Clouds gathered, merged, grew, and darkened. Its charge lit up and lightning blossomed from one end to the other.
Like snakes slithering through a leaf-infested forest in autumn, they crawled through the clouds.
Sometimes they crossed each other's path, but what all of them had in common was their destination.
All of them began to center on one point. That point was above my Father, who was meditating on a Jade platform with his legs crossed.
His eyes were closed, and his hands were on the Jade sword on his lap.
His countenance displayed no emotion as to what he was going through. Or what was about to happen, but I knew that he knew that he was in deep trouble.
All Tribulations are.
I watched the white plasma sky snakes sneak and peek through the clouds, and despite my accelerated thoughts, it was hard to observe the lightning. The light it generated blinded me, and its speed of travel masked its true form.
Part of my mind was watching the event. But an even greater part of me was wondering what to do at this moment.
There were three paths I could take.
The first would be to do nothing and let Father tough it out on his own. Especially since he was kind of Fated to fight with Xia Ranshu and the Xia Clan, the moment his real daughter died.
Everything else that happened after my arrival was delaying that Fate of his.
The problem is I have caused him to lose his Ability and caused him to lose quite a lot of battle potential. And this current event is kind of my fault, so if he dies, it would be my fault.
I am not a saint. Never was and never claimed so, but he had accepted me in this new life as his child, and I accepted him as my parent. To do nothing just did not sit well with me.
Therefore the first option was not one at all.
The second option was to do something, but that is an action considered stupid.
Interfering with a Tribulation directly, in the favor of the one being judged, is a case of being labeled as an intruder/helper/denier and having its difficulty increased.
That is what I was told, and I am sure that it is true for Cultivators, but I am not one.
Problem is, even if I was not a Cultivator, interfering in Father's favor will increase the difficulty, for sure. To what proportion? I have no correlated data to know, but doubling the difficulty is obvious in my mind.
The biggest problem though, was the question of, how many of the directed Qi and Law enhanced lighting strikes I could survive?
Therefore option number three. Do something but be smart about it and avoid the pit in front of you.
' Stupid Father. He should have landed on the ground away from the city so I can ground the incoming lightning, but NO, he had to be theatrical and show off above the city. '
Ranting in my mind for a tiny bit, I look around for inspiration and find it immediately.
Off to the side of everything I found another person who was meditating just like my father, only he had his spear float beside him.
Seeing him taking advantage to recover as my father is undergoing this, is the obvious action to take so I am not surprised he did it.
After all, while luck can bring you to the top, it sure as hell won't make you stay there unless there is something massive to compensate for stupidity.
Either way, it took but a second for me to observe and decide on my sacrificial pawn.
With a goal in mind, all that needed to be figured out was the method so when that was taken care of, I made my move.
With a thought, I looked inwards myself and unto the Auril Construct that enveloped every tiny part of my body, or better said the cells in my body.
It was a poor imitation of the natural state of Transcendence.
Not only did it still deny me infinite Life Essence production in the form of Auril, I still had to provide my BIOS (Biological Input Output System) with Power from the outside, instead of the cells powering it themselves, through dedicated channels.
The channels fundamentally mimicked a Cultivator's Roots, only for Life Essence and without its side effects.
It would not be wrong to say, that by seeking efficiency in Life Essence distribution, the Roots/Meridian system was first invented.
And it would be even more correct to say, that once one achieves Balance of Thought in the body with the Reality on the outside and manifests Qi, he or she will use said energy to harmonize with one's Life Harmonics. And have his or her's Roots/Meridian system come into existence and transform it into something that will be passed down through the generations.
Once more I sigh at the sight of it. It was a wonderful Ability with lots of modes it can operate on, even under different conditions, but it still paled to what Transcendence will give me in its most basic state.
BIOS - Survival(Endless Rage Augment) - Fifth Gear
With no theatrics needed, I gave the command with but a thought. For a few seconds, I watched how my body began its mental and chemical preparation for the stress that it would undergo shortly.
It had taken me a long time to figure out and categorize everything into one Ability. After delaying it for quite some time, this would become the first real stress test for it and my physical body, not that it mattered much as my body would not be entering the eye of the storm.
All of this was preparation.
