Chapter 417: The Mysterious Tribulation Crossing Realm Cultivator… Turns Out to Be Me?
The Human Immortal List moved ahead of schedule!
When the Ascension Platform fell, many had already guessed that such a thing might happen.
But when the Immortal Nation officially announced it, and even dispatched envoys at once to personally invite participants, the entire capital city was shaken to its core.
Since the Human Immortal List had come into existence, there had never been such a precedent!
Of course, at this moment nearly everyone in the royal city understood the reason for this exception.
The Ascension Platform had fallen ahead of time, a Tribulation Crossing Realm flood dragon of the Netherkin Race had appeared, and a mysterious Tribulation Crossing Realm cultivator had captured that very flood dragon upon the platform…
None of these were minor matters.
And when one connected them with the more recent rumors—such as the Demon Sect's Holy Saint in Qifeng City slaying a late-stage Nascent Soul realm chicken Netherkin, which still lacked an official explanation, or even earlier, the campaigns against the demon clans—many people couldn't help but feel as though a great storm was looming on the horizon.
This Human Immortal List might truly be unlike any that came before it.
What else might happen next?
Some long-time residents of the capital, used to years of peace, felt an unfamiliar unease.
Several major powers in the royal city had already begun collecting information.
They blended into the crowds of spectators heading northward to the Trial of Ascension Platform, wanting to see whether this year's event would also differ from the norm.
Yet the sight that greeted them—everything appearing perfectly ordinary—only deepened their confusion.
. . . . .
Outside, these matters hadn't reached Luo Wusheng's ears yet.
At the moment, he was still inside his room at the Wandering Immortal Inn. He had already managed to sit up from the floor, but was now staring blankly at the closed wooden door before him.
The two breathtakingly beautiful girls who had been at his side were no longer in the room.
The two had just walked out.
"They… really just left like that?"
His voice carried a note of bewilderment.
The way things had unfolded was completely outside of Luo Wusheng's expectations.
At first, he had assumed that a certain little immortal spirit would help him clean up the aftermath. Yet not only had it done nothing of the sort, his state upon awakening had nearly scared him witless—he had truly thought disaster was about to strike.
But what he could never have imagined was that, upon hearing the sudden voice of Li Xing outside, the two girls would actually compose themselves more quickly than he did. They simply straightened their clothes a little and stood.
For Bai Xiaoyao, it wasn't too bad. She had only lost control of her body earlier when her true spirit suddenly left her, causing her to topple onto Luo Wusheng by inertia. After rising and looking at the state of herself, her white dress showed hardly a wrinkle.
But Little Yuli was another matter entirely. Her repeated struggles earlier on had left her outfit in utter disarray. The moment she sat up, her messy clothes slipped down, revealing several patches of fair skin.
Luo Wusheng had even seen the Sword Fairy's delicate face faintly flushed red.
And yet, neither girl said a single word.
They rose. They left.
By the time Luo Wusheng snapped out of it, he was alone in the room.
As if nothing at all had just happened.
'No— this must mean something happened while I was unaware!'
A jolt ran through Luo Wusheng.
He liked to think he knew his Junior Sister and the Sword Fairy fairly well.
Under normal circumstances, even if someone were urging them from outside, things should not have ended up like this.
At the very least, they wouldn't have left without a single word about the situation they'd just been in.
Now seated, Luo Wusheng began piecing together his thoughts.
Though today hadn't lasted long, far too much had already happened.
"If something occurred while I was unaware, the only possible time frame would be back then…"
Back when he was fighting the black flood dragon, while the two girls had gone on ahead to follow the trail of the Immortal Aura.
What could have happened then, that led to how things developed just now?
Could it be that Little Yuli had taken the initiative to reveal everything, and managed to explain it all away?
That shouldn't be possible. With the temperament of his Little Yuli, could she really have done that?
Luo Wusheng slowly drew in a breath, then exhaled.
In any case, things had turned out better than the worst-case scenario.
'…For now, Little Yuli and I are on the same side in this matter. Once I send her a message through the wooden sword, I should be able to get an answer. There's no need to rush.'
The more one panics, the easier it is to make mistakes.
Calming himself, Luo Wusheng first looked toward his own hand.
Resting in his palm was a fist-sized piece of mysterious jade.
The source of all this trouble—yet now it seemed utterly ordinary, devoid of any unusual aura.
"All that power has already been sealed away… huh?"
Luo Wusheng froze.
Turning the jade over in his hand, he realized that around the lotus in his dantian, there was a faint aura similar to the jade's.
