Long Di activated his Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique and admitted, “I’m impressed.”

Mina’s smile disappeared when she saw this. “What the hell is that!?”

****

“My physique?” Long Di wasn’t sure if that was the case now that he saw her reaction.

“No, it’s not!” Mina was blown away by Long Di’s physique.

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not! That’s not the physique I gave you!”

“Wow. Crippling disappointment became a person and its name is Mina. Where’s the wheelchair?”

“Screw you!”

“You’ve spent a lot of time with Yaomu Shou, haven’t you?”

“I’m being serious here!”

“Somehow that makes this entire situation hilarious.”

“Argh!”

After some time, Mina managed to calm down while Long Di remained the same. It was this impassiveness and devil-may-care attitude that made his verbal barbs sting all the more.

“Okay. Okay, I think I’m calm now,” Mina’s head stopped giving off steam so Long Di was compelled to agree.

“So this isn’t the physique you blessed me with. Let’s say that’s the case. Then what is happening here?” asked Long Di, pointing at his heaven-wreathed body.

“I-I’m not sure,” Mina admitted. “If I had to guess-”

“I temper my sense of expectation,” Long Di closed his eyes.

“IF I had to guess,” Mina repeated once more through gritted teeth. “I would say that the power of this physique overwhelmed what I gave you.”

“Interesting.” Long Di placed a finger to his chin, seemingly in rumination. He then asked, “Then what was the physique you tried to gift me?”

“Astral Heavens Breaker Physique!” she declared with a proud look on her face. “I named it myself!”

“Not gonna lie, it sounds pretty cool,” admitted Long Di. “What was its ability?”

“Well, I’m aware that the cultivation here has it that you can’t dual cultivate. Therefore, giving you this physique would allow you to possess the strength of several stars. Of course, this would be an incremental increase, but you would possess a physique that wouldn’t lose out to even the most freakish of somatic essence cultivators.”

Upon hearing this, Long Di gave her a strange look that caused her to feel self-conscious. “What?”

“You’re actually kinda competent. I underestimated you and for that I am sorry,” Long Di apologised.

Mina’s expression darkened. Why was it that even Long Di’s apologies were able to anger her? Did he cultivate the dao of annoyance? If so, then he was a peak expert!

“Still,” she put the ‘apology’ to the back of her mind and continued with her evaluation. “If storing energy is all this physique can do, then that would be a bit lacklustre. I think there’s more to this physique than meets the eye, but I guess we would need to wait till you truly awaken your physique.”

“I thought it was already awakened,” Long Di looked at her puzzlingly.

Mina shook her head, “You’re thinking too simply. Even that girl from back then… what was her name? I think it was Qin Ling. When her physique erupted, that wasn’t an awakening. It can be considered a pseudo awakening if anything. A true awakening allows you to unleash the full might of your physique. Keep experimenting with it. Who knows, maybe you’ll trigger the true awakening sooner rather than later.”

Long Di nodded, “Well, I’m ready.”

Mina’s expression grew solemn. She took slow, measured steps toward Long Di.

Once she was a step away from him, she closed her eyes and clasped her hands. Her mouth moved soundlessly as if she was reciting some arcane prayer lost to time.

As she prayed, a gentle light enveloped her, much like the one that appeared over her the time she travelled in the carriage with Yaomu Shou.

This time, however, the light that covered her was steadily growing in intensity. She opened her eyes, and divine light could be seen flashing within.

She lowered her posture and kissed Long Di’s head. Soon, veins of light appeared on Long Di’s body. The veins converged where her lips met his brow.

Energy that could only be described as ineffable could be seen flowing through the veins, heading towards her lips before it was swallowed into her body.

Before long, the veins of light faded from view, and the light that enveloped her did the same.

As soon as Mina opened her eyes, her head jerked back in feigned disgust, “Ugh! Why are your eyes wide open!? Didn’t anyone teach you that when a beautiful woman kisses you that you should close your eyes?”

“First of all, one of those conditions wasn’t met. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is. Second of all, what is the purpose of you getting back your blessings, anyway?”

“You!” Mina choked on her own saliva at Long Di’s venomous tongue. She finally remembered how proficient Long Di was at the spoken word.

Long Di stared at her, unmoved by her physical inability to handle what he said. “Well?”

Mina’s face was puffed up in anger and she had several things she wanted to say in retort, but since her track record of victory was… less than impressive, she took deep breaths to calm herself down and instead decided to answer his question.

