Chapter 681 - Gold and glitter (IX) (Patreon)

I'd kind of forgotten what hangover feels like.

I mean, I could cure it with a single flush of Qi through my system, but I let it linger. That headache, the drowsiness, the oddly dry tongue for some reason, and the urge to vomit upon the very thought of food or alcohol... man, considering how nostalgic it feels, one would think I was an alcoholic back on Earth.

Regardless, I kind of enjoyed the dull, numbing headache that made it hard to think as I stared off from the edge of the porch of sorts that I had the kids make. If only I also had a cup of coffee with me, it'd be one of the greatest mornings (sans the hangover) ever. All the same, it was enjoyable. The sun had just come up from the horizon, its golden rays spilling over the lake's inordinately calm surface. It would shimmer and ripple every once in a while, creating an almost hypnotizing effect.

Today, per the rumor mill, was the day our little Zhao'er was breaking through. As such, I am perfectly calm, confident, and in no way borderline anxious. Nope. Not at all.

I'm not afraid that something might go wrong--based on the sheer volume of buffs that I've stacked through the system, I'm fairly certain none of my kids can even fail a breakthrough--but that the quality of his won't... measure up. It'll be the fear I'll experience with everybody else, too, as the baseline, now, is a 'unique' breakthrough into the Revolving Core Realm like Xiu'er and Lan'er.

No, wait--they also had unique breakthroughs into the Spirit Manifestation Realm as well. Huh.

Welp.

Part of the reason I'm enduring the headache is that I don't want to overwhelm my thoughts with those of worry. Though I'm a changed man in many ways, I'm still, at my core, an overthinker to boot. And, if allowed, my thoughts tend to sort of be like the proverbial infinite acceleration--in that, once they pick up steam, boy do they pick up steam.

Sighing, I stood up and stretched out. Still in a bit of a haze, somewhat because of having broken through yesterday, I walked back inside and sat down, waiting. I offered to be his Dharma Protector, but considering he'll break through inside his cave, and the fact that we're on a mountain that is arrayed to all hell and back thanks to Long Tao and Shufen-on top of all its innate formations--there's very little risk of things going haywire. Nonetheless, I still feel like I should be there, even if he firmly told me to just wait for the good news.

I was a bit surprised that he was the first to do it, as I fully expected Shufen to be the first. But I also know that rewards from her breakthrough are likely to be relatively pedestrian, as it were, so starting with a bang might be the better of the two options.

I became aware that half a day had passed somewhat shockingly, as I wasn't even aware that it had been half a day. The strange, rising lift of Qi and energy underneath alarmed me to the passage of time, and told me that it was finally beginning.

Hooh, boy.

Despite my best attempts to keep calm and carry on, as it were, I was still feeling anxious. Rising heartbeat, cold hands, strained feeling in the gut... man-o-man, I'd be a goddamn wreck without Qi and arts like Harmonized Heart Sutra. So, as it began to mount, I counteracted it and... it was fine, all of a sudden. Calm. Serene, even.

Tsk. Goddamn cheat codes. Life on Earth would be so pristine if we could have cheated with shit like this, too.

The amount of Qi began to increase, and soon also began to roar. However, it suddenly stopped and almost retracted--by the end of the small phenomenon, there were only about ten or so strands of Qi, but they were dense. Corporeal. And they were biting and sharp, like an edge of the most polished blade.

Honestly, if I went down and tried touching them, there's a good chance I'd just end up cut in half. The shimmering force rippled out like a song, distorting space repeatedly in consecutive rhythm, like a loop. Once and twice and thrice, and by the half an hour mark, there had been hundreds of them. They'd ripple out, contort, and then condense back sharper and sharper and sharper with each iteration .

By the end, even this far away at the top of the mountain, I felt the biting sharpness of them on my skin. Sort of like dragging a knife across it without ever putting pressure on it so that it cuts. A strange, strange feeling to both experience and recognize. No weird reason, though--when I was young, I just liked how dragging a knife over my arm hairs felt.

... alright, maybe a little weird.

Before long, the rippling out stopped and everything turned... strangely calm. There were no sounds, there were no movements, and the only reason I knew the breakthrough was still underway (beyond the system not informing me of it being done), was the disruption in the mountain's natural Qi flow. Zhao'er became a bit of a vacuum, as more and more Qi, from all corners of the mountain, began to converge towards him.

Bit by bit, the coalesced energy began to bubble--sort of like increasing pressure in the pipes and praying they don't blow up. If, God forbid, Zhao'er made a mistake and something went awry, I'm pretty sure he'd blow us all up. So, here's hoping that he just does as he always has.

Thankfully, though the pressure was somewhat worrying, it never did feel as if it would spill over.

I knew that everything would be alright as it all began to settle, and soon vanish completely. All was silent once again and tepid, and then it was not.

A mirage of a sword burst out through the whole mountain and hung above it like a cleaver ready to split it in two. The pressure descending was so massive that I actually had to activate Qi to stop myself from falling down under it. Holy shit! Just how dangerous is that sword?! And, more importantly, how deeply fucked would we have been had Shufen and Long Tao not worked in tandem to curate formations to hide this shit?

The sword hung above us for a good minute before the pressure finally began to ease and it vanished, too. It was precisely then that the window finally appeared that made all that forcibly subdued anxiety simply disappear, sort of like worrying about test results and finally getting an 'all-okay'.

[--congratulations, Host. One of your Disciples, Xi Zhao, has broken through into the Revolving Core Realm, forming a Unique Heaven Core][...][Xi Zhao has achieved a remarkable feat of forming 'Blessed Sword Core'][...][Blessed Sword Core -- a unique core in the shape of a sword; though it cannot contain nearly as much Qi as a normal one, it innately stores Sword Intent as well as Sword Will. Can be temporarily extracted and used as a weapon. Due to the core, Xi Zhao's Sword Arts will always execute as if two tiers above his current mastery of them, and his ability to comprehend Sword Arts is increased by 500%]