Outside Yao City, the camps of the three allied schools were set up with many of the strongest gathered within the largest tent.
Qin Bangjie sat upon his soft seat with his right hand clutching the armrest. The veins in that said arm were bulging outwards from the exertion of him grabbing onto that armrest. The chair was made of top-notch steelwood and capable of enduring plenty of stress, but not enough that it"d survive Qin Bangjie"s wrath. Crackling and groaning as though it was on the verge of splintering, the chair seemed almost ready to burst as Qin Bangjie quivered on it.
Xu Qianqing strode in at that moment. Entering through the flaps, the man looked up and saw how angry Qin Bangjie was. Fearful by the sight and feeling unwell at the stifling atmosphere, he gingerly approached the man. “First elder…”
The atmosphere grew even worse.
“How many did we lose?”
“Fifty Soul Exalts, ninety Soul Ancestors, and a hundred and thirty Soul Sprites…”
“Crack!!”
Unable to endure it any longer, the armrest exploded into thousands of splinters. Clutching at nothing now, Qin Bangjie let loose a flood of chilling killing intent everywhere and effectively froze Xu Qianqing still!
If it was possible, Qin Bangjie"s heart would"ve been bleeding blood with how he felt right now.
The depression! The resentment! The humiliation! The anger!
It wasn"t just because of the news Xu Qianqing gave him, it was primarily because of the failure of the other plan!
What should"ve happened was for Ceng Quans.h.i.+ to successfully invade one of the pill repositories. From there, he and his helpers should"ve taken all that they could and return to the school with them. That way, the Soul Refining School should"ve been given a part of the soup before the Beast Taming School and Wind Lightning School could be served their share. From there, the three schools just had to destroy the Alchemy School and share the rest of the "spoils".
That"s what should"ve happened.
But it wasn"t!
The strength of the Alchemy School was beyond their calculations! The army of familiars made their supposedly "easy" invasion all the more harder, and then there was the sudden arrival of Dan Teng and Wu Dijian to talk about! Qin Bangjie felt even more dejected just thinking about it. The only thing they could really do by that point was to just retreat.
If they didn"t succeed with the invasion, Qin Bangjie was at least betting on Ceng Quans.h.i.+ to accomplish his task. Having their school enjoy a taste of their future loot before the others would"ve made the loss far more bearable.
But Ceng Quans.h.i.+ never returned! No matter how long they waited, the man—or his subordinates—never returned! That was when Qin Bangjie went to check on the soul tablet of Ceng Quans.h.i.+ and his subordinates.
Only to find them in pieces!
They were dead!
He nearly went mad at that. Within all the realms of possibilities Qin Bangjie conjured up, none of them included the possibility of Ceng Quans.h.i.+ failing!
He was so confident that the Alchemy School wouldn"t have anything powerful hidden up their sleeves. The Alchemy School should"ve had all their most powerful out to fight outside the city. Ceng Quans.h.i.+ should"ve been free to accomplish his task without any enemies! He should"ve been successful!
But like the invasion, this plan of his ended up being a failure!
If this entire plan was a fis.h.i.+ng trip, and the invasion was the bait, then Qin Bangjie lost both the bait and the fis.h.i.+ng rod! There was nothing in Qin Bangjie"s hands to show for his troubles!
That was what made Qin Bangjie truly furious. This was the biggest loss the Soul Refining School had to speak of in this invasion effort!
“First elder, men from the Beast Taming School and Wind Lightning School have arrived…”
The flames of anger were forcibly squashed within Qin Bangjie"s heart. He had to reign himself in and impose some calmness back into his mind. His eyes followed the speaker"s voice to the entrance of his tent.
There was a faint ripple as He Changkai and Ma Xucheng teleported into the tent.
The two of them looked strange.
Qin Bangjie raised an eyebrow, “Did something happen?”
“The students in charge of monitoring the city has given their report. Something…inside the city has changed!” He Changkai announced.
In the evening, within Yao City.
Dark clouds hung in the skies above the city. Normally, such a night would"ve been a nice and peaceful one. But the civilians were all staring anxiously at the moon. Rather than being calmed by the normal sight of these clouds, it felt like these clouds were spreading a mournful miasma that made the civilians want to weep.
The battle was not a kind one to the citizens of the city. Many of their loved ones took part in this battle and were injured. Many more were killed. For the family of those killed, tonight was a night of mourning.
