Long Di looked to the sky, his expressionless eyes now taking in the ash grey colour that now pervaded it, “Here I am, busting my butt to force a couple of 14-16-year-olds to jump into a volcano and all I get in return is complaints. This must be how it feels to be a parent.”

****

“Is it okay for me to abandon my cultivation base now, elder brother Long Di?”

“No, as I said before, keeping your cultivation base at its current level will make your body stronger and, by extension, faster. I want us to reach the volcano as quickly as possible. That way we’ll be able to get started with a lot more time to spare. I’m pretty sure that I told you this before.”

Long Di and the rest of the disciples were currently travelling at a rapid pace towards a volcano that Feng Yu and the rest knew about.

There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Feng Yu and the rest knew where to find a volcano that suited their needs. Due to the cultivation technique they all practised, an environment rich in fire-attributed spiritual energy was the best place to cultivate the Flame Forge Body Art.

As a matter of fact, it was this characteristic of the art that Long Di saw through why he wanted them to cultivate inside a volcano. The matter of them just happening to the area around a volcano as their choice of a fire-attributed environment was blatant happenstance.

If they were able to cultivate 24/7 near the volcano, this would allow them to be able to reap twice the benefit for only half the effort. There was just one problem, volcanoes like most other fire-energy rich environments had their own danger and that was fire poison.

Fire poison was the energy present in impure fire energy that couldn’t be absorbed by cultivators for their own use. It would only do more harm than good and even end up destroying a cultivator’s body from the inside out whilst slowly burning and eating away at their spiritual qi.

The good thing was that fire poison only existed in small quantities. So as long as the disciples made sure to leave before it became a problem, it wouldn’t be anything serious, and would be slowly expelled from their bodies.

Of course there were medicines and treasures to negate this but that was a luxury that they weren’t able to afford back then.

As the four figures traversed the land, they realised that there was no longer any vegetation of any kind. The ground became craggy and dry, this meant they were getting closer.

“Big brother Long Di, can I destroy my cultivation now?” Lang Tie’s cry came through once more.

“Should I be concerned that you’re this motivated to throw away years of training down the drain!?” Feng Yu glared at Lang Tie causing the latter to look away in awkwardness.

“I-I just want to surprise the elders when I come back stronger than ever.” Lang Tie said after a while.

“Yeah, right. Do you think that you can not only reach but even surpass in a month what you had to spend years to achieve!? Do you think cultivation is that easy!?” Feng Yu scolded the young demon.

The ambient temperature started to rise to noticeable levels as, in the distance, the vague shape of a massive mountain came into view.

“Long Di, you’re not really going to have us go inside the volcano, are you?” Feng Yu asked.

Memories of her last time here began to surface and suffice it to say, it was not entirely pleasant.

“Long Di?” she called out again when she realised that he didn’t answer.

She looked behind her to see why he refused to answer and there he was, running behind her, lost in thought. ‘He’s been quiet for most of the trip now.’

“Long Di!” she shouted his name again, shaking him out of his stupor.

“H-Huh? W-What, are we there yet?” Long Di looked around in confusion with a blank look on his face.

“N-No. We’ll be there soon, we’ll probably need to slow down so that by the time we get there we’ll be in peak condition for whatever the heck you have in store for us. What were you thinking about so hard, anyway?”

Feng Yu never saw him think so hard before. Then again, based on his facial expression alone, it was nigh impossible to tell if he was even feeling anything, let alone thinking.

“You said the elders were the ones who gave you this technique?” Long Di asked, not answering Feng Yu’s question.

“Yes? Why?” Feng Yu wondered where he was going with this.

“I won’t call myself an expert or anything, but your cultivation method, after extensive research, doesn’t seem to be a standalone technique,” Long Di replied.

“You mean like there are other stages to it that we haven’t learnt?” asked Feng Yu in surprise.

It wasn’t unusual for cultivation methods or even normal martial techniques to have layers or stages that one would need to reach perfection within before being considered to have reached consummation.

One such example would be Long Di’s cultivation technique. As he is currently only able to access Heavenly Levyance lightning tribulation energy, he would need to reach perfection at this level first before moving onto the next to utilise Heavenly Execution lightning tribulation energy.

This was why Feng Yu’s question wasn’t unfounded, however, this wasn’t what Long Di was referring to.

“I wouldn’t say that there are stages to it and I don’t know how to explain it, but it seems awfully diluted.”

“Y-You mean to say that we were given something inferior… on purpose?” Feng Yu was shocked hearing Long Di’s claim.

“This is just a thought, nothing more. But because this technique isn’t as simple as I thought, I won’t modify it in any way. The elders may have bigger plans for you guys and I would hate to get in the way of that, especially when I don’t think they plan to harm you… well, except for the third elder…”

Feng Yu sunk into silence as she thought about what Long Di said, completely disregarding the last part of what he said.

After some time Long Di and the others came to within a few miles of the volcano. Though they were quite some distance away from it, its size was still a towering monster of a structure. They had to look up even though they were so far away just to see the top.

