A Will Eternal

As soon as Bai Xiaochun sensed the incredible pressure, he shivered, and began to pant. His cultivation base began to rotate of its own accord, almost as if he had just encountered some deadly situation.

Thankfully, he had already absorbed the quintessence of the sovereign’s flesh and blood, otherwise the pressure wouldn’t have caused his cultivation base to rotate, but rather, would have suppressed it all the way to the limit.

The truth was that there hadn’t even been a bit of goodwill in the spirit automaton’s offer. He had hoped to test out how much of the flesh and blood quintessence Bai Xiaochun had absorbed, and if he ended up being suppressed, he could have pressed an attack.

When he saw that Bai Xiaochun’s cultivation base was merely rotating rapidly, he sighed and dismissed the idea. Then, he watched helplessly as Bai Xiaochun prepared to absorb seventy percent of the cultivation base aura.

The aura wasn’t corporeal, but did take the shape of a black crystal, which Bai Xiaochun quickly grabbed out of the air.

As soon as he touched it, his aura began to fluctuate wildly, and his cultivation base began to rotate with unprecedented speed. All of a sudden, he felt himself capable of thinking more clearly than ever, and capable of understanding things that had long been difficult for him to grasp.

“This stuff is awesome!” he exclaimed in delight.

The spirit automaton remained off to the side, torn about the whole situation. He obviously wanted to stop what was happening, but the chunk of flesh Bai Xiaochun had given him was too small. And he was worried that if he got greedy, Bai Xiaochun would change the deal and not give him what he had promised.

The spirit automaton briefly considered using the sovereign aura he had command over to try to threaten or extort Bai Xiaochun, but quickly abandoned the idea. Considering how much he knew of Bai Xiaochun’s shameless and crafty nature, it seemed likely it would only be asking for trouble.

“Dammit! I’ll just cooperate this once. Sooner or later, I’ll get my chance to destroy him!” Gnashing his teeth, he watched as Bai Xiaochun delightedly looked at the crystal and the sovereign’s flesh.

Around the time the spirit automaton was starting to get impatient, Bai Xiaochun reluctantly put the crystal and the chunk of flesh away, then pulled out another small chunk and tossed it over.

And thus, keeping careful control over the size of the chunks of flesh, he had the spirit automaton extract the aura from almost the entire corpse. In the end, he didn’t go back on his word. He took the largest piece he had, which was about twice as big as the other pieces he had produced during the process, and tossed it to the spirit automaton.

“Don’t you dare say that Lord Bai is untrustworthy. I’m the most trustworthy person you know!”

The spirit automaton was cursing inwardly, but didn’t let it show. He simply grabbed the chunk of flesh.

He didn’t extract the aura of this one like he had with the other pieces. Instead, he tried to fuse with it. This time, because Bai Xiaochun didn’t interfere with the process, he succeeded in about the time it takes half an incense stick to burn. At that point, the chunk of flesh vanished, and the spirit automaton was no longer visible.

Now he had a physical body!

It was a strange body, being only a lump of skin the size of a watermelon, with some crude facial features. Overall, he looked quite strange.

“So that’s what you look like!” Bai Xiaochun said, looking at him closely.

“What are you lookin’ at!?” the lump of skin said, glaring at him.

“What, I’m not allowed to look or something?” Bai Xiaochun said, glaring back, fully confident in his skill in staring at people. “Man, so ugly!”

Feeling provoked, the spirit automaton stared back for a long moment. However, as the pressure built, and he felt more and more uncomfortable, he mumbled some excuses and then hopped over toward the nearest fan rib and vanished.

“Hmph! Thinks he can win a staring contest with me?! Yeah right!” Feeling quite proud of himself, he rubbed his bag of holding, marveling at how much he had profited. Although he hadn’t experienced a massive windfall, the sovereign aura he did gain was enough to be happy about.

“I wonder what I’ll be able to do with it…?” he thought, licking his lips. Glancing around to make sure he was alone, he pulled out one of the black crystals and sent some divine sense into it.

