Within Yao City in the Core World.
Three figures stood within a single room in a courtyard.
“Big brother Hong Yin, Thunderfire, welcome to the Core World. This is Yao City we"re in right now.”
Bai Yunfei explained to the thundershocked pair.
“The…the Core World?” Hong Yin gaped in awe, his head turning everywhere to look.
“Bai Yunfei, how went the talk with the wolf clan?”
Several auras revealed themselves to the three—it was Wu Dijian who entered the room first. Tang Xinyun, Dan Teng, Yao Wuchen, You Qingfeng and everyone else entered shortly afterward.
“It went well.” Bai Yunfei nodded.
The conversation had taken a complete turn when Bai Yunfei took out the Demon-eyed Tiger King. Compounded with the awe they had after hearing Bai Yunfei"s story of how the Demon-eyed Tiger King came to be under his control, the wolf clan began to speak with him in earnest on how to proceed.
“This is Hong Yin, and this is Thunderfire.” Bai Yunfei introduced the two jovially.
“Hey…this aura is Thunderfire!!”
A prismatic gleam of light shot through the air and came to an abrupt stop next to Bai Yunfei"s shoulder. “It"s you!!”
“Xiao Qi?” Tilting his head, Thunderfire studied the bird, “Haha, why wouldn"t it be me?
“Hold on!” His eyes fluctuated in narrowing and widening. “Xiao Qi…you"re a late-stage cla.s.s seven now!”
“Haha!! I am!! Cool huh?” Xiao Qi chirped excitedly. What a happy day it was to meet with an old friend, “but you"re only an early-stage cla.s.s seven? You need to pick it up…”
“Hn…?” The wolf was at a loss for words; reaching his level of strength in the amount of time it took was already an incredible feat. But Xiao Qi"s rate of growth…what in the world could compare to that?!
“I"ve discussed things with the wolf clan, clan head.” Bai Yunfei spoke to Yao Wuchen after a while. “I"d like to ask for all the seniors of the clan to gather so we can talk about the plan.”
“Very well!”
The disciples of the Yao clan were sent out to message the elders at once. Once the last of them were gone, Yao Wuchen turned back to Bai Yunfei as if remembering something. “Ah, I nearly forgot. That dog of yours woke up recently.”
“Lao Sha?” Bai Yunfei"s eyes lit up, “He"s awake? How is he!”
The amount of time Lao Sha spent sleeping was insane. Calling it a hibernation would nearly be an understatement, so Bai Yunfei was definitely glad to hear the dog finally waking up.
“He"s still shaking off the drowsiness.” Yao Wuchen quipped, “everything seems fine, you can see for yourself in a moment.”
The moment came a while later after Bai Yunfei explained the plan to everyone. Then it was off to where Lao Sha was currently located.
He had only taken a single step into a courtyard when a loud bark and streak of brown light flew at Bai Yunfei.
“Lao Sha!!”
Swooping down, Xiao Qi collided with the dog with such force that the two were bowled over and fell to the ground, chittering and barking in excitement together as they did.
“Haha!! You"re finally up, Lao Sha! I heard from Yunfei that you ate a Soul King"s elemental attack, is that true? How"d you manage to do that?”
Xiao Qi asked as he took off into the air to fly around Lao Sha"s head.
“Wasn"t he supposed to be bedridden still? How"s he jumping about now then?”
Crouching down, Bai Yunfei pressed a hand to the dog"s forehead. He was curious about something. A sliver of soulsense crept into the dog from his hand and began to scan the dog"s body.
His hand pulled back a second later.
Just like before, he couldn"t sense anything different with the dog.
“Yunfei…what happened to Lao Sha? Can he really eat elemental energy like you say he can?” Tang Xinyun asked in curiosity.
“I"m not sure what happened, actually. But Lao Sha can without a doubt absorb elemental energy…”
He stood up after a moment to look at the dog. “Lao Sha, eat this for everyone to see.”
Then he sent a fireball flying to the dog.
“Woof!!” Lao Sha snapped open its jaws, and as if there was an attractive force acting upon the fireball, the fireball began to shrink and fly into Lao Sha"s mouth.
“It"s really true!!” Tang Xinyun exclaimed.
“Woof…” Lao Sha look dissatisfied still. The fireball wasn"t enough to quell his hunger. Whimpering, the dog stared at Bai Yunfei as if to beg for a few primal stones to eat.
“I wonder if he grew stronger after eating the attack of an Early-stage Soul King?”
“Let"s try this on for size!! Lao Sha, I"ll be testing your limits, be careful now!”
An even larger ball of fire materialized over Bai Yunfei"s palm. This held the power of an Early-stage Soul King in it.
Jaw opened, Lao Sha waited for the fireball to approach before swallowing it as swiftly as he did the first one.
“Again!”
A second fireball—this time stronger than the one before—came to life in Bai Yunfei"s hands before he threw it at the dog.
And just as easily as its predecessor, this fireball was hungrily devoured by Lao Sha within moments. Behind Bai Yunfei, a stunned Tang Xinyun and Long Lan stood there with wide-open eyes as they tried to make sense of what they had just witnessed. Lao Sha eating the first fireball had already taken most of their spirits with them. Lao Sha eating the second was just the icing on the cake.
Before, Lao Sha had to have suffered from a form of "indigestion" when it ate the attack of the Soul Exalt and Early-stage Soul King. But this time…Lao Sha was powered up and better prepared to outperform!
What…what kind of existence was Lao Sha now?!
“Drinking that primal liquid twice…just twice is enough to turn an ordinary dog into something like this?!” A stunned Bai Yunfei thought as an eager Lao Sha barked and jumped excitedly all around him.
“Eh?”
Bai Yunfei snapped his head up towards the sky. “I"ll be heading outside for a second, Xinyun!”
A half-second later, Bai Yunfei was gone from the Core World.
Outside in the real world.
Bai Yunfei reappeared within a room made of stone right in front of Hong Yin.
“Big brother Hong Yin, what"s the matter?”
Needless to say, Bai Yunfei was able to sense the presence of anyone that was close enough to the Core Stone, even when he was inside of it. Hong Yin being within proximity of the stone was strange since he should"ve been speaking with the Yao clan. Because of that, Bai Yunfei thought that something was amiss and came outside. Either something was happening, or something was going to happen.
“Our predictions were off, our enemies are already heading toward us!!”
“So soon?!”
Stone-faced, Hong Yin nodded his head. “Our scouts reported that all three of the factions have been sighted together!”
Picking up the Core Stone, Bai Yunfei rushed out from the room with Hong Yin. A message was already sent to Xiao Qi to have him ready everyone.
A war was about to begin!!