Chapter 0176

“You’re right, nothing is ever truly free,” Tempest said despondently as depression knocks her head out of the protagonist cloud and into the harsh reality called life. Cardis had warned her she was but a pawn in the hands of the spirits but she thought she knew them inside and out that she could turn the tables on them if she wanted to. She thought she was the pawn near the end of the finish line who could change her status. She thought she could become the king to become a new player in the game. She was simply a fool.

With all the emotions and thoughts flashing through her head, the most persistence one was, “Why are they doing this?”

“Why are they doing this.” Tempest murmured the question in a soft voice, too quiet for most cultivators to pick up on.

Cardis has wind as one of his affinities. He heard her as if she was yelling at the top of her lungs. “What do you think they were preparing your body for?”

“They said they were helping me because they wanted to achieve perfection, that they were perfectly flawed them will become perfect.”

“Have you ever wondered how they will achieve their perfection?”

“They are perfecting my body so they can possess it and achieve their perfection.” Tempest silently cried as despair filled her. Helplessness had her in its grip as it slowly sunk into her body, into her body, into her soul.

Tempest had a hard time trusting and putting her trust in faith was an act of stupidity in her eyes. One should not trust the insubstantial, the almighty, the devil and the aliens so different that their logic can’t be phantom by humans. Their thought process was so different, it was almost impossible to understand those powerful beings.

One could say Tempest had never trusted her spirits in the first place. She used them but completely trust them, no, Tempest never did. It was why Tempest didn’t feel betrayed. She did, however, feel weak and pathetic.

During her interactions with the spirits, Tempest was able to touch only the surface of their power. She knew she couldn’t win against the spirits if they were to fight right now. Cardis, as powerful as he is compared to the rest of the world, can’t win them.

If she can’t beat them, then she can only obey them. Dying wasn’t an option because Tempest had already died once and they still followed her to her new body.

“I don’t want to be a puppet,” Tempest screamed away her helplessness. “I want to be Tempest Arashi Kataigida. Tempest Arashi Kataigida will be defined by me and no one else.” Mana exploded from Tempest, creating a small storm but a powerful storm. In a strange and ironic way, it was Tempest’s method of defiance, telling her spirits she is her own person and for them to scram.

“I am not a puppet. I am not clay to be molded by you. I am Tempest Arashi Kataigida!” The storm around Tempest rages. It moves at her command, by her will and hers alone.

Tempest closed her eyes as she stood in the eye of the storm. She stretched out her senses, feeling the mana current around her. The storm was not the work of the spirits. They weren’t channeling this power through her. Everything happening right now is because Tempest willed it.

“I will not be a vessel for your possession!”

“About that,” Cardis spoke through his control over the wind, “they didn’t mean to possess you.”

“What?” As fast as the storm was created it died down, like a drop of water splashing into the still waters, creating a ripple with its contact then dying down, returning back to the stillness it was before the intrusion. Tempest stared at Cardis with her mouth open in surprised like a fish.

“The spirits can possess their mortals but it comes at a cost and it isn’t without its danger. If they didn’t have to possess you, they won’t.”

“What?” Tempest could only repeat herself. The emotional ups and downs Tempest was experiencing today were all due to his words and insinuate and now he tells her all her conclusion was wrong in the first place. What. The. Hell!

“The spirits don’t want to possess you.”

“What. The. Hell. Cardis!” Tempest growled like a demon from hell. She was going to kill the bastard or die trying. This. Bastard.

“I’ve never said they wanted you to possess your body. You came up with that conclusion all by yourself.” Cardis dodge Tempest as she threw herself at him, trying her best to claw out his eyes. After a while, Cardis petrify Tempest from the waist down to stop her from attacking him.

“What the hell was all this about then?!” Tempest made every attempt to physically attack him. She tried spells but Cardis nullified them.

“Karma for what you did to Li Ming.”

“That -”

“Was what you did to Li Ming. Now the karma between you and her is cleared. Believe me, you would suffer much worse if the karma lingered.” Tempest glared at him but she couldn’t deny it. She did kind of force Li Ming to face the facts and cornered her into talking with her spirits. “Now you must have a heart to heart talk with your spirits.”

