Right hand above my head.
Palm facing the sky and laughter mocking the Tribulation.
Thunder pouted in anger, and lightning rained down.
It hit and hit and hit and hit, but all was useless in its attempt.
All it did was feed my Spirit housed in white Jade.
Every lightning strike was full of Intent to destroy by electrocuting its target.
Every lightning strike was full of Intent to destroy by burning its target to ash.
Every lightning strike was full of Intent to destroy only to be consumed by the Spirit/Aspect.
Every lightning strike full of Intent that it consumed filled its newborn consciousness with the Rules and Laws regarding Thunder and Lightning.
With every attempt to destroy it, its growing acclimatization to those Rules and Laws strengthened. And with every attempt, the white Jade embedded in my Gauntlet acclimatized more to the growing spiritual presence of the newborn Spirit/Aspect.
The lightning bolt-shaped white Jade remained the same on the outside, it was the microscopic changes in the molecular structure of white Jade that made it special.
What those changes were was unknown to me and would remain unknown for the foreseeable future but that did not mean that I could not extrapolate what was happening.
A growing mind required a body that could accommodate the said growing mind. That meant, as the Spirit grew mentally its hardware had to keep up and refine its physical quality to accommodate its growth.
And so begins the eternal dance of feedback loops.
The same feedback loop worked on anything that had a consciousness, and that very process is what allows Cultivators to refine their way to Immortality. After all, mortal life had not been designed to live for a long time with its constant need for physical elements in its body.
So either you attain a physical body that can produce all the material needs in its own system without degradation of its physical quality, or you use the Reality aspect of Mana to manifest the said materials in the physical body by a spell or enchantment of an artifact.
Or you could choose the hybrid of the two and become a Cultivator.
The greater the stage of cultivation the easier it is to supplement the physical body with manifested materials.
At the same with greater cultivation, the physical body's efficiency in its own self-sustainability is increased. Until there comes a net positive state where it is so efficient that the body will only ever need Qi to fuel the growth of both body and mind, therefore reaching a state of Immortality.
And it will remain in that state until somebody or something chops off your head, which is far more plausible to happen to somebody who lived a long life.
It was that feedback loop that I was exploiting at this moment.
The refinement of the white Jade increased its metaphysical quality in order to accommodate the growth of the mind.
The growth of the mind forced the white Jade to refine its metaphysical quality and this process would continue until the feedback loop broke.
In my current case, that would be either no more lightning coming down or me running out of Life Essence to fuel the mental growth of the Spirit.
And since I was burning Qi from the atmosphere to supply myself and the Spirit growth with Life Essence, the only thing stopping its growth was the Tribulation itself.
The problem is though, I wasn't the only one that knew that or sensed that.
As the Will for its base state consciousness came from me and as the Life Essence supplying its growth was attuned to my own consciousness, I was intimately connected to it.
It did not matter if the Spirit was Qi-based in its nature.
It took but a thought for it to share its state of mind. It was foreign in form and raw in its state.
I had no fear of it, but its constant radiation of wanton destruction and punishment, of everything, reflected what it was learning and embracing from the Tribulation.
It also contained notions of judgment but it was a pittance compared to destruction and punishment.
It mattered not. What mattered was etching out its maximum gains and potential growth for the moment before grinding down its depth with time and effort.
" Ha. Is that All? " I announced to the dark cloud above.
I know not if the cloud could understand me or not. It probably did not, but this was a good time to test out the 'Does it respond to being blatantly insulted, as it happens with MCs in stories?'.
There… was a pause of something hanging in the air that I somehow sensed from my passive HALO sensory data.
Reminded of it, I immediately took advantage of the pause. With a thought, I sent a command to my HALO to remain stationary and turned my Avatar around.
My right gauntlet touched the floating disk that was the base of the WIFI-inspired look for the HALO.
Only the disk wasn't just simply a disk. Its insides were divided into slots of different colored Jade.
All it took was for my right forefinger to touch the disk and lightning spawned on the disk and infused itself into the right embedded slot in the disk.
Immediately after, I had my Avatar face the sky.
A small part of me connected the sensing part of the HALO to that Lightning Spirit.
