Aimless Ascension



"What!?" Maya asked, her voice confused and alarmed. "Why do you need my blood?"

"Come down, sister, I'm not asking for your hand in marriage," Gale said, trying to play it off cool.

"My reaction would have been a lot less dramatic if you really asked for my hand in marriage," Maya snorted.

"It's only blood," Gale said again.

"It's not only blood," Maya told him, her expression serious. "Why do you need my blood, anyway?"

"It isn't your blood per se," Gale said with a sigh. "It'll be fine as long as it comes from Celestial Radiance."

"Still, that doesn't explain my concern." Maya narrowed her eyes. "You won't get much benefit from refining the blood as well with your Gold rank. Well, it can help with your healing, is that why you need my blood?"

"That and more," Gale said. "I can't explain everything to you in the state I'm in, but I promise it will be tremendously beneficial for me."

Maya still wasn't convinced. She was torn between listening to him or cutting him off.

"Fine." Gale played his last card. "If you listen to me this time, we're even."

"Even in what?"

"You forgot already?" Gale acted angry, although the event of the path was behind him. He snorted, glowering at her. "You forgot about Tess?"

"Tess." Maya shook her head.

"You two played with my vulnerable heart," Gale said, acting still in pain, "I still haven't forgiven you two for what you did."

Maya showed a disgruntled expression. "Come on, that's years ago. Tess and I aren't even together anymore."

"But my heart is broken into two pieces."

"Oh, please!"

"Are you saying Tess isn't even worth a little of your blood?" Gale asked, his voice challenging. "So cold."

In the end, Maya sighed. The next moment, a test tube full of dark scarlet blood with a golden tint appeared in her palm. She held it towards him.

"Huh, wonder why you acted all that serious when you're running around with your blood in test tubes," Gale said, attempting to take the blood from her, but at the last moment, Maya pulled back her arm.

"You probably don't have any idea what this test tube of blood can do," Maya said, finally handing the glass tube to him. "It can help one of the younglings survive their second calamity. I hope you don't waste in any vain experiment."

'I hope not,' Gale said inwardly, showing a confident front to her. "Thank you."

Maya snorted. "Now you'll never bring Tess into anything."

"Sure," Gale said, peering into the scarlet blood. The blood didn't feel anything extraordinary from external scrutiny, it seemed like a potent practitioner's blood, but he was aware, this little text tube of blood concealed the path to their inheritance, which was impossible for others to gain.

Maya didn't leave after handing Gale a portion of her blood, instead, she stood there, waiting for him to waste her treasured blood essence. Gale said nothing, as her presence was reassuring to him.

He drifted his consciousness back to the other angelic being.

'I got the blood, now what?'

[Now you sit down and absorb it,] Saarya's voice came instantly, as she never left or went on a slumber in the meantime he was haggling with Maya.

Gale sat cross-legged and calmed his breathing, as much as he could with the circumstances he was in. He was working with his Qi sense just around him to not act as a nuisance.

'Absorb,' he repeated, 'should I drink it?'

[Gale, you can a long away in spirit art to still behave like a crude barbarian,] Saarya told him in a hard tone. [No, you won't drink, I fear your little senior sister would be really disappointed in you if you do so.]

'Then what?' Gale asked.

[You'll open your spirit and channel the blood through it.]

'Open my spirit?' Gale tilted his head. 'I'm not even sure if I can achieve that. What is the spirit anyway? I faintly remember how I got the scars, but I was too much in pain to notice anything.'

[You know how to open your spirit,] Saarya told him with a mental sigh. [You have already done it multiple times. It is like that when you connect your Qi to the natural energy of the realm.]

'Oh that,' Gale mused, as realisation dawned on him. 'I thought that was called Spiritual Qi resonance.'

[Yes.]

'You could have used that term, other than putting it like it in a vulnerable way.]

