Chapter 94: The Little Ones are Born (3)
Translator: Kelaude Editor: Milkbiscuit
Charcoal opened its eyes to take a gander, but he couldn’t be bothered, so he closed them again.
He had even used his strength! Miao Yi stopped kicking. This buffoon had such a rough skin and thick meat that not even kicking would work, so he changed his approach and looked at it slyly, “I’m going out for some fun, are you going to come with me?”
‘Harrumph!’ Charcoal snorted as it opened its eyes, his spirit suddenly all pumped up. It stood up and charged straight for the courtyard, all the while shaking its head and flicking its tail; it was very excited.
Miao Yi chuckled coldly, as a small brown mantis flew out from his sleeve, and quickly hid under Charcoal’s belly. That was Charcoal’s weak spot, the other places were covered in tough skin, some parts even had armor that swords and spears would find difficult to penetrate, and thus weren’t easy to act on.
The small mantis that was hanging under Charcoal’s belly raised its tiny sickle and stabbed.
The cheerful Charcoal immediately froze, and could not be joyful anymore. Its head swayed for a while as it stood still on the spot.
Miao Yi dashed to Charcoal and saw that its eyes looked distracted; then he extended his arms and touched it, only to find that its body had gone cold. It had fallen for it.
‘It seems to be effective!’ Miao Yi grinned, then quickly invoked his arts and dispelled the chill from its body.
Charcoal’s enormous body shivered for a bit, but it had yet to understand what had happened. It turned and took two steps, then began to lower its head to look at its own belly when it felt a pain come from below, afterwhich a frighteningly dark and cold aura immediately swept over its whole body as it was gradually frozen on the spot again.
“Haha! Interesting.” Miao Yi shook his head and laughed, then reached out his hand and pressed on its body once more, invoking his art to dispel the coldness in its body.
After recovering some strength, Charcoal quickly lowered its head to look at its belly, saw that a small mantis was dangling from there, so it immediately flicked its tail at it.
Sadly its tail was a little short and couldn’t reach, so it quickly jumped around crazily, but even after turning around so, its front hooves were also not enough to reach.
This time it became a little impatient and immediately jumped up, then rolled around on the ground trying to press on it.
Miao Yi flashed his palm, and the small mantis quickly dashed out, escaping its predicament to alight on his palm.
Charcoal stared with wide eyes at the small mantis that was slowly crawling on Miao Yi’s palm, it neighed and hastily charged forwards, opening its jaws that were full of sharp teeth, and bit down.
Miao Yi smirked; he knew that this guy had a strong vengeful streak, so he had already been prepared.
A swarm of small mantids immediately flew out from his sleeves, all a buzz and flitting with their wings.
‘Swoosh!’ Charcoal widened its eyes and quickly halted its hooves, then turned around to run, but under the entrapment of so many of the little ones, how could it manage to hide inside the courtyard?
Having nowhere else to go, Charcoal took to the skies with a great heave of his breath, jumping over a dozen meters high in one breath, to land a hundred meters away outside the courtyard, before hastily galloping away.
Running away was Charcoal’s strong suit, the little ones that wanted to flock and chase after it could not catch up to Charcoal’s speed for now.
Outside, Charcoal’s neighing sounds reverberated, as though it was scolding someone’s mother!
Miao Yi laughed as he flashed his palm, the group of little ones quickly landed back on his hand.
One after the other, they charged into his storage ring; very soon, the little ones had disappeared without a trace, all tucked away inside.
Miao Yi quickly imbued his transcendence energy to examine their condition inside the storage ring, and saw that once the little guys had entered the storage ring, they immediately climbed the walls; one after another, they retracted their wings and stuck onto the walls, unmoving and silent, as though they were slowly entering hibernation.
Miao Yi clicked his tongue, it seems as though Lao Bai’s words were correct. Normal animals could not be kept in the storage ring because it was a vacuum inside, and no living thing could survive; but the Hell Mantis was different, it could enter a state of stasis similar to hibernation in order to protect itself; this would be called a state of Deep Sleep!
After quietly examining them for a while, Miao Yi summoned them with his thoughts once again and the little ones that were silently propped up against the wall immediately started moving again, charging out of the storage ring and flew around Miao Yi for a full circle, before diving into his sleeves once more.
