A Will Eternal

As Bai Xiaochun settled down cross-legged in his residence, he had a fierce expression on his face, and his eyes were so wide that all of the veins were visible, and they seemed like they were on fire. Waving his hand, he produced an earthflame crystal and settled one of the pill furnaces in front of him.

“I can’t believe you made me lose face in front of all those cultivators! Dammit! Bai Xiaochun is afraid of a lot of things in heaven and earth, but he’s not afraid of beasts like you!” Waving his sleeve, he sent a huge pile of medicinal plants flying into the pill furnace.

“I refuse to believe that I can’t mop the floor with those big-bellied beasts. How dare they consume my pill furnaces and destroy my medicinal pills! It’s bad enough they wrecked my battle credit income, but they also had to discredit me! They’re intentionally embarrassing me!” The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, and at the same time, he began to concoct medicine as if he were bedeviled.

It had been a long time since he had sunk into a state like this. His hands almost blurred, and rumbling echoed out from the pill furnace. Soon, the medicinal liquid in the furnace began to form, and a strong medicinal aroma spread out.

Three days passed by in a flash, during which time Bai Xiaochun never stepped out of his residence. Instead, he remained inside, concocting medicine, and occasionally letting out peals of maniacal laughter.

“How dare you provoke me! I’m gonna show you once and for all how awesome Bai Xiaochun is!

“Hmmmmph! This medicinal pill isn’t strong enough yet. Just wait, you trifling beasts, you just wait!”

When Zhao Long, Liu Li, and the others heard his laughter, they gasped in fear at the strange state that he was in.

By this point, they had heard about what occurred outside the Great Wall a few days before, that the savages had used some strange, spheroid beasts to consume Bai Xiaochun’s pill furnaces. At that point, they understood why he’d come back so angry .

“Is he really that mad just because they figured out how to stop his pill furnaces?”

Another half a day went by. On the evening of the third day, Bai Xiaochun’s door slammed open, and he stepped out, thin, emaciated, and his hair completely disheveled.

“Zhao Long, go tell Bai Lin that I need skythicket leaf, female beast musk, male beast bones, earthdragon root....” In one breath, Bai Xiaochun rattled of several dozen types of medicinal plants. “And I need them today!”

With that, he walked back into his residence and slammed the door.

Zhao Long was starting to get nervous. For some reason, this version of Bai Xiaochun seemed very dangerous. As soon as Bai Xiaochun walked back into his residence, Zhao Long hurried off to find General Bai Lin, and before long, the medicinal plants Bai Xiaochun had requested were delivered.

Zhao Long cautiously knocked on Bai Xiaochun’s door, which opened as Bai Xiaochun reached out to grab the medicinal plants. Through the crack of the opened door, Zhao Long was just able to make out a cloud of swirling pink smoke.

As for Bai Xiaochun, he looked haggard and thin, with a terrifying, demonic gleam in his eyes.

Another two days passed. For some time now, a huge vortex had filled the sky because of the tampering with the Underworld River, but for some reason it was now obscured with clouds, clouds that were filled with bolts of crackling lighting. Then, without any warning, large amounts of lightning suddenly began to descend upon the armory.

Rumbling sounds could be heard as the Armory’s spell formation activated. At the same time, Bai Xiaochun’s hoarse laughter could be heard filling the air. The combination of all the sights and sounds immediately caused Zhao Long and the other guards to looked around in alarm.

“What’s going on!?!?”

“W-what’s happening!?” Simultaneously, wisps of smoke were beginning to seep out from the cracks and crevices in the corners of Bai Xiaochun’s residence building. In the blink of an eye, they filled the area, and from the way they were moving, they almost seemed intelligent, like a whole group of tiny snakes.

Zhao Long and the rest of the guards began to edge away in fear. If that were all there were to it, it might not be a big deal, and yet, as soon as the smoke appeared in the Armory, vast quantities of ants suddenly rushed out into the open and began fleeing in the opposite direction.

Ants weren’t a very common site in Great Wall City, but at the moment, they carpeted the ground. Before any of the guards could react, the entire Armory was thrown into a commotion.

“W-what’s causing this!?!?”

“Heavens! There’s thunder and smoke and ants! Something big is going on, but what?!”

Considering what was happening in the Armory, other cultivators in the five legions were devolving into a commotion. Furthermore, the savages outside of the Great Wall could see the strange lightning, and were wondering what terrifying item had appeared inside of Great Wall City.

