Aoyang: The Reborn Alchemist Seeks Knowledge [Xianxia]

"Yingtao! How'd you do that?" Jingfeng asked excitedly. "That giant crater! I thought only a Nascent Soul could do that much damage!"

Yingtao's strides were no slower than a horse as she ran, bounding across the grass like the wind. But with his newly casted blessing of wind that now cushioned her footsteps, the turbulence was reduced enough to talk smoothly.

"Heh, it's just a little trap I prepared ahead of time after last year's fiasco." Yingtao smirked. "But let's not talk too much. We don't want our invisibility to be pointless, do we?"

Jingfeng pouted slightly but nodded as Yingtao rushed straight into the twisted forest. She weaved between the trees and skidded to a stop in a sizable clearing, before squatting down and touching the barren earth. Her eyes closed and her eyebrows creased with deep focus.

Yingtao's eyes suddenly opened as she sensed something; she reached her hands towards the mulch, ripping it apart as if it were a tapestry and opening a giant hole in the ground!

Jingfeng frowned a little from the strong scent of earth, but she didn't give him the time to adapt. She jumped straight into the hole with the two in tow, the ground above closing above their heads and entombing them in a small pocket of earth.

Yingtao held her hands towards the walls, and the earth around them rumbled as they descended. With such a small party, a earth Core Shaper's magic was enough for them to sneak in without having to deploy smoke bombs like before.

Absolute darkness surrounded them, but Baiyun felt a pulse of qi from his bracelet. It seeped into his skin for a moment, but bounced off thanks to his servant physique.

Baiyun watched speechlessly as he watched the other two, sensing the qi from their bracelets seeping into their arms and rushing into their eyes, granting them some form of night vision. It didn't seem like they were paying enough attention to realise it failed on him.

Night vision... it would be problematic if he didn't have it, since it was fair to assume they would not use a light source this time. Divine thread would keep him from being truly blind, but it was limited in its own right.

He summoned a thread between the bracelet and his eyes. The qi rushed up the makeshift bridge before imprinting into his eyes successfully. Baiyun nodded in satisfaction as the rough texture of the twisting dirt around them became visible. He could now see the inside of his helmet clearly as well, which was an odd feeling.

The rumbles of the earth intensified and they descended quicker and quicker, almost at the speed of free fall. Jingfeng braced himself and shut his eyes, doing his best to channel a veil of wind with what little air the enclosed space had.

Baiyun sensed the caverns of the nest beneath with divine thread as they descended. Hundreds of worker centipedes had gathered around the rumbling, their heads turned upwards. Sensing them crawling over each other and snapping at the air was rather unsightly.

With a loud bang, the ceiling of the nest exploded as the trio burst through!

It seemed they would crash into the centipedes violently. But Jingfeng's face went red as he puffed his cheeks and channelled the wind with all his might, forcefully slowing their descent and blowing them towards a wall.

Yingtao bent her knees and kicked off it, launching them over the swarm of centipedes safely. With veils of wind cushioning her footsteps, she landed soundlessly and took off.

Making such a huge ruckus after going through the trouble of veiling themselves seemed to break the point, but it was part of the plan. Yingtao snapped her fingers and a boulder formed above the ceiling they broke through, lodging itself in place. It began to shake violently without end, attracting the attention of more and more centipedes!

With the workers distracted, they could run through the nest unimpeded.

Yingtao pulled out a pendant around her neck hidden by her robes, revealing a qi compass dangling at its end. She paused for a moment as she scanned the compass, before reorienting herself and running into a different direction. Baiyun reached a divine thread towards it and frowned. Annoyingly, it was contracted to her unlike Ying Shi's, so he couldn't use it in secret.

"Let me know if anything seems off." she whispered to him.

Baiyun wasn't sure what to say. Just because he caught the presence of the warrior centipede before she did previously, she and her brother were putting that much trust into him?

Yingtao rushed through the tunnels with great speed, stooping down awkwardly to stop him and Jingfeng from bumping their heads whenever the tunnels narrowed.

A sweet scent soon wafted into the air as they arrived before the first Lifesap chamber. Only a minute had passed; the efficiency was incomparable to their previous dive, where they had to drag along a bunch of young masters who did nothing.

Pinkish roots covered in pin-sized holes twisted around each other and jutted from the ceiling, a droplet of golden-green liquid hanging from their lowest tip. Yingtao grinned as she took out a spatial gourd and held it towards the roots, raising her other hand to cast a spell.

