Chapter 201: Alarming Change!
Whilst Bai Yunfei was pondering what problem was about to arise, fire began to stir and billow from all four directions before several fireballs materialized around him.
But this time, they were stronger than before.
“No way, again?!”
Bai Yunfei lamented out loud before bringing his spear back out…
The waves of of fire materialized into even more waves of attacks that gave Bai Yunfei no time to rest yet again. Steadfast, Bai Yunfei continued to defend himself from this ‘barrage’ of attacks with a moody expression.
Ten minutes later, the assault came to a stop.
Taking out several spirit-boosting accessories, Bai Yunfei wore them on his body with curled lips and bared teeth, “Fuck this shit! I know there’s going to be more!!”
As if obeying his call, another volley of fire-related strikes began to appear within a ten meter radius of him…
And so the third volley began….
Then the fourth….
Then the fifth….
If not for the spirit-boosting accessories to accelerate his regeneration of soulforce or the explosive effect of the Fire-tipped Spear and the effect of the Flameblade Bracer clearing out the place, Bai Yunfei would’ve dreaded thinking about what would happen to him.
He risked everything in his defense, and even though he had been caught in a dance of peril; not a single strike had hit him even once!
At last, the ninth volley….
“Boom!!”
Once again, the effect from the Fire-tipped Spear activated again, blowing away the fireballs coming at him from the front.
“Bang!”
Whirling around with the speed of lightning itself, a burst of fire exploded forth from his arm. Thanks to the three hundred soulpoints stockpiled in his ring, Bai Yunfei was able to summon a flame blade to strike out and vanquish yet another fire dart….
As the sparks of fire danced and flickered away, the space around them started to calm down.
Both hands of Bai Yunfei grasped at his spear as he tried his best to recover his soulforce. At the same time, he was desperately praying to himself, “Please…for the love of everything, how many more times will there be a repeat until you give up?! Agh….I won’t be able to take it anymore!
Who in the world can tell me, just when will this end?!”
……
In the meanwhile, the doors to the ‘outside’ was just starting to open up.
The immediate vicinity around the gates was swamped with a wave of red light as it shone through the crevice. It was mysterious in its image; the elements around the door seemed to have stabilized with Kou Changkong standing just a few ten meters away from the doors along with the elders. Each one of them were silent as they looked on to the front of the gates.
Song Lin observed the crevice past the doors with narrowed eyebrows and an anxious look on his face. Then, movement from beyond the door caught his eye, prompting him to call out, “It’s junior Ye, he’s come out!”
Indeed. As a figure walked through the gates and into view, it was soon made clear that it was Ye Zhiqiu.
He didn’t look different at all from when he first entered, and Ye Zhiqiu didn’t have the aura of someone that made a breakthrough either. But still, the look on his face looked extremely excited either way.
“Master, headmaster, elder, your student has succeeded in forging a soulbound armament!”
His loud and happy voice resonated through the area, but he spoke still in a respectful voice to the elders there.
Nodding his head in satisfaction, Huangfu Nan laughed out loud, “Haha, very well! Very well indeed! It’s no wonder you’re a disciple of mine; you’ve done well for your master!”
It was a joyful laughter, but ironic. He had forgotten that since Ye Zhiqiu joined the inner school, he had not been taught anything….
Kou Changkong had a smile on his face as well, but he didn’t bother to ask about what Ye Zhiqiu had acquired as his soulbound armament. Nodding towards him with a faint smile, he said, “Very well. A success is a success. Wait on by the side for now; Yunfei hasn’t returned yet.”
“Yes!” Ye Zhiqiu replied respectfully before moving off to the side where Li Tiechui was. Even as he turned however, there was a look of concern on his face, “Yunfei already went in? I thought I was alone in there; but….if I came out after he went in, why didn’t I see him in there?”
“Junior Ye, there’s no need to think so hard about it. While you two went in at the same time, your destinations were completely different….” Li Tiechui answered Ye Zhiqiu’s thoughts as if he knew what Zhiqiu was thinking about.
“Eh?” Startled, Ye Zhiqiu’s mind raced furiously to connect the dots. Hushed, he spoke to his senior, “Then this must be…a spatial skill?!”
All Li Tiechui did to respond was nod his head. But that nod was more than enough to leave Zhiqiu thunderstruck. Asking no more about it, he turned back to look at the door. “So this is one of the rumored spatial skills! The Crafting School is far more unusual than I thought….”
Silence descended back down into the cave as everyone stared attentively at the gates to wait for Bai Yunfei to come walking out…
……
Within the crimson space.
