New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live-Chapter 1097: Ascendance

At the foot of the staircase, all the disciples saw the clouds gather above the sect and stood in awe.

Even if most of them hadn’t seen the phenomenon for themselves before, they all knew of it.

Tribulation.

It was something that usually only happened when a person ascended the last step of the Heavenly Ascent. It was when they gained the strength to stand beside the master, as his direct servants: Elders.

And yet, someone who just walked in here, from god knew where, and ascended the Heavenly Ascent out of what was now rumoured to be arrogance, was reaching tribulation before even reaching the first of the three plateaus.

It was unheard of, and mind-shattering, to all the uninitiated to what tribulation was really.

But not as baffling as it was to a single girl, who was well aware of what tribulation truly was, since her status as an inner disciple allowed more information on the subject.

"Who in the heavens is that guy?" she mumbled, feeling a shiver run down her spine.

Her heart was thumping inside her chest as she watched him go through a process she would literally kill to go through herself, and on the first plateau of the Heavenly Ascent at that...

And when the last attack from the tribulation struck down, she watched in a mix of horror and amazement, as the biggest pillar of Qi she had ever seen, crashed down on a person whom she had never heard of until moments ago, and had not a trace of Qi inside him before.

And yet, she felt it inside her. This attack had not been the death of the young man.

On the contrary, it was his rebirth...

***

Back on the plateau, a cloud of dust was still swirling around, a result of the sudden explosion shaking the mountain seconds earlier.

Coughing resounded from within the cloud, as people choked on the dust, before a powerful gust of wind washed over the plateau, pushing the dust cloud away.

Alex looked toward the source of the wind and nodded at Jonathan, who was covered in grey dust.

Looking at the others from his group, he noticed that was a fact for everyone there, the grey stone dust all clinging to their clothes. He looked around, counting his team members, and came to a full count, outside of Liu Yan, who he still couldn’t see.

There was no dust left to obscure his vision, but he couldn’t find Liu Yan anywhere.

Even when extending his mana senses out, he came back blank on his location. He couldn’t even detect traces of him anymore.

"Those senses of yours won’t detect him as well, anymore," the celestial fox’s voice rang next to him.

Turning his head to look at the provenance, he saw the celestial fox looking upward.

Alex lifted his gaze to the receding black clouds, trying to see what he was looking at. And he soon found it.

Within the receding black clouds, a single person, floating in the sky, glowing, golden eyes like two beams of light.

And soon enough, those two beams of gold turned downward, gazing at the people on the first plateau.

With a flash of white and a thunderclap, the figure in the sky zipped downward, crashing into the stone plateau at the edge of the staircase.

It was surprising that the ground hadn’t cracked, either from the massive force of the thunderbolts or his landing, and Alex looked at him weirdly.

His shirt was gone, as well as most of his pants, leaving him with barely the equivalent of booty shorts to cover his tools and ass, making the situation slightly awkward.

But Alex was noticing something entirely different: the changes in Liu Yan.

Although the young man had looked to be in okay shape, he could also tell the young man was more of a gamer body type, on the lean/skinny side.

But not anymore.

His physique was now toned, almost as much as Alexander’s, almost as if he had been intensively training for a few months, just like Alex.

Such a change, in mere moments, was nothing normal to begin with. But the total lack of mana emanating from him, even at this very moment, as his eyes crackled with energy, was the cherry on top.

"I can feel energy coming off of him, but it’s not mana..." Alex mumbled.

"That’s because his mana is gone, replaced by something purer. Something from this world, not a foreign world," the celestial fox replied.

The fox walked toward Liu Yan, looking at him with a wide grin.

"How are you feeling, young man? Does your body feel lighter? Stronger? Does your mind feel like it is clearer, and processing your thoughts faster than before?"

Liu Yan looked down at himself, before looking back at the strange man.

"It does... But it’s strange. My magic... It’s gone. But I still feel the lightning within me, like it’s coursing through my veins. What is going on?"

The celestial fox clapped his hands in delight.

"You have become something this world needs. Something better than human. A cultivator, as the younger generation likes to call it. We used to call them Martial Practitioners. Now, you are one, too."

Liu Yan remembered reading Xianxia novels before, but the thought of ever becoming a cultivator had never occurred to him. Those were fantasy novels, with no truth to them.

He had only taken the idea from them to form a dantian when he started feeling mana in this world out of curiosity. And now he was one of them?

"Who gives a fuck about the name of it?" Alex interjected. "Are you feeling ok?"

Liu Yan chuckled at Alexander’s lack of gentleness before nodding at him.

"I’m fine. Thank you..."

The fox clicked his tongue at the rudeness, but returned his full attention to the young man.

"I know this is sudden, and you have previous allegiances, young man. But, would you like to join the Zhong Kui? I can help you become stronger. Train with people who have achieved the same stage as you, unlike this ragtag bunch," he declared.

"Hey! I told you not to get ideas!" Alexander erupted, grabbing Gu Fang’s doppelgänger’s robe collar again.

"You said I couldn’t force him. I am not forcing him!" the fox defended himself, grabbing Alexander’s collar as well.

He had enough of being the only one getting roughed. If this youngling wanted a fight, he would get one.

Everyone instantly took defensive positions, expecting a fight to erupt. But a voice broke down the tension building, like a balloon popping.

"I’ll do it."