While still pondering over the 'one-foot-long' part that did not seem to match the two-meter-long golden dragon, Fuyin bowed, "My name is Wang Fuyin, oh dragon. I've become Cheng Hao's disciple just today, please take good care of me."
"Don't do that." Xiao Wu sent him an exasperated glance.
"Uh, do what? Why?" Fuyin was puzzled.
"Encourage or praise Goldy in any manner. His ego is astounding. And when he starts flaunting, Brother Hao intervenes to put him down and the two fight it out for many hundred rounds. Once they start, they can't be stopped." Xiao Wu muttered with a blank gaze of one that had seen the worst of the world. One wouldn't be able to tell that she had only met Cheng Hao and Blindlight the night before.
"Fight it out for hundreds of rounds?" Fuyin drew in a breath. "Then, master Cheng Hao must be pretty strong to be able to battle evenly for hundreds of rounds against such a noble and powerful beast!" He immediately recalled the Advanced Stage pressure and battle prowess Cheng Hao had used to completely and utterly overpower him earlier. However, when he compared that to the astonishing aura emitted by the golden dragon, even Lu was skeptical about the youth having any chances of victory.
"Mm? Oh no, it's not even a fair fight. Rather, I'd say it's just plain bullying." Xiao Wu replied, a bit confused on what the other meant when he spoke of battling.
"What? And he still dare wage on? Is master perhaps… a masochist? Why would he fight a losing battle for so long?" Fuyin's expression changed as if he had eaten something sour.
The purple haired girl shook her head, "Oh nah, if anything he's a proud sadist, alright. You seem to have misunderstood: it's Brother Hao who is doing the bullying."
At this point, Fuyin appeared as if he had been struck by countless lightning bolts. After a long pause, he finally thought of a method: "Does Cheng Hao perhaps use those strange flying blades of his in those bouts?"
"The golden hairpin? Nah, although he does use his hands at times, that's very rare. Usually, his words alone are enough."
"!!!"
"Oh, Goldy seems to be quite resilient today, look!" Xiao Wu pointed and began giggling at the scene of Cheng Hao choking Blindlight with a chair.
"Finally give in?" Cheng Hao asked.
"HHHHHH!" No sound came out, but Blindlight's resolute gaze conveyed a thousand meaning and none seemed to be the answer the youth was looking for.
"Eheheh…" Xiao Wu chuckled. Then she turned around, grabbed an apron from the shelf, and said "Alright, I'm going to cook something for dinner."
"S-Sure…" Unbeknownst to her, as Fuyin watched at the eight-year-old child wrestling the snake and somehow managing to choke it until its head turned the same color as its mane, his perception of Cheng Hao had changed once again…
The azure-eyed child furrowed his brows and grew pensive, "…is this the power of one whose will can shape reality? Senior, maybe I should think about that 'believe and the world will bend to your will' thing more thoroughly."
Wang Lu nodded while hiding her amusement, [Well, I think it might be worth looking into…]
…
Later, the hut was lit up and plenty noisy. At the dining table, Cheng Hao and Blindlight would take turns to recount many anecdotes and stories that would never fail to make one chuckle and wanting more. As the three kids, one dragon, and one consciousness 'sat' at the table, the jovial and pleasant atmosphere allowed Fuyin and Lu to effortlessly join in the conversation.
Soon, they had all enjoyed their meal and were mostly full. After the sumptuous dinner cooked by the surprisingly experienced Xiao Wu, the Xiao Clan Young Mistress took it upon herself to clean up the messy table and feed Blindlight a few more of Liu Biao's treasures while at it.
Meanwhile, Cheng Hao and the Wang duo took part in a slightly more serious conversation. After being welcomed in so warmly, the newcomers had somewhat blended in with the familial relations between the members of this strange fellowship. As such, they were not as tense as they had previously been. Under Cheng Hao's attentive and peering gaze, both Wangs spoke freely without caring about whether Xiao Wu and Blindlight were listening in or not.
They were discussing the cryptic rice paper sheet laying flat out before them. It was, of course, the Trial of the Gate Chart, or rather the one Cheng Hao had mischievously copied earlier.
As they did, Cheng Hao's gaze was so intense that Wang Lu couldn't help but secretly joke that by the end of their talk it would have burnt straight through the thin sheet. Suppressing his laughter, Wang Fuyin started, "Trial of the Gate is what we Wangs call a mutation of the Sensed Qi known as the Door to the Underworld. The one you know as Yama could be said to be of part of our 'Clan'. More accurately he is the leader of one of its secondary branches. As you surely know, he has the Underworld Gate Sensed Qi, as most of those with even a single drop of Wang bloodline in them do. On the other hand, Trial of the Gate is a variation that presents itself only in those that are direct descendants of the Main Bloodline of my Wang Family… Amongst countless Wang clansmen born every generation, very few possess this one mutation." Fuyin explained with a solemn tone.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"At the same time, it is just as overbearing as it is rare. Unlike the Door to the Underworld that connects the living world to the Yellow Springs, the Trial of the Gate gives up that ability in exchange for a chance at unrivalled strength. It allows one to wield the might of an army on their own, to be a juggernaut of the battlefield and be undefeated amongst those with a similar cultivation base. Of course, it only offers the 'chance' to obtain such might. Grasping this opportunity is no easy task as the word 'Trial' in its name suggests, and also presents many shortcomings."