After my BIOS was up and running, I dismissed my Jade Gauntlet flying chair and in its place, I summed my JEPA (Jade Essence Plated Armor).
It encased my body and functioned like a Power Armor with the job to enable my body to do things it could not do otherwise. Like standing or flying in the air, like Iron Man.
Only I was cheating and not flying or standing in the air, not really.
The armor just supported my body weight in the same way I used my gauntlets to do stuff for me as long as I willed it to do so.
JEPA is the third Ability that I created after my designs for the Jade Gauntlets were finalized.
Once I had those, a logical leap of forward-thinking told me that it would be stupid not to use the same system for my whole body. It had taken me months of testing with Gao Junjie to find the optimal ratios for everything.
The number of beatings I had received before those few months paled in comparison to what I received during those months, but it was all worth it.
Its looks conferred to the local armor variety, with flourishes of Knight armors from Earth alongside some aesthetics that made it pronounce, without a doubt, that it was a female underneath it.
Still, all that was on the outside layer of the armor. The insides are where the magic and engineering did their magic.
The insides of the 5cm thick armor were dotted with a different kind of Root/Meridian structure than my body and it was so for a reason. The armor was specifically made to absorb/deflect/transfer and store Qi alongside any kinetic energy hitting the armor through those functions.
But the true magic was split into two functions. The Yin-Yang Furnaces, with a big one on the back of the armor and its two smaller equivalents on the back of the gauntlets, and the ten anchored storage spaces that store Qi of different elements in their respective colored Jade equivalents doting the knuckles of my gauntlets.
The interplay of those two functions gave me the Ability to use Spiritual Arts if only the simplest ones at the moment.
When the armor appeared I turned to my Uncle and spoke only three words. " Uncle, catch me!"
Not waiting for him to answer I let go of my Will telling my armor to suspend me in the air and transfer my attention inside my head.
There two more Abilities resided.
One was my HALO (Halo Augmented Limited Omniscience).
The HALO was the fourth Ability to be created. It had taken quite a long time of debating if I needed to make this kind of Ability at all as it would be redundant the moment I achieved Transcendence, but ultimately the 'Better be safe than Dead' argument I had with Gao Junjie won me over.
Just like Yin-Yang perfectly encapsulates the symbology for the furnaces flawlessly, here I used the WiFi symbol from Earth to symbolize the connection that Divine Sense has with the Qi in the air.
Once I had access to Qi, being stored in my armor, I attuned it with my own Will and transformed the raw Qi into Divine Sense, and stored it in the HALO's disc.
I did not need a huge amount of it, just enough to match the frequency on which the HALO would operate.
With it, I could passively sense things from my surroundings, like people observing me, but when active, the HALO creates a sphere of sensory input depending on the gear stage of my SEGA (Singularity Energy Generating Augment) Ability.
For every stage SEGA works on, the HALO gains 10 more meters of spherical sensory input, with a maximum range of 50 meters in radius.
It's a pittance when compared to a Cultivator, but it is enough for my purpose under normal circumstances.
Yet, all four Abilities that I had created since my awakening in this world are just the supporting bedrock for my Magnum Opus, where I combined the best of all four Abilities into one complete masterpiece.
As my body started its descent, the majority of my attention shifted to my Magnum Opus.
The moment I willed it into action things shifted inside me.
My HALO became its spiritual sensor.
My JEPA became its skin as it expanded outside my physical body.
My BIOS and the physical body it worked on became its hardware.
My SEGA was the heart of all this and its crutch.
' For as long as there is Qi in the air, to burn as fuel, my descent is inevitable. '
' AVATAR DESCENT - EMPRESS OF JADE. '
***
" Uncle, catch me! " Yu Qiao heard the girl say before her body started plummeting down from the skies.
The uncle, on the other hand, gave off the expression that said 'You too, really?'.
He let his niece fall for a few seconds before he noticed her armor vanish, after having just appeared, and teleported to her side and grabbed her right hand.
" What… " He attempted to say what she was attempting to do before he noticed where her gaze took her.
Looking in the same direction, he noticed the only target that she could be looking at. On a hunch, he kept his gaze centered on Xia Renshu, but his body chose a different path. It threw Jiao carefully in the air and he moved his body slightly forward to position it in just the right position for her stomach to meet his shoulder and to be comfortable enough to carry his niece like a big bag of rice.