The earth above constricted around the roots, squeezing out the Lifesap until it flowed like a faucet.

"Won't that harm the roots? I don't think Ying Shi would like that." Jingfeng mumbled. "Last time you already crushed a Lifesap root while fighting a warrior centipede..."

"Heh, as long as you don't tell him, it's fine." Yingtao smirked. "It's the last ingredient I need for my breakthrough anyway. You don't want me to stagnate another year if we don't gather enough this time, do you? It's such a big tree anyway, it'll be fine!"

"Ehhh..?" Jingfeng deflated.

Baiyun wasn't sure what to say and decided not to comment. They were supposed to be quiet anyway, so he wasn't sure why both of them were brazenly chatting.

And speaking of which... he narrowed his eyes as his 30m divine thread sensed a presence creeping upon them. He wasn't sure if it had been drawn by their careless voices or if the roots alerted it to their theft somehow.

He tapped Yingtao and Jingfeng's shoulders, making a mandible-like pinching gesture with a hand and pointing to where the presence approached.

Yingtao nodded, Jingfeng hurriedly putting his hands over his mouth. They knew exactly what he meant as they had rehearsed previously. A warrior centipede was closing in!

She hurriedly corked the gourd up before sprinting off into the distance.

Hah... Baiyun thought to himself that invisibility spell really was quite unimpressive. Any cultivator worth their salt could use any of the 3 spiritual sense to detect hidden foes. It was really only useful against the worker centipedes who relied solely on sight. For the veil to be effective, it needed aspects of befuddlement as well.

Yingtao suddenly grinned.

"I wasn't fully convinced, but Ying Shi was right. You really do have crazy sharp senses!" she whispered excitedly. "I wonder what kind of constitution it is?"

Jingfeng gave Baiyun a thumbs up in silence, not daring to talk this time.

But Baiyun was more focused on complaining to himself.

Even after Yingtao lectured Ying Shi so much on his poor use of the compass, she still couldn't easily identify the warrior centipedes. She did find the Lifesap chambers with far less effort, but hah... she was only marginally better in the end.

He sighed internally. Lecturing others on topics before even attaining true mastery... children.

The three of them ran amok in the centipede den, harvesting Lifesap from chamber to chamber and evading warrior centipedes with ease. Every now and them, Yingtao would summon more trembling boulders to distract the gullible worker centipedes.

Yingtao and Jingfeng grinned ear to ear as they entered the 5th chamber of the day.

"50 litres! We actually harvested that much already!" Yingtao whispered as she reached for the roots with her gourd.

"It really is so much, more than double what you need for your breakthrough!" Jingfeng whispered back excitedly. "But erm... we don't have to be so greedy, do we? I feel like Ying Shi would probably complain."

"Oh, come on. It's a bit sad if a lady in her 20s has to listen to her kid brother, isn't it?" Yingtao laughed. "Besides, even after I breakthrough into Nascent Soul, I can still share it with the rest of the group. You want some, don't you?"

"Er... I guess you have a point, haha..."

Jingfeng's resistance crumbled instantly yet again. Baiyun shook his head lightly, hoping they wouldn't linger for too long.

A warm sensation spread from his stomach as strength and vigour filled his body, his mind growing clear. It seemed the focus and energy pills had finally taken effect.

Baiyun opened and closed his armoured hands and nodded. His crippled reaction speed had somewhat recovered, now twice as responsive to his thoughts.

If he had crunched down on them like Qinghe during alchemy, they would have taken effect much faster. But that was the improper way to consume pills. Pills were designed to have slow and lasting effects; fast and instant effects were in the domain of elixirs.

Though, elixirs were often expensive as they were more difficult to create. Essences in pills were inert and easy to handle, while elixirs practically screamed for their energy to be unleashed. Qi-proof bottles made of precious materials were needed for elixirs as well, or they would become a useless soup within a week.

He began to wonder if Qinghe only used focus pills despite their inferior effects due to her stinginess. Hah... that girl. She really was-

!?

Baiyun's eyes suddenly constricted as he sensed something. He retraced his divine thread in an instant, cold sweat beading down his face.

No... it couldn't be.

A Nascent Soul presence!

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He smacked Yingtao's shoulder in a hurry, hard enough to knock the gourd she held away from the root.

