Chapter 362 Black Robed Woman

The three of us were sitting slightly awkwardly on the back of my hoverboard. It was a large hoverboard but the three people on it made it seem like a clown fiesta.

"What are you doing?" I asked Master Rain as he was trying to figure out how the Reactor for the Hoverboard was functioning, while we were using it...

"Checking on things...hmm, you changed this, why?" he asked.

"Too complicated costs a lot of resources to apply the same command as I would ask of it if I were to use fewer inscriptions and more direct Qi transfer commands," I replied as I realized what he was talking about.

"You would have the same effect with my own inscription, though it will exhaust more power it will at the same time force more power from the Saint Qi stone," he said.

"Of course, that would be the best option to use yours, but I don't have a storage of Saint Qi, all I have are three pieces. I don't want to waste them, I'd rather lose a day of travel time than a Saint Qi crystal," I replied.

"Being poor is an Inscriber's worst enemy," Master Rain said and closed the reactor's hatch.

"But this is too slow for my liking," Master Rain said.

The retainer then got up from his sitting position and began making hand gestures. Suddenly, we seemed to have split into eight different directions and eight copies of us all went to a different way.

I didn't understand what was going on until even our copies split, and their copies split as they moved each took to a different direction and kept on spreading and spreading.

"This should be enough," Master Rain said.

Then suddenly all the copies stopped then disappeared.

Just as they left our plane of existence, the space around us immediately switched from the darkness of deep space to a slightly brighter area but still in space.

Looking up ahead, there were millions of small asteroids floating around creating a formation of rocks that looked to be impenetrable.

"What the hell just happened?" I asked.

"Compact Displacement," Master Rain said as if that was enough to explain what just happened.

He then hopped off the hoverboard and moved towards the asteroid belt.

"The Compact Displacement is a movement technique, pretty useless in any situation besides spatial travel, though it is very costly in Qi, as you see the results are impressive, behind this asteroid belt is the Heavenly Academy," the retainer said.

"But...how?"

"it's like addition, every copy moved a certain distance, and every copy of those copies moved a certain distance, so if I were to Capture the movement the copies did, and repurpose their effect but keep their cause, I would have applied the distanced traveled by all copies to us, thus pushing us the collective distance all the copies had made in a single line," he said.

My head seemed to be on the verge of a headache but I probably understood what he meant. Basically, all the distance the copies had traveled was added to us without us needing to move an inch.

Thinking about it, it's like the rice and the chessboard anecdote... pretty interesting.

"Let's follow Master Rain," the retainer said.

The two of us followed close as Master Rain calmly waited for a meteor to pass by.

Soon, Master Rain took the first step and though I had a feeling that he was about to lose his face since an asteroid seemed to be coming his way, the asteroid seemed to be slowly spiraling around itself and managed to pass by Master Rain harmlessly.

Master Rain then took another step forward and we followed him.

I took note of the incoming asteroids and kept a close watch, checking what Master Rain was seeing and how he judged when to move and when to stop.

The full asteroid belt was like a multi-level mathematical formula that you needed to account for all variables. This reminds me of the upper tower of the Laughing Slaughterer's pagoda.

"Shen Bao," Master Rain said. "Why don't you take the lead," he said and took a few steps back pushing me up front.

Finding myself in an unenviable situation I sighed as I looked around seeing the incoming asteroids moving without an appropriate pattern in sight.

Some moved from left to right and some from right to left while others went up and down, and all of the asteroids seemed to be able to move past each other without even grazing one another.

I expanded my divine sense as far as I could and began detecting the asteroids coming in and out of my divine sense sphere.

They were just too many to keep track of each one of them.

"What would happen if I were to forcefully change one of the asteroid's trajectory?"

"Chaos," Master Rain said.

"No, everything is in order, causing a collide could seem like chaos but if on purpose..." I said as my mind flashed with a new idea.

I moved a step further which had Master Rain shouting, "Brat you'll die if you move now!"

Just as he finished his words an asteroid came rushing towards me.

And I didn't dodge it, in fact, I funneled Qi into my right arm and sent a powerful punch forward.

Causing a shockwave to shoot out and graze the incoming asteroid.

Which caused it to slightly veer off of its current path and come in contact with another asteroid. Creating a chain reaction upon a great level.

"Damn, you ruined it," spoke Master Rain as many asteroids seemed to collide with each other and the small openings that Master Rain was using before had all disappeared.

"Nah, it's working, give it a moment," I said.

As I kept track with my divine sense, many of the asteroids affected by my initial displacing began to change trajectory and at one single point something that even Master Rain's eyebrows had to raise for.

A wide opening in the asteroid belt opened up, wide and large enough for us to move through and all the way to the other side where the Heavenly Academy was.

I didn't wait as I dashed forward Ancient Stepping my way forward until I made it out of the asteroid belt.

The opening seemed to close but Master Rain and his retainer only took one step to cross the divide.

"That's some impressive calculation prows," Master Rain muttered.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Nothing, let's keep going, I need to meet the elders," he said.

The three of us moved down towards the Heavenly Academy and as soon as we arrived several elders came to us. Their eyes shook in complete fear.

"What's going on?" asked Master Rain.

