Chapter Ninety-Five: Core Formation

The archipelago stretched for hundreds of miles, a scatter of dozens of islands of every size, all of them rounded and smooth, like little spheres; together they were known as the Ryukyu Archipelago.

Lei Xiang chose this place not merely because spiritual energy here was abundant and an immense vein lay buried beneath the earth. The chief reason was that it belonged to a free realm beyond the control of the seven elf clans, a place where only strength and spirit stones ruled.

After Lei Xiang had seized, by force, the northernmost medium-sized island, he used spirit stones to buy a full set of materials for refinement. Only then did he enter seclusion to study the method of refining the crystal puppet. Ten days later, he finally gained complete mastery over the crystal man, and through a second round of consecration he raised its cultivation to the early Foundation Establishment stage.

He handed Lan Xi a pouch of top-grade spirit stones, instructed her to replace the stones in the crystal man at set intervals, then laid down two layers of protective formations around the island. At last he released the Gluttonous Pig to guard Lan Xi, and only then did he settle himself with peace of mind into the temporary cave dwelling to begin true seclusion.

Meanwhile, Lan Xi spent her days playing with the Gluttonous Pig. Now and then someone would come to seize the island, but either they were driven off by the formations or defeated by the crystal man working together with the pig. Thus, though life on the island was lonely, it was also very quiet and comfortable.

What excited Lan Xi most during this time was standing before her dressing mirror each day to comb and arrange her hair. No matter how she looked at herself, she seemed beautiful, and there was not the slightest sign of aging. Her skin, her face, even her hair were exactly as they had been before, and there was not a trace of crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. This made her believe in Lei Xiang’s Youth-Preserving Pill.

One day, Lan Xi was competing with the Gluttonous Pig in an eating contest for pineapples. The rule was a ratio of one to thirty: for every pineapple Lan Xi ate, the pig had to eat thirty. The contest would last one incense stick’s time, and whoever ate more would win. The incense had already been lit, and Lan Xi and the pig had begun eating, when she suddenly felt the rocks beneath her feet tremble. Both of them stopped at once.

Then came a far more violent shock. Stones began to crumble down from the ceiling of the temporary cave dwelling with a rattling sound. Lan Xi was startled. She took a top-grade spirit stone from her robes, pressed it into the position of the crystal man’s heart, then picked up a flyswatter-like tool from the table and slapped it against the crystal man’s forehead.

The crystal man’s tightly closed eyes flew open. Two beams of white light shot forth, and then it strode out on its long legs with clacking steps.

The flyswatter had been made by Lei Xiang specifically for Lan Xi, so that without any spiritual power she could still control the crystal man with ease. Now that such a commotion had broken out, Lan Xi naturally assumed someone had come again to seize the island and was attacking the formation outside, so she sent the crystal man out to counterattack.

Not long after the crystal man left, the震动 ceased, but thunder rolled overhead. Lan Xi could no longer sit still. She took out a bamboo-tube-shaped magical device and blew three times toward the Gluttonous Pig. Lei Xiang had taught her this as well. The pig, which had already evolved into a sentient beast, spread two transparent wings from its back, its three sharp tail spines straightening like taut arrows. It shot out like lightning, and Lan Xi hurried after it.

The scene outside was enough to stun anyone. Dark clouds hung low over the entire island, with flashing lightning and booming thunder, yet not a drop of rain fell. The sky seemed to press down from above, and Lan Xi felt an overwhelming force bearing upon her; she had no choice but to retreat into the cave dwelling. At that moment, a beastlike thunderous roar erupted again from beneath the earth. This time, Lan Xi could tell the sound was coming from Lei Xiang’s cave dwelling. Because he was in seclusion, his temporary residence was twenty miles from Lan Xi’s cave.

Suddenly, several streaks of apricot-yellow light burst up from underground. Immediately afterward, patches of silver-white stone were drawn toward that apricot radiance and sucked into Lei Xiang’s cave dwelling. Where the spirit stones were pulled away, the ground began to cave in. Then the apricot-yellow light flared again, and more spirit stones were siphoned off. The collapses spread and continued.

Outside, the thunder grew denser. Countless electrical charges had gathered in the blackened sky. Even the Gluttonous Pig could no longer endure the oppressive pressure, and it pulled the crystal man back into the cave dwelling. There was a second defensive formation there that Lei Xiang had set up, and most of the pressure from above was absorbed and reflected, easing the burden inside by seven or eight parts.