"Hey! What was that for? You-"

Yingtao began to shout, but froze as she saw Baiyun's frenzied eyes. He pointed towards the distant aura, frantically gesturing for them to flee immediately!

She and Jingfeng stared at him in a daze however, confused. Baiyun cursed to himself. They just had to be slow when there was danger!

"Run! Burrow away!" he mouthed, pointing towards the ceiling.

Yingtao was about to say something. But a howling wind interrupted her as it rushed past the stale air of the stagnant tunnels. A tremendous wave of qi-sense followed, engulfing them like a tidal wave!

The immense aura was suffocating and merciless, crushing upon them like an ocean abyss. Yingtao and Jingfeng froze in terror, their pupils constricting.

An inhuman whisper resonated in soulsense.

"Descend."

A web of soul aura expanded and mixed into the ocean of qi around them. The suffocating air dissipated and morphed into a warm and gentle breeze. It was like the embrace of spring after a long cold winter, accompanied by the fragrant scent of blooming wildflowers.

The looks of terror on Yingtao and Jingfeng's faces faded away, replaced by vague smiles as serenity washed over them.

Baiyun's eyes grew bloodshot however. It was unmistakable; this was a soul attack!

His immense soul rendered him completely immune, but an actual attack from a Nascent Soul would instantly reduce him to blood mist!

Every instinct of his screamed at him to flee. But he cursed under his breath. Did he not resolve to save these two idiots if anything came up?

Baiyun quickly channelled his soul into the palm of his left hand. Soul essence flowed in like an endless river, his hand turning red and convulsing as his muscles screamed, with bulging veins that threatened to burst at any moment!

He gritted his teeth and swung his fist, punching Yingtao and Jingfeng in their napes and sending jolts of soul energy into them both. A horrific crackle echoed as his brittle skin cracked open, blood spraying out!

Only then did he recede his soul energy, grabbing them by the back of their robes. Blood from his bleeding hand soaked into Jingfeng's clothes.

"W-what... what just happened?"

Yingtao was the first to wake, sitting up and staring into empty air in a daze.

"Urgh..." Jingfeng groaned.

Baiyun dragged them across the ground and ran away as fast as he could! Yingtao did her best to get up even, but it only made her tumble across the ground more.

Something changed in the air again. Baiyun's blood went cold and his eyes went bloodshot.

Yingtao finally managed to raise her head, but he grabbed her by the back of her neck and yanked her to the ground again!

A strange echo of whistling air filled the caverns as a flash of crescent light 20 metres wide flew past, almost grazing the hair atop their heads. It passed through the walls of the cavern as if they weren't even there, almost appearing to be a mirage.

Yingtao raised her head again and stared upwards in a daze.

There was silence for a moment. Then, the caverns trembled. The ceiling shook as walls slid past each other in halves, following the razor-thin axis the crescent light flew; mirror-like sheens revealing themselves from cleaved rock.

Yingtao and Baiyun stared in horror.

Finally coming to her senses, she grabbed Baiyun and Jingfeng, tossing them onto her back as she ran with all her might! The deluge of soul qi attempted to invade their minds, but to no avail this time. Yingtao charged out of its midst as she galloped like a race horse.

Tendrils of qi stretched towards them, before the ocean expanded and washed over them once more.

Inhuman whispers of soulsense began to fill the air again.

"Soul Mark."

A shrill echo and a flash of red light. Marks of qi condensed from the ocean into crimson sigils, rushing towards them like meteors and imprinting into the necks of the trio.

The soul mark could not attach itself to Baiyun, but it spiralled around him and continued to drill downwards.

Baiyun's eyes shook as he identified them. The sigils were beacons of death that teleported qi blades towards them; no amount of preemptive dodging would save them this time.

And they would detonate in 5 seconds.

No!

His eyes began to turn red, the faintest droplets of blood shining in his tear ducts as a strange air surrounded him, fully manifesting itself as his pupils glowed purple!

How could he face death now, after 8 years of preparation? He had barely gotten to live this life!

The situation was beyond awful. Even he was in danger despite his body repelling the sigil, as it continued to follow and orbit him. They could not be simply shaken off, as they homed in on souls relentlessly!

And if he dared to use his soul to crush and annihilate those marks... his body would be instantly reduced into a blood mist. No, there wouldn't even be blood left. The durability of a Nascent Soul's spell was a towering mountain before the ant his mortal body was, and he would shred his body to atoms in the process!

