Aimless Ascension



They didn't know why, but wild beasts seemed to come too frequently to attack the farm. Of course, the farmhouse was protected by the script formation. Well, almost completely. But the couple yards hole in the eastern side cursed their sleep entirely.

Wang Li helped Fen put a barrier of ironwood on more than three occasions, while the handsome circus leader helped herself to twice more, but in the last two days, the barricade had been broken more than within an hour or two by wild beasts.

Thankfully, despite the barrier not protecting them completely, it gave enough obstruction for them to be safe for the time being. The beasts had to spend a good amount of time and strength in breaking the hard ironwood wall, and in that time Fen managed to kill them quite fast.

"This is all because of me," Ai whined for the seventh time. "My imbalance in fortune is affecting you two as well."

Wang Li didn't know what to tell the blind girl. Fen remained silent, hearing that enough time that it was a bothering thought. The silver ranker couldn't leave them to check outside, either, considering how frequent the attacks of the beasts had been.

Fen groaned as Wang Li tended her wound. "I didn't know if it was that poor girl's bad luck or mine that I came across her master."

Wang Li was pretty familiar with this kind of whining from Fen. Although the woman looked in her late twenties, she was well over fifty years of age, only hidden with her silver rank spirit arts. That was already more than twice her own age. Oddly enough, the age and experience hadn't made Fen wise, though she was experienced enough to deal with problems like these.

She liked to whine too much even after completing the task and always seemed to be looking out for more danger, even after solving one. She kind of reminded her of a certain foreigner, who had a knack for acting mysterious.

Wang Li sighed, remembering how she had parted with him the last time. She still couldn't face the fact.

"Sister Fen, you haven't thought of settling down, have you ever?"

"Settling down?" Fen scoffed. "That thought has been on my mind constantly, however, the life of a travelling troupe isn't bad either. If you cut out the instances of trouble where I have to help because of all the favour I owed to people when I was young."

Ai was resting now, so Fen didn't restrict her mouth from spouting out everything on her mind.

"You say that, but I think you wouldn't leave us even if you don't have to repay some favour."

Fen snorted. "I couldn't wait till this end."

Wang Li sighed. "I'm missing my child, though I'm glad that I didn't bring him into this mess."

"Kid," Fen muttered. "I don't know what it would feel like to have one."

"I think you know it already. You're the leader of the crew, you know how to be responsible for other people. In a way, both are about the same."

Fen smiled and shook her head. "I guess I have adopted enough people to not look forward to that. Anyway, I'm going to rest, call me if they break through again."

Fen stood up and scurried into the building, leaving Wang Li to watch over.

Wang Li sat in a lotus position and calmed her breathing. She had nothing to do other than cycle silently and watch over now. Of course, she wouldn't lose herself completely to the practice, considering her job was to look for any attack.

Still, with the higher energy density, even half-hearted cycling put her closer to the iron advancement with each session. Perhaps it would be within a week or two.

Wang Li hadn't even spent half an hour like that when she sensed the disturbance again. Several wild animals were beating against the ironwood wall as loud thumps echoed.

Wang Li cursed as she stood up and rushed to the mansion to call Sister Fen. Thankfully, the silver ranker was already awake hearing the disturbance.

With a sour look on her face, Fen lunged down from the staircase with a spear on her arms.

***

Gale was sprawled, broken and tattered on the ground of the chamber as Vale licked his face. The process of changing his spiritual nature ended, and it left him completely drained and empty.

He feared it would take him months before he would be able to recover his Spiritual fatigue.

[Hmm, I thought you'd be more interested in all the new abilities you got,] Saarya's voice entered his mind as she applied some of her healing power on him. [At least stir your newly found regeneration power, you'll feel much better after that.]

Gale groaned and stirred whips of Qi into the mostly empty core in his abdomen. That wasn't his Gem heart, but the Radiance fate lock core, which they worked together to make a temporary core for himself.

With this, Gale had a lot more Qi to spare. He was almost as rich with Qi as he had been when he was in his fair state.

"Wow," Gale muttered, as he felt the changes in his spirit and body. He wasn't even sure he could point out all the changes with this minute inspection.

[Do you want me to point them out?] Saarya asked, her voice merry.

"Knock yourself out," Gale said, and used the radiant power to heal himself. He wasn't sure he was using it right.

[It is pretty hard to control, but don't worry you'd get there,] Saarya said. [So, you have noticed the radiant Qi already, that's already in the gold rank, however, you'd be surprised when you know your regeneration speed. It is almost triple what it used to be.]

"Really?" Gale sat upright and couldn't believe her words. "Wouldn't that fix most of my problems?"

[Along with regeneration speed, you have the Radiance Regeneration power, Cleaning spell, Purging power, and pretty much most of the Radiance power, though you have much to learn to master them all.]

"Obliterating Light too?" Gale asked, intrigued.

[Probably, you wouldn't know for sure until you dip into the universal law of light.]

Gale sucked in a deep breath.

[And that wasn't all. . .]

"Please, don't tell me I have the wings too."

[You guessed it right, though I feared your wings would be semi-corporeal, but you'll definitely see an improvement in your flight speed.]

"I guess I'm fine, as long as it doesn't make me look like a knock-off angel."

[You look good,] Saarya told him, grinning, [Almost ready to pick up gals.]

Gale snorted. "That reminded me, Maya and Linlin hadn't come back."

Gale focused on the bond between him and Linlin as a general direction came to his mind. "Perhaps I'll go and look for them."

[At least put a pants before you leave.]

Gale grunted, looking down to find all his clothes had burned down. Then his eyes lit up. "Hey, can I do Light conjuration magic?]

[You have the ability, but you shouldn't be capable of it at this moment,] Saarya told him. Hearing her Gale was ready to try, but Saarya added quickly to stop him. [I'll advise against it, any type of configuration magic pulls a lot from the spirit, and your spirit is barely in a patch-up state, you better wait until you heal properly.]

Gale rested his thought as he had been through enough torture for the day. He opened his void lock to brought out a tunic out.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

"Did you hear that?" Gale asked, feeling the unrest in his left arm.

[Yes.]

"What was that?" Gale asked.

[Calling.] Saarya provided no further explanation as Gale draped on the tunic and adventure pants.

Along with Vale, he got out of the secret lair to lay his eyes on the looming darkness of the surroundings.

"This isn't anticlimactic at all," he snorted in sarcasm. "Did I cause this all?"

Saarya was silent.

Gale didn't ponder on that much and focused on his new power, which would enable him of the Radiance wings. Gale forced himself as if he was constipated for several seconds, pushing a lot of radiant Qi through the core to his back as at last a golden semi-corporeal wing spread behind him, wide but not as glamorous as the real thing.

Gale inspected it for more than one instance, the sublime shape of it, and how it tore his tunic in the back.

"I guess this will do," He muttered as he flew up in the air. The moment he accelerated though, his face split into a wide grin. "Yeah, this will do!"

His speed was easily twice as fast compared to when he was using Stormstong to fly, and more importantly, he hadn't released Stormsong to help with the flight either. It was simply with radiant power.

Only then he noticed, he didn't need to release Radiant power like he had to do with other fatelock power.

'Is it because of all the agony I endured?"

[You guessed that right,] Saarya answered. [The Radiance isn't simply a fate lock power for you, but you made it your own. That's why you have full access to it.]

Within two minutes, Gale reached where he found Linlin's presence vanished.

It was in front of a dungeon.

"They have entered the dungeon without me," Gale muttered and waited for Vale to join him. When he did, he didn't wait ceremoniously and entered the dungeon as well.

A booming voice welcomed him and Vale.

[Welcome contestant to Trial One.]