Day of Ascension

Xu Ying muttered, “I am definitely human, not a demon! I lived in Xujiaping with my father and my mother. Both my parents were human. My father’s name is Xu An, and my mother’s name is Tian Ruijun. She’s from Tianjiaping Village. I still remember the way to Xujiaping and Tianjiaping. I am definitely human...”

Xu Ying’s mumblings puzzled Yuanqi. If he really is human, how did he master demonic cultivation techniques and fist art? It’s like he is one part human and two parts demon.

Xu Ying dropped his worries and channeled the Grand-Unity Guiding Method to absorb the essence of sunlight as he walked.

Ever since he reached the sixth level in the Elephant-Bull Demon Fist, the light particle storm between Xu Ying’s breaths had become unmistakable. As he breathed, the storm entered him.

He channeled the Thunderous-Rumble Tempering and the Great-Sun Tempering to refine away the leftover True Yang Vital Energy inside him and mend his injuries.

Since he hadn’t unlocked his Mud-Pill Secret Trove, he couldn’t heal his injuries quickly like Ding Quan or Wei Chu.

His battle with Huang Siping had nearly disemboweled him and left him with an injury so deep that his rib was exposed. Even healed, he’d carry a gruesome scar.

Xu Ying sighed, thinking, How great would it be if I knew the techniques of Dragon Tracking and unlocking my Secret Trove...

Unlocking the Mud-Pill Secret Trove and attaining an undying body was indeed something to envy.

Moreover, my face would surely become a lot whiter. Maybe I could make a living with my face.

He had an unrealistic dream in his heart.

He told Yuanqi, “Godfather told me that rich madams in big cities love young men with fair complexion. When we couldn’t afford food, he thought of selling me to them, yet my complexion wasn’t fair enough to sell. Our neighbor, Jiang Shouzheng, managed to fetch a good price for his boy, and he now lives well in the city.”

After a moment of silence, Yuanqi asked, “Don’t you think it’s rather pathetic?”

Xu Ying smiled purely. “These days, it’s good enough to survive. He eats better and dresses warmer than I do.”

He seemed envious of the boy who had been sold.

A massive skeleton lay in the river channel at the mountain’s foot. Its fingertip alone was taller than Xu Ying.

Xu Ying and Yuanqi walked along the massive skeleton, passing through the ribcage. The two halted and looked up at the thick ribs, feeling a bizarre sense of the surreal.

Xu Ying murmured, “Is this one of the beings on the surface of the Hell River that attacked the abandoned temple last night?”

There was no telling if this skeleton belonged to a god, a demon, or some other creature. The bronze bell had killed it, and its corpse fell into Hell River, which dissolved its flesh and blood.

As they passed by the skeleton, they heard a strange sound, like thousands of people whispering.

Yuanqi said, “Gods feast on offerings, gaining mystical power after a century and achieving a sixteen-chi golden body after three. This must’ve been a god. The whispers are the god’s incense qi playing tricks. Incense qi is their mystical power. This god died, but his incense qi hasn’t completely dissipated yet.”

Shocked, Xu Ying examined the skeleton. “How many years does it take to become such a massive god?”

Yuanqi shook his head. “A sixteen-chi golden body takes three centuries. This god’s skeleton is thirty to forty zhang long. I’m afraid it’ll take over ten thousand years of offerings to produce such a powerful golden god. I’ve read countless books, yet recorded history only spans three thousand years. How did a ten-thousand-year-old god come to be?”

Xu Ying stared intently at the golden patterns flickering on the skeleton, his mind filled with questions.

They continued forward, passing through the mountain forests of Anzi Ridge, and came across another corpse blocking the river channel. This one was even larger, though only the upper half remained. Even from afar, they could see some flesh still squirming slowly against the thick bones.

Xu Ying and Yuanqi were just about to approach it when a flock of wild birds flew overhead. A black mass flew over the river channel. Suddenly, the flesh on the bones shot out at once like frogs’ tongues, coiling around the flock of wild birds and pulling them into the river channel.

The birds cried in alarm, and feathers flew everywhere. Soon, it fell silent. Bird bones and feathers now littered the ground.

The flesh on the corpse churned, becoming fuller than before.

Xu Ying and Yuanqi’s hair stood on end. They held their breaths and quickly went around the river channel.

However, the massive corpse then raised its head. Its hollow eyes “looked” in their direction. The head was like a mountain of flesh, with fleshy growths writhing across the surface.

Xu Ying shouted urgently, “Run, quick!”

The two ran for their lives. The half-corpse crawled with its arms at blinding speed, pursuing along the river channel.

After chasing them for a short while, it lost track of them and finally gave up.

Xu Ying and Yuanqi ran desperately and only stopped once they realized that they had arrived at Mount Jian. They finally breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the strange corpse had stopped chasing after them.

Yuanqi exclaimed, “Look, it’s Mount Jian!”

