We finished the second trial two months ahead of schedule. A shame. We could have stayed there another two months and enjoyed the peace, but unfortunately, our "honeymoon" was officially over.
Over those three years, we'd achieved a great deal. I'll start with my wife.
And just for the record: I told her about her fate—her linked fate, which, in the context of her sinister inheritance and all that compulsion, looked rather grim.
Our joint decision? Hide her. There used to be a Xia Qingyue, and now there wasn't. Dead. Becoming the enemy of fate's darling because I'd stolen his woman wasn't something I needed. Not yet. Just not yet.
The solution? Xia Qingyue died, and in her place appeared Feng Yue, my wife and a disciple of Frozen Cloud Palace.
Not immediately, though. Everything was planned with precise timing. Yun Che was going to die and reincarnate no matter what. You can't fool fate, no question there. But if the wedding didn't happen, that trash might die a little earlier or a little later. And that would be one very big "crushed butterfly." We already had plenty of crushed butterflies. No reason to breed more of them.
So, Yue's progress. She reached the ninth level of the Spirit Profound Realm, which honestly wasn't that surprising, and she could have been even stronger by this age, but...
We focused not on quantity, but quality. In the Frozen Cloud Art, she reached the sixth stage—the Realm of Heavenly Snow Summoning. That greatly accelerated both her cultivation speed and the purity of her profound energy.
Next came something I was genuinely proud of, both of myself as a teacher and of my wife as a diligent student. Yue managed to learn the Great Way of the Buddha.
Yes, she was only at the first stage, but that was already a great deal. She chose the same attributes I had: speed instead of strength, adaptability instead of endurance.
Why did she need it? So she could slowly destroy her own Glass Heart herself. That energy didn't damage her body as badly, and she didn't explode every time like I did. Though the girl took in far less of that energy than I did, because her control was on a completely different level.
And then there was dual cultivation. Yes, we still couldn't cultivate the technique I'd created, but we chose the best one from the ones we had, and it sped our development up quite nicely.
Now, about me.
The Great Way of the Buddha was at the sixth stage. The peak of the mortal body. Even now, very few people on the continent could match me in speed even if I didn't use my movement art.
But that didn't mean I'd become OP. Yes, my strength had grown along with my speed, and in raw strength I could contend with a Sky Profound cultivator, but that still wasn't much.
My cultivation had risen to the third level of the Spirit Profound Realm, which was pretty major progress, and only possible thanks to dual cultivation. My extremely wide veins kept me from accelerating quickly, but in return they provided me with a large amount of profound energy. And that energy was denser.
In the Frozen Cloud Art, I was close to reaching the sixth stage, though I hadn't gotten there yet. And I'd improved my movement technique, the Falling Star Art, a little. Yes, I no longer fell flat on my face after stopping, but I hadn't changed the name.
One day, this technique would become my inheritance, something I'd pass down to my children. So I intended to develop it my whole life, even if I learned something cooler later on.
I think that covers all my progress and I haven't forgotten anything. Oh, right, I also had the perks I'd gotten from Yue—the little world and improved comprehension. And my channels should have become fairly flexible and adaptable, though I already had that particular perk anyway.
So, my wife and I found ourselves in the dark space again, and enormous blue eyes with vertical pupils opened in front of us AGAIN. What a cheap trick. Like: "Look, mortals, my eyes are bigger than a mountain. Tremble." How do you explain to this lizard that size isn't what matters, but how you use it?
"Mortals, you have passed the trial, but the hardest part still lies ahead. Now I shall test your hearts."
"Go ahead."
"Mortal, the third trial of the Primordial Azure Dragon God is no joke. This time, neither your body nor your petty tricks will help you. This time, I shall test your souls."
"Let's be honest. I've already passed the Phoenix's third trial, and my wife has a Glass Heart. Give it a shot. I won't stop you."
"I have an offer for you, mortal."
"I'm listening carefully, esteemed Dragon God."
"I will give you and your wife three drops of my blood each, and even help you absorb them. In return, you may forgo the third trial."
"And then the person you actually want will receive your complete inheritance, while the weak inheritance we received from you will force us to bow before him. Is that right? Was that your plan? We're ready for the third trial."
"Think again, mortal. This time, you will certainly fail."
"I think there isn't any third trial at all. In fact, we've already passed it, haven't we? You've been testing our temperaments this whole time, for all three years."
"Mortal, I cannot make you my inheritor."
"Excellent. That's about what I expected. Then we're done. I don't need anything."
"Think again. Three drops of my blood..."
"No need. Keep your inheritance to yourself until the end of time."
"That is your decision. Do not later say that the Dragon God was unjust."
"Oh, I won't say anything. I'll act instead. Have you ever heard of a drink called Living Death?"
"No. What is it?"
"Whoever drinks it falls asleep and can never wake up on their own. They even stop aging and become as good as dead. But they're alive."
"No such sinister potion exists."
"So you think I could stand before you and lie to you? With a soul like yours?"
"No. You are not lying. Why would you need something so evil?"
Of course I wasn't lying. The potion existed. Just in Rowling's head, or in another world, if that world existed. Truth came in different flavors too. Better detectors than this had been broken.
"To punish you."
"Such nonsense will not work on me."
"It's not for you. As it happens, I know exactly where the current reincarnation of the Ancestral Goddess lives. She's supposed to regain her power once her final mortal life ends, isn't she? What if she never dies? What if she simply falls asleep, and I hide the coffin containing her sleeping body in the deepest hole in Primal Chaos? What then?"
"Why would you do that?"