Had some of that power remained inside his dantian?
He tried to rouse it with spiritual energy, but aside from sensing its presence, it seemed to have no other effect on him.
After thinking a moment, he pushed the matter aside.
Residual power wasn't strange; usually it would dissipate on its own after a while.
Still, his gaze toward the jade grew more serious.
'Miss Empress really doesn't hand out ordinary things. Without any activation, it could unleash such power…'
Remembering his earlier experience, Luo Wusheng rubbed his chin.
Even leaving aside the jade's full capabilities, the mere ability to greatly hinder his control over spiritual energy was already enough to outclass many high-grade Artifacts.
Unfortunately, he couldn't control it at all. If something like that backlash happened again, he wouldn't even know how he died.
"Until I figure out how it works, I'd better just seal it away as a collectible…"
With mixed feelings, he tucked the jade back into his storage bag, placing it beside another piece of jade he had obtained from the Ancient Heavenly Gate's Palace of Fate.
He was just about to draw out the short sword, to ask Little Yuli about the situation, when—
"Meow～～～"
A sharp, drawn-out mewl rang in his ears, carrying the drowsy satisfaction of something freshly awakened from a nap.
Luo Wusheng instinctively turned his head.
But the instant he saw the scene before him, he shot to his feet.
For there, at the very spot above where his head had lain when he collapsed, a black-and-white kitten was arching its back in a stretch. Its mismatched eyes—one black, one white—blinked sleepily, just in time to meet the gaze of the Demon Sect's Holy Saint.
"Huh? Demon Sect's Holy Saint? Why are you… Oh right, I was napping here just now. Looks like your true spirit has returned?"
The kitten licked its paw casually as it spoke.
Luo Wusheng's face darkened, though his movements grew all the more cautious.
"…Why are you still here?"
"Me? Ah, my innate ability was triggered all of a sudden earlier, and I burned too much energy. I needed to rest for a bit, so I decided to sleep right here."
The black-and-white kitten got to its feet, gazing at the wary young man before it.
"No need to worry. As I told you before, my innate ability hasn't recovered yet. There won't be any sudden accidents."
Luo Wusheng's eyes were full of suspicion.
In the end, however, man and cat began to talk.
"So what you're saying is, because I rushed things when communicating with you earlier, you didn't have time to explain that right now you're basically no different from an ordinary kitten?"
Luo Wusheng's expression was complicated as he spoke.
After a short exchange, he had noticed that no calamity had struck—at least, no thunderbolt had fallen from the heavens.
And the information he had just learned made the corner of his mouth twitch.
"It's not as if I'm completely the same as an ordinary cat… If I were to fight one now, I'd certainly be stronger. And I still have other abilities. Only…"
The tiny figure padded softly across the floor, stopping before a wooden table. Wrapping its front paws around one of the legs, it strained with all its might.
Yet despite the effort, the table didn't budge in the slightest.
"See? When it comes to raw strength, I can't even lift something like this, much less accomplish the task you gave me earlier."
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Luo Wusheng rubbed his forehead.
So it turned out he had been tricked—by himself.
A brute, in the end, always suffers from ignorance.
His understanding of immortal spirits really was too shallow. This possibility had never even occurred to him.
Who would have thought that a cat with such an extraordinary innate ability—an existence others would flee at the mere sight of, capable of altering its form at will—would be so weak in actual strength?
Was this the price of power?
In the end, Luo Wusheng could only sigh.
"Forget it. This is my fault for not thinking things through."
Besides, the situation had already strayed far from what he had originally expected.
Holding the wooden sword, he had already sent a query to the Sword Fairy about her current situation, but the reply hadn't arrived yet… She was probably in a place where it wasn't convenient to respond.
With the Human Immortal List moved ahead of schedule, all participants in the capital were being gathered by the Immortal Nation. It really wasn't a good time to send back messages.
'The reason it was moved forward should be because of the sudden fall of the Trial of Ascension Platform… Was that my fault? No, all I did was smash the flood dragon, I didn't even use that much force—how could that cause the entire platform to fall?'
No, the problem must have been those two beams of light that appeared at that moment. His striking the flood dragon had only been a coincidence.
Speaking of those beams, they were almost certainly tied to the final goal of this round's Immortal Aura guidance. His Junior Sister and Little Yuli's abnormal awakenings must also be connected to them.
Luo Wusheng shifted his gaze toward the immortal spirit before him.