With Life Essence to fuel the thinking processes, the Spirit began to parse through the raw sensory data that my HALO caught and had sent to it.
There was some finicking as the HALO, the Spirit, and I tried our best to synchronize our senses and process it all, but then it clicked.
Instantly I began to sense the static electrical discharge in the air around me. Immediately three realizations hit me.
Father was suffused with a positive charge if what my Lightning Spirit was sending me was correct.
It wasn't much. Whatever happens, when you attempt to reach Soul Creation happens to supercharge humans with a positive charge and that creates the beacon that calls down lightning from the dark clouds.
It made sense in my mind as I recall what I knew of thunderstorms and their behavior.
Debate aside on how it manifests in the first place, its effect was indisputably documented and it states that, when thunder clouds appear, positive charge flows into the upper parts of the atmosphere and negative charge flows down towards the edge of the clouds nearer the earth.
Since electricity always flows from the negative side to the positive, a similar thing happens to lightning as most lightning strikes happen in the clouds, as they move from the lowest point of the cloud to the highest.
A similar thing happens when lightning strikes down into the earth beneath it.
The negative bottom of the clouds discharges into the positive charge of the earth, hence the term negative lightning strike.
That was the most common type of lighting to manifest in normal people's eyes and it was that kind of lightning that kept striking for my father, only I was in its way like a stubborn resistor controlling the flow of electrons in a circuit board.
And that was the problem. If I imagined myself as a resistor that meant I had an innate capacity for how much I could resist. While the Lightning Spirit increased that resistance it did not mean that I was immune.
Positive lightning strikes happen when there is too much positive charge in the upper atmosphere. The overflow changes its behavior as the positive charge discharges instead of being neutralized by the negative lightning reaching it.
That is also when lightning changes its color due to its interaction with the atmosphere, and Oh, boy was I seeing a lot of red.
The moment that that realization hit me, I placed both my hands above my head. Initiated the furnaces in both gauntlets and the big one on the back of the Avatar.
As additional preparation, I sent a thought to the Lightning Spirit to prepare for what was coming.
That done I observed the negatively infused Qi channel that had carried down the lightning with minimal deviation.
As I did that, an errant thought came to me. ' If anybody asks me about this, I shall call it Extreme Yang birthing Yin. '
***
Yuan Ru's full attention was divided between observing and recording every single detail that his Divine Sense delivered him.
From the attempted and succeeded Bloodline Divergence, if the lighting strikes were an indication, to the misfortune of Xia Renshu being used as a lightning rod and finally to the birth of an Elemental Spirit, in a form he had not observed before.
Much less one birthed by Tribulation Lightning, however, that was possible with something so violent and destructive.
Despite everything that he observed and recorded, part of his heart was overjoyed. He felt like a kid walking into a candy store with everything he was witnessing and recording.
" Ha. Is that All? " A girl's voice announced to the dark cloud above. In it, Yuan Ru felt confidence, arrogance, and disdain at the same time.
The response was almost immediate as Yuan Ru felt the shift in the clouds.
The girl had as well, as she prepared herself, and then the red lightning also called Hate Lightning as it only appears when one angered the Heavens, came down on her.
In Yuan Ru's eyes, the lightning that came down could be compared to the width of a grown man's waist. The amount of lightning and heat that it packed could fry a grown man into dust and a cultivator into a fried chicken but it did not stop Yuan Ru from observing and recording.
The twenty meters tall Domain Incarnation, if his interpretation was correct, was writhing with red lightning snakes all over its body, the Empress-styled robes and those weird floating arcs floating behind her head.
Yet, the moment Yuan Ru observed closer… he noticed a few peculiarities.
All of them were minor and consisted of what he had seen before from the girl.
The grooved lines on the twenty meters tall Jade body that represented a strange formation for Qi transference, again if his interpretation was correct, were overflowing as if they could not contain what they were absorbing.
Though, the peculiarity that bothered him was the overflow that had been absorbed by the Empress-styled robes instead. And if his senses were reporting it correctly, the overflow flowed towards that representation of the mountain-sized monkey/gorilla.
Above the Beast representation of the Tribulation, clouds appeared and they began to strike down on the immense Beast that shifted its head and roared definitely at it.
