources fused into a dark crimson energy as it traveled around his meridians.
"Ouch, this is slightly painful. I should finish my baptism in an hour or so, then I will do the sun source baptism." Grunting from the pain, he grits his teeth and willed through as he usually does.
An hour later.
"Boom!" an explosion occurred within Kaelen's body, then a dark crimson Qi covered his body. An intense destructive intent emanated from it; cracking noises could be heard as the void trembled.
"Good. I can now wield annihilation and slaughter elements; I will just call it Qi of extinction since they form one. I suppose they come from my dragon bloodline, which means my dragon might should be much stronger now that I awakened its attribute. I wonder if I can separate the two…"
Wanting to try it out, he lifted both hands and brought forth his tyrannical dragon might. A dark crimson aura appeared on his right hand.
"Separate!" With a thought, he removed the attributes from his dragon might.
The dark crimson aura flowed into his left hand, leaving a greyish-white aura on his right. It exuded ancient, pure dragonic dominance.
"So, this is what pure dragon energy looks like. So, it takes a distinct color depending on the attribute of the dragon. If I think about it, dragon might is very similar to heaven and earth energy, in the sense that it's all-purpose Qi that strengthens, purifies, and takes the color of the element infused into. It's probably just a much higher grade of Qi." Admiring the mystical white aura, Kaelen thought it reminded him of regular Qi, but with much higher properties.
"Now, the solar energy." The two masses of energies disappeared from his hands. He focused again and connected his mind to the solar source.
"Come!" he absorbed it into his body. Immediately, a terrible burning sensation assaulted his meridians.
"Withstand, I must hurry before it comes out!" He shouted to himself and controlled the solar source, circulating it around his body.
A dark golden flame covered his body as he received the solar source baptism.
Suddenly, in his heart space, an amber bead with many inscriptions in it and a golden crystal stood side by side. The moment the solar source entered his body, the amber bead began trembling, while the golden crystal shone brightly.
"Hmm?" The commotion caught Kaelen's attention, but he tried to focus his mind on receiving the solar source baptism.
Unfortunately, the objects in his heart space thought differently. To Kaelen's surprise, all the solar source inside him rushed toward his heart. Upon entering it, it was swallowed completely by the Sun Spirit Crystal.
"Noo." Seeing the solar origin being sucked completely by the crystal, Kaelen immediately panicked.
"Heavens! How will I break through now; I can only receive a baptism from the elemental source once…"