My Little Ghost

Volume 1.4.7 — The Transcendence

The next moment that Bai Bing Wen opens his eyes, he’s greeted with a familiar scene in which three pairs of eyes are staring at him. Only this time, he already knows who these people are.

“How do you feel?”

At Meng Zhang’s question, Bai Bing Wen sits up, assessing himself. He’s surprised to find out that he’s already feeling a bit of control over his core. “I’m alright,” he answers. “I’m back to basic learning, I guess, but I can at least feel my spiritual power now.”

Meng Zhang hands him a wooden cup. “What happened?”

Bai Bing Wen readily takes the tonic in one mouthful, already feeling himself getting revitalized. “That was the longest duration that I’ve handled a communication array. I probably ran out of spiritual power after handling it for so long.”

“And maybe because the cultivation level is only mirrored so it also became a factor?” Meng Zhang asks.

Bai Bing Wen nods at him. “Maybe. I’ll try again after I regain my original cultivation.”

Meng Zhang sighs, looking worriedly at him. “Let’s not push it too far next time. You should’ve told us you were no longer feeling okay. We would’ve stopped.”

“It’s just...” Bai Bing Wen sighs, too, trying to find words that won’t make him sound too desperate for someone’s presence whom he practically only met a few days ago. But he ends up being all too honest when he says,“I really wanted to hear his voice for as long as I could. I’m sorry.”

Silence falls upon them for a few seconds. Although Bai Bing Wen doesn’t want to come off as someone who’stoo impatient, he just can’t sit still and wait for something to progress without doing anything about it. Especially now that Ji Feng Huang is suffering alone in a huge palace where everyone is a suspect in wanting the two of them dead.

Not only is the little ghost alone. He’s also fallen ill with a broken limb and is fighting against thousands of imperial guards and the sneaky Shadow Empress. Not to mention the yet to be seen enemies that haven’t come to light yet.

Everything is falling apart in that palace and it’s not long before someone notices that their Crown Prince is also not acting accordingly.

“Get some rest. We’re going somewhere for a little while.”

This time, it’s Ling Guang who just spoke so Bai Bing Wen gives him a confused look. “All three of you?”

“Just tell him the truth,” Meng Zhang says, staring exasperatedly at Ling Guang.

“Fine.” Ling Guang rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re going to interrogate the prisoner. And we’re not bringing you with us because you’re useless.”

“That’s not what you said,” Jian Bing immediately denies.

“He said, he’s worried that the berserker might use his cultivation to oppress you and now that your dantian is emitting an aura again, it also means you have your spiritual energy back,” Meng Zhang answers instead. “And having your spiritual energy back means Feng-Feng’s protection on your dantian will be reactivated. Because of that, if the berserker uses his cultivation to oppress you, the oppressive aura would backfire on Feng-Feng, just like what it did when we first met. Regardless of how high Feng-Feng’s cultivation is, he has no other way of dodging this attack because it’s supposed to target your inferior dantian. Right now, with Feng-Feng’s weak state, an oppression coming from a high level cultivator is the last thing he needs.”

Because of Meng Zhang’s explanation, Bai Bing Wen finally understands what happened during that encounter. He might not be sure which of Ji Feng Huang’s protective measures on him got activated at that time but he’s certain that it was Ji Feng Huang’s protection that saved him from that trouble.

“I understand,” he tells them. “I’ll stay here.”

Meng Zhang is still looking at him with worried eyes. “We’ll try that array later if you can teach us. But if it’s going to make you feel uncomfortable, then we’ll just have to wait until Feng-Feng is back.”

“Yes,” Bai Bing Wen answers, giving them a small smile.

After the three of them leave, Bai Bing Wen sits in a meditative pose on the bed, finally able to make use of his storage space. He brings out the scroll that Meng Zhang has lent him. And by staring at it for longer with so much more focus this time, he’s realized three fundamental facts about the scroll.

First, the characters still don’t make sense to him.

Second, despite not being able to make sense of the characters, he feels a dizzying sensation at the back of his eyes the longer he stares at the scroll and his very little spiritual force being shaken.

Third, after staring at it some more, Bai Bing Wen feels like the scroll is asking him to do something, anything to it.

And so he does.

He tries infusing his spiritual energy onto the scroll and at last, the characters start forming in the air with bluish-green light and the sign of azure dragon surrounding them. He reads the characters in his mind and imprints them onto his spiritual cognition before closing his eyes and letting the unfamiliar cultivation sink into his core.

