Chapter 190 Untitled (c) (Title may have been Destroyed by Lightning Tribulation)

Translated by Gumihou

Edited by Gumihou

 

The old man spoke in a low voice, nevertheless, everyone’s attention was on him. Though he did not speak much, the clever ones already have some idea of what he was implying.

[1] Tan-Tai Chu stiffened, “What mysterious group of people?”

There was a complicated look on the old man’s face alongside a trace of envy, “Master of Illusions.” For a person of common birth to be born with a Spiritual root was already incredibly lucky. After all, it is said that only one in a thousand ordinary people could have enough natural-born talent to become a Cultivator.

For every Cultivator that exists in this world very few could continue to increase their Cultivation once they hit a certain limit. Perhaps only one in a million people could push beyond their limits and enter the higher realm.

Therefore, when the old man began to speak about Master of Illusions, most looked confused.

Master of Illusions? Why have they never heard of this before?

Nevertheless, not all of them were at a loss. From the expressions of the people around him, [1] Tan-Tai Chu included, a look of dawning realisation appeared.

[2] For Tan-Tai Chu, the term was not unfamiliar to her. Of the subordinates under grandpa, the most powerful of them all was a Master of Illusions known as Unmatched Amidst Peers. Most of the time, that person drifted about like a rootless tumbleweed and would only come back when it suits them. However, every time they appeared, their absolute strength was incredibly shocking. Even she, Tan-Tai Chu, would find herself trembling with fear each time she saw a demonstration of this person’s strength.

That person had been looking for a disciple for a long time. Unfortunately, though many talented people had offered themselves to be their disciple, all have been denied. Even she had once thought of serving this person as a disciple. However, after just one scouring glance, the Master of Illusion merely shook their head and declare her unfit.

If she, a first-class talent, was unfit, then who else could enter this person’s eye? Therefore, though Tan-Tai Chu was unwilling, she too understood how rare and valuable a Master of Illusions is.

To think that she would actually see a person suspected of being a Master of Illusions, moreover, at the barren Ninth Realm at that!

Was that stranger a master or a beginner Illusionist? Nothing could be confirmed.

A sense of crisis crept into [1] Tan-Tai Chu’s heart.

While the Third Miss was busy pondering over various things, others were already discussing the matter among themselves.

Suddenly, everyone was very interested in this curious speciality called ‘Illusionist’.

 

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The Saint’s Dwelling.

When Shiyu finally burst into her space with the Tea of Enlightenment in her arms, her entire body was covered in injuries. The Lightning Tribulation had scorched her quite badly. Though she had taken the precaution to cover herself with the Fire Spirit, she barely managed to survive the few breaths when directly exposed to the Tribulation. [3] She had even wet her clothes with Spring of Life water to encourage the Tea of Enlightenment to come into her embrace. On the logic that Plant Cultivators were even more sensitive to water magic and would, hopefully, leap into her arms the moment it senses the vitality of the water.

The plan had worked. Nevertheless, Shiyu still ended up badly injured even with the double protection of fire and water on her body. Her little life was protected, but the rest of her body was scorched black. It was not her first time getting scorched or burnt, but it was still quite painful, ah!

Shiyu sighed and looked at the peeling Tea of Enlightenment in her hand.

She had already tried to use some of the Spring of Life water to increase the Tea’s vitality, but it still looked like it was about to expire.

When she said [4] ‘some’ water, she meant ‘a lot’. She had intended to just dip the Tea quickly into the Spring of Life water and maybe wash off the scorched bark when she suddenly noticed the Spring of Life water sinking down rapidly as though someone was drinking it through a giant straw.

[4] Panicking a little, Shiyu lifted the Tea out of the water and the Spring of Life stopped decreasing. The Tea still looked very miserable, but she could see that bits of its blackened bark had dropped off and there were glimpses of turquoise green underneath. The leaves that had been shrivelled up straightened themselves out and was regaining their previous golden colour.

