Kree!
Swoosh!!
Wei Wuyin, atop Bai Lin, soared through the skies as a trail of resplendent golden sparks lingered within the sky. It was beautiful and majestic.
They were currently soaring within the Jade Lotus Domain, in a relatively uninhabited area. Since the events at the Jade Lotus Sect, Wei Wuyin had either indulged in his heated desires or concocted alchemical products for Qin Feng. He didn't have time to explore his own strength.
Wei Wuyin stroked Bai Lin's feathers as he murmured, "I'm a Godlord without an understanding of what a Godlord can do. That's quite hilarious, no? Not to mention…" When his senses felt the miraculous changes that Bai Lin was undergoing, he was deeply shocked.
When he had ordered her to kill that Mortal God at the borders of the Jade Lotus Sect, he didn't think Bai Lin could one-shot him. In fact, while being able to kill him was a good way to establish dominance, he originally expected that the Mortal God would at best be injured while the others came to his rescue or support to resist. This would establish his foundation to speak, without harming relations.
But, Bai Lin's strength was unprecedented as her concentrated beam of fiery golden energy instantly reaped his life. He was lucky that Qin Feng was a cautious one that weighed losses vs gains, otherwise a grueling battle could've ensued.
This made him realize that acting with an understanding of oneself and all other factors was still the best course of action. In the Scarlet Solaris Sect, he relied heavily on his intelligence and caution to survive and rise from nothing. Every step he took was calculated, every move was planned.
It was this form of strategic and far-looking planning that enabled him to reach his current level. He simply wasn't used to these reckless actions of his.
"In the end, one must still rely on one's brain and avoid being too overbearing to achieve the best results." As he reflected on this, he couldn't help but sigh. Since the things had already happened, he had no choice but to go all-in with this decided upon persona of his.
Kree!
Bai Lin communicated with Wei Wuyin. His eyes surveyed the area below and he replied. This was a good place to settle down. In a flash, they descended into a large, grassy clearing without any large lifeforms nearby. The absence of life auras calmed his heart.
Wei Wuyin leapt off of Bai Lin and landed in the clearing. Bai Lin wasn't too far behind. However, her large body caused the surrounding area to tremble.
"Bai Lin!" Wei Wuyin called out. Bai Lin perked her head up and looked at Wei Wuyin. Her eyes flashed an excited glint. She knew the reason for their arrival, and she too wanted to know.
Since eating that golden fruit on that one day, her entire body started to transform. Her eyes, beak, and tail became a golden color, and she gained control of a type of fiery golden energy. As she wasn't a cultivator but a beast, she didn't follow the same system of cultivation of cultivators.
She did not have a Heart of Qi, but as she explored herself, she realized that her ability to control her body had reached an extreme level and the clarity of her thoughts were far greater than before. She was actually starting to understand human speech outside of spiritual spell communication.
Usually she could only gather an understanding of intent from Wei Wuyin, and the sounds were foreign to her. While she recognized her name and simple commands like fly, attack, stop, but full sentences usually eluded her. Now, she could somewhat grasp complete, complex vocal sentences.
Wei Wuyin had started to realize this too. Before, he usually used a spiritual spell to communicate, but he started to use vocal commands and have complex vocal exchanges with her. This was great as even the spiritual spell had limitations of merely exchanging intent.
"You seem to be reaching the state of forming a spirit, and this spirit is likely controlling this unique energy of yours." Typically, beasts relied on their physical bodies to fight. Outside of a few racial traits that were like Wei Wuyin's ability to spit or jump, they didn't have control over energy.
This was a clear indication that Bai Lin was embarking on a unique path of cultivation. A path likely unique to beasts rather than humans.
Bai Lin nodded. She actually understood that sentence and its meaning behind it.
Observing Bai Lin's human-like nod of understanding, Wei Wuyin felt a rare excitement emerge in his heart.
"Let's explore this energy of yours." He stepped back a bit and said, "Unleash your power."
Bai Lin could sense Wei Wuyin's caution. In truth, she was slightly scared of herself. She understood how powerful Mortal Gods were in this world. According to what she could recall, there weren't more than a thousand in the entirety of Wu Country. Furthermore, the population of Wu Country was in the hundreds of millions.
