Lord Whiskers cursed Long Di to death!

“How was I to know that raising another realm would have unleashed another round of tribulation?”

****

That’s right, Long Di and Lord Whiskers went through a whole other round of tribulation.

Long Di felt wronged. Both he and Lord Whiskers nearly died under the tribulation that he unknowingly restarted with an extra bolt to boot!

He was in a sorry state this time around, too. That fourth bolt was well above his pay grade. He was bleeding copious amounts of blood.

Both the killing intent and the destructive affinity in the Heavenly Levyance Tribulation Lightning was fighting against his body’s natural ability to heal itself.

Even Lord Whiskers was having trouble healing this time around.

“Meow!”

“I don’t wanna hear that from you,” said Long Di as he boarded Lord Whiskers.

Shu!

Lord Whiskers was stronger now, even though he was still in the fifth rank. His aura was much heavier and his breath had a more dangerous feel to it.

His speed was currently impacted due to the injuries he sustained due to the tribulation, but there was no magical beast here that was able to match it.

Before long, they arrived at Thousand Emo Valley and soon found themselves in the deepest parts where the old shop was located.

There Long Di could see his small group of friends waiting. Yaomu Shou was tapping her foot impatiently.

When she finally saw Long Di, she hurried over to him. Long Di could tell that she was annoyed.

“You were supposed to be here two days ago!”

Long Di raised a brow in astonishment. “Two days ag… how long were we in that second tribulation?”

“That was you!?” Yaomu Shou’s eyes widened in shock.

The tribulation that Long Di went through was something that people from miles around could see. It wasn’t like he went over yonder the horizon to do it either.

“I told you,” Shen Ling said quietly. She had a rather sizeable parcel hugged to her chest.

“Son of a…” Yaomu Shou began grumbling and walked back to Shen Ling and gave her something.

Xiannu Liang, Zi Yu, and Jia Yan couldn’t help but snicker when they saw this.

This didn’t miss Long Di, and he asked just to be sure, “did you really have a bet to see if I had anything to do with the tribulation?”

Yaomu Shou was in a sour mood, “why can’t you do things normally!? What in the world did you do that caused you to go through a tribulation?”

“I just broke through,” shrugged Long Di.

“But you were only a two star-core martial master,” Yaomu Shou couldn’t make heads or tails of this.

“I know,” Long Di agreed.

“But then how did y-”

“Before you even ask, I don’t know. I’m a four star-core martial master now and that, in and of itself, makes little sense here. As far as I’m concerned, logic didn’t just leave the chat. It turned off the Wi-Fi and blocked my number.” Long Di held up both hands to signify he had nothing else to hide.

Yaomu Shou stared at him in disbelief before she just sighed in surrender before her ears twitched in realisation, “Wait, you jumped two minor realms!?”

“Correct,” Long Di nodded.

Yaomu Shou threw up her hands in defeat. Long Di was a true demon! They were only playing pretend as long as he was around.

“Long Di…” A soft voice called out and Long Di looked down from Lord Whiskers and saw that Shen Ling was looking at him with concern.

“Oh, this…” Long Di realised that most of his robes had burnt away and that his injuries were quite… eye-catching.

Even Jia Yan and the others couldn’t help but keep stealing stares. It was even more disturbing when it seemed that the injuries weren’t causing him any bit of discomfort.

“I’m fine.” Long Di jumped off Lord Whiskers and rubbed Shen Ling’s head, though she was taller than him.

She nodded in understanding and gently placed the large parcel she held in his arms. It was only now that Long Di realised that Yaomu Shou was dressed in an exquisite black-and-white Daoist robe.

The white sections were bright and spotless as they painted her in a holy light. There were black accents along the ends of the loose sleeves and the hem of the robe. A line travelled from the sleeves’ black accents and went all the way to form the cross collar before running down the length of her right lapel.

In addition, there was a smoky appearance to the dark parts. Long Di also realised that it was even harder to sense Shen Ling’s presence as well.

She wore it well. Her white skin and dreamy appearance increased her allure even more. Long Di also saw that her eyes had three white dots in total. One in one eye and two in the other.

Her substance-bereft, mist-like hair undulated gently, though there was no wind. The veil she now wore mystified her facial features, yet it couldn’t hide the calamity-causing beauty that she was. This was a feature that was deep in her bones and would cause many to fall into her depths.

This was why the veil shielded her presence as well as it did, because it was the only way to truly hide her beauty.

Long Di took the parcel in his hands, “Is this the…”

Shen Ling nodded with a smile, “there are quite a few robes in there. The shopkeeper also taught me a few things as far as maintenance was concerned as well.”