"So, what exactly was that mesuga— Tower Master Yue trying to do this time? What changes did the Immortal Aura on the platform trigger?"
"You don't know?"
The little ancestor tilted its head in confusion. "Didn't you reach the place on the platform where the Immortal Aura's reaction was strongest?"
"No, some accidents happened on the way." Luo Wusheng answered frankly.
"…In that case, I really can't say. My only task was to deliver the item. The Tower Master didn't tell me anything more."
Seeing the kitten look somewhat flustered, Luo Wusheng rolled his eyes.
Useless. Asking was pointless.
Still, something about it all felt off to him.
The white-haired loli's move this time had been sudden, almost spur-of-the-moment, and not at all like her usual style.
And this time, he hadn't even completed the Tower Master of Heavenly Divination Tower task…
"Right. What about the Immortal Aura itself? I can't sense it anymore… Did it vanish after my true spirit returned to my body?"
"…"
The little immortal spirit didn't answer immediately. It padded around the room for a bit before suddenly leaping onto the table.
"I… really don't know either. The existence of Immortal Aura has always been more rumor than fact. It's said to be the very foundation of immortal positions in the Ancient Heavenly Gate, but nowadays, records of it are scarce. Even Grandpa Qing once pursued it, but in the end, found nothing."
"Grandpa Qing?"
"That's the one you people call the Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance—the human who first awakened me… But let's not talk about him. As things stand, if you want to know the specifics about Immortal Aura, you'll probably have to ask Tower Master Yue yourself."
As it spoke, the black-and-white kitten began to radiate light, its body gradually turning into a black-and-white sphere of radiance.
"Well then. I've more or less recovered now. Perfect timing to go ask the Tower Master Yue. If I learn anything, I'll let you know the next time we meet."
Luo Wusheng froze, and then a flash of azure light flickered.
The black-and-white sphere vanished.
In that instant, the room was truly empty, leaving Luo Wusheng completely alone.
'Alliance Leader Qing…'
Murmuring the name that the immortal spirit had belatedly revealed in its final moment before leaving, Luo Wusheng shook his head.
At the very least, he had managed to grow a little more familiar with that Martial Alliance ancestor after this exchange.
"I wonder what the Alliance Leader will think, knowing that the immortal spirit he picked up is now working for Heavenly Divination Tower?"
He muttered in exasperation, finally rising to his feet.
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that his matter with the Immortal Aura was far from over.
'Especially that flood dragon that vanished under the Immortal Aura's shroud… There was something odd about it. When it shrank in size, that bulging belly was far too conspicuous…'
But he had no further information to go on. He had no idea where that flood dragon had come from.
"In any case, until Little Yuli replies, I'd better head outside and take a look… See how much impact all of this has had on the capital."
With a wave of his hand, Luo Wusheng used spiritual energy to tidy the mess left behind in the room. After sending a brief message to his subordinate, his figure faded from sight.
. . . . .
The once-bustling eastern district of the capital was now noticeably emptier.
The arena for Foundation Establishment duels had been shut down, and the crowd was surging en masse toward the north of the city.
Hidden from sight, Luo Wusheng strolled step by step down the main street, weaving through the flow of people and listening in on the chatter to gather information about the capital's current situation.
First, he learned that those heading north were going to see the Trial of Ascension Platform that had descended this time.
That much wasn't surprising.
But then he realized—nearly half an hour had already passed since the platform had landed…
Which meant his true spirit had taken at least half an hour to return to his body?
No wonder the Immortal Nation had been able to so quickly finalize the announcement of the Human Immortal List being moved forward.
Thinking this, he kept eavesdropping.
But the next bit of information left him dumbstruck.
A mysterious and powerful Tribulation Crossing Realm cultivator had appeared in the capital? One who had utterly crushed a Tribulation Crossing Realm Netherkin?
What? He'd only been "gone" for a short while, and somehow in that exact window, two Tribulation Crossing level battles had taken place and already concluded?
The more he listened, the stranger his expression became.
The descriptions being passed around… why did they sound so familiar?
On the Ascension Platform… a blurred figure… capturing a flood dragon with a single hand…
The mysterious Tribulation Crossing Realm cultivator… was actually himself?!
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Note: Link to the character Illustration:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lkIcPnCxeyuyZA4Kkb621dPC05UvWjhD[1]
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Tn: I updated the story daily, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 532: What On Earth Is Master Talking About?[2]
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[1] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lkIcPnCxeyuyZA4Kkb621dPC05UvWjhD
[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-532-what-156146549
[3] https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-532-what-156146549