Passing through the doorway, Meihui felt a sudden weakness encapsulate her. The fire Qi that her body had been unconsciously absorbing slowed, her cultivation settling at the 6th stage of the Houtian Realm and her body length settling at around 12.5 meters in length. Though her body continued to grow and to absorb Qi, the Qi of the world was much less dense than that of the fiery Plane and the World’s Qi was a mixture of all the elements: thus Meihui’s core began to once more filter the Qi it absorbed to receive only fire Qi, though at a much faster pace than before she had entered that Plane. Despite this weakness, her strength seemed to be even more ferocious to her once she glided back into the world, almost as though that Plane had restricted her strength with an invisible pressure, that went completely unnoticed in her excitement and inexperience. It felt to her as though heavy chains had then been dropped from her body and core alike, her very spirit soaring within her as she enjoyed that lightness.
Hissing in happiness Meihui slithered through the water around the entrance to that Plane, tearing through the water with a speed of more than 100 kilometers per hour. The water around her was oddly undisturbed as she passed through it, like her body was a lithe ghost, every movement of her flesh being perfectly contained by Meihui’s Expert control (where a weapon and the fighter become two united as one). As Meihui celebrated, her “self”, began to re-sync with the frequency of the World’s space-time continuum. At that time she discovered that she had surprisingly spent 10 years in that Plane!
Meihui froze with shock. 10 years! Will I even be able to find my parent’s now!? I have been training and lazing around in that Plane for 10 years... Meihui thought with frustration.
Ah well, there is nothing I can do but continue on my path forward, eh? Meihui, eventually, decided. Hmmm, I hope this World is entertaining.
Just like that Meihui cast aside any negative emotions and proceeded to swim leisurely through the water in an upwards direction. She sought to leave the dumping place of the Plane’s door and her desolate birthplace, the deep underwater ravine. Similarly to when she was in that Plane, she maintained a Created shield of fire Qi, shining with glowing silver runes, around her body as she moved. Days passed as Meihui steadily swam upwards at a pace exceeding 100 kilometers per hour, with no apparent change in her surroundings. She kept passing by the same dark-grey rock walls and swimming through the consistently, silvery water. Only after a month of time had passed was the top of the ravine visible, and only after another couple of days passed, with the exit of the ravine in sight, did Meihui finally leave behind the place of her birth.
When Meihui excitedly glanced around herself upon exiting the ravine, all she could see was more desolation. Not a soul could be detected around the vicinity of that ravine, with even the nearest underwater plant life being spotted many kilometers away, as though they all had a tacit understanding to not approach the ravine’s maw. With this sight, Meihui’s mood was immediately dampened.
Meihui summoned forth her rule of evolution, with her crystal bead vaguely projecting its 5% completed maroon gigantic rune representing evolution. Her rule’s sense vaguely warned her of danger to her progression in the northwest and great benefits to her growth in the northeast. With there being no indications whatsoever of her parents’ existence, Meihui turned her beautiful jade-green eyes to the northeast and continued her progression.
The further she swam forth, the more Meihui could sense signs of life. The verdant plant life below and the colorful fauna, that increasingly began to appear around her, showed life to be much more plentiful in the World than in the fiery Plane, that she had left behind. The curious Meihui even took the chance to catch and devour some passing exotic fish, emitting fire Qi, with her vasty superior speed. While the taste of the exotic fish was decent, Meihui found the flowing streams of fire Qi suffusing her, still growing, body and bronze core to be much more filling. Nevertheless, Meihui continued to slither swiftly towards the various exotic fish, consuming them in great gaping mouthfuls. Eventually, the peaceful sea life began to clear a path around Meihui, avoiding her entirely as she proceeded on her way. After only a day had passed in this manner, Meihui spotted the first sentient life that she would encounter in the World.
The first thing that Meihui noticed was unusual fluctuations of World Qi occurring not far from her position. Upon sensing these fluctuations, Meihui hastily altered her path to converge with the source of disturbance. As she swam closer to the fluctuations, Meihui’s jade-green eyes widened in surprise. Not far from Meihui could be seen a strange humanoid creature, with the upper body of a young boy, that carried a satchel strapped across his chest, and the lower body of a bluish-silver scaled fish, that was larger in proportion to his upper body than two legs would have been on a similarly aged young human. This creature was surrounded by magical beasts of the Houtian realm with the appearance of large pure-white crabs, Icy White Crabs. What is that creature? It vaguely stirs my bloodline’s memories. I must not let it die, it could have some of the answers that I seek! Meihui redoubled her speed, hastily slithering forwards.