It left his right arm free. Another hunch told him he would need it any second now and his hunch proved itself as he noticed a big Jade Gauntlet appear out of thin air and move to envelop Xia Renshu, who was meditating, into its palm from his right side.
Yu Qiao knew that Xia Renshu only gave half his attention to recovering. As he too would do the same, in case somebody attacked during such a vulnerable time.
Xia Renshu was alerted immediately the moment the big Jade Gauntlet appeared and moved to capture him. With a glance, he knew to whom it belonged but being cautious never hurt so instead of attempting to block the huge gauntlet he instead chose to escape it, just in case.
But that was a terrible mistake that he figured a second too late. The moment he tried to teleport he noticed that the Void was not responding as it should be.
Where before it would take but thought to initiate a teleport, now it took him two as the Void felt largely unresponsive with the first.
Yet, that was not all, its unresponsiveness was not the biggest problem, because even when it responded to his thoughts, its response was slower than it should be.
Realizing the trap that he was in, Xia Renshu grabbed the floating spear beside him. He pointed the tip at the nearing giant gauntlet and exploded his Yang Qi through the spear. With a burst of light, a glowing orb appeared on its metal tip manifested, and exploded in the direction of the incoming palm and its swirling lines in the center of the palm.
The resulting explosion slowed the giant palm from encapsulating him and gave him enough time to release his meditation pose and dodge the palm.
Ultimately his initial response doomed him as another Jade Gauntlet appeared from the left side. This one moved far faster than the first one had and it grabbed him like an adult would grab a child's toy.
The moment it had him in its grip, Xia Renshu noticed his Protective Talisma react to a suction effect on his back.
By instinct, he tried to muscle his way out but no matter how much he tried, the Jade Gauntlet remained steady with him in its grasp. Using the spear proved even less useful as he could not get the right grip and leverage as the grip of the huge Jade Gauntlet restricted far too much of his movements.
There was another way, but Xia Renshu doubted it would help at all, and while he did not fear the Blazing Qi produced by the Spear Art, the heated metal blade resulting due to its usage was a different case altogether.
Seeing no immediate way out but the most destructive one, Xia Renshu turned his head around, as it was the thing with the most freedom, and with it his eyes he saw a face materialize out of thin air.
It was green in color, a bit sparkly from the extremely tiny Jade plates acting as its skin, that gave it its breadth of expression. Black Jade substituted for the eyebrows and red Jade for the lips.
Unmistakably, it was female in appearance but the face itself was known to him. He had seen it just minutes prior after all.
" You? " Xia Renshu uttered, in disbelief, as he observed the face for a second before doing the same to the rest of the giant?
The HALO that he had seen during his son's fight with her was behind and slightly above her giant Jade head and its neatly organized bun-styled hair made out of tiny black Jade plates.
Now though there were no rotating arcs around the center disk. All of them had lined up to the Heavens.
Xia Renshu had no idea what it did, but he had to admit that it strangely radiated something familiar when he looked at it.
Whatever it was he dismissed it and noticed the rest of her giant Jade body was wearing robes fit for an Empress.
The robe was made out of tiny pieces of colored Jade with red being the main theme of the robes. After that was lots of black and white Jade decorating the red robe with the mid and back section being the center of it all, as there it turned into a motif that shocked him.
Not once had he seen or heard anything like it. The front of the robe displayed mountains with humans traversing forests but it was on the back where the real stunner was for Xia Renshu.
A mountain-sized monkey/gorilla type of Beast was roaring at the sky triumphantly while holding a giant metal ax in its right hand, that was emitting a green aura around the ax head, all while its right foot stomped on a giant dragon skull.
All around the mountain-sized Beast, depictions of ant-sized humans prostrated themselves to it. Stunned seeing a motif like that, Xia Renshu observed the Beast in greater detail.
Through his Divine Sense, he observed it for a second longer than he should have, as that was when he felt the beast watching him back, somehow.
It projected feelings of apathy and pity to him, at the same time, even though it was just a motif on a robe.
The sight of it spooked and unnerved him for just that little bit to not recognize that there was sudden vertigo being applied to his body.
" Yu Jiao. You… " When that vertigo vanished Xia Renshu looked back at the giant face and began expressing his aggravated and resentful heart but the moment he said a few words, was also the moment that he realized where he was.