One solution came to mind however.

These homing marks... their strength too was a weakness. They lacked intelligence, and would indiscriminately rush towards any soul. Any soul... any soul!

Baiyun's eyes grew bloodier as he looked around desperately. All he needed was to find a single centipede! But not a single one was in sight, for they had already been lured away. How ironic for their strategy to be their very downfall.

Even the soul of a plant or fungus would do. But the Twisted Forest was far too dominant, weeding out all but its beloved centipedes. Its soul was out of reach from the axillary roots around them as well.

...

There were no branching paths. He would have to choose either Yingtao or Jingfeng as a sacrifice.

Wanting to save these suicidal children... what an utterly foolish thought it was, he berated himself. A mere Qi Gathering cultivator, deluding himself into thinking he could do anything with the meagre power he had... ridiculous.

Baiyun almost wanted to laugh.

A fool. No other word suited him better at this moment. What an absolute idiot he was.

Minutes seemed to pass in the frozen second as he desperately wracked his mind for another solution. His eyes began to degrade and bleed further and further, but tears of blood could not even flow down.

Unable to even move his body, it was as if he was encased in a prison of time. All he had done was push his cognition speed to the absolute limit, desperately searching for a perfect solution that did not exist. Not even the heavens could govern time.

Absolute helplessness overwhelmed him as his vision slowly turned blood red, followed by absolute darkness.

Memories of his past life raced through his mind against his will. He thought to himself this was no time to be thinking of such things, but he could not hold them back. Memories of his life in the Innumerable sect, the smiles of his disciples, the stern face of his father, even Wu Ming... the disciple who slew his past self in a fit of madness. Taikong the combat elder, who held the might of a thousand meteors in every finger. Yuan Dao the blacksmith elder, the only true friend he had, close enough to be blood brothers.

...

He thought of the unique beauty of the alchemy in this world, the secrets he had yet to uncover. The mysterious Martial Expertise that defied reason. The spatial abnormalities within the beasts of this world and the unexplained Spatial Storm that approached. He did not know much about formations, but this world did not lack in that aspect either. He wanted to research that as well...

How truly pointless.

He already knew he would not let himself die.

Even if he wanted to help others, that was only when he had the luxury to. If there was truly no other option, he would sacrifice even those closest to him to live on, let alone some kids he barely knew.

...

He clenched his teeth. This despicable pragmatism... it reminded him so much of his father he wanted so much to defy. Baiyun had always considered himself a moral person. It was why he had idiotically thrown himself into this mess to begin with.

But a seedling of doubt sprouted.

He had done unspeakable cruelty in his past life before he decided to oppose his father, and without much remorse. And now, that part of himself he buried so long ago seemed to beg to resurface, now that his life was at stake.

Was he truly "kind" at heart, or had he cultivated that spark merely to refute and deny his father?

...

...

Perhaps deep down, his true nature was the same. A cold and callous person who viewed people as nothing but tools.

Ah... he truly hated that thought. He hated himself.

There was no more time to think further.

His art had already almost fully degraded his eyes. Next, it would pulverise his brain and directly kill him.

Baiyun's heart grew cold and merciless as he steeled himself.

Yingtao and Jingfeng? What a joke... there was no actual choice. He would have to save Yingtao of course. She was the only one who had the strength to get him out alive.

The frozen time thawed and began to hasten, Baiyun reaching his bloodied left hand towards the sigil imprinted on her.

He channelled soul into his hand once more, grasping and ripping it out gruesomely. Then, he snatched the sigil orbiting him with the very same hand. The two sigils shook violently in his grasp as if desperately trying to escape, tearing out chunks of flesh from his palm with every rotation.

Baiyun reached his clenched fist towards Jingfeng and closed his ruined eyes.

Time fully resumed, and his hand exploded into a shower of gristle and bone as the resisting sigils tore it apart. Like buckshot, his tattered flesh shot out with enough force to rip his metal gauntlet into shreds, sending metal shrapnel flying as well!

Jingfeng's skin was torn open by the shrapnel. He yelled in pain, his mouth opening as if he wanted to ask something, before freezing in terror at the sight of Baiyun.

Eyes were normally hidden behind a visor, but in absolute darkness and with the night vision the bracelet granted, there was no distinction. Within the helmet, he saw the bloodied mess that remained of Baiyun's eyes as blood endlessly flowed down like tears, leaking out of the visor.