Miao Yi shook his slightly enlarged sleeves with an expression of joy, it seemed as though there was no need to worry about the problem of bringing them around and being inconvenient.
When he thought about this, he felt a little sad; he realised that Lao Bai knew about many things. If it weren’t for the fact that cultivators could not enter the Boundless Secular World, he would have suspected that Lao Bai was also a cultivator. What kind of person was the Great Immortal that Lao Bai followed, if he could teach a servant to become as profoundly knowledgeable as Lao Bai?
He turned around to look at Xue’Er and Qian’Er; the two of them were staring at him curiously, not understanding what he was doing.
“You must not tell anyone about any matter on the mantids.” Miao Yi suddenly commanded indifferently.
“We understand!” Qian’Er and Xue’Er both replied.
Miao Yi shook his head, and walked towards his quarters; he didn’t know when he would be able to teach his two handmaidens to be as graceful as Lao Bai.
Once he entered the silent quarters, the little ones flew out again from Miao Yi’s sleeve and landed around the inside of the stone door frame.
Miao Yi intended to treat the little guys like his own bodyguards while he was cultivating. He turned his head and jumped over the pool, slowly crossing his knees as he landed on the stone chair, then he took out the Orb of Will that was gifted by the East Arrival City Lord Xu Xinliang.
For now, raising his own cultivation was the most important thing.
However, after thinking through it again, he tucked the Orb of Will away. He decided to keep it for when he need to restore his transcendence energy.
Again he took out the Orb of Will that was coalesced from ten thousand people a year, and a silhouette that had so many different styles crossed his mind once more….
“The other party didn’t even deign to reveal her identity to you, basically she wouldn’t even look at you, yet why are you still thinking about her….”
Miao Yi mocked himself, then tucked his feelings away. He threw the Orb of Will into his mouth, closed his eyes and focused on refining it.
‘What!’ After refining the Orb of Will for a little Miao Yi opened his eyes, but slowly closed them back again.
He discovered that the speed at which he was able to refine the Orb of Will had become slightly faster, but he soon realised, this had something to do with the fact that his cultivation had broken through to White Lotus Second Grade.
Focusing his spirit, he glanced inwards at the art source inside his body and found that the art source that was spinning like a chaotic cloud, had not only gotten bigger, the amount of energy that was stored inside had also grown larger.
Why were they called art sources?
When he was at the island, Lao Bai with his cape billowing and his hair fluttering about, would point at the hurricane on the raging seas and say, “Just like that hurricane, when the energy in the center becomes greater, the peripheral force will become larger as well; to the point where it can turn the boundless oceans, change the colors of the heavens and earth, moving mountains and churning the oceans in but a single moment.”
Lao Bai had once said, “The center of the hurricane is like a cultivator’s art source with enormous force exerted by its periphery, much like a cultivator invoking his transcendence energy. So if the art source is stronger, you would be able to invoke greater transcendence energy, and when your art source is as strong as the center of that hurricane, your arts can be activated at your whim, changing the colors of heaven and earth with just a flick of your finger!”
Lao Bai’s words had never let Miao Yi down before, and deep down, Miao Yi looked forward zealously to the realm of cultivation that Lao Bai had spoken of!
But even though Miao Yi discovered that his speed of refining orbs had become faster, after a close examination of the art source inside his body, he realised that in order for him to break through from White Lotus Second Grade to White Lotus Third Grade, there was at least twice as large a gap as between First Grade to Second Grade, meaning getting from Second Grade to Third Grade would require an even longer period of time.
This meant that even if he were to cultivate diligently as before, breaking through from White Lotus First Grade to Second Grade already required twenty years of time, and he needed to use four to five of the lowest grade Orbs of Will. Even if he depended on five orbs, going from Second Grade to Third Grade would double the preceding period to forty years, which would need at least ten orbs of the lowest grade.
The middle grade Orb of Will in his mouth was equivalent to ten low grade orbs, so it could barely help him break through to White Lotus Third Grade, but if he had to follow this rate of doubling, then there was no clue as to how many Orbs of Will he would need to break through to the Blue Lotus realm.
He finally understood now, why the cultivation lifestyle of a cultivator was so long; no wonder so many cultivators desired the Orbs of Will so. Even his own desire of obtaining more Orbs of Will had become stronger……..