Ever since the immortal pill had absorbed the dragon egg within the Leviathan Clan's Dragon Palace, it entered some sort of dormant state. Nothing Tianyi did would rouse it from its inactivity, not even the true qi of chaos.
Still, Tianyi hadn't worried because he could sense the growing lifeforce within the pill, or rather, egg.
Tianyi held the hatching egg in his hand as he tried to sense the changes happening within the egg, but even with the pill egg existing within Vast Heaven Island, Tianyi still couldn't sense anything. He wasn't too surprised, as the egg was something from the ruins of the Immortal Court, so its rank was far too high for him. Even when it was still a pill, Tianyi had already failed in sensing the inner workings, so even though it had become an egg, Tianyi wasn't too disappointed that he couldn't sense what was happening.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Patiently, Tianyi waited for more cracks to appear on the shell, dropping everything he had been working on. After all, how long did an egg need to hatch?
As it turned out?
Terribly long.
A month later, after Tianyi had finished preparing over a thousand Xiyi Talismans, he noticed something strange. Looking around, Tianyi tried to discover the source of the strangeness. However, everything seemed to be normal and unchanged, but he knew something was different.
Tianyi held his chin as he tried to think of what exactly was abnormal, and he could feel it at the tip of his tongue.
That's right! I can't hear the cracking noise anymore!
Tianyi immediately appeared where he had placed the pill egg, on a soft blanket (an immortal rank artifact that conceals everyone under it) and an elaborate basket (another immortal rank artifact meant to seal opponents).
Was it incredibly wasteful?
Yes.
Did Tianyi have any other blankets or baskets?
No.
Could Tianyi have made some?
Also yes.
But Tianyi was too lazy, and the two artifacts were just collecting dust in his spatial ring, so Tianyi put them to good use.
Holding the egg near his face, Tianyi observed the silent egg. He had gotten so used to the cracking sound that he automatically tuned out the clamorous background noise. Now that it had stopped, Tianyi felt strangely unsettled by the absence.
Pushing down the discomfort, Tianyi continued to observe the egg. Strange, the shell is full of cracks, so why hasn't it hatched? And there are no more sounds coming from it either.
Don't tell me it died?!
I recall that chicks need to break out of their shells themselves, and no matter what, you should not help them. I can't recall why you shouldn't. Don't tell me the beast within the egg died?!
I mean, thinking about it logically... the egg was originally a pill in the first place. Becoming an egg is obviously strange, I just didn't question it since stranger things have happened. Could there have been some mishap?
Tianyi felt a sense of loss as he stared at the silent egg. He couldn't sense any more lifeforce from it, so that contributed to his hypothesis. Even if it was a pill, it still accompanied him for many years.
He began to recall all the time he spent with it. Instantly, Tianyi recalled the first meeting of beating. Next, he recalled all the times the immortal pill took advantage of him and sucked his blood and true qi of chaos. Now that he thought about it, the memories with him and the pill were horrible.
Should I have thrown it away earlier?
Tianyi asked himself, but thinking of how much of his "blood" that he fed to the pill, Tianyi felt a sense of unwillingness. He already offered so much for the pill's growth. Abandoning it now would make all his efforts go down the drain.
Should I crack it open?
Tianyi decided against it. Instead, he broke open the skin on his palm and allowed his 'blood' to drip onto the cracked shell. It was true qi of chaos, or to be more accurate, true qi of chaos in a liquid state. Like honey, the liquid qi dripped atop the egg and began slowly to cover the black shell. Already, the black liquid was returning to its gaseous state.
After a few moments where nothing happened, Tianyi began to fear for the worst. Thankfully, the light began to shine through the liquid qi, resembling cracks, and the black liquid was absorbed, leaving the egg uncovered once more without any light.
Tianyi waiting a while and saw that nothing happened.
Perhaps it needs more?
Seeing no more movements, Tianyi proceeded to replicate his earlier actions. Rinse and repeat. By the time the egg showed a new reaction, Tianyi had already stopped counting due to how monotonous it was.
Finally!