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Humanoid Creature POV
Ahhh! What awful luck! Who would have thought that I would be swarmed by Icy White Crabs, on today of all days? Thought the humanoid creature with despair. Nooo! I refuse to die here, I have to reach the peak of martial arts!
The young humanoid redoubled his efforts, using the earth Qi from his dantian (the infinite space that most humanoids have within their navel area, that stores energy) to cover his fists in exceedingly tough stone once more.
“Earth fist!” he shouted. His small fists, which appeared to be covered in huge boxing gloves formed from stone, flew out with enough power to completely shatter stone. With crackling explosions, the various attacks, in the form of meter long needles of ice, being sent towards him from the Icy White Crabs burst. Each swing of his small fists shattered a swathe of icy needles flying towards him yet, the Icy White Crabs slowly drew nearer. There were simply too many of them!
Sweat dripped from the young humanoid’s brow as he swished his tail, moving around in search of a hole in their gathering that could serve as an escape route. He quickly realized that such efforts were in vain; the Icy White Crabs were swarming around him like a cloud of locusts descending upon a fertile field, there were no openings. His breath grew labored in seconds. Icy White Crabs began to approach his body. Slash! With a swipe, one Icy White Crab after another ripped into his body with their pincers. Each cut felt like a glacier infusing his warm body with a freezing cold. The ice Qi of the Icy White Crabs had infused their pincers, thoroughly making use of contact with his small body to inject debilitating burst of cold energy into his system and stifling the young humanoid’s abilities. I am finished. The young humanoid thought with sadness, as tears welled up in his bright blue eyes.
Suddenly, another magical beast, three times larger than the Icy White Crabs surrounding the young humanoid boy, rushed into the fight. A majestic tail, covered in a red shield that sparkled with tiny silver runes, swung through the mass of Icy White Crabs with a force of 100, 000 kilograms and ruptured their bodies with blasts of fire. In an instant more than half of the Icy White Crabs had been exterminated. The remaining Icy White Crabs gathered into a group and summoned a large mass of ice Qi from their bodies. This ice Qi flowed together under a mysterious minor elemental law and gathered into a vague light blue rune. The Icy White Crabs would stake everything on this final attack!
The young humanoid boy looked on with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, his tears no longer flowing down his adorable face. What is that magical beast? It’s so strong! Did it come to rescue me? The youngling could not help but fantasize that the newly arrived magical beast was its knight in shining armor. There was no longer anything that he could do but watch, his Qi was completely used up and his body was exhausted.
A rumble sounded throughout the sea and the surrounding water dropped down to even more freezing temperatures, the Icy White Crabs final attack was unleashed! The vague light blue rune burst, unleashing the ice Qi stored within it in the form of a frenzied blizzard. The opposing magical beast, what the boy could now make out to be a large 12 meter long snake, gave a battle screech and called forth a fiery Qi that distorted into a cloud of red flames, manipulated into countless wisps of fire by a glowing silver runes that seemed to forge the fire into hardened weapons. As the frenzied blizzard shot towards the snake magical beast, a pulse of maroon light emanated from the clear crystal bead on the snake’s head, galvanizing the hardened dagger-like wisps of fire into real-looking red arrows. The cloud of red arrows flew to meet that frenzied blizzard. In seconds, the two forces collided, radiating shock waves that shook the surrounding silvery sea. The frenzied blizzard collapsed as the cloud of red arrows tore through it, each arrow detonating to form small balls of fire, that chipped away at the body of the blizzard, as they pierced through. The crisis was averted!
Warily, the Icy White Crabs fled as a group in the western direction. They no longer looked as though they dared to confront that snake magical beast. The young humanoid boy had his face, which had been filled with awe, pale with fear as the beast turned its jade-green eyes to meet his bright blue eyes. He could sense a faint whispering of eternity from its gaze as though the snake magical beast was some ancient ferocious beast from a bygone era. It has to be known that the boy’s kind could live for as long as 600 years, even without cultivating, so despite the boy being young- he had an amazing life force. What was this snake magical beast that could so easily scatter a large gathering of Icy White Crabs and that possessed a faint ancient aura? Is this one of those thousand year old Houtian magical beasts? What level does its strength reach!? Panickedly thought the young humanoid boy.