[4] After some hesitation, Shiyu hardened her heart and plunged the Tea back into the water again. Again, the water level began to sink in the most heart-wrenching manner. The water only stopped sinking once a third of it was gone.

By then the Tea of Enlightenment had recovered its original appearance.

That’s right, its original pre-Tribulation appearance.

Wei, the Lightning Tribulation was supposed to level up a plant’s Cultivation. Does this mean it had failed the Tribulation? Had it been struck by all those lightning in vain?

Shiyu was just pondering over this matter when the Tea of Enlightenment began to change again. It began to shrink and wither. The solid turquoise green branches grew smaller and smaller until they shrank down to the roots. Even the remaining three golden leaves began to lose their lustre and eventually fell off the branch like dead leaves.

Not only that, parts of the tree branch that had wrinkled up and hardened suddenly disintegrated into powder and disappeared.

As Shiyu watched, the Tea of Enlightenment grew smaller and smaller until even the root part turned black.

Is it… dead?

Shiyu’s heart constricted a little. Although she had taken the Tea into the space to prevent it from leading the thundercloud to the city, she never thought that this Tea that had been Cultivating for a thousand years would just disappear like this.

A thousand years…

After a thousand years of hard work, it was on the verge of breaking out from its cocoon to become a butterfly. This kind of ending was just… isn’t it just too miserable, ah?

Shiyu cupped her hands and try though she might, she could not keep the pieces of the Tea of Enlightenment from breaking apart. Any little movement would just cause more of the Tea to disintegrate.

Is the Spring of Life water useless in the end?

Just then, through the blackened soot in her hand, something the size of her thumb nearly dazzled her eyes with its golden brightness.

[4] !!!

This is…?

“Plant it by the Spring,” came Fat Cat’s voice.

Shiyu looked over at Fat Cat, who now looked much more see-through than before. Though his voice was still strong, it was clear that the Lightning Tribulation had hurt him quite a lot. Rather than the bit of plant matter in her hand, she was more concerned about Fat Cat.

“How are you? Is there anything I can do to help you recover?”

“The Jade Spirit Essence, I’m going to need it.” Fat Cat stretched his legs and arched his back lazily before stepping over to look at the bit of gold in Shiyu’s hand. [5] “Plant this root by the Spring and make sure not to let anyone know you have it.”

[5] “Huh, so it’s a bit of root,” Shiyu went over to dig a small hole by the Spring and buried the golden thing. Meanwhile, her mind continued to buzz, Fat Cat said he needs the Jade Spirit Essence, however, she had used up the one they had managed to collect. Who knows if they could find another Essence in the Ninth Realm?

[6] From what she heard from Madam Shi, this body’s background might not be simple. So the Jade Spirit Essence she had used up might have come from the upper realms. She might have to leave the Ninth Realm to track down another Jade Spirit Essence. However, since Fat Cat was basically a soul, would other soul recovering tools be good enough to help him?

Whatever, let’s think about it later. It’s not like she could do anything about these problems now.

Once Shiyu patted the last bit of soil over the Tea of Enlightenment’s root, the ground under her feet trembled. Frantically, Shiyu looked around. [6] The last time an earthquake happened here she was spat out of the space! Was she going to be spat out into the middle of the Lightning Tribulation?!

Shiyu’s body tensed, ready to use Chasing Clouds & Moon the moment she was kicked out when… nothing happened. [7] Nervously, Shiyu patted herself and peered around her space. The last time an earthquake happened, the Saint’s Dwelling underwent an upgrade and her useable area increased by a lot. She had not been kicked out, but could there be an upgrade nevertheless?

She explored the area carefully, noting that the pond, the table with the book, the plants and everything else had remained the same. [7] She looked across the field towards the misty area and spotted a door.

[7] That’s right, an actual door. The door was fixed to a wall, which was fixed to… nothing.

[7] She carefully approached the door and looked behind it. There was… nothing behind the wall, no building, nothing. It was… just a wall with a door.

[7] Shiyu scratched her head and touched the doorknob.

[7] The door swung open and revealed… chaos.