" I have not heard of a monkey/gorilla of that size before, I wonder what kind of Beast that is? " Yuan Ru asked himself as he observed its defiance.
Whatever it was Yuan Ru left the curiosity for later, as another strike was preparing itself in the sky.
" I hope she survives this. I have a feeling that I will find many new things if I follow her around. "
The second red lightning struck down Yuan Ru immediately noticed the strain appearing on the Domain Incarnation.
" It appears weaker than I first imagined. Is this a consequence of the different paths that she follows? "
His musing aside, Yuan Ru noticed that it took much longer for the girl to recover from it. At the same time, the presence of the Spirit only grew stronger.
Another strike prepared itself in the sky when the girl spoke again.
" Ok. Fine. I got cocky. You can stop your tantrum. " Her voice carried that tone of a slightly regretful maiden that was punished for stepping out of turn by her father, but deep down she did not regret her words or behavior.
At least it appeared that way to Yuan Ru. The Tribulation on the other hand struck down again.
After one more round of resisting, he saw her glare at the dark sky.
" I know you can hear my words. I can feel your gaze on me. Let's make a deal? What do you think? "
Yuan Ru wondered for a second if the girl became stupid by having her brain fried, only to remember that she had noticed his gaze too. And unlike the Dao Embodiment Cultivator who stood out like a lantern in the night sky, he had not been radiating his presence at all when she had noticed him.
The answer came down in the form of one more red lightning strike. This one brought the giant Jade Incarnation to its knees. Alongside it, Yuan Ru sensed the message it carried.
Once the lighting suffusing her Jade Incarnation diminished, he saw the girl stare back into the sky, only this time her Jade eyes no longer carried a calm gaze.
It wasn't hard for him to recognize what it was but there was an easier way to interpret it than just pure experience.
The mountain-sized monkey/gorilla on the Empress-styled robe stabbed the ax it held in its right hand into the earth and with both hands started slapping its bare chest like drums accompanying its roars.
It was as if its very defiance angered the Heavens when another red lighting descended on the girl.
The girl resisted but there was something more in her act of defiance.
There was a surety that would follow with its defiance as the giant Jade Incarnation stood up despite the interference of the red lightning. She pointed at the dark sky with her right forefinger and spoke with Rage infused in her voice.
" Listen up, Motherfucker. " The girl proclaimed in words that stunned Yuan Ru.
Not once has he ever heard of anybody addressing a Dao Embodying Cultivator as such, and none have dared either.
Her words did produce results as Yuan Ru felt the presence in the clouds pause for a second and thicken its attention on the individual that dared to address it as such.
" It has been barely three years since I recovered my memory on this Sphere and already I am resisting this much. What do you think will happen with more time? And trust me on this, I can escape from this place whenever I want. The only reason I have not is that my new family member needs my intervention. "
" So I will propose a Deal with you. Let this trial stay true to its true nature and I will not look for you and I will treat it as if this never happened. " The girl's voice declared. " But mark my words if you choose to ignore me. I will come for you and I will find you and I will not care who you are, where you live, or what your status is. All I will do is burn everything you hold dear in your heart to ashes. "
Even more shocked, Yuan Ru was without words for a few moments.
He knew not, if the girl was bluffing or not. Her expression and body language in the Jade Incarnation emanated only two things, Rage and conviction that she would indeed follow up on what she promised.
What he did know, however, was that his Divining sense was telling him that there was another shift in Fate.
It was minor compared to the one he felt not long ago, but it was there.
~ Revered Elder, I Yuan Ru, of Truth Seekers Sect (Qiú zhēn jiàopài) would like to offer my wisdom to diffuse this situation that you have been summoned to. ~
Yuan Ru hurriedly delivered to the presence in the clouds.
Instantly Yuan Ru felt its presence on him. Now that it had locked onto him, no longer could he hide from it. He stood up from his seat and bowed once to the presence in the dark clouds.
~ Speak. ~ Replied a male voice.
