Chapter 55 - 55: Sublime Ascension

Chapter 55 - 55: Sublime Ascension

Wei Wuyin’s residence was a wide building with a single room and floor. In fact, it was previously a storage room that had suffered destruction recently and had yet to be worked on. There were broken windows, no front door, and dust everywhere. It was dilapidated, neglected for years, and barely standing on its foundation.

With a powerful gust, it could all tumble down into absolute chaos. The only benefit was that it was spacious enough to fit in Bai Lin several times over.

The sect had assigned him this location to reside in until the sect’s Council determined his future. However, he knew from now in, he had no future with the sect.

In the center of this building of ruin, he sat with Bai Lin curled up beside him. Her eyes revealed a trace of sadness. Earlier, Wei Wuyin had explained the situation the best he could, so she understood the general gist of their situation. So, she was heartbroken.

The current situation was the son of the Sect Leader and Ancestral Elder of the Sect or his life. If he remained alive for a certain amount of time, the son would lose his cultivation and could even go BOOM!

This left her saddened as she understood that a choice was before her: Her master or her home. Was that really a choice? Without any hesitation, she remained by Wei Wuyin’s side.

Wei Wuyin deeply understood her feelings, but he didn’t have a say in the matter. A spirit oath was not an oath to be trifled with. Your spirit will be erased by the Heavenly Daos. You will absolutely lose control of the inherent energies in your core and qi that flowed within your body.

Unlike when Shu Yang survived, who had simply lost his mental control over his qi, causing it to go haywire, it would instead be like self-detonation. When done, it’s impossible to turn back. While there were exceptions and solutions, these all included prematurely abandoning one’s spirit, resigning oneself as a cripple for life.

As he thought about this, he felt various spiritual senses outside. They were both concealed and openly watching over his actions, likely with several spiritual formations furthering their reach and strength. The strongest spiritual sense nearby was recognized by Wei Wuyin. It was Su Lanyi, his Sect Master.

His own spiritual sense was far, far stronger than hers. Despite her wishing to hide it using a concealing-type spiritual spell, he noticed her surveilling actions almost immediately.

"Just like I assumed. They will be watching my every move until they’ve decided how to appropriately handle me without going against the Heavenly Daos stipulations. Since they can’t directly assist Wu Chen, they need a ’real’ reason to act against me. I feel as if I’ve walked into a tiger’s den and not my home." He felt a bitter taste in his mouth.T/his chapter is updat/ed by nov(ê(l)biin.c/o/m

"Should I reveal my cultivation base and just leave? If I find a secluded location, I could hide for the remaining years and then return." This thought emerged in his heart. If he took this course of action, he felt no one could stop him entirely. Unfortunately, there were still too many variables.

The grand spiritual formation of Scarlet Solaris Mountain and grand qi array that drew upon the mountain’s inherent qualities and energies. He didn’t have a good grasp of its strengths or weaknesses. In fact, besides understanding the general gist of it being used for defense, he didn’t know much about it.

Spiritual formations required spiritual sense and spiritual energy to generate and function in performing specific, tailored duties. In the hands of a Godlord who’s qi could contain this spiritual energy, it was maximized in their hands.

As for the qi arrays, they relied on the innate energies of stones or geographical locations like the Tree of Eden or Scarlet Solaris Mountain as fuel to activate. They just needed to be controlled, but can exhibit far stronger power than their wielder.

That being said, the expenditure for setting up a qi array was far, far greater of a spiritual formation.

"Remaining here isn’t an option, at least." As he came to this conclusion, he felt it was correct. The truly unfortunate aspect of his departure is the fallout his previous members, like Su Mei, Xing Fu, and Wei Si, could suffer. They could be branded as aiding and abetting with various little truth to it and executed publicly.

If they wanted to draw him out, that’s what he would do.

Therefore, the most correct option was also the one he couldn’t afford to take. While he wasn’t a saint, he cared about those close to him. If they died on a mission or in battle, then so be it, that was the cruelty of the struggle to cultivate; if they died directly because of him, then he couldn’t accept it.

"I can’t even let Bai Lin leave to warn the others. Who knows if they’ll take action against her, killing her for ridiculous reasons to incite my fury and defection. Worse, it’s unlikely they will remain passive. This gathering of the council is a stall tactic to find crimes or rules broken, legitimate ones, to hang me with."