Xu Ying looked up and saw a huge chunk missing from the summit of Mount Jian, as if some massive creature had taken a bite out of it. Small rocks were scattered on this side, suggesting something had rammed into the peak.

Xu Ying shook his head. “The world is getting more and more chaotic.”

Ahead of them was a mountain ravine. Water flowed gently, about three to four zhang wide. It was so clear that its bottom was visible. It was currently the dry season. In the rainy season, mountain torrents surge downstream, making it extremely dangerous.

Yuanqi went to the other side of the ravine to hunt. Meanwhile, Xu Ying stripped naked and jumped into the stream. He washed himself and his clothes clean of blood. Afterward, he put on the wet clothes and channeled his vital energy. Steam rose from him; before long, his clothes were dry.

At that moment, he heard Yuanqi shriek. Xu Ying ran over and saw devastation. Snapped trees were everywhere. A wave of heat hit him, intensifying as he approached.

Xu Ying advanced dozens of steps and saw that the trees had all collapsed, bent in the same direction.

In the middle of the fallen trees, a bronze bell, slightly taller than an adult human, floated two chi above ground. Various strange patterns flickered inconsistently on its surface.

As the patterns flickered, the bell rose and fell accordingly. Stranger still, it slowly grew when it rose and shrank when it fell.

It seemed to be breathing.

On the surface of the bell was a delicate palm imprint, over three cun deep. It had nearly punched through the metal. Considering the size of the palm and the fingers, a woman seemed to have dented it.

Xu Ying couldn’t help but recall the female ghost in the coffin from the night before. Judging by the palm imprint, it could be that pretty female ghost.

Strange patterns coiled around the imprint. One moment, they surged; the next, they collapsed inward. The imprint seemed to contain terrifying power that was steadily destroying the bell’s internal structure.

Even more peculiar was that Xu Ying sensed the bronze bell was using a strange breathing technique to tap into its potential to oppose the terrifying power within the palm imprint.

It was healing itself!

Nearby, Yuanqi had a black wild boar weighing roughly ten jin in its jaws. It had already succumbed to poison. He was also pinning down another black wild boar that was still alive.

The snake and boar’s eyes were wide, looking at the bronze bell in terror.

“How could that bell be here? Wasn’t it swept into the underworld? Did it smash open the gap on Mount Jian?”

Xu Ying advanced cautiously. From a distance, he reached out his hand and whispered, “Is it injured?”

Frantic with worry, Yuanqi hissed in a low voice, “Don’t do anything reckless! You will get us both killed!”

Xu Ying mustered his courage and moved closer, one careful step at a time.

Yuanqi cried out, “Xu Ying, come back! You still haven’t produced an offspring for the Jiang family. If you die, their bloodline ends!”

Xu Ying’s hand gradually drew closer to the bronze bell.

Suddenly, the bell froze in place. It stopped rising and falling. Stopped expanding and shrinking.

Yuanqi cried out in shock and held his breath. Xu Ying felt as if the bell had a pair of eyes and was staring at him, waiting to see what he would do next.

The surrounding temperature rose sharply. The fallen trees crackled from the heat and exploded one after another.

Xu Ying stopped moving.

Moments later, the bell resumed its strange rhythm: rising and falling, expanding and shrinking, and struggling against the palm imprint. Evidently, the bell didn’t think Xu Ying posed any threat.

Sensing that the surrounding temperature had cooled significantly, he stealthily took a step forward and continued reaching out.

The bell halted again. He stopped with it.

Yuanqi and the black wild boar both felt their hearts leap into their throats.

The bell continued to rise and fall, breathing. Xu Ying gently placed his palm on the bell, felt it, and smiled in satisfaction.

Yuanqi whispered, “You risked getting crushed so that you could touch it?”

Xu Ying smiled. “It’s all thanks to the bell that we survived the Hell River changing course last night. It’s hurt. Of course, we have to touch it to comfort it. Back home, I pet the cats and dogs the same way to calm them.”

Yuanqi thought that made a strange kind of sense. Just as Xu Ying turned his head, a loud clang rang. The bronze bell fell from the air and crashed to the ground.

Startled, Xu Ying spun back around. The bell trembled endlessly. The patterns on it were in disarray, flickering and twitching wildly.

It looked like a gravely wounded person on the verge of death.

Yuanqi shrieked hoarsely, “Come back now! It’s about to die! When it explodes, your whole head will be hit and covered in blood!”

Xu Ying wasn’t sure if the violently trembling bell would explode. He hurriedly walked toward Yuanqi.

After only two steps, he heard metal scraping against the ground. He turned and saw the bell right behind him, having closed that distance already. Moreover, it was still trembling, like a dying creature in its death throes.

Xu Ying advanced again, and the bell dragged itself across the same distance. He took yet another step. Convulsing, the bell did as well.

Xu Ying quickly strode. The bell slid forward, clanging loudly as it followed him.

