Chapter 103: The choice

Does he really want to make this choice?

Gu Qing Shan was a bit hesitant, after all, he has never seen anyone choose Lightning of Life before.

In the Apocalypse, all everyone want to do is survive, so as soon as they can, they all choose Thunder of Death to increase their fighting strength, who cares about Life or whatever?

Not to mention, many players and cultivators don’t even have the chance to choose, even if they breakthrough a realm.

The awakening of a thaumaturgy isn’t a simple matter, as it would affect a cultivator’s direction for the rest of their life.

He already knows about how strong Thunder of Death is from his past life. If Gu Qing Shan doesn’t want to risk it, choosing Thunder of Death isn’t a bad choice at all.

This decision will affect the direction he grows from now on, if he chooses wrong, its effect isn’t going to be felt until much, much later.

Lighting of Life, he has never seen anyone use it before in the past life.

———- or maybe there were, but it didn’t get noticed.

A powerful ability, yet never noticed by anyone. What kind of ability would that be?

Gu Qing Shan went silent.

Ting!

The System sound was heard.

“Time is up, please make your choice”

“I choose Life” Gu Qing Shan gritted his teeth and chose.

As he said so, the text in the air disappeared.

The scenery regains its sounds.

But the sound of thunder in the sky disappeared, instead replaced by the sound of bugs on the banks of a forest stream, the sound of fish jumping out of the water, the cries of animals.

There was life on the mountain.

As he looked up, he saw a single a long streak of lightning, silent and timid, illuminating the sky. Asides from that, there wasn’t anything else in the world.

Light and dark intersected, day and night turned over as the creatures on the ground started to prosper, and the sky became silent.

At this moment, a streak of lightning shaped like a dragon appeared, slowly flying into Gu Qing Shan’s body.

As Gu Qing Shan slowly exited from this miraculous state, War God UI showed some text.

“Thaumaturgy awaken: Lightning”

“Because the thaumaturgy naturally contains the power of Smiting, all user damage to demons increased by 30%:

“Thaumaturgy first level: Seven Shackles, is now usable” (1)

“Seven Shackles: Any creature that gets hit by your Lightning will temporarily lose control of their body. Time limit: 1 second”

Gu Qing Shan was first stunned, then jumped in joy.

This is a true CC Skill, for a Profession with strong and deadly physical attacks like sword cultivator, having a CC Skill is like a tiger being given wings. (2)

The time limit is quite short, only 1 second, but even 1 second is enough for a sword cultivator like Gu Qing Shan to kill someone with his sword.

Not to mention, Lightning of Life is only at the first level, as the thaumaturgy become stronger and stronger, Gu Qing Shan believes he’ll unlock the second and third level, gaining more power from it.

To him, Thunder of Death is strong but he won’t be as used to it as he does the sword, while Lightning of Life give him something that he can’t replace with sword arts.

In this moment, he’s extremely glad he chose Lightning of Life.

Gu Qing Shan silently felt himself, opening the palm of his hand.

A blue, chaotic arc of lightning appeared, floating in his hand.

Gu Qing Shan grabbed it, striking the wall of the pill furnace.

Immediately, arcs of lightning slither like snakes and dragon along the wall of the pill furnace, letting out a crackling sound.

“Sword” he silently shouted.

The Earth sword appeared from thin air right where his hand was.

As Gu Qing Shan circulated his spirit energy he noticed the spirit energy in his Dantian indeed has an element now.

Lightning element.

Gu Qing Shan silently raised his sword.

A dim, shadowy light appeared on the sword.

Then, very quickly, the light bursts.

Numerous arcs of blue lightning circled the shaft of the sword, constantly appearing and disappearing, lighting up the dark interior of the pill furnace like a blinking light.

Outside the pill furnace, they all noticed this miraculous sight.

“Ah? How did Lightning appear? Third brother shouldn’t be facing a Lightning Trial yet” Xiuxiu muttered, confused.

Qin Xiao Lou quickly understood, praising: “How rare, to awaken Lightning element spirit energy the very first time he broke through a realm, if that’s the case, in later breakthroughs, it’ll be fine even if he doesn’t awaken any thaumaturgy”

White goose went silent, then sighed in relief.

Frontline.

“Ahahaha, it’s Life type! Life type! Finally a bit competent, this Saint didn’t make a mistake after all”

The entire camp could hear Bai Hua Fairy’s silvery bell of a laugh.

Everyone looked at each other, confused as to what happened.

The red-faced Daoist was silent, then suddenly said: “Great Monk, is she alright?”

“What are you worried about?” The monk asked.

“There should be nothing wrong, but I’m afraid of what happens if it’s a Sainted realm Tianma…” The red-faced Daoist hesitantly replied.

As he heard that, the monk’s face became serious.

He stood up, saying: “Then we’ll go take a look”

“Ok then, a look won’t hurt” The red-faced Daoist solemnly replied.