[Because it is,] Saarya paused. [Never mind. I forget how conversations tend to go on tangents forever. Open the text tube, open your Spirit and link up. Then draw that energy within yourself, and channel.]

'Sound easy enough.'

[You think,] Saarya scoffed.

Gale did as he was told, calming his mind to get the one-track mind vibe again. The last time he achieved that, it was pretty easy, though it left him completely devastated, even though he channelled a little of the storm's energy compared to what he was open to.

Now he was about to do the same thing again, though with a different energy.

Gale let his extrinsic spiritual awareness drift off into the test tube, creating a between oneself and the blood.

[Now channel inwards in a cycle,] Saarya told him. [Don't let even a wisp of its potency to lose.]

Gale followed as he was told and the moment the potent blood got in contact with his spirit, his whole body jolted in an excruciating burning.

[In a way, this won't be much different from the second calamity of our race,] Saarya's voice came to his mind as Gale sucked in fresh air into his heart. [Which means you'll go through the first two calamities of the Celestial Radiance at once. I can't wait to see what you become.]

There was something eerie in her tone that Gale didn't like. 'Two calamities, huh,' Gale mused inwardly. 'Well, the weakest too, I think I can handle them.'

[Well, even though they were the earliest, they certainly weren't the weakest. The first two mostly test the practitioner's conviction and drive. There's no failure, but there's no limit to the trial as well. In a way, all trials of our inheritance are like that, however, the first two laid the future path for the younglings.

[Also, those who survived two calamities of our race can be as strong as a gold ranker, so you better do your best.]

Gale groaned, but there was no point in regretting now. He channelled the potent energy of the blood through his spirit, creating a cycle. He hadn't done that the other time with the storm's energy. Gale merely drew in the storm's energy and drive it into attacks that still left him broken and battered.

Thankfully, the celestial radiance blood wasn't volatile as the storm. However, he certainly wasn't enjoying the excruciating agony they were bringing to his spirit. Small cracks and tears started to appear in his spirit within two minutes, causing Maya to come forward at him, her eyes full of anxiety.

"Gale, what did you do?" she asked. "You better have a plan to survive this, or I'll stop the process myself."

***

Almost a day passed since Wang Li came to Stormhold, and the sky was still dark for the entire day. Although the storm had stopped, the looming darkness seemed to have taken its place, boring onto the land of the farm and outside.

Fen or the blind Oracle apprentice had no answer for this change, and they weren't fool enough to check it with their strength, either. So they were waiting for Sun Ziang to come back with some news.

Wang Li was hoping he would come back along with Xiaolin, Gale and Vale, and they would get out of this trouble together, but so far that had only been her reminiscence thoughts. Reality didn't play out as she had hoped.

With nothing much to do in the farm other than making food and worrying, Wang Li spent most of her time cycling, as it was the only way for her to come down. She could feel she was close to the Iron breakthrough. The ambrosia seemed to be the cause of this, as it gave her the boon she needed for the break though.

Unfortunately, she was neither prepared nor in a fair state to go on with it.

On top of that, it seemed they have another thing to worry about.

Fen came running back to where Wang Li and Ai were practising in the open, her expression hard with irritation.

"It seems we have a problem," the handsome circus master said. "Wild beasts are coming to take over the farm."

Wang Li frowned, ending her cycling. "Shouldn't the script formation protect us?"

"I should," Fen said, her voice filled with annoyance, "sadly, there's a big hole in it in the east side. I already killed a bunch of iron-ranked wild monkeys and stuffed that place with logs, but I don't think it would last long. Even a single silver-ranked beast can break through, and It would be difficult for me to keep them at bay if a bunch of silver-ranked beasts came along."

"The mountain hardly have that many silver-ranked beasts, as far as I know," Wang Li said, considering. "Most of them stay deep in the wilderness and didn't bother with humans."

"That seems to be right in normal circumstances, but do you feel this looming darkness is a normal circumstance? Spirit beasts are scared like every one of us. They want to get out of this as much as we do."