Thunder rumbled incessantly in the sky outside, and more and more spirit stones were sucked away by the apricot-yellow light. The collapse of the island kept widening.

Suddenly, the lightning gathered in the sky seemed to receive an order to attack. All at once it plunged downward toward Lei Xiang’s temporary cave dwelling. By then, however, the apricot-yellow light had vanished and the collapses had stopped. Only the roaring impacts of lightning striking the dwelling remained. Lan Xi became exceedingly tense. For some reason, she had begun worrying about Lei Xiang. Could that little tiger-tooth boy, while in seclusion, be driven into cultivation deviation by such brutal conditions?

At a moment so perilous, Lan Xi found herself thinking about Lei Xiang’s safety. She had never expected this of herself, but there was no time to dwell on it now. Her attention was entirely fixed on the lightning strikes hammering down again and again.

Lei Xiang’s temporary cave dwelling was already being shattered, stones flying everywhere. One corner in the northwest had collapsed. The entire dwelling looked like a solitary boat on a stormy sea, pitching and swaying as though it might overturn at any moment.

Crack after crack, the island’s outermost defensive formation also began emitting sharp, bursting sounds. Yet Lan Xi paid it no mind. She did not know that nearly two hundred elves were already frantically attacking the formation. In the northwest corner, a giant elf ten feet tall was commanding twelve other giant elves of the same size, all of them swinging wheel-sized battle axes to hack at the barrier. In the southeast, dozens of elves only about three feet tall, dressed in orange, were using drill-like magical tools to bore madly at the formation.

They were not here to seize territory. They were here for treasure.

Lan Xi had lost all her magical power, so naturally she could sense nothing. But these people could clearly feel that the spiritual energy around the island had become chaotic, and that the seemingly disorderly currents of energy were all converging toward Lei Xiang’s cave dwelling.

What could that mean?

These elves, each of whom had lived for more than a century, naturally knew that such an abnormal celestial phenomenon could only mean one of two things: either a supreme innate treasure had come into being, or someone was undergoing a tribulation while forming a Nascent Soul or advancing to Spirit Transformation. Since the strongest among them were only at roughly the Foundation Establishment level, none could determine exactly what realm the person facing tribulation was in. But they could be certain that only a Nascent Soul monster would provoke a change in heaven and earth like this during tribulation.

Yet the entire elf race did not have a single Nascent Soul cultivator, and even an outsider would not choose the Ryukyu Archipelago for a tribulation. The logic was plain. Who would wander alone to a strange island, unfamiliar with the place, just to face heavenly punishment? So everyone unanimously concluded that the more likely explanation was the first: someone had discovered an incomparable treasure, sealed off the island with a formation, and intended to keep it all for himself. That, of course, could not be allowed.

By now, the various-colored divine thunders in the sky had already blown open Lei Xiang’s cave dwelling. Dust and shattered stone flew everywhere. The gathered energy of heaven and earth had finally found an outlet, surging and spiraling downward like an inverted funnel directly into the dwelling. At the same time, the ever-accumulating divine thunder struck in without mercy. For a moment, explosions erupted one after another inside the temporary cave.

Lan Xi was already terrified out of her wits. She no longer worried about Lei Xiang’s life; she worried whether there would be anything left of him to bury. Then a small bottle flew out. Its stopper was gone, and the mouth of the bottle had widened to several yards across, actually receiving the incoming divine thunder. More bottles flew out one after another, all of them taking in the thunder as well. Seeing this, Lan Xi wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes, and her heart eased slightly.

By then the surrounding heavenly energy had stabilized and no longer rushed inward. After dozens of bottles fell back into the temporary dwelling, the rocks all around trembled, and a massive staff, dozens of feet long, suddenly thrust out from within. It kept lengthening still, and when it had stretched to well over a thousand feet, it pierced the low-hanging thunderclouds above.

The elves attacking the island’s outer defensive formation naturally saw this astonishing sight, and they drew even more desperately on every hidden trump card they possessed, striving to break in as quickly as possible. In the northwest corner, those giant elves had already hacked the formation into a dense lattice of cracks with their wheel-sized axes. Under the command of their leader, they formed into some geometric pattern, their axes gathering together in a battle array, and unleashed one final strike against the barrier.