The egg had just absorbed the last sprinkle of true qi of chaos, and even without absorbing more, light still shone through the cracks. Tianyi watched with great expectations as the egg began to tremble and move in an almost jumping matter. As its movement reached its climax...
BOOOOOOM!!!!
Unprepared against the sudden explosion that engulfed half of the mountain, Tianyi was launched thousands of kilometers into the horizon before he forcefully stopped himself. The air had two trails of smokes formed from when Tianyi skidded across the air using his ability to tread on air as a nascent soul grandmaster.
Aside from some smoke rising from his body, Tianyi was unharmed. The source of the explosion came from true qi of chaos, but it was slightly different from Tianyi's unique true qi of chaos. He concluded that it was less powerful and didn't have the unique property his qi had.
Still, Tianyi had an annoyed expression as he flew back. Every damn time the stupid immortal pill did something, why was he always the one to suffer? Already, he had received several inquiries from spiritual senses concerning the explosion.
After Tianyi assured them that nothing had occurred and the demons had not launched a sudden assault, he returned to the central mountain.
Upon seeing the current state of the mountain, Tianyi's eyes couldn't help but twitch. The central mountain of Vast Heaven Islands now had a gaping hole at its side, as if someone had carved out a sphere and stole it, making the mountain partially resemble a crescent.
Tianyi took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and flew into the gaping hole. At the center of the hole was a strange creature about the size of a squirrel.
Not only was it the size of a squirrel, but it had the body shape of one too. Unlike the mammal the squirrel was, the creature was clad in tiny scales the color of darkness. Each scale shimmered with specks of light as if the creature's body was formed from the night sky.
Tianyi found that it resembled his true qi of chaos.
The creature had a serpentine head with eyes the color of molten gold, and the tail that made up over half of its size was clad in scales larger than the ones on its body. Stiff hair the color of moonlight lined the sides of its tail like needles.
The most eye-catching features were no doubt the single horn sprouting from its forehead. Despite its small size, Tianyi did not doubt its sharpness.
The two's eyes met, and a familiar medicinal fragrance entered Tianyi's nose. The immortal pill had never smelled like anything, so Tianyi didn't know why the scent was so familiar.
The silence was broken between them when the horned creature started to float towards him. Encouraged by this, Tianyi brought his hands forward, fingers out. Just as his fingers were about the stroke the creature's black scales, the creature opened its mouth and bit Tianyi's fingers.
A piercing pain registered to Tianyi's mind as he waved his hands up and down in an attempt to fling the creature off. Fuck, what did I expect?! This damn pill is greedily absorbing my true qi of chaos!!!
"Hoh? That's the immortal pill that you've been carrying around? I never expected it to become your spiritual beast." Daoyi said, sitting on the opposite end of the table from Tianyi.
Days later, the creature, having had its fill, was currently resting around Tianyi's neck like some sort of scaled scarf. Tianyi and the created had formed a spiritual bond after it had drunk his blood, making the horned beast Tianyi's spiritual beast.
Tianyi did not recognize the species the creature was, so he named it a pill qilin. The creature resembled a cross between a qilin, unicorn, and squirrel, but only the qilin was the closest to any beasts recorded in the Huang Realm.
Yes, squirrels apparently didn't exist in the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System, or at least none that were important enough to be recorded within the Buzhou Immortal Sect.
As for the pill in pill qilin, it was obvious where that came from. Aside from the species name, Tianyi decided to name the pill qilin Dandan. Yes, it was incredibly immature of him to name it pill pill, but did Tianyi regret it?
Absolutely not.
Naturally, Dandan made a commotion and objected to its name through their link together, but Tianyi was firm in his attitude. After all the grief, the damn pill qilin had put him through, Tianyi felt that getting some revenge was justified.
Was it incredibly petty?
Yes.
Dandan had even attacked Tianyi for a day because of it. Unlike before, Tianyi was able to fend it off and make Dandan suffer using his mastery of spacetime concepts. Tianyi even returned interest on all the times the pill had cannonballed him whenever he refused to supply blood.
Karma had been served.