It was a mystery on whether or not Bai Yunfei’s prayers worked or not, but for the past several minutes, absolutely nothing had happened to him. This lack of response had left Bai Yunfei more afraid than relaxed, however.
Letting out a breath of air that had been stuck in his mouth for far too long, Bai Yunfei wiped away at the dried up sweat gathered on his forehead. Relieved, he said to himself, “Finally it’s all over! Anymore and I would’ve been roast–”
“Eh?” Right as Bai Yunfei was recovering his soulforce, something out of the corner of his eyes triggered a reaction from him.
Turning his head to look at the still crimson area; Bai Yunfei could just barely see a faint fluctuation start to occur in the middle of it. It wasn’t the same pattern as any of the fire-related attack so far….
“Crap!! It’s another problem to deal with!!” Bai Yunfei shouted in surprise.
At last did he realized something was off.
The elemental fire that constituted the crimson mist around him started to churn in on itself, but….
It was only in that one small area alone!
Upon closer observation, Bai Yunfei was able to see that the ‘red mist’ around him was clearly separating the outside zone from him. The red mist was made from elemental fire, but there was another power in play that wasn’t combining with the elemental fire.
With several more seconds spent in observation, the look on Bai Yunfei’s face grew progressively worse. At this current moment, all he could think about was when this energy would attack, or how it would come attack him!
This situation was only happening after Bai Yunfei had smashed apart all of those fireballs and fire darts after all!
Almost as if reacting to Bai Yunfei’s ‘discovery’ of it, the source of this energy quickly started to billow over on itself like a giant vortex taking form!
“I knew it! I knew it wouldn’t be this simple!!”
His heart skipped a beat, and Bai Yunfei wanted nothing more but to cry out at this injustice; but doing so would be pointless. Snarling, he made use of his still-remaining portion of soulforce and prepared to leap out from the range of this ‘vortex’.
“Wha?!” Just a second after agreeing on a plan, Bai Yunfei’s face revealed a stunned expression. Not even seconds passed before that before his face became dreadfully white and his eyes reflected terror never before seen!
He….he couldn’t move!!
He was still capable of clear thought and sensing that all of his limbs were still existing, but the fact remained that he couldn’t move from his spot! Even as he tried as hard as he could to send a signal from his brain to lift his leg up, his entire body refused to budge and remained like a pole in the ground!
“What’s going on? What the hell is going on?!” Bai Yunfei roared to himself as he tried his best to regain control of his body. Despite his efforts, it was all futile. He had become a statue where even a finger wasn’t capable of being moved!
From there, all Bai Yunfei could do was stare in terror as his body was suddenly brought rising up into the air!
Lifted up to a height of ten meters into the air, all Bai Yunfei could do was hold onto his Fire-tipped Spear. Despite not being able to move, his arms were forced into dropping to his side so that his body was perfectly aligned in a vertical line in the air.
With eyes still looking at the swirling red vortex of energy, Bai Yunfei could see the vortex was spinning faster and faster while becoming smaller and more condensed. And then in the end, it became a two meter long crimson tornado that now situated Bai Yunfei at the center of it.
“Move! Move!! Moveeee!!!” Bai Yunfei’s mind screamed; his teeth were gritted as hard as they could, and both of his eyes looked as if they were about to cry tears of blood. All of the soulforce still left in his body was desperately circulating through it so that he’d somehow find a way to break through his constraints.
In this current moment of time, Bai Yunfei had completely forgotten about the fact that he was in the mysterious cave of the Crafting School and that he was currently being given the ‘chance’ all disciples were given.
This predicament where Bai Yunfei was experiencing a loss of bodily control had left his mind completely devoid of everything else but fear.
Thinking about anything else was useless.
By now, the tornado that encapsulated Bai Yunfei had shrunk even more so that the tornado looked as if it was cut away from its main body to swirl around Bai Yunfei. This time, the pointed spout from where the tornado was originating from was now on top of Bai Yunfei’s heart!
Before Bai Yunfei could even react, this condensed form of elemental fire drilled straight into his chest!
“Aaaahhhh!!!”
A blood-curling scream erupted from Bai Yunfei’s mouth as he felt every single inch of his body ‘absorb’ the elemental fire into it!
At the same time, the rest of the vortex that was beneath his body had reverted back to a previous stage of the vortex to assimilate over his right hand.
The abnormally large amount of elemental fire then proceeded to drill into the Fire-tipped Spear still clenched tightly in his right hand!
There was a decent amount of energy that overflowed and spilled away from the spear and then into the Flameblade Bracer on his right arm as well!