Then the worst thing Lan Xi feared came to pass. The giant green-haired elves in the northwest corner broke through the formation. Elves of all kinds surged through the breach, one after another. Lan Xi’s heart seemed to stop. She wiped the sweat from her palm and raised that flyswatter-like magical tool, but she did not bring it down.

By then, nearly a hundred elves had already poured in. Lan Xi understood clearly that even if the crystal man and the Gluttonous Pig were both released at once, they still could not withstand those elves. Looking at the colossal staff stirring the thunderclouds overhead, she knew Lei Xiang was safe for the moment. The bottles had certainly been thrown out by him, and only Lei Xiang could control that supreme Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff. Yet she could do nothing for him. At that moment, the only thing Lan Xi could do was silently pray for his safety.

By then, eighty percent of the elves were charging toward Lei Xiang’s temporary cave dwelling, while the rest had surrounded the defensive formation outside Lan Xi’s cave. Crack. Boom. The thunderclaps came one after another. Within the cloud layers stirred by the Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff, tens of thousands of bolts of lightning struck down like a flood bursting its banks, a wild stampede of raging bulls. There was only one target: the low hill where Lei Xiang’s cave dwelling stood.

After the violent blasts, neither Lei Xiang’s dwelling nor the low hill remained. In their place hung a veil of smoke and dust. Nearly a hundred elves had been caught in the disaster as well, and more than half were killed or wounded. Just as they were about to rush forward to see what had happened, a sharp whistle suddenly burst from the fog, sounding like the roar of dragons and the cry of tigers. Immediately afterward, an incomparable surge of spiritual power erupted outward, so forceful that nothing could stop it, spreading from the site of Lei Xiang’s cave dwelling in all directions.

Dozens of elves had no time even to react. The red-haired giant only instinctively raised his great axe, but under the force of the spiritual shockwave, the axe shattered like paper. The wave struck his abdomen in an instant, sending the ten-foot giant flying more than a hundred feet. When he crashed down, his upper and lower body had already separated; he had been cut cleanly in half at the waist. The others were no more fortunate. Corpses flew everywhere in the ensuing chaos.

The elves besieging Lan Xi’s cave dwelling, together with those who were still rushing onto the island, were all dumbstruck. They had never witnessed such a scene in their dreams. Then the small island beneath their feet began to tremble violently and slowly sink. Could it be collapsing into the sea?

At that moment, the fog at Lei Xiang’s dwelling dispersed, revealing a naked man. He was of average build and plain in appearance, but blue light flickered continuously in his eyes. In his hand he held a towering staff, and with one great stride he crossed several yards. Facing the dazed elves, he bared his little tiger teeth and smiled.

“This island is about to sink. You may as well be buried with it.”

His words struck the ground like a hammer. Having already seen Lei Xiang’s power, the elves no longer dared harbor any extravagant hopes. They scattered at once like frightened birds and beasts. Only Lan Xi, still recovering from her terror, cried out, “Lei Xiang, you’re still alive!”

Lei Xiang shook his head helplessly. “I intended to spare them, but I had no choice. I must keep this secret.”

“Die,” he said.

His right hand formed a blade with two fingers, and his body spun like a top. A pale blue blade light flashed out. Though it looked like a ribbon of blue radiance, it was in truth an evolved Divine Thunder Slash. The elves screamed and fled for their lives, but they were no match for its speed. In the blink of an eye, all one hundred and twenty-seven of them were cut in half, none left alive.

Because Lei Xiang had used the upgraded Divine Thunder Slash, the reefs beneath his feet could not bear the strain and shattered into fragments. The island’s sinking speed doubled, and seawater was already beginning to surge up. Lei Xiang hurled the staff into his mouth, and as his incantation rose, the Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff shrank to about ten feet long. He leaped onto it in one bound. With a tap of his toe, the spirit staff vanished almost like teleportation above Lan Xi’s head. Lei Xiang reached out and gathered her into his arms, then rode the Nine-Treasure Lotus Staff through the sky and away.

Watching the island below slowly disappear beneath the sea, Lan Xi asked in a low voice, “Lei Xiang, I can feel how powerful you are right now. At your present level, I think you could have saved this island. Why didn’t you act?”

Lei Xiang shook his head. “So that no trace is left behind. I don’t want to provoke your elf clan. If there’s no need for trouble, I’d rather avoid it. Our most important task now is to help you recover your spiritual power.”

For a while after this, updates will usually come in the evening.