Any student of considerable power within the clan was rus.h.i.+ng back and forth. Many were trying to quell the panic. Others were tending to the wounded. Even more were attempting to strengthen the guard as if afraid that the enemy would strike at any moment…
Off in the courtyard where Bai Yunfei was currently recuperating. This courtyard was built and decorated the same way as the other, but there was a difference in that a red hue of light surrounded it. It seemed like the local s.p.a.ce of the courtyard was slowly being cooked by some sort of invisible heat source. Not even the plantlife within the courtyard was spared. Most of them were brown and withered into husks already.
Two figures sat at a stone table located at the center of the garden there. Completely unaffected by the heat around them, they spoke and chatted with one another as though nothing was wrong.
“I say, brother Dan Teng. It"s been half a day now, why hasn"t anything happened yet? When will Bai Yunfei return back to normal?”
The speaker, Wu Dijian, was looking to the room where Bai Yunfei was sleeping in. He was concerned over the fact that Bai Yunfei was still completely unconscious.
“Didn"t you just ask me that a minute ago? The Truth of Reincarnation is already doing all it can do, we just need to wait. From what our clan knows of it from the records, it takes one to six days for the effects to show. In short, it"s dependent on Bai Yunfei being able to complete his "Reincarnation" in his dream. Not only should he regain his memories and strength, but he should also be able to gain a huge boost in strength. He was a Mid-stage Soul King before, becoming a Late-stage Soul King wouldn"t be impossible now.”
“I don"t recall you saying something like that before.” Wu Dijian looked relieved upon hearing that. “But…does this "Truth of Reincarnation" really have such a magical effect like that? Allowing someone to relive their current incarnation and reconstruct their soul and cultivation in a "dream". That"s essentially being able to retrain the mind for double the insights and results, is it not!?”
“That is indeed what the records say.” Dan Teng replied patiently. “But that"s based on what the "records" say. Whether it"s true or not remains to be seen.”
“My my…a single pill having such an extraordinary effect like that?” Wu Dijian leaned backward in heavy thought. It felt unreal that such a pill could exist, but he didn"t doubt Dan Teng. Regulars pills from the era of the Alchemy School two thousand years ago were considered "legendary" in this current era, but this specific pill was "legendary" even then. In truth, he heard mention of a pill like this by name a long time ago. He just never thought that he"d actually be able to lay eyes on it…
The Truth of Reincarnation. A high-heaven tier pill with effects that denied the common sense in this world!
For in this one pill, the entirety of a person"s cultivation was contained within!
Once ingested, the person undergoes a dreamlike state where they "relive" their life. By doing so, one may "reincarnate" their experiences and "relive" their insights to further hone themselves!
And thus, the pill was called the Truth of Reincarnation.
The most important aspect of this pill lied in the first noun of the name, rather than the later. For…the "Truth" expounded upon by this pill was an important one to soul cultivators. It was named as such due to the Law of Truth!
The Truth of Reincarnation was initially meant for a person to ingest if they wanted to gain insight into the Law of Truth! A pill meant for a Soul Emperor to use!
Soul Emperors could begin to gain insight on the secrets hidden behind the Law of Truth while Soul Kings and anyone else weaker than that could not. It was a sign that differentiated Soul Emperor from the ranks beneath.
In fact, one could not even be considered to be a proper Soul Emperor without a proper understanding of the Law of Truth.
That didn"t mean understanding the Law of Truth was easy. Many Early-stage Soul Emperors would die in their journey to understand this law and be unable to become a Mid-stage Soul Emperor.
One might simplify the Law of Truth by saying a Soul Emperor needed absolute mastery over the nature of their own element, meaning they had to understand anything and everything to that element.
When a person is born, they must experience and learn everything about this world without any prior knowledge. A blank slate. This blank slate would eventually be filled with knowledge, but that required time to do. The Truth of Reincarnation allowed one to relive their current"s incarnation in this life. To be able to re-experience everything with the repository of knowledge they already had. A soul cultivator could use that slate of knowledge retrospectively to gain additional insights. Any "epiphany" experienced before now had the option for even more knowledge to be gained. The possibilities were endless…
Recovering lost memories and healing the soul were only "minor" side-effects of this pill.
It can be said, in that case, that using the pill on Bai Yunfei for him to regain his memories was a tremendous waste. It was akin to undergoing surgery in order to heal a small cut…
With the help of this pill, would Bai Yunfei be able to recover and gain a tremendous amount of power?
“Clang…clang…clang…”
The sounds of a metallic bell began to ring, interrupting the conversation Dan Teng and Wu Dijian were having. The sounds were coming from the entire city!
Dan Teng leaped to his feet to stare at the skies. “They"re attacking?! Why so soon?!”