Yuanqi whispered in a high pitch, “You’re being played! Because you touched it earlier, it has now latched onto you! It’s too injured to protect itself, so now it’s clinging to you! I told you, you can’t just help old ladies cross the road.”

The little black wild boar nodded profusely in complete agreement.

Xu Ying dashed off. The bell followed right behind him, knocking and clanging. It emitted smoke and kicked up dust.

He darted between two large trees. Behind him, two loud snaps rang out. The two trees fell in unison.

Xu Ying jumped over a boulder about two to three adults tall. In the next moment, the bell turned it to dust. It clanged loudly, still following him relentlessly.

He ran back. Yuanqi and the little black boar looked behind him. The large bell was still dragging itself across the ground, crashing and clanging through everything in its path.

The youth stopped with a numb expression. Two trails of tears rolled down his cheek.

Xu Ying looked up to the sky to prevent the tears from rolling into his mouth. “I killed people and slew gods. Now, the city god and the government want me dead. And with this giant bell following behind me, making sure everyone can see and hear it... I might not even live for another half day.”

The large bell behind him silently rose into the air. It slowly spun, shrinking smaller and smaller. Finally, with a swish, it entered the back of his head!

Noticing Yuanqi and the little black boar looking behind him in horror, he quickly turned his head around, only to discover that the large bell had vanished without a trace. Feeling both shocked and delighted, he smiled. “I finally got rid of that burden.”

Yuanqi pointed at Xu Ying’s head with the tip of his tail, fumbling for words. Just as he was about to say something, a bell chime rang in Yuanqi’s mind. He felt a chill run down his spine, and his tail went limp.

Xu Ying sized up the little black boar that Yuanqi had pinned down. “Yuanqi, you caught two wild boars, but I think this one possesses some spirituality. Why don’t we release it?”

He replied, “That black boar died from my venom, and there’s no antidote for it. You will surely die if you eat it. This one is not poisoned. Are you sure you want to release it?”

Before long, two black wild boars hung over a fire, glistening. Their fat dripped into the fire, filling the air with the smoky scent of pine wood and the aroma of roast meat.

After eating their fill, Xu Ying and Yuanqi continued their journey toward Mount Wu Wang.

“Xiao Qi, for some reason, I keep hearing a bell whenever I shake my head.” Xu Ying shook his head, puzzled. He perked his ears up to listen carefully for a moment. “I think I’m hearing things.”

Yuanqi looked down solemnly without saying a word.

Xu Ying shook his head again, and he heard a bell chime again.

Stop shaking, or you might shake it off! Yuanqi worried inwardly, afraid that the bell would burst through Xu Ying’s skull if he shook too hard.

It was not just the bell chimes. Xu Ying also felt strangely lacking in vital energy. After walking only a short distance, he would already be short of breath. He just assumed that his injuries simply had not healed yet.

Watching all this, Yuanqi was so terrified that his soul nearly left him. In just a few moments, Xu Ying seemed to wither away. His face turned pale and sallow, and dark circles gathered beneath his eyes, as if a female ghost had drained him dry after three hundred rounds.

At that moment, a sonorous voice rang in Xu Ying’s mind like a mighty bell. “Young man, do you know what’s Inner Vision and Actualization?”

Xu Ying froze. He hurriedly cried out, “Who is it? Who’s talking?”

Yuanqi also froze. He looked around. “Someone spoke? I didn’t hear anything.”

In Xu Ying’s mind, the voice lazily added, “Your vital energy is abundant, and you have already reached the peak of the Qi-Gathering Stage, yet you know nothing of Inner Vision and Actualization. That’s why your cultivation cannot progress any further.”

Xu Ying looked left and right, but he didn’t see anyone speaking. He probed, “May I ask, Senior, what is Inner Vision and Actualization? How do I observe the inner self? And how do I actualize?”

“What is Inner Vision and Actualization? One who observes the internal draws sustenance from within. In the Qi-Gathering Stage, one harvests the essence of sunlight. That is drawing from outside, harvesting essence to replenish one’s vital energy. Inner Vision, however, is to look within, open the realm of the ethereal void, and observe the five viscera and six bowels within.

“It is an extraordinary sight, profound and illusory. At that stage, you begin the process of Five-Qi Origin Convergence. When the five qi are harmonized and transformed into primordial qi, you have truly achieved advanced proficiency in the Qi-Gathering Stage. Only then can one perceive the mystic gateway within to advance to the next realm.”

Xu Ying was puzzled. “Senior, the next realm you mentioned doesn’t match the cultivation path of Exorcists. Are you referring to the way of demonic cultivation?”

Hearing Xu Ying murmuring, Yuanqi hurriedly looked over. He saw Xu Ying talking to the air, acting suspiciously. What’s going on with him?

Confused, the voice replied, “What is an Exorcist? I’m talking about Qi Cultivators! Aren’t you a Qi Cultivator?”