Above Jiao's giant Jade head were very, very dark clouds. Only the occasional lighting traversing towards the center of the Tribulation lit them up.
In fact, he was in the center of the Tribulation, just a bit above Yu Liwei.
At the same moment that he realized it, he felt the oppressive power of the Tribulation setting on him and judging him as someone who should not be here at all.
The Tribulation knew of only one way to get rid of anything interfering.
Feeling it coming, Xia Renshu initiated a teleport as fast as he could. He did not care if Yu Jiao made it more challenging or not, he brute-forced it by throwing his Qi reserves at the problem.
A few seconds later the Void responded to his calling, a few seconds after that the Void began to open up, but strangely the size of the shimmer for the opening was larger than it should be.
" Xia Renshu. " A young and mature voice at the same time spoke his name.
He knew immediately there was only one person that would speak to him at this moment.
" I think it's time you and your son had some bonding experiences to talk about while drinking. " Giant Yu Jiao declared for him with a smile. " By bonding experiences, I am talking about being electrocuted, of course. "
Feeling the inescapable feeling of Fate coming for him, Xia Renshu wondered why his teleport was behaving strangely when light flooded his eyes.
His ears registered nothing but bzzzt, while his nose made him remember a burning smell, that was always left behind by lightning strikes.
Still, just one of those was not enough to kill him, especially since his Talisman was still in one piece, but the first lightning strike did disrupt his attempt at escaping.
There was one fact that he could console himself with. His Yang Qi-oriented Mantra was excellent at defending him from Yang elements, and lighting was one of the purest Yang elements in existence.
Recognizing that it was futile to continue trying to escape with teleporting, Xia Renshu stopped doing it and poured his Qi into his Talisman.
" Curse your damned… " Escaped out of Xia Renshu's mouth without his ears even registering it, only to be interrupted by another descending lighting strike.
Despite his Talisman protecting him from 90% of the strike, some of the energy still spilled into his body for his Mantra to rid it of him. But the bigger problem was how many strikes could his Talisman sustain.
' One more? Two more? ' Xia Renshu estimated for a moment. ' No, three more, max, I think. '
For a second he wondered if this was his end. ' No, I have not put all that effort into reaching here just to be killed by a little girl. If it happens I will be the shame of the Clan for generations to come. No, I refuse an end like that. Worst case scenario I can still bring them down with me but first I should try something else before that moment. '
With determination, Xia Renshu found his path forward and waited for the lightning to come once more.
When it did, his Talisman absorbed all it could. The rest spilled into his body, but that did not matter.
Xia Renshu focused on the Talisman itself and dumped a lot of his Qi inside it. There was only one intent sent to it, self-destruct.
Already strained from the lightning it defended against, it took very little to make it go boom.
Boom.
Few knew that the Talisman could explode and even fewer knew that the force of the explosion was designed to flow outwards, leaving its user unscathed.
The explosion forcibly opened the Left Jade Gauntlet, on the other hand, and seeing how little the force did to the Jade Gauntlet, Xia Renshu used the natural ability of all Soul Creation Cultivators to step on the Void.
He escaped in a randomly chosen direction as any direction was the same, as long as it led away from the certain doom that was the center of the Tribulation.
Five steps later, a voice reached his still buzzing ears. He barely understood it but there was no doubt about the message.
" Crack the Shell. Free the Yolk. Fry the Egg. Eat it Sunnyside Up. " The female voice said when a forefinger from a right hand made out of Jade manifested in front of him, and from it, he recognized a very, very familiar feeling.
It was as if two parts of a whole recognized each other. The Tribulation lightning jumped from the forefinger to him and for the first time in quite a long time, Xia Renshu experienced what it meant to be under the full force of Tribulation lightning again.
" I may not be able to kill Soul Creation Cultivators on my own right now, but that does not mean that I can't make use of my surroundings. " The giant representation of Yu Jiao proclaimed for all to hear.
" Your shell is cracked. It's time to free the yolk. " The giant Jiao said and materialized behind the giant zapping forefinger but the forefinger's job was still not done.