Bai Hua Palace

After confirming Gu Qing Shan has broken through, white goose chased Qin Xiao Lou and Xiuxiu out.

“There’s many protection formations here, as well as pills and spirit cooking, since you’ve just broken through, take the time to stabilize your realm”

“We won’t stay here, we’ll come back to check on you tomorrow”

As white goose said so, he flapped his wings and flew away as well.

Gu Qing Shan finally has the chance to slowly savor the feeling of being a Foundation Establishment realm.

In theory, the best thing to do right now is to concentrate on circulating his spirit energy, to stabilize his cultivation.

But Gu Qing Shan doesn’t do that yet, as a person that lived twice, he already has an accurate sense of where he stood, already knew what kind of power he can use, so stabilizing his cultivation is something that he can achieve in no time at all.

Gu Qing Shan went silent.

So the reason why his time flow is in a constant state of chaos has something to do with the two worlds changing, or it could be because the corpse on the bronze pillar did something to him.

As Gu Qing Shan seriously thought about it, he couldn’t help but shiver.

What kind of existence is able to lock on to someone, as well as messing up his time flow across the space-time vortex?

It even noticed and took the opportunity when he broke through a realm to pull him away.

Such god-like powers, even Gu Qing Shan himself having lived twice had never heard of anyone capable of it.

But an existence that’s so strong, so terrifying, is still being pinned on the bronze pillar and couldn’t move even a little bit.

Then just who pinned him there?

This corpse wearing black armor spent so much effort and time, just to pull his soul vessel to see him. Then there’s something he knows for a fact.

The corpse needs help from outside to be able to act.

The last thing he said was the way to deal with the demons.

Unfortunately, he was cut off, and Gu Qing Shan has no way of meeting him again in a short period.

“The two worlds’ main 5-Element? What does that mean?”

Gu Qing Shan suddenly remembered something.

Looking down on his War God UI, he noticed sand was falling incredibly slowly on his hourglass, only a few grains has fallen down despite it’s been almost a whole day already.

Looks like the time flow is really messed up.

The rapid and intense changes in Reality seems to severely affect both worlds’ time flow.

Gu Qing Shan hasn’t faced such a strange occurrence before, so he can’t really do anything about it.

He could only sigh.

Seems like I’ll be staying at this world for quite a while this time no matter what.

There’s one thing Gu Qing Shan is very good at.

That is, when facing something he can’t solve, he can completely ignore and not think about it, only focusing on what he can solve.

Right now, he cut off all other thoughts in his mind, pulled out Earth sword and started to practice his Sword arts.

After all, stabilizing his cultivation is something that must be done.

This practice continued into the night.

It was only when dawn came again that Gu Qing Shan stopped and started to meditate to rest.

A bit later, Qin Xiao Lou carried a giant bucket as he slowly walked in.

“What is that? A medicine bath?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“What medicine bath, this is your breakfast” Qin Xiao Lou answered.

Gu Qing Shan hurriedly waved his hands: “I can’t eat that much”

Qin Xiao Lou smiled brightly, saying: “Just eat however much you can then”

As he heard that, Gu Qing Shan looked over.

It was all spirit rice ———-no, not quite, they were actually all pills that were about the size of spirit rice.

“First brother gave the ingredients and I spent the effort, all these are ingredients good for regulating the body, you can eat first” as Qin Xiao Lou finish explaining, he turned around and left.

There was only Gu Qing Shan alone in the hall.

He smelled it.

How alluring.

If Bai Hua Fairy herself told Qin Xiao Lou to make this, then it couldn’t be anything bad.

Fine then, even if he can’t finish it, he’ll at least eat as much as he can.

Gu Qing Shan took the bowl and chopsticks, filled it with the pills and started to eat.

No need to mention, but the state is excellent.

As he ate, he read the message on War God UI.

“User successfully broke through to Foundation Establishment realm, maximum Soul Points increase to 20”

“Current Soul Points: 640/20”

“As the user’s cultivation has increased greatly, in accordance to user’s memory, all sword styles that won’t harm the user’s soul vessel are as follows”

“Sword Style: Bai Tai Style”

“Sword Style: Flowing Clouds Style”

“Sword Style: Four Seas Style”

“Sword Style: Battlefield Style”

…

“Secret Art: Crescent Slash”

“Seeing that the user had a very deep understanding of the sword, the cost to awaken his own sword cultivation reduced to its lowest”

“To awaken a Sword Skill, Soul Points Cost:5”

“To awaken a Secret Art, Soul Points Cost:10”

A total of 20 sword styles and 1 Secret art.

Gu Qing Shan didn’t hesitate and awaken them all.

Note:

(1) Seven Shackles: it’s heavily implied that the 7 in the name has to do with the 7 openings in the face: 2 eyes, 2 noses, 2 ears and 1 mouth.

(2) CC: crowd control, but not really. If you don’t know what crowd control is, play a few online games.