~ Thank you for giving me this opportunity. You have found yourself in a minor Empire called Azure Wind, on the eastern side of the Eternal Forest close to the border of the Tranquil Ocean. ~
~ Ah, then this would be Yu Long Tian's home. Your advice related to his branch here? ~
~ Partly, Revered Elder. I was on my Fated Journey when I felt a sudden shift in Fate. So I decided to investigate and arrived right as this event started. Still, I have observed enough to say that I am intervening on behalf of the girl that has insulted you, not for her sake, but for yours, Revered Elder. This Yu Jiao is a Child of the Heavens. As she made her declaration towards you I felt her shift Fate in her favor, so I intervened to advise you of the situation you found yourself in. ~
" Ugh, another one? Very well, I thank you for your service and will send the reward to the Truth Seekers Sect in your name. "
~ I was merely doing my duty as a Seeker, Revered Elder. ~ With that sent, the presence left and the conversation lasted but seconds ended.
With the presence gone Yuan Ru concealed himself again, more for his convenience than to hide from a Cultivator at the top.
Once he was seated down again, a change manifested in the sky. Part of the dark cloud under which this city found itself shifted in form as a face. Lightning gathered into its eyes as it gazed at the girl and her giant Jade Incarnation.
Then all under the sky heard its voice. " Tell me Child lost in Rage, who are you that you could… "
" Zip it with the 'I am so above you attitude.' " Interrupted the girl. " What will it be? Deal or No Deal? "
" Child lost in Rage, interrupt me again and I will not care if you stem from Long Tian's descent. I will erase you and this little city from existence. "
" Doubt it. " The girl bantered back at the face in the sky. " If you were here in person I am sure you could do it, but piggybacking on a Tribulation? Hell, No. Even if you were here, I could still escape and return for revenge in the future. Now that we both have said our desires, what will it be? Deal or No Deal? "
Despite seeing and hearing it all, Yuan Ru had to admit that whatever the outcome, once he returned with a recording of this, it would become a sensation to all.
" Are you so lost in your Rage that your mind can't comprehend what you are facing, or could it be that my reputation has so little value in your backwater Empire? " The voice wondered.
" Undoubtedly the second. " The girl replied without any hesitation straight to its giant cloudy face. " My Rage may be endless but it is not lost. On the other hand, my patience is finite and you have yet to answer. Deal or No Deal. If it's no Deal then I will be skimping to my hiding spot to bid myself a few decades before coming to find you and demolish everything. "
~ Is Fate still following her conviction? ~ A sudden message reached Yuan Ru.
~ Yes, the shift of Fate is still there, holding its breath as if her mare thought will decide the outcome. I am not sure how she is doing it, but I am having trouble Divining her Fate. Maybe it is the result of whatever she is practicing. My interpretation is that right now I can Divine her Fate because your appearance has created a tipping point for her Path forward. ~ Yuan Ru replied.
" A few decades, you say? Maybe I should take you on your offer. The current generation has become far too soft. Some hardship would do them good. " The face in the sky said with a joking voice. " Still, even if I do take you on your Deal of non-interference, your… father, I presume due to your resemblance, will still fail. However, he arrived at this point, without my intervention the Tribulation will still end him as his Soul Creation is interrupted and he is blown apart by his own undoing. That being said, what can you offer me for my intervention? "
" Sneaky bastard. " Yuan Ru heard her murmur from her real body, hanging from her uncle's shoulder like a bag of rice, while her giant Jade Incarnation stood stock still.
" How about a… No. I am not stupid to send free gifts just like that. " The girl sternly replied. " If you don't interfere, you will not only lose a possible new Path for the Jade Dao but still deal with my revenge. Intervene, and both can be prevented. The choice is yours but I am sure someone like you will not fail to make the correct decision. "
~ What are the chances that all of this had been orchestrated by her from the beginning? ~
~ I can't deny it but from what I have observed so far, it's not that high. Her behavior indicated far more instinctual reaction to events than preplanning, I could be wrong though. ~
~ Sigh. Hate their kind. ~
~ Revered Elder, I believe my Fated Journey has led me to her. I will stay by her side and observe her behavior. Once I have concluded enough, I will send you a free copy of the summary. ~
~ Very well. ~
" There will be repercussions. Expect visitors in the near future. " The face declared and transformed itself back into free-flowing dark clouds full of white lightning snakes.