[7] “Er,” Shiyu stared at the chaotic world beyond the door and carefully put her hand through it. As soon as her hand plunged through the chaos, another hand grasped hers and she was suddenly pulled through the door.

[7] The aborted scream died in her throat.

“It’s you?”

Still screaming internally, Shiyu shakily looked up to see the person who had grabbed her into the void and found herself staring into the face of… Wen Heng?

The shockingly handsome visage of Wen Heng with his arms folded and eyebrows raised was so incongruent to the situation that Shiyu could only stare at him with her mouth hanging open.

“So,” drawled Wen Heng, “you’re the one who snatched the Tea of Enlightenment.”

“Er…” Shiyu knew she couldn’t hide it from him! Therefore, she could only plead, “Please keep this a secret.”

A smirk bloomed across that handsome face, “So, it really is you,”

“… …” Shiyu nearly spat up blood. She had been tricked by this male beauty!

 

[Gumihou: Okay, step right up. Who wants to bet that this Peerless Matching Level would want Shiyu as a disciple?]

 

Gumihou is keeping track so that you don’t have to ~

 

凝氣	Condensation Stage	Stage 1
化丹	Core Transformation	Stage 2
凝丹(46)	Core Condensation	Stage 3
化神(52)	Divine Transformation	Stage 4
成嬰	Nascent Formation	Stage 5
合體	Unification	Stage 6
返墟	Revert Decay	Stage 7
歸真	Original Purity	Stage 8
成仙	Become immortal	Stage 9

[1] Unnecessary Faffing – Replaced ‘the girl in emerald robes’ with ‘Tan-Tai Chu’, because I’m not going to just keep pretending I don’t know who that person is.

[2] Tan-Tai Chu’s thoughts – Which the author couldn’t use effectively because of Note 1, but Gumihou could because… Note 1, lol!

[3] Original Text: “Shiyu lured the Tea of Enlightenment with the Spring of Life water”

… like how? Did you wave a bottle of water at the Tea? Threw a water balloon? Put it in the mist? Anyway, Gumi decided to use the quick and dirty method of soaking Shiyu’s clothes in the Spring of Life water. It’s bloody wasteful and if other Cultivators knew about it they would scream, but Shiyu has a pond full of it and it also acts as extra protection against the Tribulation.

So, let’s commence with the wet hanfu competition.

[4] Added Details for Clarification: When reading the paragraphs, I thought, oh, so you sprinkled some water over the Tea. Wait, you pour a lot of water over the tea? Hold on, that Tea just sucked a third of the Spring Water away?!!

Decide to adjust things so that it was very clear, right from the beginning, that the Tea was sucking on the Spring Water as though its life was depending on it.

[5] Adjusted Details for Dramatic Purpose: In the original text, Shiyu ‘saw that when the ashes disappeared, a root the size of a thumb appear’

… Gumi is having trouble imagining what a ‘thumb sized root’ looked like. Like a withered and twisty spider? Like a section of a root? Which could also look like a bit of a twig?

Considering Shiyu’s inability to recognise oysters (Chapter 101, Note 1) and rabbit skin (Chapter 167, Note 8), the job of recognising that mysterious bit of plant part is given to Fat Cat. Although considering his inability to recognise danger in Chapter 151, Note 6, I can’t guarantee his observation abilities either…

[6] Shiyu’s Thoughts: Connecting Madam Shi’s information as well as Fat Cat’s requirement. Also, connect this earthquake with the last earthquake where she was spat out. In the original text, Shiyu did not spare a single thought about the last earthquake, even though she was on the run at that time and must have wished that she could just disappear into her space.

[7] Changed Detail for Logistic Purpose: In the original text Shiyu ‘checked the ground’s movement and traced it to the white mist’

Leaving aside the question of whether this is possible, surely Shiyu should be more concerned about being spat out of the space? Also, if there’s an actual wall and a door appearing out of nowhere like Doraemon’s Anywhere Door, it could be seen with those very useful organs on your face? You know, the things above your nose? Especially in a place where the only manmade structure is the table with the floating book on it?

 

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