The land all around was dry and bereft of any moisture. The top of the volcano was belching out grey smoke that drowned the entire area for miles around in a hue of the same tone.

The heat they felt at the moment was unbearable already, but this was what they came for.

Shen Ling, Feng Yu and the others sat down and were trying to enter into a meditative state.

“What are you doing?” Asked Long Di when he saw them trying to get comfortable.

“Getting ready to cultivate,” answered Feng Yu.

“Not like this. Remember our plan. You need a higher grade cauldron so that you can have a richer foundation. Though your current foundation is strong, it’ll be harder to get far in the future with what you have now since the grade is low. Destroying your cultivation will allow us to remould everything from scratch. So Lang Tie, you know what means, go ahead and de-”

“Huh? L-Long Di?” Shen Ling called out, seeing that Long Di suddenly stopped talking with a blank expression… well, blanker than normal.

[Inside Long Di’s mind sea]

‘Long Di, I see that you left me all alone in your mind sea. Am I a joke to you!?’

‘Why does this seem so blatantly familiar?’ Long Di in an ethereal form looked all around before his gaze shot upwards to see the clouds splitting apart.

A large and imposing steel stele descended from the clouds above Long Di’s mind sea before it floated before Long Di with a solemn air.

‘Heya Steely, how ya been?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

‘Are you sulking? I thought you weren’t supposed to have emotions.’

‘It’s just, you have something in your mind sea that has knowledge amassed from throughout the ages and you have expressed zero interest in reaching out to me.’

‘Well, you did say that I should come back when I get stronger. Plus, you refuse to tell me anything because of karma. So… y’kno, there’s really not much reason to come here.’

‘Oh really now? I guess you don’t want me to tell you why starting them from the beginning is a bad idea and how you can save a LOT of time regarding helping them remould their foundation.’

‘Wait, that’s pretty useful. Then tell me that.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I believe I was indirectly informed that I’m practically useless.’

‘I didn’t say that and are you really going to be that guy right now?’

‘I am definitely going to be that steel stele right now.’

‘I see you have cultivated your pettiness to unfathomable levels.’

‘I’m not petty!’

‘‘If you’re not petty, then I’m not the social butterfly that everyone knows me to be.’

‘I don’t know what that phrase means but something tells me it’s terrifyingly inaccurate.’

“Sighs…”

Long Di looked at the steel stele with a confounded look in his eyes, ‘Did you just sig-’

‘I give up. I’ll tell you what you need to do to help those little ones. They did nothing wrong and don’t deserve to suffer simply because you are insufferable.’

Long Di stared at the destiny scale with the same inexpressive look. ‘So help me, then. No petty play.’

The Destiny Scale started, ‘The two boys are both at the Tan’tien Saturation realm. You don’t need to have them destroy their cultivation. The Tan’tien saturation realm is not all that different from a mortal, well, at least in my eyes. Now it would make quite the difference time-wise to simply have them continue from there and use some of your wealth to help them along the way to charge into the cauldron forging realm.’

‘I see, then what about Feng Yu then? She already has a cauldron, after all.’ Long Di advised.

‘I checked her first cauldron, and it is still malleable. She has not moved onto the other one. So we will help her to continue forging that cauldron to an acceptable level.’

‘We?’ Long Di was a bit surprised. He honestly didn’t think that the Destiny Scale was going to do too much apart from giving them advice.

‘Listen, you must remember that even with your talent, it took a long time to forge those cauldrons of yours, and you want them to do something similar. I will help them to cut that time down by a wide margin but it will still take time.’

Long Di nodded in understanding. It did take him a long time to forge his black cauldrons and to expect the same from the disciples would be too much.

‘Well, then what about Shen Ling?’

The Destiny Scale went silent. It simply floated before Long Di. It would have been unbearably awkward for him if he didn’t thrive in awkward situations like a fish in water.

‘… You know, the remnant-will of the Peach Blossom Sage was pretty tight-lipped about her as well. I know I’m not strong enough to know, but it really interests me as to what kind of secret is there about Abyss Ghosts that is so critical that a little girl that shares just a bit of their blood needs to look over her shoulder for a death that may find her?’

When the Destiny Scale heard Long Di’s words, it shook before its ancient will rang out once more. ‘Because of a destiny you possess, it is my responsibility to protect you. As such, my advice would be to exterminate the Abyss Gho-’

‘Another word of this, and I will use every ounce of my strength to rip you from my mind and body.’ The Destiny scale shuddered when it hovered before Long Di’s inexpressive gaze.

Nothing about Long Di changed, but it was almost as if something below the surface was struggling to get out but was stopped by something divine.

It couldn’t take a deeper look before Long Di spoke again, breaking its focused investigation. ‘I know she’s not a pure-blood. There’s not much info about or even what they look like. I am aware that there no longer lives any pure-blood Abyss Ghost, and that this is widely known to those who have a business to know. However, you will help me to help her tap into her bloodline’s power and help me to establish her foundation the right way.’

The Destiny Scale’s aura pervaded Long Di’s mind sea, as if it wished to advise the young man to back down, but Long Di remained undaunted.

After a while, a single word echoed across the void, ‘Fine.’