The next thing he felt was a blunt force slamming into his abdomen and the sensation of tumbling through air.

Ah.

Baiyun kicked Jingfeng viciously with absolutely no mercy, with enough force to shatter his ribs. He had to send him flying away as far as possible.

"Baiyun!" Yingtao screamed. "Why did you-"

Her words were cut off as 3 flashes of crimson radiance shone from Jingfeng's body. Time seemed to slow as he tumbled through the air.

Then, three crescents of light erupted from his body and tore him into chunks as he let out a scream of unbearable agony!

Jingfeng's screams were choked and gargled with blood as he screamed and screamed, each more desperate than the last, until his body finally hit the ground.

He laid dazed for a moment. With his body bisected in rapid succession, all that remained of him was half a torso, a head and an arm. He stared at them with desperate eyes as blood choked out his scream, as if pleading to know why.

Yingtao's eyes grew wide with terror and her legs buckled.

Inhuman whispers tinged with irritation filled the air.

Baiyun gritted his teeth and leapt off Yingtao's back, before grasping her arm with all his might, yanking her off her trembling legs and running with all his might.

"What are you doing?" he screamed. "RUN!"

He could already feel something closing in. More marks of death were about to be summoned!

Baiyun searched desperately with divine thread. Anything... anything!

He heard a distant scuttle and rushed towards it. A warrior centipede had been attracted by the bloodcurdling screams, charging their way as it snapped its mandibles! He almost wanted to laugh.

To think the day would come where he would rejoice at the sight of a bloodthirsty beast that could slay him with a single swipe.

Baiyun began to yell incoherently at the top of his lungs as he tossed off his veiling bracelet and came back into sight. The priorities had inverted. Now, he would need to attract as much attention as possible to survive!

Ten marks of death shot towards them this time, but he was now prepared.

Soul spewed out of the stump of his left arm as he gathered every mark into it. Then he thrust his forearm into the gaping mouth of the warrior and detonated it!

He ran past the beast with blood trailing from the half of his left arm that remained, just as flashes of red erupted again.

Yingtao watched in horror. The warrior centipede, an absolute juggernaut that could resist even the crushing might of earth she commanded... it was torn apart by blades of qi as if it were made of paper.

"Bai... gl... Ba... yun..." a gargled cry came from behind.

Jingfeng had a dream. He had always envied how his sister could soar the skies, as free as a golden canary. But his wind arts had always been lacking in comparison, and day by day, he fell behind.

He wondered. Would his chance to fly come in a few years? Or would it be a decade? One day, he would not even be able to touch the dust of Fei An's footsteps. But even so, he wanted to support his sister. He could not bear to see her wasting her talent and lazing away.

Today, he flew for the first time. With his body weight now a fifth of what it was, his dream had been realised in the most twisted way.

He flew towards them desperately with his entrails dangling, tumbling across the ground and reaching out towards them with his lone arm.

Baiyun almost froze.

He wondered if he would have to kick Jingfeng away again. They did not need a dying deadweight clinging onto them when the situation was so dire. Worse, Jingfeng might try to take revenge and attack. If it were Baiyun, he knew he would murder a bastard that tossed him to die like trash.

But his heart trembled. The callous side of him seemed to shatter, and he did not know if he could muster the force to do it again.

A flash of light interrupted his thoughts as a figure shot into view at absurd speed, swinging a crescent blade and bisecting Jingfeng from the head down.

Yingtao let out a shrill scream as she watched the halves of his corpse hit the ground, and she covered her mouth, beginning to cry. She held back the first time, but watching him die a second time shook her to her very core.

A pink mantis that stood as tall as two men revealed itself, with an abdomen bursting with giant petal-like scales that formed a flower blossom as big as it was. Its scythes glowed a brilliant white from the pure qi within, one stained crimson with Jingfeng's blood.

"Pests." it spat with soulsense. "Filthy vermin."

It paused its assault and shook the blood off its scythe, relentlessly wiping its blade with absolute disgust even after it was clean.

Baiyun stared in absolute horror. He did not understand. He thought the threat must have come from the enraged queen centipede. What was another Nascent Soul beast doing here?

Hah. Hahaha...

How truly absurd. Was this heavenly retribution?

The thought of a single Nascent Soul beast in this den was already terrifying enough. And now, he knew there were two.