“I…”

“You need to clear the air with your spirits Tempest, as I did with mine, as Li Ming did with hers, as Starm did with his and as Bei Ting Mao, Graden, and Fenix will do with theirs.”

“I…” Tempest sigh. Cardis was right. She had to have a heart to heart talk with her spirits. She uses them but she doesn’t know anything about them. At the slightest insinuation, she jumped to the worst conclusion.

Cardis gently hugged Tempest. Tempest was not appreciative considering the bullshit he just put her through. Still, she couldn’t overpower the man and Cardis did mean well. After fighting for a bit, Tempest deflated and allow Cardis to hold her. She was too wrung out to do much else.

“Tempest, you have to learn what it means to truly cultivate the heart. Our path to immortality is different from the others. Body cultivators absorb qi to strengthen themselves and call it a day. Their path is by far the easiest and the one with the least potential. Mind and soul cultivators focus on their sense of self. As long as they stay strong to who they are, they can progress in their cultivation.

“But the heart, Tempest, the heart deals with emotions. Emotions are ephemeral and beautiful, dark and ugly and everything in between. Emotions are what makes humans humans. It makes us strong and it makes us weak. We can control emotions and emotions can control us. Different combinations of emotions in varying degrees can be used to define an individual while keeping them a part of the collective.

“Only by understanding our emotions can we start to understand ourselves and cultivate the ultimate expression of humanity, love.”

“I didn’t have to learn this lesson so early in life, do I?” Tempest whined in Cardis’ warm embrace. No, Tempest was not succumbing to Cardis’ charm. His touch was more like a father soothing his daughter than a man embracing his wife.

Cardis stared at the top of Tempest’s head with a complicated expression. Cardis didn’t want the discussion about what it truly means to cultivate the heart with Tempest when she was so young and immature. The temper tantrum she threw because she didn’t get her way was one of the reasons why he dreaded this part of a mage’s training, but because one of her temper tantrums was so explosive and extremely dangerous even one as strong as him need to be wary of it that he needed to teach her this lesson so early. He might not survive the emotional turmoil with his hide intact if he waited any longer.

Tempest giving him the perfect excuse to teach her this lesson by bullying Li Ming factored into it.

“As a True Daughter of Storm, you, more than anyone else, have to learn this lesson early.”

“This lesson hurts, Cardis.” Tempest silently weep. Her mind understood the logic behind Cardis’ action, but her heart, the very same thing a mage cultivates to become an immortal, aches. It aches for the friends - yes, emotionally stunted Tempest acknowledges them as her friends, even the eerie Starm - she had to lose before she can become stronger.

“I’m sorry.” Cardis was truly sorry for what Tempest had to go through. Mages don’t have bottlenecks. They have to undergo an emotional rollercoaster of self-discovery instead.

“It isn’t fair my teammates had to die just so I could learn this lesson.” Tempest sniffled, pause for a second then wiped her snotty nose on Cardis’ clothes.

Cardis held Tempest away from his body before saying, “Your teammates aren’t dead.”

“What? You damn bastard!” Cardis was glad he held Tempest away from his body and his petrification spell was still in effect or Tempest would have to fillet him like a fish on the chopping block.

“Tempest calm down.”

“I am calm!” Tempest was not calm. She was squirming and squiggling in Cardis’ hold and if the bastard relaxed a bit he’d become a eunuch. “Tell me what do you mean by my teammates are still alive?”

“It’s exactly that. The cultivator from the Heavenly Mountain was fighting his inner demons even when he was attacking your teammates. He still had enough a hold on his sanity not to kill your teammates even though he couldn’t stop his attacks. So instead of killing your teammates, he opened a tear in space and sent them through it.”

“You knew this and you didn’t tell me right away!”

Chomp.

Tempest was going all out! She was going to use every dirty tactic in the book to get back at the scheming bastard.

“Tempest, don’t bite my arm! Tempest doesn’t go for the gonads! Tempest. Tempest!”