It was so cathartic that Tianyi even considered continuing beating it up some more had it not been for Daoyi's arrival.
"Yeah, although not one hundred percent of its bloodline is pure, the purity is still very high. A rarity in the modern era," Tianyi said.
While Dandan had been an immortal pill, it had actively sought out those with the dragon bloodline. The second one was the nascent soul grandmaster equivalent snake demon that had attacked Azure Leaf City, and the third had been the dragon egg within Dragon Palace.
As for the first?
It was all the blood of the Dragon Emperor Tianyi had stored in his inner cosmos when he formed his martial body. Tianyi had thought the blood had been destroyed or consumed by his true qi of chaos, but it turned out that the culprit was that damn immortal pill.
Tianyi had complex feelings knowing that the Dragon Emperor's blood flowed through Dandan's veins but suppressed it. It wasn't like Dandan was actually born from the Dragon Emperor's bloodline.
"Isn't that quite amazing?" Daoyi asked, closely observing the pill qilin around Tianyi's neck. Daoyi raised her hand, and the dreamsilk weaver beast Shuijing, Daoyi's spiritual beast, crawled onto the back of her hand. "I wonder which one is rarer."
Tianyi felt his body stiffen and had to use every ounce of self-control from not shirking away as he eyed Shuijing warily. "I-I think yours should be rarer. Mine isn't a pure-blooded dragon, after all. And I've never heard of d-dreamsilk weaver beast until yours appeared."
Seeming having remembered that Tianyi was fearful of spiders, Daoyi retracted her hand, but Shuijing seemed displeased and jumped off her hand and onto the table between them. Dandan seemed to have sensed something too, as it jumped off of Tianyi's neck and onto the table across from Shujing.
Tianyi's eyes lit up with hope. Maybe Dandan can act as a deterrent against the dreamsilk weaver beast? Although he said Shujing's species was rarer, that didn't make Tianyi think that Dandan was weaker in combat ability.
After all, Dandan had the dragon bloodline, and its origin was an immortal rank pill from the Immortal Court. Even now, Tianyi could not sense Dandan's realm. If he had to guess, its state of existence was above Unity Realm, close to the Transcending Mortality Realm or maybe Immortal Realm, although its strength had not truly reached that stage.
From Tianyi's experience, Dandan's strength was that of a new unity venerable, but it would grow with time.
"Ah!" Daoyi let out a sound of surprise as Dandan and Shuijing started to duking it out.
The two weren't using any techniques, just swipes and even a bite or two between them. Had the two truly used all their strength, the table would have been obliterated.
Too Tianyi's immense disappointment, Dandan had suddenly collapsed onto the table and fainted for an unknown reason. Shuijing then used its razor-sharp legs to push Dandan off before turning to Daoyi, raising its front four legs, and standing on the remaining back legs as if asking for praise.
Tianyi was left speechless by the one-sided victory.
"Tianyi, should you not pick up Dandan?" Daoyi asked as she gently stroked Shuijing with her index and middle fingers.
"No, let it be a lesson for it," Tianyi said sulkily, his hopes having been dashed by Dandan.
Tianyi suddenly turned his gaze into the distance.
"What's wrong?" Daoyi asked with worry. "Have the demons launched their assault?"
"No," Tianyi smiled. "Xi Ri has returned."
About an hour later, Xi Ri came aboard the central mountain and found his fellow reincarnations.
"What's with the hole in the mountain?" Xi Ri asked.
Tianyi's smile stiffened.
Daoyi giggled. She had asked the same question, but seeing Tianyi's expression, she knew that he had screwed up somehow and caused the hole.
"Forget that. What do you mean plan to do with the residents of Fan City?" Xi Ri asked, his voice full of worry.
"Fan City?" Tianyi asked, confused. Did the fortress town finally get named?
Seeing the confusion in Tianyi's eyes, Xi Ri realized that Tianyi didn't know. "The city made by the people of the Demon Cage Realm near the fortress city. What do you plan for them for when the demons lay siege against us?"
"Oh?" Tianyi slapped his forehead. "OH!"
I totally forgot about them!