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“D-D-Don’t eat me sir magical beast! I am too weak to give you strength; I am only at the second stage of the Houtian realm!” yelled the boy in fear. Though magical beasts would typically only eat those that had similar elemental attributes or those with high amounts of World Qi compared to their own, they were not averse to eating the odd humanoid weakling.
“I will be your servant for eternity, so please!” the boy choked out, as the snake magical beast swiftly approached. The snake magical beast wrapped around the boy and brought its jade-green eyes to stare directly into his own. After a few tense minutes, during which the young humanoid trembled in terror, the clear crystal bead of the snake magical beast’s head brought forth a gentle silver glow. A silver flame poured out of the clear crystal bead and covered the scared boy, it seeped into his skin, rejuvenating his energy and restoring his wounds in a mere breath of time.
“Ah! Thank you sir magical beast! I promise to be a good servant from now on. I, Bojing, of the merkin, son of the fallen merknight, Delun, and the deceased merlady, Biyu, will not fail you!” exclaimed Bojing, as he was being healed. He believed that the snake magical beast was surely old among its kind and could thus understand human speech, accepting him as its servant.
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Meihui POV
“@!#$%^&***%#$%$,” heard Meihui, coming from the humanoid creature’s mouth. She could make no sense of the beings uttered noises but could still somehow understand them to represent some form of intelligent communication. After she had experimented with her newly gained silver flame, that had throbbed within her forehead’s bead upon coming in contact with the young being, and managed to successfully employ it to heal the humanoid creature’s wounds, her jade green eyes saw within the young being’s bright blue pupils a distinct emotion that she instinctively recognized as subservience.
Pleased, she released her coils from the young humanoid creature’s body and continued her journey in the northeastern direction, confident that the young being would follow obediently behind her. Her bloodline’s inherited memories not being completely awakened, Meihui could not quite grasp the complete significance of the humanoid creature, but she knew that it would be a key factor in her search for her parents.
How slow! Meihui thought in irritation, as she observed the humanoid creature’s frantic movements behind her body. Moving at over 100 kilometers an hour, with no apparent strain, she was leaving the young being far behind, as it was only propelled, by its bluish-silver tail, at a steady 40 kilometers per hour. Meihui slowed her pace to match the seemingly slow, plodding humanoid creature and casually hunted fire-Qi fish, to supplement her constant intake of World Qi, as they moved along. As the young humanoid creature seemed quite incompetent to Meihui’s eyes, she would simply kill, rather than devour, some of her prey and toss them over to the being that followed her. It caught the fish with more incomprehensible noises, that Meihui managed to interpret as gratitude, and placed them in its satchel.
After only a scant few hours of travel the humanoid creatures strength began to wane and it made many annoying whining speech noises from its mouth. Meihui understood: the young being was exhausted. How did such a weak creature survive on its own for so long? She wondered. Meihui’s need for sleep had long since been done away with, at the awakening of her immature Primordial God-King body, and even before that- her endurance was more than enough to allow her several days travel without rest.
The pair swam down to the ocean floor and made themselves comfortable on a piece of concealed, smooth bedrock. Meihui watched as the young humanoid retrieved some fish from its satchel, gutting them and roasting them with a strange pyramidal tool that used his World Qi to cook the fish. As the young humanoid ate, he stared at Meihui’s supple, slender, powerful form and seemed to be in deep contemplation. Meihui watched in silence until the young being finished its meal and tidied up, going off to relieve itself of waste before returning before her.
It looked intensely into Meihui’s eyes, chattering with some more speech noises. What is it saying? Does he want something from me? Thought Meihui with confusion.
“#^$*$#I*^%#%#^&^%$&&%^!!!” the young humanoid creature exclaimed with surprise. It clearly had noticed something of import upon seeing no response on Meihui’s reptilian face.
With a single hand, it pointed to itself and slowly stated “Bojing” a few times loudly and clearly. Is that what this young humanoid creature is called? Thought Meihui excitedly. Bojing.
The young humanoid creature, Bojing, waited patiently and gestured to Meihui with the clear intention of receiving her name. Alas, Meihui could not produce such strange noises with her reptilian maw. Hmmm….How do I communicate my name to it? Wondered Meihui with frustration.