In the sea of his spiritual cognition, he sees a few specks of light representing the azure dragon. He watches as they blend thoroughly with the golden specks and the blue ones. When everything is steady and the spiritual energy in his body is flowing smoothly on its own, Bai Bing Wen opens his meridians to let out the corrupted energy and borrows the pure one from the environment. His core gets filled up with warmth and the frost surrounding it strengthens a bit more as his cultivation stabilizes.

He doesn’t even realize the time that has passed.

Later that day, when Meng Zhang comes back to check on him, he surprises himself when he sees that Bai Bing Wen has advanced to the last light of the first level after seven hours of cultivating.

“How is this possible?”

Bai Bing Wen assesses himself and looks back up at Meng Zhang. “I’ve followed the cultivation process of the azure dragon bloodline.”

“But I thought you said you couldn’t—”

The door suddenly opens to a breathless Ling Guang. “Who’s advancing?”

Meng Zhang worriedly turns to look at Bai Bing Wen before asking, “Are you ready?”

Confused, Bai Bing Wen glances at Ling Guang then looks back at Meng Zhang. “For what?”

“It’s coming,” Jian Bing’s voice is heard somewhere outside the room. A few seconds later, he slides the door further and observes everyone. “I can’t be wrong. The clouds are directly above the house so someone inside is advancing.”

“It’s Xiao Bing,” Meng Zhang shortly answers. Then his gaze turns back to Bai Bing Wen as he asks for the second time, “Are you ready?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Bai Bing Wen answers honestly. “I just advanced a few several lights higher. How is this happening? And how do you know?”

“It probably doesn’t work the same way in his world,” Ling Guang says, walking into the room and reaching a hand out. “Can I check your cultivation?”

Still a bit lost, Bai Bing Wen reaches back for that hand. “What’s going on?” He wonders why Ling Guang has to touch his wrist to know of his cultivation when everyone can just take a single look at him and know that he’s only at the last light of the first level.

“Your aura is fortunately steady. You must have found the right cultivation manual for your core. But you need to get out now if you don’t want to destroy the house,” Ling Guang tells him.

Bai Bing Wen looks at Meng Zhang to ask for further explanation but he sees Meng Zhang whispering enchantments onto Clover. When he looks around, Ling Guang is also preparing his arrow and Jian Bing is nowhere to be seen again.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Bai Bing Wen helplessly says, looking around him.

“Here in our world, when you’re advancing to the next level, you’re supposed to face the clouds of lightning tribulations of the Heavenly Order, for you to be granted permission to advance in your cultivation,” Ling Guang hurriedly explains, replicating his red glowing arrows and placing them in a tube-like holder. “You have to endure two strikes of lightning with a strong and steady aura. Two strikes for level two, three strikes for level three, and so on. If you have spiritual weapons that can help you endure lightning strikes, then you might as well prepare them now because the clouds aren’t going to wait for you all day. They are already outside.”

“Young Master, come on out,” Jian Bing almost screams from outside the room, running back in. “The clouds are rumbling. They’re waiting for you.”

Waiting?

Bai Bing Wen still doesn’t really understand what’s going on but with everyone convincing him to get out of the house, he has no other choice but to follow and see what’s going on. At the door, he smells the relaxing scent of rain and feels his heart pounding at the stifled rumbles of thunder.

“Don’t worry. We’ll help you as much as we can but we can’t endure the tribulations for you,” Meng Zhang says with an encouraging small smile.

Bai Bing Wen can only gape. “When Ling Guang said ‘lightning tribulation’, did he mean actual lightning of some sort?”

“What do you mean ‘of some sort’?” Ling Guang scoffs from behind Meng Zhang, walking out of the house. “You’re going to let the lightning catch you after each thunderstrike but we’re going to try our best to make each strike tolerable.”

“What?!”

“Don’t worry, Young Master. Just don’t die,” Jian Bing tells him, giving him a toothy smile.

Bai Bing Wen doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this. He’s only heard about tribulations in history books before but never actually believed in these stories. In the modern world, cultivators never experienced these horrifying phenomena. This is also probably why people in the ancient world produced more immortals and most of the cultivators in here are way more powerful than those in the modern world. Because out there, the world has been made easier to live in without the complications between inevitable differences. Here, everyone is made stronger because the world is just as tough as its people.

With great power comes an even greater tribulation.

