Chapter 286: Welcome Back
Li Yao stood floating in the air, her expression completely blank and emotionless.
"You there?" she asked, her voice cold and flat.
[...]
[Welcome back,] the empress finally responded after a long pause.
[How are you feeling?] she asked.
Li Yao raised her hand slowly, observing it with detachment as though it wasn’t her own. Small cracks were gradually spreading through her skin like a spider web.
"I’ve been better," she spoke with a sigh.
[So, what now? Will you go back to the sect?] the empress asked.
"Why would I?" she asked.
[Don’t you want to check on your senior brother?] the empress pressed.
Li Yao paused for a moment.
"No need to test me. I’m completely rational," she said. Then another crack appeared across her face, spreading from her temple down to her jaw.
"At least for now," she added as she traced the new fracture with her fingertips.
[Good. I was just making sure,] the empress said with relief.
She thought to herself that Li Yao seemed complete now, though she wondered how long this would last.
[So what’s your plan?] the empress asked.
Li Yao turned her gaze toward the direction of the distant lotus flower.
"There are many demons congregating there. I’m thinking of slaughtering all of them and acquiring substantial heavenly merit. I can then use this accumulated merit to upgrade my spiritual root to the celestial grade," she explained.
[That’ll require quite a massive amount of merit. Why not upgrade your enlightenment first instead?] the empress suggested.
"You’ll do that for me, won’t you?" Li Yao asked. "From what I can see, the human emperor bloodline doesn’t offer much boost to my combat power. If I had to guess, it must be primarily related to enlightenment, right?" she asked.
[That’s right. The human race isn’t naturally as talented as the other races in terms of raw cultivation talent, but we possess an overall higher intelligence quotient. This is why...] she began.
"Yeah, yeah, get to the point. Can you do it or not? At your current level, you should be able to upgrade my bloodline again. I need as much power as I can get," Li Yao interrupted impatiently.
She thought to herself that this form was quite unstable and couldn’t be safely maintained for extended periods, so it would be better for her enlightenment to improve. This way, her base form and Second Heaven form could develop their own domains much faster.
[Currently, the most I can manage is noble blood,] the empress said. [But if...] she started.
But Li Yao interrupted again. "Yeah, I get it. If you consume heavenly grade spirit food, you can advance to pure blood, right?" she asked.
[That’s right. You catch on quick,] the empress said with approval.
"Alright, I was planning to use it anyway. I want to breakthrough to the Soul Formation realm before going there. I can sense multiple Void realm cultivators gathered in that location," Li Yao spoke.
She then suddenly turned around sharply and stared intensely in a particular direction. She maintained her gaze for several seconds before the space around her broke apart and completely swallowed her.
A few miles away, an elderly man slowly emerged from behind a tree.
"Well, would you look at that. Someone else is actively hunting the central continent trash," he spoke with amusement. "Though I would’ve preferred doing it myself, I don’t mind a little help," he thought to himself.
Though something about the situation still puzzled him greatly. He had been carefully watching the battle and had positioned himself ready to intervene and help the girl from the eastern continent if she found herself in danger. He honestly hadn’t expected her to actually achieve victory against such a powerful opponent.
And from her appearance, he could tell she was quite young too, which made her accomplishment even more remarkable.
"Kekeke, it seems my eastern continent is still producing geniuses even after all this time. I really hope she doesn’t turn out like Feng Tianxu. That boy..." he let out a sigh as he flew away into the distance.
...
"This place looks fine," Li Yao said as she stepped through a space crack that sealed itself behind her.
"This should be fairly far from those void cultivators," she said, scanning the area.
She thought to herself that while void realm cultivators could stretch their divine sense across the entire continent, they probably wouldn’t bother paying attention to someone breaking through to the soul formation realm. Sure, her tribulation might take quite some time and could draw the interest of some wandering experts, but she had a plan for dealing with that problem.
"What’s your soul level?" Li Yao asked.
[Ancient. Do you want...] the Empress began, but she didn’t even get to finish her sentence before Li Yao nodded eagerly.
"That’s right, I want you to extend a soul and body integration level divine sense throughout this entire area to prevent people from coming here," she said.
[I guess I could do that,] the Empress said.
"Great! Now we can start making preparations for the breakthrough," Li Yao said.
She thought to herself that her breakthrough speed had been quite fast recently, and her soul might not have grown properly to the adult stage yet. Well, it didn’t matter much since her soul and that of the Empress were sort of connected - she could mooch off some soul cultivation from her.
As she was thinking about this, she felt a powerful divine sense completely blanket the area where she stood, spreading out like a dome for miles in every direction.
"Let’s begin," she said, settling herself into a meditative posture.
She reached into her spatial ring and retrieved the heavenly grade foods that Xiang Yu had prepared for her. They were still steaming with condensed qi.
She smiled warmly as she caught the delicious aroma, thinking to herself that senior brother’s cooking was as great as always. She hoped he wasn’t worrying about her too much after the sudden separation.
A small part of her felt sad that he didn’t get to see her when she was like this. She blushed slightly, wondering if he would think more highly of her.
[Are you okay?] the Empress asked, noticing her change in emotions.
"Yeah, you can start upgrading the bloodline. I’ll circulate qi," Li Yao said, her expression becoming more serious and focused as she pushed aside those thoughts.
She then took a bite of the heavenly grade food, savoring both the incredible flavor and the rush of spiritual energy that flooded through her body. She quickly entered a deep meditation state to properly circulate the qi coursing through her. The qi concentration in just that single bite was really overwhelming, but with her immortal grade spiritual root, she was able to completely refine it all and absorb all the benefits.
She thought to herself that at this rate, she should be able to breakthrough to the soul formation stage in two days at most.
...
Author’s Corner:
Most of Li Yao’s forms are kinda unhinged so I decided to change up some things with this new form. Absolute Limit is technically the "complete/real" Li Yao due to the sync as explained by the empress so I’m thinking of having her be more stable and her build be the craftier/scheming type.
This is part of the reason why Li Yao is so dumb despite having such high enlightenment. There are 3 reasons, one is because she is too lazy to bother and if it’s not related to Xiang Yu, she doesn’t care much. Second is because she’s incomplete. Third won’t be revealed in a while.
What do you guy’s think?