!? A memory suddenly struck Meihui like a brick to the face. In that fiery sub-plane, the tree of fire had managed to communicate with Meihui with its pulsing Qi…..Could Meihui imitate that here?
Meihui froze. Her attention became completely directed inwards until she could practically see her lustrous, ringed bronze core. With her senses focused completely on it, she could now “see” the streams of fire Qi that constantly filled and tempered her bronze core. Her core was her center, her source of power, that all magical beasts contain within themselves as tools of sorts to direct their energies. It contained within it her soul itself, though at this stage in Meihui’s existence, her soul was a pitiful, feeble, incorporeal wisp. Like all magical beasts, her Spiritual Sea, or consciousness, of her soul was mixed and mingled with her Qi, constantly feeding and reinforcing it over time. It was to this spiritual sea that Meihui found her attention drawn towards. She used her innate gifts as an elemental creature with a core to direct her tiny Spiritual Sea such that it whirled like a funnel, quickly draining her stores of fire Qi. She tried repeatedly to transmit this whirlpool of consciousness outwards, using the fire Qi as its physical medium much as the tree of fire must have done. It was incredibly difficult! In the end, despite her divine heritage and six stage Houtian realm power, her Spiritual Sea was simply too underdeveloped, even with constant nourishment from the fire Qi and the transformation done to it when she awakened her Primordial God-King body-it would need time to slowly grow in power. Come on! You can do it! If a tree can do it, why can’t you!? Meihui thought with determination.
Bojing (the young humanoid creature) watched Meihui’s efforts with fascination. She was clearly struggling immensely to do...something. Was it that difficult to give out a name? Apparently…
With a sudden flash of inspiration, Meihui slightly altered her efforts. Rather than trying to transmit her consciousness outwards, towards Bojing alone, she shaped her mixed pool of fire Qi and the spiritual essence of her sea of consciousness into a bubble and expanded some of it out wards in a wave. This wave quickly expanded outwards to a distance of 50 meters around her lithe, serpentine body, easily encompassing Bojing within its sphere of influence.
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Bojing POV
As Bojing fascinatedly watched the beautiful, terrifying snake before him, to which he had sworn his allegiance, an odd phenomenon occurred. Previously the glassy scaled snake had been distractedly staring in his direction, embroiled in some sort of internal conflict as it apparently struggled to respond to Bojing’s query and utter its name. Now that I think about it, if it can’t understand the merkin language and has no humanoid vocal organs, how will it answer my question? Thought Bojing perplexedly as he observed the happenings before him.
He watched as a mysterious wave of fiery Qi quickly rippled outwards from the snake’s body, enveloping him in its influence. The wave of fiery Qi did not seem hostile and behaved in an odd manner that was not at all reminiscent of an attack. Wow! Cool! What is Sir Snake doing?
Suddenly a foreign consciousness intruded upon his own, harmlessly washing over his immature Spiritual Sea like a gentle wave from the ocean. Ideas in a language that he could not understand were perfectly transmitted to his mind, comprehensible despite the language barrier.
Do magical beasts have their own languages too? Bojing wondered as the wave tried to sweep deeper into his Spiritual Sea, reading into his surface memories behind his conscious thoughts. Bojing did not resist, feeling only a sense of curiosity from the waves of fiery Qi.
Came the slightly discomfited response transmitted by the fiery Qi, after it performed a cursory probe of Bojing’s memories.
Oh. Sorry. Why are you out here, in this part of the SilverSea? Where are you going? I can follow you right? I already promised to be your servant for eternity. My father used to say that a true man is always true to his oaths!
Transmitted Meihui fiercely to Bojing.
Yes, yes. But can I follow you!? Thought Bojing with desperation.
I am not a creature! I am Bojing, of the mighty, honorable merkin! Thought Bojing to her with pride. Alas, Meihui had ceased to pay any further attention to Bojing at that point, merely curling around his comparatively small body and closing her jade green eyes.
The waves of fiery Qi retracted into her body, Bojing no longer had any way to communicate with the snake magical beast before him. After some more hectoring and posturing, he understood that she was no longer up for conversation and grumpily proceeded to lay against her warm body. I guess I’ll just go to sleep then. Madam Snake seems to be powerful and valiant. I bet I will not be bored or lonely any longer if I stay by her side. With that Bojing closed his bright blue eyes and drifted off to sleep, the unlikely pair resting in a grotto at the bottom of the SilverSea.