"I have to punish you for cheating me, don't I? I honestly passed the trial—a harder version of the trial—and you refuse to give me my inheritance."
Silence. For about five minutes, this bot—and let me remind you, what stood before us wasn't the dragon himself, but merely a programmed fragment of his soul, as literal a bot as you could get—said nothing. Probably had a blue screen of death running in his head right about now.
On the one hand, obeying the Dragon God's instructions was a high priority.
On the other hand, protecting their beloved goddess was also a high priority.
He couldn't directly harm me. Only within the trials. Well, maybe he could screw me over at the end, but that was still a long way off. First, let's wait for the damn bot to reboot a couple hundred times.
"Mortal, are you not afraid that I will destroy you?"
And there it was, our old friend—soul pressure. Been there, done that. Painful, unpleasant, even a little frightening, but when you understand that it not only doesn't actually harm you but is even useful—because the soul only grows from this—everything gets a lot more fun.
"Is that all?"
Yes, I was lying on the floor and gasping for air. Don't go thinking I'm tougher than Eminem's diss tracks. The body couldn't help here at all. But I still managed to squeeze out one sentence.
"Mortal, abandon your sinister plans. You do not know what forces you are playing with."
"Maybe I don't," I spat out a little blood—bloodletting is supposed to be healthy, they say—and continued, "but I don't intend to tolerate being cheated. Even gods will either have to respect me or kill me."
Yue was lying beside me, and she was in much worse shape than I was. But I'd warned her in advance that there would be tricks like this. She understood herself that it was actually good for her. Soul-training machines don't exactly lie around by the roadside.
"Swear upon your profound energy that you will never dare harm the goddess, and I will pass my inheritance to you."
"Should I also swear that I'll save your daughter from the sword while I'm at it? Do you even know what fate Ni Xuan and the goddess prepared for her?"
"What do you know?"
"She'll lose more than her life. She'll know the greatest pain that can possibly exist. And all of it because of your goddess's chosen one. Nobody told you? Or did you know, and you're just as much trash as Ni Xuan?"
"How dare you?"
"Didn't he tear his daughter's soul apart? Are you the same kind of bastard?"
"He did it for the sake of peace."
"Did it work? Did peace come? Or did nobody give a damn, and he just turned out to be an idiot and trash?"
"Give me your word that you will not harm the goddess unless she acts against you."
The conversation might seem strange, but this voyeur had been watching me for three years. Of course he knew I'd seen the future. Naturally, he'd only seen and heard what I wanted him to see and hear.
For private communication, Yue had learned the English alphabet, and I wrote messages in the language of Primal Chaos, but with different letters. Simple, but tasteful.
And the dragon knew I'd keep my word. So:
"Why would I attack her while she isn't harming me or anyone close to me? Let her live in peace. I don't care."
After that, everything went according to this world's standards. Integrating the dragon's bone marrow was easy because the Great Way of the Buddha adapted my body to the new organ very, very quickly. Integrating the soul was another matter.
This was exactly where the little dragon could screw me over—refuse to help, or even interfere. This was the point where I had the highest chance of dying. Except, once again, this wasn't the Dragon God himself. It was only a fragment of his soul with programmed priorities.
If its master had been here, the soul would have exploded and carried me off into another world. But for this bot, preserving the inheritance was far more advantageous. The preservation of the inheritance was another top-level priority, after all.
This was an inheritance tomb, when you got down to it. Ideally, that was exactly what he had been created for.
It would be a bit too obvious and pretty repetitive if I started telling you it hurt. It hurt very, very badly. And it was also a battle of wills. The dragon's soul did not want to submit to some mortal. That classic heroic moment where the xianxia protagonist spends three or four whole chapters displaying his incredible willpower. Except...
Maybe my willpower wasn't quite so clear-cut, but I had ironclad confidence in myself and arrogance. Does that count as willpower?
The hero breaks through the impossible. I simply knew it was very much possible. To the standard hero, this was a majestic dragon. To me... well, you know.
Tyrannosaurs were pretty badass lizards too. And where are they now? Meanwhile, hairless apes are still sitting at the top of the food chain and dominating everything.
That was the cornerstone, and mine was harder than granite. I did not tremble before the dragon's might.
Know what scene came to mind at that tense moment?
What was it Bats said while beating up the guy in the blue tights? "Do you bleed? You will."
A scene where a simple mortal beat the shit out of a mighty flying thing. It fed my confidence, and in the end, I suppressed the dragon's soul.
All of this took another week, and when it was finally over:
"Young man, now that you have become my inheritor, I have a request..."
"I'll save her. I won't try. I will save her."
Yue and I found ourselves back in the cave where all of this had begun.
"Lun, I know you wouldn't behave that way without a reason, but..."
"But you didn't like my arrogance and disrespect. Right?"
"Yes. I really didn't. I know you think differently, but I don't like it."
"Neither do I, Yue. Neither do I. But this isn't about me. Understand this: if I found myself standing before the Rage God right now, I'd drop to my knees and bow to him as my teacher. I know what respect is, and I'm not that proud."
"Then why?"
"Because I don't like this Albus Dumbledore Memorial Chess Club. For the sake of their intrigues and plans, they were willing to do anything. Their leader, the Evil God, not only failed to help his wife or even avenge her, he tore his own child's soul apart for the sake of a shaky truce in a war. That tells you exactly what their whole little club is like."
"You wouldn't do that."
"If your life were on one side of the scales and the survival of all Primal Chaos were on the other, then this universe would burn. I will always choose my family. That's how I was raised."