Long Di nodded and thanked Shen Ling.

“Is there a need for thanks between friends?” she said with a giggle.

“You’re right,” Long Di replied.

He then looked to everyone else, “guys, sorry I had you wait for me for so long. It must have been hard on you. We’re leaving now. Lord Whiskers has a vague idea of where the Earth Flame is, so that’s a thing now.”

“What!”

Surprise took over the group, as they didn’t expect this. After explaining to them that this was the reason ‌Lord Whiskers was flying through the sky in the first place, they finally understood.

After preparing themselves, everyone got on top of Lord Whiskers. Because of his size, everyone was able to easily fit atop the Shidashi Mao, with room to spare.

Long Di spread out his spiritual qi covering everyone else.

“Let’s go, Lord Whiskers.”

Hearing this command, Lord Whiskers took at breakneck speed to leave Thousand Emo Valley.

Jia Yan, Xiannu Liang, Zi Yu and Shen Ling could only see blurs as Lord Whiskers travelled.

His injuries were healing pretty quickly and his increased speed was now beginning to show itself.

Long Di was only able to see by sending out his spiritual force. A pleasant surprise, he realised, was that his spiritual force had more than tripled in quantity after the tribulation.

His mental energy received a sizeable increase as well. When he saw that the tribulation had helped to increase his mental power and his spiritual force, he wanted to get to work on modifying his cultivation technique to passively help them grow.

Shu!

Lord Whiskers suddenly stopped in the middle of a dense forest.

“Meow…”

“Oh,” Long Di began fishing around his storage ring.

“What’s wrong?” Yaomu Shou asked.

“His memory of where it was is a bit fuzzy. I’m just trying to help him out by… ah, there we go,” Long Di took out the map and the beast skin with the earth flame fluctuation.

He then placed it before Lord Whiskers so he could take a gander at it.

Yaomu Shou looked at him like she was looking at an idiot. “It’s a magical beast, you fool! He can’t read ma-”

“Meow!”

“He knows where to go,” Long Di rolled up the map and the beast skin and Lord Whiskers took off!

Shu!

Everyone was silent. They all faced forward since Yaomu Shou had just received a shameful slap in the face.

Long Di deftly looked backwards to where Yaomu Shou was sitting.

“Not… a word.”

“How does this make you feel?” he asked.

“Screw you!” she yelled.

He shrugged his shoulders and moved to the back of everyone else, and began meditating to heal his wounds. After all, they were quite bad.

D-D-Dum!

His cauldrons came into being, but he made sure to control the pressure they naturally gave off as best as he could. If Long Di had to describe the feeling, he had to admit it felt like sucking in one’s gut.

However, he didn’t have a choice. His cauldrons naturally gave off a very suppressive feeling that Yaomu Shou and the others found very uncomfortable.

He used the spiritual energy he absorbed from his surroundings to heal his wounds. His own spiritual qi reserves were quite massive.

When it combined with the energy he absorbed, he was able to force the regeneration to fight the destructive affinity the Heavenly Levyance tribulation lightning left in his wounds.

A few hours later, not only was the destructive element expelled, but Long Di’s injuries were fully healed, and he recovered back to his peak.

Once this was done, he quickly changed his robes. He had to admit; that he liked the design of it.

The shopkeeper really took what Long Di told him to heart. The robe was a male Daoist robe.

Its main colour scheme was grey, and it coincidentally matched the colour of his Heavenly Levyance tribulation lightning. However, the Shadow Silk woven into it was done in such a way that it looked like chasmic cracks encroaching on the grey areas.

There was a lightning-esque feel to it, but in a twisted way, it also represented corruption. This was a corruption of the senses, a corruption of normalcy, a corruption of the sane.

Long Di loved his new robes and he could feel the dark spiritual qi that the Shadow Silk passively absorbed. He knew there were more uses for it and he couldn’t wait to uncover them.

“Well, you clean up quite well,” Yaomu Shou nodded with a smile.

Shen Ling nodded with a blush. Xiannu Liang snorted and looked away, saying nothing. Somehow, that said a lot and required nothing more on her part.

Xiannu Liang was a bit surprised that when he wasn’t wearing old, worn-out clothes, he looked good.

Jia Yan nodded with a smile and gave Long Di a thumbs up.

Everyone had to admit that he looked quite dashing. Long Di was by no means ugly. He was actually quite handsome.

The robes, though they gave off an unstable impression, complimented him well.

Suddenly, the temperature took a drastic change and before Long Di could take in the changes in the surroundings, a haughty voice came from the front.

“Halt! This is as far as you are allowed to go!”