"Trouble, please follow us, Master Rain," the elders said.

Just as I was about to follow, "Not you Shen Bao, you can go, it's something regarding Master Rain's personal wellbeing. You may leave," said one of the elders.

I frowned at the sudden exclusion.

"You can go, boy, I don't know what these guys are afraid off, but I sure as hell don't care. Anyway, let's see what this trouble is," Master Rain said.

Finding myself once again alone, I looked around and sighed.

"Guess I'll just head back home," I said as I turned in the direction of Liang Yu's house.

'Wait why am I calling it home?' I muttered to myself as I was moving forward.

Perhaps I'm someone looking for a place to call home, but home is Lucid Springs...

No, that isn't home. It never felt like it. It was a city, my city something that belonged to me, but not something where I belonged.

Home...

I smiled and shook my head, there was no need to keep thinking of stuff like this.

Soon I arrived to the student area and came down right in front of Liang Yu's house.

I knocked and received no answer, and then knocked again.

After a long wait, no one answered so I broke into the house.

More like disabled the formation locking the house and walking inside.

"Liang Yu," I called but there was no reply.

The house was pretty clean and there didn't seem to be any signs of trouble here. I thought that something might have happened when I had left but all is peaceful, she might even just be studying.

I went down to check up on if she was in her cultivation cave, but there was nothing.

Feeling bored, I wanted to do something with my time. As I was about to go into the Lord of Lords' pagoda to check up on the egg and the Thunder Bull chariot, I decided against it. What if she were to come home and not find me?

"Automaton, can you bring out the Thunder-Bull carriage," I asked.

"Yes, lord." That was the answer.

And suddenly a portal appeared right into the cultivation cave and spat out the Thunder Bull carriage.

The cave was pretty big, and thankfully with the Thunder-Bull's physical presence not available as it was nothing but a wisp of soul right now, all I had in front of me were the remains of the broken carriage.

I started by fixing the carriage and repairing the broken parts. The carriage itself was made of sturdy material, so its main frame was not broken, however, the hinges and bolts fixing it in place and together had long since been destroyed since they weren't made of the same material.

So, I began by replacing and recreating the broken or missing parts.

Time went by as I worked, a lot of it as I had to fully patch up the carriage until it was standing on its legs...

Well, wheels.

The carriage was made of a golden sturdy material that even the Dark Beasts weren't able to break, not to mention the black rods that were on the carriage's main handles.

The two handles that used to latch onto the Thunder Bull had black rods with dark and despicable Qi constantly being released from them.

It was something that I didn't want to touch unless I had to.

These two rods were what caused pain to the Thunder Bull and were now what was keeping the small firefly-sized wisp of soul in the place, refusing to let it pass on.

They were a curse and a blessing. A curse as they constantly kept the bull in a state of pain, and a blessing as they didn't allow it to die. Though that might sound wrong, if I were able to re-empower the Thunder Bull's soul and remove the rods, it might live again without pain.

"Just hang in there buddy, I'll see if I can remove those painful rods," I muttered as I went to the rods and began studying them closely.

They seemed to be made of a strange material, there is nothing in the Poison God's manual about something like this. So I had no idea what I was dealing with.

I kept on scratching my head for answers and realized that I'll go bald before I'll know anything.

With nothing but my guts, I extended my arm towards the rod and was about to grab it, when a fair hand, whiter than porcelain and gentler than a breeze of spring grabbed me and pinned me whole from moving.

My literal flesh felt like it had made a conscious of its own and wanted to peel itself from me and run away from pure fright.

Whoever that fair-looking arm belonged to, was powerful, so powerful that even the soul inside my sea of consciousness seemed to not want it to find it as it dove deep down into the naval fortress and closed it up.

Her words spoke, "Do not touch that, you will die," they were words that were direct, and to the point, and there was not a hint of dishonesty from them.

"And... who might you be?" I asked as I turned.

There was the figure of a woman well hidden behind a veil and dark robes that didn't extenuate anything more of this person other than she was a female.

"A friend of a friend," she said.

"Why are you here? Do you have any idea where Liang Yu is? Did you harm her?" I asked trying to gather my bearings.

I couldn't tell why, but I had a feeling that this person was very dangerous.

"I wouldn't know who this person might be," she said.

There were no lies to her words.

"Did you come to claim the Thunder Bull," I asked?

"I would have done that if I had a reason to make me think of you the same as the imperials," she said.

I didn't want to ask why she would think that I might have the same ideology as the imperials so I kept quiet.

"You seem to be a person who cares about others," she said.

"How did you come to that conclusion?" I asked.

"You are worried about your friend," she said, "And you even cared for a beast, not many see a Thunder Bull Carriage and the first thing they think of is if the imprisoned Soul is in pain, all they see is an over-glorified ride," she said.

I turned to look at the wisp of soul remaining imprisoned between the two rods.

"I want to help it, it had been in pain for many years..." I said.

"Then, how about I lend a hand," she asked.

"I would appreciate the help of a more experienced person," I said.

"Good, then watch carefully," she said then waved both her hands.

A single gesture and my mind seemed to be reeling as colors of the rainbow seemed to dye the world in different shades and for a small moment, I saw the size of this person's Qi.

"You're..."