An immense pressure stifled his heart. He had risen from an honorary disciple to the core disciple and had bent, or even outright broken, the rules due to his status many times over. An example of which was Su Mei. When she was being bullied by her fellow harem members, he had killed the lead attacker.

As a core disciple, his status was far beyond that woman, and so it was swept under the rug with ease. Obviously, this was against the rules. That was just one of many rules that were broken, and his subordinates would definitely spill their guts when interrogated.

They knew about his actions with the Three-Point Yin physique woman. While it was an archaic rule that no one really followed, one wasn’t allowed to engage in those activities with prisoners of war, let alone let them go free after. The latter was far more damning than the former.

He could even be charged with murdering his own, killing Chu Yan who had plotted against him in the Violet Moon Sect’s eradication operation. They could place collusion charges on all members of his faction, and killing an inner disciple was a heinous crime.

Even Han Yu’s explosive act could be fabricated as under his orders with the right persuasion and misinformation.

Wei Wuyin received a hundred essence stones for helping avert a sect-destroying calamity, this clearly displayed the value of a hundred essence stones. As for high-level essences, their actual price didn’t necessarily equate to market price. In fact, in an ideal world and fair trade, Wei Wuyin would have purchased that Absolute Zero Ice Essence with less than thirty essence stones.

Of course, rarity and convenience were unseen values that affected market prices.

Slowly, his two cores started to grow and the essence stones in his ring dwindled continuously.

Ten...

Twenty...

Fifty...

One hundred...

Three hundred...

As he watched the two devour the stones and rapidly grow, his eyes constricted. The number started to rise, from three hundred to six hundred to nine hundred!

"Wait!" Wei Wuyin’s heart throbbed in shock. They were devouring far more than he estimated before! At first, he assumed it would require four hundred for each of them, but...

They had each already refined nine hundred, EACH!

They were money guzzlers and hadn’t even come halfway close to reaching walnut-size!

As he started to panic, watching his wealth slowly deplete into nothing, he analyzed the situation.

"Before, I had a normal Heart of Qi! Now, they’ve both become Divine Hearts of Unique Qi! No wonder, no wonder!" As he realized the foundation of those two cores were far stronger than average cores, he came to an immediate understanding and calmed down instantly.

However, if someone had used the normal method of cultivation, even if they went into closed door seclusion throughout, cultivating one of these hearts could take literal decades! In fact, it would’ve taken him at least two decades just to reach this degree of refinement!

Gulping, he quietly watched and stifled the pain of his wealth depleting.

Two thousand...

Three thousand...

Four thousand!!

Wei Wuyin’s eyes widened as he watched his cores grow! They went from the size of a fingernail to a walnut! As they reached the final stages of their refinement, luminescent light of white and multi-colored brightness started to rapidly effuse the surroundings.

The small gaps of Bai Lin’s body made her seem like a disco ball. The lights penetrated outwards and touched the building. A formless, powerful aura was birthed. A myriad of bizarre signs manifested within the world, including silver sabers frolicking about like fairies and elements going haywire.

When this aura formed, in the Scarlet Solaris Sect’s Scarlet Palace, Su Lanyi wore a calm expression and was listening to various reports from the Grand Elders. They had dug up enough crimes to charge Wei Wuyin with and justify execution.

She had a relieved light in her eyes after hearing this, "Wu Chen, I’ll protect you."

Abruptly, her expression shifted. The spiritual formation she set up outside the building Wei Wuyin resided in trembled. She used her spiritual sense to feel the feedback and her eyes widened.

"This!? Sublime Ascension!" Her eyes trembled as she stood up. Her reaction caused the Grand Elders to become startled. That was until their own spiritual formations fed them information as well.

All of their expressions changed. One of them cried, "He’s undergoing Sublime Ascension!" As those words left his lips, dense lights of disbelief and shock emerged in their eyes.

A scarlet mist appeared from the walls of the Scarlet Palace’s hall, it congregated until it formed a figure, Wu Xinghong! His eyes were grave as he looked towards Su Lanyi. It seemed he had also felt this change. Unlike them, he was a Mortal Godlord whose spiritual sense was beyond their capabilities. He didn’t need a spiritual formation to leave a strand of spiritual sense at any location. A single will was all it took.

"You need to take action, now!" Wu Xinghong coldly ordered. When Wei Wuyin was a disciple, he had high hopes for him and praised his talents endlessly, but now, he was inwardly terrified. His responsibility as a father overtook everything else. He had one son from Su Lanyi, and he would not let him die or become a waste!