That was a scant amount in comparison. Yet, one had been felled by her hand.
She calmed her heart and started to focus. She wanted to see her limits, to similarly explore this unknown power coursing through her veins.
While she did, Wei Wuyin was paying rapt attention to the minute changes of Bai Lin. His eyes glowed with a nine-colored light.
「Spiritual Spell: All-Elemental Eyes」
What he witnessed caused his pupils to shrink and his mind to shake. He had never seen this type of energy before. It was like Bai Lin's body—no, her veins, arteries, and heart—was like a blazing sun. Raging fiery energies unlike anything he'd ever seen started to circulate within her, yet these fiery energies that seemed to be beyond violent were unable to harm the walls of her blood vessels or flesh. They were completely self-contained.
Unlike how his Heart of Qi circulated the energies of his body, Bai Lin's central focus seemed to revolve around her heart and the energy was contained within her blood, not coursing through her meridians.
As the energies gathered, her white as snow body started to erupt with faint golden flames.
Boom!
Before Wei Wuyin could even react, an eruption of heat and force occurred, pushing him back a few steps as he struggled to regain his balance. When he looked towards Bai Lin, his heart trembled.
What…
What beauty.
Her white body was still as such, but it was wrapped around in clear, golden flames that sparkled as if stars were within it. It was like looking at the starry skies with a golden backdrop instead of the endless black void. He had never witnessed such magnificent, elegant, and colorful beauty before. Even his heart was moved.
Bai Lin was like a phoenix of the legends, shrouded in flames as she unfurled her wings. When she stood to her maximum height, she towered Wei Wuyin easily, and her body emitted a grand aura that seemed to touch upon her ancient lineage.
Wei Wuyin felt the power emitted from those flames. He felt that it could inflict injury even to him, a person who cultivated Elemental Energies, birthed Blazing Inferno Magma Qi, and had an astonishingly strong physical body. He felt a threat!
"Just by being near those flames of yours, I'm sure every Fifth Phase expert who has yet to give birth to yin-yang energies would be instantly turned into ash." However, as Wei Wuyin inspected the inherent power and heat within these flames, the stars within the flames started to change.
What he witnessed caused his eyes to widen in shock.
Bai Lin's golden flame became white as ash. No longer did it contain a fiery heat that burnt to surroundings and pressured him, but a comforting, gentle heat. It was warm, and it felt like…like…
"Lifeforce?" Wei Wuyin was met with one surprise after another as he felt the lifeforce emitted by her flames. He was quite familiar with this type of energy. The Tree of Eden had left a mark on his own heart that contained all of its boundless wood energies and lifeforce. It was this very mark's existence that resulted in the instant death and total collapse of the Tree of Eden's previous body.
Bai Lin slowly approached, but Wei Wuyin wasn't scared. He touched her, his hand passing through the white flame and feeling the lifeforce coursing through it and into his own body. He felt hidden injuries within his body start to burn away, recuperating at a gradual pace.
"It can heal? Like the Life Meadow Wood Qi?" He now understood that Bai Lin's flames had two edges, one that can incinerate, the other that can heal. It reminded him of…
A phoenix.
"Bai Lin, you might have unlocked your ancestral bloodline!" According to the legends and myths, all birds have a line of ancestry with a phoenix. There were ice, dark, demonic, fire, light, or even rainbow-colored phoenixs. They disseminated their bloodline with other races and produced new breeds of avian creatures.
Bai Lin was similarly startled by her newly discovered power. She never knew that she could change her flames from gold to white, and then have it emit such a powerful lifeforce. When she pushed herself, she found this out instinctively.
However, she also felt a name in her mind: Nirvanic Flames.
A flame that can burn all to ash and revive the dead from that very ash. Her mind was infused with all sorts of new information as if she had just fully unlocked her bloodline secrets.
Wei Wuyin understood Bai Lin's confusion. This change or her bloodline must've been instigated by that golden fruit. It had to have unlocked her potential, awakening her latent bloodline powers. Even he didn't understand much about beasts, nor did it ever occur to him that they might have bloodline powers to begin with.
He softly caressed Bai Lin's flame-engulfed feathers with a grin. "We're going to fully excavate your latent abilities. In the future, when we soar the skies, who shall obstruct our path?"
Kree!