Still, while the face may have vanished, the presence of the Dao Embodying Cultivator remained and kept the Tribulation in check.
The young girl's giant Jade Incarnation released a sigh and suddenly snapped out of existence.
The moment that she did, Yuan Ru felt the build-up of Fate seep away. Once more he played with his Divination Compass to predict where the flow of Fate went, only to receive a familiar answer.
Shaking his head, Yuan Ru changed his approach. No longer would he rely that heavily on it when it concerned this individual. Instead, he would rely on his own perceptions and conclusions.
Done with his contemplation, Yuan Ru sent one final message to the hidden presence in the dark clouds.
Knowing where to look next, Yuan Ru observed her real body as it wiggled out of her uncle's grasp. Moments later she was back sitting on her inverted gauntlet chair.
All her actions had been sluggish in behavior and her face projected a tired expression just waiting to fall asleep and recover.
When she looked around she noticed that things had happened during her actions.
There were a lot more people in the sky in battle positions. Some looked like they had been interrupted in the middle of their fight.
However, It was one presence that took all of her attention.
In that one's direction, she saw a man wearing Dragon robes, making him the Emperor of this little Empire.
He and some more guards were standing beside a knocked-out Xia Renshu.
From their presence, it was easy to imply that there would be no Duel to Death anymore.
" Well, Father won't be happy about that. " Yuan Ru heard her say. " Still beats the alternative in my mind. "
" True. " Her uncle responded. " Your face is telling me it wants to retire. How are you feeling? "
" I will be fine with some time to recover. Could have been worse if my bluff had not worked. "
" I don't know how much that Cultivator can sense right now but are you sure you should be admitting it? Although I am curious how much of that was bluff and how much was the truth? " Her uncle admitted in curiosity.
Hearing it mentioned, Yuan Ru had to admit that he too was wondering about that fact.
" Haha, Interested, are you? " The girl laughed weakly. " Uncle I could have been spouting pure crap out of my mouth and he would have believed me. Either way, now it's too late for him to take back his actions. "
" Hmm, does it have to do with his preconception of you being lost in emotions? " Her uncle wondered.
" Partly. " Came the answer. " The Rage is something I inherited from my Original. It's so ingrained in my psyche that even if I was chopped into pieces and reassembled completely wrong it would find a way to manifest itself and rip the bastard that did it into minced meat. I refused any knowledge of how it manifested for the first time, as this is a fresh new life, but I can imagine it wasn't anything pretty. "
" Either way, aside from the mental and physical strength boost, it clouds the judgment of those that rely on Karma/Fate/Destiny Insight by locking my decision with unimaginable willpower to stand up to my own declarations, no matter the consequences or the blockades baring my way. "
" With it, I can bluff anybody, no matter if what I am saying is a lie or a truth. At least it does if my circumstances are going in my favor. " The young girl was admitted without care.
" Fascinating, but you still have not told me how much of it was a lie and how much truth? "
" It does not matter, Uncle. " The girl replied stoically. " You should be happy that it worked at all. Otherwise, if he had sent a few more of those red lightning strikes, I would have had no choice but to redirect the attack somewhere else instead of resisting and absorbing it myself. "
" I see. Wait… you are talking about me? " The uncle stared at his niece.
" Yes, Uncle. You are big, strong, and tough. Most of all, all I needed to do was place a hand on your Jade Skin Armor to initiate the transfer. It would have injured me, but it would beat the alternative. " The girl admitted.
" When you say it like that I can't seem to find a way to refute it. " The uncle reluctantly admitted. "Sigh, sometimes I wonder how it would be to be in Third's place. Being the eldest, everybody tries to rely on me when it suits them. "
" Well, I don't know anything about that. In that life, I had no brothers or sisters. It was just the lonesome me. " With that said Yuan Ru turned away from their conversation that talked about mundane stuff.
There was one thing that bothered him though.
' I do not regret doing my duty as Truth Seeker but was I manipulated by her? ' Yuan Ru thought.
Pondering it for a moment he shook his head and decided to be more careful in his interactions with her in the future.
***
Here I am back in my floating gauntlet chair, bruised and battered in more than one way.