The next second the giant thrust the hand towards the spasming Xia Renshu and stabbed him in the stomach with the forefinger that radiated lightning. It pierced through it and when it came out on the other side, a transparent Soul of Qi resembling Xia Renshu of about 15 years in age appeared.
" Uuuuggggghhhhaaa. "Xia Renshu on the other hand felt like he was split in two. One was spasming from the lighting, and the other felt as if it had been stabbed with something.
The right forefinger retreated from Xia Renshu's body, only for a left hand to engulf the Soul of Qi.
The next moment the hand, the giant Jiao, and the Soul of Qi vanished and reappeared back in the center of Tribulation just above Yu Liwei.
Once she was back in position, Avatar Jiao raised her right hand into the sky with an open palm.
" Time to fry the Egg. " Came out of her giant mouth, when another lightning strike came out of the dark sky.
It hit straight into the palm and the swirling lines inside the palm.
Through the swirls, the lightning was absorbed into the right Jade Gauntlet and the Yin-Yang Furnace.
Once the lightning was inside the furnace, the furnace began to rotate like a centrifuge.
The centrifuge absorbed the kinetic force of the lightning strike in the form of electricity and used it to speed up the centrifuge in which it was stuck.
Two things could happen to all that energy now.
The first was simple. Redirect it into the white Jade embedded in the forefinger representing energy and use the said energy against its attacker, preferably soon. Or refine it by striping Qi from the lightning with the Flame of Life embedded in the center of the Furnace.
Whatever the choice, both had advantages and disadvantages. In the current case, Jiao chose to redirect the lighting as the inherent bonus intent of the Tribulation was the perfect cooking material.
The Lighting left the right Jade Gauntlet, traveled through the designated channels inside the Avatar, passed through its chest and around the heart that was SEGA, entered the left hand, and reached its destination Xia Renshu's Soul of Qi.
Immediately the Soul of Qi began to scream and cry at the same time as it had no choice but to endure.
Once the lightning largely dissipated from the Soul of Qi, Avatar Jiao placed her left thumb on the Soul of Qi. The green Jade that was embedded in that finger represented consciousness or in a Cultivator's case Divine Sense.
Through it, Jiao's Will entered the Soul of Qi and manifested inside what was most commonly known as Mind Palace.
It is where the consciousness of a Cultivator resides once they give birth to a Soul of Qi, or in the case of Mind Mantra users, inside their Mind Core before it reaches birth.
Once she was inside Jiao observed her surroundings. Above a gentle summer sun blazed over the blue sky with clouds occasionally appearing from time to time.
There was no land in sight at all, though, no matter where she looked.
Seeing no other choice Jiao chose one direction at random and began her search.
Time inside a Mind Palace flowed differently compared to outside, but there was still a limit.
When the next lightning strike hit, the summer sky shimmered quite a lot in response. At the same time, it told Jiao where to go next.
It was a Palace made out of white clouds, only this palace was patchy in places and burned in others.
Making her way towards it, Jiao stepped on it. The moment she did, hostility erupted from the clouds. Out of the clouds, warriors arose with spears in their hands and poised to strike at any moment.
Seeing them all, Jiao shrugged her shoulders, ignored their presence, and ventured forth.
Immediately all the cloud warriors began to charge the tip of their spears with Yang Qi. The way their stance made them pose combined with the Yang Qi imitating plasma discharge from a Goa'uld staff weapon, made her chuckle at the comparison.
The plasma Yang Qi imitations hit her directly on the body and left no markings on her at all.
Continuing to ignore them, Jiao treaded the numerous hallways of the cloud palace until a second lightning strike hit her Avatar.
That was when she found the center of the Mind Palace, the throne room, revealed itself to her.
As was customary for a throne room it had to have a throne and on it sat a teenager version of Xia Renshu.
Unlike how it had appeared outside this place where he was full of color and depth as if it was his real body.
If there was anything to nitpick on his appearance it was that the robes he wore were burned in places, just like the throne on which he sat.
" We meet again, Xia Renshu. " Jiao said and smiled at him.
Xia Renshu's reply was only a scowl.
" Oh, have you already resigned yourself to death? " Jiao uttered without a shred of shame in her voice.