Rumbling sounds filled his mind as both his cultivation base and thinking ability seemed to grow stronger. He felt unprecedentedly focused, with more control over his cultivation base and energy passageways than he had ever experienced.

It was as if he could understand anything he set his mind to, and control everything about himself.

“The third level of the Time Immemorial Codex!” His eyes shone with bright light as he realized that he could try to use the sovereign aura to make progress with the third level of the Time Immemorial Codex.

One black crystal after another vanished. After absorbing about thirty percent of the total amount of the sovereign aura he had, he opened his eyes.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he was sure of one thing; the sovereign aura was incredibly useful. Although he hadn’t achieved the progress he wanted with his Time Immemorial Codex, he was more than halfway there.

And it wasn’t that he couldn’t finish the work if he didn’t want to. Rather, he had come to realize that there was something very unique about his Time Immemorial Codex. When he finished, it would become part of him, as if it were branded inside of him. He wouldn’t even need to cultivate it at that point; it would automatically propagate itself.

However, he needed to be at the late Celestial Realm for it to work. Otherwise, his body wouldn’t be able to sustain the force.

“I need to stop and wait until I reach the late Celestial Realm….” At this point, his eyes shone with anticipation; he was now completely and utterly confident that he would be able to finish the third level of the Time Immemorial Codex when the time was right.

“This sovereign aura is like a precious treasure!” He looked down at the remaining black crystals, of which there were over a dozen. As of now, he was sure that these items were what the Vile-Emperor and Saint-Emperor wanted.

“What a pity that I have to leave thirty percent of the sovereign’s flesh and blood behind…. There must be seven or eight crystals’ worth of aura in there.” Although it seemed like a bit of a waste, he knew that he couldn’t do anything more. If he took the rest of the aura, he wouldn’t be able to hand anything over to the Saint-Emperor. What he planned to hand over was already missing seventy percent of its original aura, but Bai Xiaochun was the only one to have got his hands on the lizard, and therefore, no one but he knew exactly how much was there to begin with.

Neither of the two emperors would have any idea, and in fact, it would take a lot of hard work and preparation on their part to even extract the aura that was left.

“Ah, whatever.” Forgetting any thoughts of taking the remaining thirty percent, he decided that he was done for now. Eyes flashing with determination, he began to fade away as he left the damaged fan.

When he reappeared, he was back in the second immortal domain!

Thirteen days had passed since he went missing!!

During that time, the celestials from both imperial dynasties had been going crazy searching the area covered by the spiderweb. Even when they encountered certain dangerous situations, they had no choice but to keep up the search.

They had looked high and low, but not found a single clue about where Bai Xiaochun was. The two emperors had continued to grow anxious, but had prevented each other from entering. The only thing they were sure about was that none of the celestials under their command had been killed.

However, they had no clue about what else was going on.

As the mad search continued, Bai Xiaochun materialized in the exact same spot he had disappeared from. As soon as he appeared, he backed up cautiously, and sent divine sense out to check his surroundings.

Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how cautious he was; it was in almost the exact same instant that he appeared that an excited voice rang out.

“So, you came back here, Bai Xiaochun!” Along with the voice came the projection of an enormous hand, which shot toward him.

That hand belonged to none other than Celestial Aged Spirit!

Unlike the other celestials, Celestial Aged Spirit had had dealings with Bai Xiaochun. After Gu Tianjun and the others went out to search, Celestial Aged Spirit thought about the situation more, and came to the conclusion that something strange was going on. As such, he had decided to wait in the spot that Bai Xiaochun had disappeared from, to keep watch.

On many occasions during the past thirteen days, he had questioned that decision, but now that he saw Bai Xiaochun materializing in front of his very eyes, he went wild with joy. He also attacked immediately. However, he was the cautious type, and knew that Bai Xiaochun was in the mid Celestial Realm, and possessed his Greatsword of the North, which would make it difficult to defeat him quickly. Therefore, he also pulled out a transmission jade slip to send a message to his fellows.

When Bai Xiaochun saw that, he quickly said, “Fellow Daoist Aged Spirit! Shhh….”

Then, he pulled out a chunk of the sovereign’s flesh and tossed it over to him.