All my Abilities were in recovery mode, especially BIOS as it deals with the chemical strain my body endured from the Endless Rage Augment.
With it on, my physical and mental stats skyrocket, and as long as it's running I can keep going and going, but once it stops all I desire is a very long nap as my body rest plus lots of food after that.
The physical body was better in this case as it had basically become a sack of potatoes basically, but on the mental side, I was barely hanging in there.
The mental battle with Xia Renshu and the subsequent enduring of lots of lightning does bring people down.
As my body and mind recovered slowly, I watched Father still stuck in his meditation pose and wondered how long this would take.
So far I have been privileged to witness three Tribulations.
One was the old healer, He Shoushan, a month into my arrival.
The second was Gao Junjie, a bit more than a year ago. His was far more normal, from what I was told when compared to the old healer.
He had received nine lightning strikes to his Core before it transformed into a Soul of Qi. That was eight more than the old healer got, and now I was about to see what happens when you have three Cores.
In theory, I knew what would happen was the same as what happens with two of them, but Father's third Core was different from the others.
' At least it should be if my update on the Seed works as intended. '
Yet, what I am curious about the most is the Ability that he will manifest.
Time passed and I grew bored just staring at Father and waiting for something to happen. Tilting my head left and right I observed as people had been slowly leaving their hideouts to observe the sky without any worry for their lives.
Plenty of faces had shock written on them. Most of them were commoners or the worker class.
The constant battle and the unflinching thunder must have scared them to hell and back. After all, there had not been an event like this happening in a long, long time and if it did it never happened to their eyes.
Those that carried a more wary but wondering expression, are probably those that risked watching everything happen or a majority of it.
' I can already imagine the stories that will proliferate from them, but I do wonder how I will be described in them. '
Whatever it was, the more they talked and rumored about me the greater my reward will be.
RUMBLE.
That was when thunder sounded out again. Lots of the commoners flinched when it came.
I on the other hand stopped my observations and stared at Father.
Nothing was happening immediately but soon three lights manifested above his head.
The moment they did, a negatively charged lightning strike came down from the dark clouds and hit all three of the Cores. Then came another and another and another and another.
By the time all of it stopped, those cores had endured 27 lightning strikes, nine for each one of them.
Once they were done, one transformed into a transparent baby made out of Qi.
Its features resembled my father but that was not the end. Moments later the second core transformed too into another transparent baby and merged with the first one.
Immediately a transformation happened as the baby grew with remarkable speed. It took seconds to go from toddler to child, to teenager of about 10 years of age.
Then the third core did the same and the Soul of Qi began to age once more. This time it stopped when my father reached the age of a young man, about 20 years of age.
Moments passed. I waited for the Soul of Qi to enter my father's body, as I imagined would happen, when an additional transformation began to show itself.
This time the change did not stop until there was no age distinction between it and his physical body, but that was not all.
A moment after that, the Soul of Qi began to lose its transparency as its body attained a green glow resembling Jade.
I was too far away to notice if anything was changing inside it but on the outside, it began to manifest Jade Skin Armor.
This one contained similar markings, to the ones he had shown to me before the shit hit the fan and he lost his Ability.
That was not all, though, When the Jade Skin Armor manifested two growths began to appear in two different locations on its body.
The first was in the right hand as a sword manifested. To me, it looked the same as the one he had already fought with.
It was the second that surprised me.
On top of his head, where the bun for holding his hair in check resided a bump appeared.
At first, I imagined that he would recover his crown, but as the bump grew like a balloon filled with air, it separated when it reached about half a meter in radius.
Then it floated behind his head and another transformation began. Its balloon shape flattened and in its center, a hollow appeared.
Moments later it became a ring and I recognized immediately that it took on the shape of a real Halo. It was kind of obvious to be honest, as Father had asked some questions regarding mine and its function, but for him to gain one was a surprise.
Moments later a few more bumps grew from my father's head and became smaller balloons. They too separated and positioned themselves into the hollow of the Halo ring, as it floated vertically, right behind his head.
Those smaller balloons transformed into words.
Once they positioned themselves vertically in the Halo ring as well, I recognized what they said.
When read from top to bottom it said, Jade Above All.