Tribulation

You return to your room to find Qian Rong waiting.” I’ve been waiting, young master!” She says bowing, seeming to be much happier than before.

“We’ve already slept with one another, just call me Ichika, as you did when we were young.” You say, as both of you loosen your robes.

“As you wish. Now come make love to me! I’ve waited all day for this.” She says. You swear her body looks even more tantalizing then the first time. You don’t bother with foreplay, thrusting into her, before pushing her on the bed. As you practice the dual cultivation art, the volatile yang qi flows through you both. You start kissing her passionately, quickly establishing a rhythm. The pleasure becomes even greater, as both of your cultivation’s rise. As you both reach the edge, you both reach the peak of the ninth level. The world qi begins to stir unnatural, as it prepares to baptize you both. It’s only through this baptism that you can reach the next major realm.

“We need to finish now, so we can focus on our breakthrough. Forgive my harshness.” You say, before pounding her more vigorously. No longer caring to hold back. You both scream out, climaxing with each other. You quickly pull out, as you both take the lotus position, to meditate. Then the world qi baptism hits you both. As the world qi tries to crush you, your true qi condenses under the pressure. You then suddenly feel the volatile yang qi flood you. After observing for a moment, you realize that the baptism can subdue the volatile nature. You then feel your body burn up, as your true qi becomes more condensed. Your skin turns red, as your blood feels like it’s boiling. The harsher the baptism, the greater the result, and it seemed yours was quite great. You start to feel your bones creak, as they start to reach their breaking point. Just before it finally crushes you, the baptism starts fading. As it does, your mind floods with new understanding of the martial dao. The remaining world qi with spiritual energy floods into you, causing your body, spirit, and soul to rapidly improve. Once you stabilized yourself, and the tribulation ends, you open to see Qian has already finished, tears streaming down her face as she looked distressed.

“I thought it was gonna consume you! I never seen such a terrifying baptism to reach the solidifying spirit realm! My own baptism wasn’t even a tenth as fierce.” Qian says crying. You are temporarily stunned, while you heard some baptisms are twice or even three times fiercer than normal, you’ve never heard of such a terrifying one that’s 10 greater. You quickly push the thought back as you quickly embrace her.

“It’s okay now, I’m fine alright. I didn’t suffer any injuries.” You say, trying to cheer her up. She simply cries into your shoulder. After a few minutes she calms, and kisses you. Then you start cultivating with her once again. By the time you finish, it’s nearly dawn again. Despite this, you don’t feel weary. One of the benefits of cultivation, is the decrease in the need of sleep and rest. Qian Rong reached the second level, while you were still stuck at the first level, even though your cultivation is technically greater. Levels are primarily indicative of true qi reserves. Your true qi is unusually dense, making it harder to improve your reserves. If you were to fight however, your richer true qi would overwhelm her. You both clean up, before heading into town together. You plan on leaving for a sect to train soon, so you need to properly equip yourself.

You possess a space bag, an artifact that possess an independent space to store things. Inside is merely money, and rations for now. You first stop at a pill shop. Pills are a type of medicine that can possess a myriad of different effects. Right now, you need to get healing pills, as it’s likely you’ll need to fight in the near future.

“How can I help you sir?” The shopkeeper asks. His tone betraying his indifference. Likely not putting you or Qian in his eye, since cultivators of your age are normally don’t buy the better pills.

“I need 100 3rd class healing pills.” You say, getting him to reevaluate you both. Although 3rd class wasn’t high in the grad scheme of things. 100 was quite a hefty sum of coin. Cultivators of your age would normally not use healing pill unless their injured and in danger, so most wouldn’t normally have more than 10, and even that would be a lot.

“What do you need so many pills for?” He asks confused.

“We’re preparing to leave for a sect entrance exam.” You respond casually. This surprised him even further, as only talented cultivators could become sect disciples. Sect entrance exams were quite dangerous, as they had a high fatality rate, so it makes sense to buy many pills.

“Give me a moment!” He said, before entering the backroom. He quickly returns with two jade bottles.

Jade bottles served to keep pills fresh, so they don’t spoil.

“That’ll be 50 silver coin.” He says. As your the son of a prominent family, even if you are an outcast, you had plenty of coin, after you paid, you gave a bottle to Qian. You then headed to a weapons shop.

“Pick out a sword for yourself, we won’t do well if you wield and ordinary sword.” you tell Qian. An artifact sword of the lowest grade can easily slice through and ordinary sword. It’s as if trying to us the branch of a bush against the blade, utterly useless.

“Right.” Qian declares, before looking through. You look through as well, until you pick out a Burning lion sword, which is a 4th class mid grade artifact. You pay for it, and swing it a bit. You feel it’s power flow out a bit, but you need to refine it, to display its true strength. Artifacts need to be branded with one’s spiritual energy, in order to properly wield their power.

“ I want this sword!” Declares Qian. The sword she picked is a frost wolf sword, 3rd class high grade. Although it two grades worse than yours, she probably couldn’t refine a stronger one. As refinement is effected by one’s sword comprehension, and here’s is not as great as yours. You buy her the sword, and head back home.

You both head to your training hall, refining the swords a bit, before practicing. You coach Qian as you spar, occasionally practicing separately to practice certain moves. By the time you finish, it’s already nighttime. You both head back to your room to find a servant waiting for you. His name was Hao Chen.

“What are you doing here old Chen?” You ask, bowing before him.

“I’ve come to tell you news! Your brother Tao Yang is arriving in the morning, and your parents request you meet for lunch with them to greet him.” He says. Your a bit surprised, as Tao had already joined a sect, and should be training. You feel as if something is wrong, but there’s not much you can do.

“Thank you old Chen! I’ll be sure to be there.” You say, bowing again as he leaves.

“I wonder why your brother would return? I have a bad feeling about this.” Says Qian.

“Let’s forget for now, let’s cultivate. I’ve been looking forward to this again.” You say, making her giggle.

“Me to! Let’s go!” Qian says, pulling you into your own room.