As everyone reeled in shock, and as the heavens rumbled with thunder, a lightning bolt that seemed to be composed of countless other lightning bolts put together slammed down onto the Armory, piercing through its spell formation shield and landing onto Bai Xiaochun’s residence.

The ground quaked, and the entire residence shook as much of it was destroyed. Zhao Long and the other guards backed up in terror, gasping the entire time.

“What kind of medicine is Grandmaster Bai concocting?!” Meanwhile, what could only be described as crazed laughter rang out from the wreckage of Bai Xiaochun’s residence.

“Still not good enough! Zhao Long, go get me three thousand portions of the same set of ingredients I had you get last time!!”

A tremor ran through Zhao Long as he looked at the mostly-destroyed residence, and the increasingly thick smoke emanating from it. It caused a sensation of intense danger to fill his heart. Swallowing hard, he looked over at the other guards, and could see how ashen their faces were. Thoroughly bewildered by what was happening, he gritted his teeth and hurried off.

When he returned, Bai Lin was with him.

When Bai Lin saw the wreckage, and the terrifying pink smoke, he looked up at the thunderclouds in the sky, and called out, “Xiaochun, there’s no need to be impulsive about the--”

“Leave me alone! They’re just a few beasts, right? I have tens of thousands of ways of dealing with stupid-ass beasts like that! Just wait and see!” A long moment passed, and then Bai Xiaochun spoke again. “Zhao Long, throw those medicinal plants over here!”

Zhao Long didn’t dare to refuse. After glancing at Bai Lin and getting confirmation, he tossed a bag of holding into the pink smoke.

A bit of time passed in which Bai Lin considered trying to do more to convince Bai Xiaochun to stop. However, that was when rumbling sounds could be heard inside the smoke, which suddenly transformed from pink to red. At the same time, more bolts of lightning began to fall from above. Shockingly, even as the first round of lightning fell, more lightning could be seen converging higher up.

In the blink of an eye, fully 10,000 lightning bolts merged together into something like a net that covered the entire sky. Even Bai Lin gasped at the sight of it, let alone the other ordinary cultivators in Great Wall City.

Even the charging Wildlands army suddenly stopped in place to look at what was happening. As for the beasts in the army, they were suddenly stricken by very uneasy feelings. Some of them even began to pant, and look over toward Great Wall City with red, glowing eyes, as if they were being stimulated into madness.

Bai Lin was suddenly stricken by a very ominous feeling when he saw the smoke turn red. There was something terrifying about it, something that didn’t have anything to do with one’s cultivation base, but rather, with some other, deeper instinct. “Xiaochun, don’t... don’t get too worked up. I’m working on a way to deal with those spheroid beasts. You just--”

“Don’t even try to convince me!” came the growling interruption. “I, Bai Xiaochun, will definitely show those beasts that Lord Bai’s pill furnaces are not that delicious after all!” Inside the residence, Bai Xiaochun was sitting right in front of eight crimson-hot pill furnaces, his hair disheveled, his face gaunt, surrounded by large quantities of medicine bottles. He had gone crazy in his pill concocting, relying completely on spirit alcohol to sustain his cultivation base, as well as numerous special medicinal pills.

By this point, it was correct to say that Bai Xiaochun had gone all out!

With a shout, he slapped his hands onto the surface of each of the violently shaking pill furnaces.

Cracks spread out across their surfaces, whereupon intense gravitational forces sprang up. At the same time, the red smoke stirred, instantly rushing into the eight pill furnaces!

As soon as the smoke vanished, Bai Xiaochun appeared in front of Bai Lin and the others. A bright gleam flickered in his eyes as he threw his head back and laughed at the top of his lungs.

“Trifling big-bellied beasts! I, Bai Xiaochun, have prepared a wonderful gift for you. Let’s see if you ever dare to consume my things again!!

“I used several thousand sets of supreme-grade ingredients, and even cleansed the impurities with tens of thousands of bolts of lightning. Then I purified the medicine again with a secret magic, and then went so far as to ruin the pill furnaces to refine them a third time! The result is something paramount, something unparalleled in heaven and earth, something that affects both male and female beasts. A single whiff of it will drive them crazy to the point of insanity! It is an Aphrodisiac Pill to shock all creation!”