As the storm hits the roofs of the bamboo house, the three Crown Princes are already prepared with their spiritual weapons. Only Bai Bing Wen who’s still almost lost in his thoughts with feet glued on the floor is not yet ready to do anything at all.

Meng Zhang walks to his side and holds him by his shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. Go under the clouds and let the lightning strike you. If you don’t willingly surrender to your tribulations, the Heavenly Order is going to destroy everything around you until the clouds can already see where you are and strike you harder.”

Bai Bing Wen nods despite not believing that something like this is actually happening to him. All he did was cultivate an unfamiliar scroll and this is where it gets him.

As he stands underneath the clouds and lets the heavy rain pour on him, Ling Guang uses his qinggong to jump right next to him. “Don’t die,” he says, placing at least ten paper talismans on Bai Bing Wen’s body with red glowing characters written on them. “If you die, I’m going to let your corpse burn.”

Without hearing an answer, Ling Guang flies back to a certain distance and looks up at the clouds gathering above Bai Bing Wen.

Still not knowing exactly what to do, Bai Bing Wen prepares himself for the worst. He also looks up at the clouds and sees strikes of lightning threatening to hit whatever gets in theirway. He notices vines growing around and above him, forming a beautiful arc. Red arrows shoot at the clouds and in a split second, the raindrops have stopped reaching him because of the vines.

Bai Bing Wen also takes a glimpse behind him when he feels a heavy material being draped over his shoulders. When he sees Jian Bing placing his furry coat on him, he gives the little kitty a weak smile. “Thank you.”

“This would minimize the pain that your body is going to absorb,” Jian Bing explains. “Guang-gege’s arrows would tone down the power of the thunderstrikes while Zhang-gege’s vines would absorb the initial impact. After the sound of thunder, the lightning would crawl towards the ground and catch you. Don’t run away. Endure it.”

And not long after Jian Bing’s simple instructions, the thunder strikes its first tribulation towards Bai Bing Wen who collapses weakly on his knees due to shock and pain.

“Gah!” Bai Bing Wen screams out, feeling warm liquid oozing out of his nose. He wipes it off and this time, looks back up at the clouds with determined eyes. The vines have been destroyed but they are quickly regenerating. He stands back up to his feet without moving his eyes away from the clouds. “Okay. I’m ready,” he mumbles to himself.

As the second thunder strikes him another lightning, Bai Bing Wen takes the impact with a steadier aura, using his cultivation to quickly manipulate the shock and lessen the pain by half. This time, he doesn’t fall to his knees like a weakling.

“Congratulations,” Jian Bing excitedly calls out, running towards Bai Bing Wen.

Just as soon, the clouds of tribulations disperse but the skies are already gray and a storm is breaking out in the midst of this warm season. Bai Bing Wen takes deep breaths, holding onto his chest. Almost as quickly as the tribulations have come, they’re gone, too. But when it’s over, the three Crown Princes crowd around him, holding onto their spiritual weapons.

“You did well,” Meng Zhang commends, fixing the few strands of hair behind Bai Bing Wen’s ears that got ruined and roasted while he’s being electrocuted by actual thunderstrikes. No dangerous experience from the modern world that he’s been through can compare to this.

Ling Guang walks closer, removing the burnt talismans on Bai Bing Wen’s body. He wordlessly takes Bai Bing Wen’s wrist to assess him once more and nods to himself. “Level two, third light. Not bad.”

As a funny observation, Bai Bing Wen only notices now that he’s almost a head taller than Ling Guang. “Thank you.” He also notices that Ling Guang’s thin clothes are getting heavily soaked due to the heavy rain so he removes a layer of his thick robes and wraps it around Ling Guang who can only gape at him in disbelief. Finally feeling relieved, he drapes his arms over the shoulders of those that are closest to him.

“What are you doing?” Ling Guang asks, looking aghast and trying to push his arm away.

Bai Bing Wen pulls him closer and smiles to himself. “Please, just help me walk. My knees are about to give out.”

“It’s alright. Come on. I’ll help you heal faster, too,” Meng Zhang says in a gentle tone, draping an arm on Bai Bing Wen’s waist to help him walk forward.

Jian Bing smiles at the three of them. “The Lord Ji Feng Huang would be happy that we’re all getting along so well.”

Ling Guang scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Who says we’re getting along?”

Yet, despite these words, he still assists Bai Bing Wen who’s now walking up the bamboo house while the rain pours over the four of them.