“Getting back my blessings will allow me to regain my divinity,” she stated, crossing her arms.

“And that will?” Long Di urged her to go on.

“It will allow me to use a more powerful grace as well as other divine abilities. The most important of all, though, is that if I get everything, I’ll be able to open a doorway to the holy realm.”

“The holy realm?” Long Di’s interest was finally peaked.

Mina nodded, “The place where the Anima palace is located.”

“Can you not do it now?” Long Di asked.

However, she shook her head in return. Obviously, it wouldn’t be this easy.

She explained, “I need my divinity at full power to return to the holy realm. Failure to meet that condition can cause me to end up in… other places.”

“Such as?” Long Di wanted to know as much as he could while he had the chance.

“I’m not sure.” she held her head at the thought of it. “It’s not like I’ve had to deal with less than all of my divinity before, and using that to return home amongst all the realms that exist just create a bunch of variables that I would rather not deal with.”

Long Di held a finger to his chin once more, descending into thought. After a bout of silence, he decidedly asked, “Can you show me?”

Hearing this request, Mina stared at him for half a day, saying nothing, her expression pensive.

After a while, she finally spoke, “Okay…”

A lone brow of Long Di rose upon hearing her agreement. “That was easy.”

Hong!

Mina stepped back as a pulse of divine light wrapped around her. “To be honest. I was asked to help you. I don’t know in what way, but if it means helping her, I’ll do what I can.”

“Okay, you help me and I’ll help you as best as I can,” Long Di promised.

Mina scoffed at his comment, “Tch! Don’t try saying cool stuff!”

Long Di didn’t take this to heart. As far as he was concerned, Mina was ‌either a tsundere or clinically unhinged.

The pulse of light on Mina brightened until Long Di wasn’t able to see.

Dum!

An incredible amount of pressure weighed down on him, causing the surrounding ground to crack and splinter!

Soon after this, the space before Mina ripped apart. However, what greeted them was not the void, but a new world entirely.

“Urk! I-I can’t hold it much longer!” Mina struggled as beads of sweat dripped down her forehead.

Seeing this, Long Di didn’t waste time. He made quick movements to survey the new land and was taken aback by what he saw.

A broken sky with a shattered sun and moon hung lazily above. Fallen stars created countless craters that extended beyond the horizon.

The lifeless husks of giant trees could be seen here and there. Their bark was black, devoid of leaves and everything else.

Pavilions and buildings of a style that Long Di had never seen before lay in ruin, scattered across the land. There wasn’t even the slightest inkling of a living soul.

Spatial tears scarred the terrain, while a gloomy wind carrying an aura of death ravaged the plains.

The howling wind tortured the senses as the wails of unresigned spirits took flight upon its wings, causing a thick layer of resentment to hang in the air.

Even the ignorant could tell that this was a world of death. Destruction was heavy here, and the sadness it wrought existed even after all life was ripped away from it.

Long Di felt suffocated just standing before it and wondered what could have caused such a dreadful scene.

“A-Aren’t you done yet!?” Mina asked in a strained voice. The light was flickering on and off with increased animation.

Long Di was well aware that he could absorb many or probably every type of energy under the heavens, but the energy within this place was not one he had a good feeling about.

“Hold on a bit.”

A subtle movement caught his eye, and Long Di’s head snapped down to see a herb swaying gently amidst the wind of death filling this place.

It looked like a chrysanthemum of sorts, but it was instead all white and released a stately glow. In addition, every time the wind passed over it, the glow intensified, only to dull slightly whenever it passed.

Knowing he didn’t have much time, Long Di’s spiritual force surged forward and captured the herb along with a decent plot of earth.

He dragged them through the tear before it collapsed in on itself and disappeared.

“Ugh…” Min’s body lost all power, and she collapsed as a result.

Long Di quickly rushed over to catch her before she fell to the ground and realised that her face was an unhealthy pale shade.

“M-Mina?” he called out, only to receive no answer.

Suddenly, the rise and fall of her chest caught his eye, and this put him at ease. Though he and Mina bickered like the most dysfunctional pair of siblings ever to exist, it didn’t mean they wished for any real harm to come to the other.

So when he was absolutely sure that Mina was just sleeping, probably drained of all strength, he gently laid her down on the ground while he inspected his findings.

“Oh wow,” was the first thing he said when he got a good look at what he took from that place.

[Author’s Notes: An expression in ancient Chinese (not sure of modern Chinese) where half a day just denotes a long period of time. Not a literal half a day, that would be disturbing.]