" No, but I doubt you have infiltrated here if it was not to your advantage, somehow. "
" Correct, I do have a few aces just in case, but without them, our strengths are far closer than you imagine. " Jiao replied as she closed in on Xia Renshu. " You have many years of life experience to solidify your base Mental strength. I on the other hand fear battles of the Mind the least out of the three disciplines. Truth is, my weakest is physical combat, as my physical body pales to the refinement Qi brings you. Of course, I will change that in the future, but that is for the future. "
" Hmph. To think I would be fighting the daughter to death instead of the father. The shame of my life is what it is. "
" Hey, none of us expected Father to cause such a spectacle. It was either I chose you as the lightning rod or somebody else. And since there was beef between our Clans, the choice was obvious. "
" Enough talking, I'm tired of it. " Teenager Xia Renshu declared and summoned his spear. It was a perfect copy of the real one.
Jiao nodded and activated her Abilities in this battle of Minds.
What followed was a gruesome battle of Witt, mind, and battle experience.
With Xia Renshu's long life and battle experience, he kept the initiative no matter how Jiao tried.
Jiao, on the other hand, was long used to it, since her very kit of Fighting Arts was centered around defense, deflection, and reflection of force.
Her tight defense only became tighter as the battle raged on with full immersion.
Time passed as Jiao refined her Fighting Arts in this never-ending battle when another lightning strike hit her Avatar and the Avatar transferred the power into the Soul of Qi in its left hand.
The lightning manifested in the throne room and directly hit the teenage Xia Renshu.
It interrupted their battle as Xia Renshu endured the lightning as best as he could. Once it was over his robes and body were heavily burned.
" As fun as this was, it's time to end this. I have things to do. " Jiao stated.
Right after those words were said her Jade Armor began to transform.
Its green color tinged itself with dark red and its outer appearance changed into a far more aggressive version of itself with horns growing out of the Jade helm and the shoulder pads.
The white lines on the armor previously representing the transfer of energy across its body became black.
" That look and the ominous feeling sent my way? Are you a Demon of some kind? " Xia Renshu asked as he steadied his breath, which he did not need in his own Mind Palace.
" No. " Jiao refuted with no doubt in her voice. " What you see is Endless Rage mastered and funneled into a direction and given purpose of meaning. Mine is centered on Freedom of Thought and Action, and you are in the way of that Freedom. "
The next battle that followed was a quick one. With Endless Rage fueling Jiao's mental strength, all her hits ignored the inherent advantage and protection Xia Renshu possessed inside his own Mind Palace.
In fact, her strikes shredded anything he threw at her.
Weakened by the lightning, it did not take long for Xia Renshe to succumb to Jiao's attacks fueled by Endless Rage.
Laying battered and broken beside his throne, Xia Renshu considered his final option, self-destruction, yet the moment that he wanted to initiate it, Jiao was upon him and her right hand grabbed his head and funneled Power inside it.
Xia Renshu immediately lost any connection that he possessed to his Soul of Qi. In the next moment, he felt himself transform into a tiny ball.
He did hear one last sentence coming out of Jiao's mouth before losing consciousness.
" My Father needs your Death, I don't. "
With the ball storing Xia Renshus Will, Jiao looked at the throne and the palace that it inhabited and sighed loudly
" I had plans for you, now I have to scramble those. Return. " Jiao declared as her awareness snapped back into her Avatar.
With a thought, she removed the ball containing Xia Renshu's Will and with a flicker of her giant left hand sent it in the direction of his physical body.
The next moment, the empty Soul of Qi was placed on the white Jade embedded in the forefinger of the right Jade Gauntlet.
Absorb. Jiao declared and the Soul of Qi entered the white Jade.
Bind. She declared and sent part of her Will into the white Jade.
Refine. Jiao's parted Will and the Soul of Qi combined and infused the resulting mix into the internal structure of the white Jade.
Then she waited. Her right palm faced the sky for the lightning to descend.
Lightning came, was absorbed, and redirected into the white Jade embedded into the forefinger.
Create. Jiao spoke while pouring lots and lots of Life Essence inside.
Moments later, a white light erupted from the white Jade as it shifted slightly in shape.
No longer was its shape linear and square but closer to a zigzag pattern often associated with lightning.
Jiao observed it and the newborn Spirit in the lightning bolt-shaped white Jade.
" Now, this… puts a smile on my face. Ha, haha, hahaha. "