Fuyin lifted his index finger. "I'll start with the first and most glaring: every night as soon as the twelfth hour kicks in, my consciousness gets transported into the world of the Underworld Gate. In there, I will face off with an endless army of Wang Protectors; these are lifeless mannequins with cultivations that start from the lowest Inferior Stage cultivation and grow in strength the further one reaches into their ranks. Each battle has a time limit of one day, twenty-four hours. During this time, for each enemy I am able to slay, I will be able to summon a real Wang Protector of the corresponding cultivation base over in the real world."
Cheng Hao sat in front of him with a pondering look. He raised his head and questioned, "What do those twenty-four hours amount to in the real world?"
"One hour," knowingly replied the scarred youth.
"…and judging by the fact that you mentioned it as a shortcoming, it looks like you can't stay conscious when that happens, let alone control the timing of this strange ability of yours." Cheng Hao's brows furrowed.
"Indeed. Even if I find myself battling when the time comes, I will still fall into a coma until the trial ends unless I purposefully kill myself in the Underworld Door as soon as my consciousness gets transported there. Being wounded fatally in the dreamscape is the only way the trial can end before the one hour is up. As soon as my life is endangered within it, I will be forcefully expelled."
"Of course, the drawbacks for that aren't light…" Fuyin massaged a particular scar that went all the way from right below his chin to his upper-left chest. Cheng Hao's eyes lit up with understanding as his gaze fell on many other wounds that crisscrossed atop his main vital areas. Fuyin pointed at his ravaged skin and sported a bitter smile, "Indeed, as you can see, any injury acquired within the Underworld Door is transported to my actual body as grave wounds of similar intensity. I can't even begin to count the number of times I have narrowly avoided death ever since I first sensed Qi…"
His gaze then gradually turned warmer as he gently touched his forehead, "On the other hand, I am now lucky enough to have an experienced senior to watch over me. Were I to find myself in a tough spot in the real world as the Trial begins, I'll be able to simply leave the control of my body to her and focus on fighting the battle within the Underworld Gate without having to care about the happenings outside." The pair of light-blue eyes gradually closed and a tear streamed down his cheek, "Of course, although I speak of it so lightly, were it not for her sacrificing her everything to stay within my consciousness, I would have fallen countless times already. And because of that, I am forever thankful to her."
"…" Cheng Hao stared at the white haired youth for a while before finally asking, "Essentially, you are the owner of an otherworldly space that traps you every night at a certain hour, for a certain time, to fight off against puppets that you can defeat and summon. What other advantages and shortcomings are there?"
"Well, my progress of each night is held for the following night. There's no time limit regarding this, so long as I do not fail: if I die in the Trial of the Gate, all the Wang Protectors will reset to their initial state and I will lose my control over the ones I had defeated. I would then have to start all over again from scratch. On the other hand, every night the Wang Protectors under my control that have died during the day will be revived, to fight under me again as soon as midnight kicks in."
"Can you use the defeated Wang Protectors during the Trial?" Cheng Hao asked. Then, he added, "I mean, both under your control within the Underworld Gate and under Lu's control in the real world."
"I can summon them during the Trial of the Gate, however those I kill can only be used starting from the end of the Trial I defeated them. Also, the ones summoned by me and Lu are from the same batch, so if I summon one in the Trial it can't be used by Lu outside." Was Fuyin's answer.
"Oh? In that case, it shouldn't be too hard to slowly peel some away every night, like the layers of an onion. Eventually, you're bound to slay them all! That's quite ideal…" Cheng Hao's eyes lit up.
"That would be true… if the Wang Protectors were part of a brainless, random mob." Wang Fuyin sighed.
"Mm?" The golden-eyed youth was intrigued.
"Indeed. Unfortunately, they're spread in a very precise manner. The further one reaches in, the greater their technique and coordination in the usage of their ability, even at the same cultivation base. It eventually reaches the point where even if they are outnumbered ten to one, I still cannot break through their ranks by simply fighting strategy with numbers. And even then, if I somehow manage to get past through sheer numbers, there is still the risk of alerting the higher cultivation mannequins. I experienced it once by sheer chance and I almost immediately died."
Fuyin pulled his robe aside to reveal a particularly recent gash on his lean chest.
"The higher rank Wang Protectors were like a hot knife cutting through butter, them being the scalding blade and my army being the soft butter. The difference in cultivation between the warriors was simply too much. The moment they employed behead-the-leader tactics, I died. By dying I lost all my army, and with it, my cultivation…"
"Cultivation?" Cheng Hao's eyes widened, actually shocked for once as he came to a frightening realization, "You mean…-"
"Yes, it is as you have guessed just now, and my cultivation is based on the amount and quality of the soldiers under my command!"
"The way we of the main Wang bloodline cultivate places emphasis on the ability of one to command their troops, and the greater that is, the more their cultivation will experience a meteoric rise." The azure-eyed youth smiled as his demeanor shifted slightly. Without concealing the pride in his eyes, he laughed and proclaimed, "There are many ways to approach cultivation, and there are just as many paths and Daos. My Clan threads the path of the commander, the ruler, the king of the battlefield, and as such is named Wang, the 'King'!"
"Just as our surname suggests, we of Wang were born meant to rule the world-"
"And yet here you are, a washed-up fish in the beach of this measly Plane of Existence, an arrogant Basic Stage brat that couldn't even protect himself, let alone rule the world." Cheng Hao raised an eyebrow in annoyance. "Just tell me which formations you are having problems breaching and maybe I will help out."
"…yes Master."