Chapter 283 Fellow Disciples
Sheng Ao began absorbing the Nine-Leaf Nirvana Herb in the middle of the night. His master decided to help him with this and assisted him. It rushed the time it would take him to absorb the Nine-Leaf Nirvana Herb.
The Nine-Leaf Nirvana Herb was extremely potent and flame-attracting. It had the capability of bringing one back from the cliff of death. Its general abilities revolved around the term 'recovery'. Almost, if the Phoenix Ancestor had a higher cultivation level, this 'recovery' would become 'absolute recovery,' regardless.
He knew that his master was an exceedingly powerful individual that possibly no one could rival, that even one of the oldest ancestors he knew was no match against him. At first, he thought his master had ulterior motives against him, for trying to make him his disciple, but seeing how generous he was to use the Nine-Leaf Nirvana Herb on him, he was somewhat touched.
Somehow, his vision got rowdy, and recalled how the Holy Light Emperor cared for him in the past as well. He missed that man. Despite being a monk who should be not feeling any of these otherworldly feelings, like how the ideal dictated them, he still felt something like love and care.
After all, he was still a creature of nature no matter what.
His feelings could not be hindered by ideals.
"Focus!" his master growled.
Sheng Ao did not dare dillydally and concentrated his attention on the absorption of the Nine-Leaf Nirvana Herb to reconstruct his destroyed dantian. As the flame of life seethed through his pores and into his dead dantian, he felt invigorated as though he was undergoing rebirth and liberation.
The process continued, the flame of life akin to threads trying to reform his dantian. Everything else was smooth, except that the pain he felt was more than what he expected. If cutting his fingers would do in exchange for this pain, he would gladly do so.
But he persevered, knowing that herbs such as the Nine-Leaf Nirvana Herb could not be wasted.
Time passed by like wind and when everything was set, he felt reborn. He felt like he had gone from hell to heaven in an instant. It was the kind of feeling that he could not describe… something he should have felt before but never recognized—pleasure.
"Ahh!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.
"You are now set," his master said which woke him up from this kind of pleasing feeling. "You are now set again for cultivation. Can you do it? Can you start again?"
"What else is the purpose for you to do this to me, master? Isn't it for me to start cultivating once more?"
"Hmm." Yang Lujia nodded and looked at him. "But before that, I'll hand it to you, the one cultivation scripture that would be most suitable for you. Something that would quicken your cultivation, even faster than you had before."
[Sub-Mission: Sheng Ao's life is hanging on a thread. Save him by using the Nine-Lead Nirvana Herb.]
'His life wasn't anymore hanging on a thread. Why would you say that, Fortuniel?'
Yang Lujia first looked into the sub-mission that he had. Unknowingly, Sheng Ao believed him to be generous when he was just waiting for the rewards he could extract from this disciple of his.
'Host, Fortuniel only gives missions at dire times and will not be able to change anything that he has claimed.'
Yang Lujia nodded at this and proceeded to look at the rewards he got from the completed Sub-Mission, that was, to save Sheng Ao's life—or rather, to reconstruct his cultivation back from the start.
[Ding! Congratulations to the Host for completing a Sub-Mission! Host receives the Twelve-Leaf Plenary Herb!]
'Huh, what is that for?' Yang Lujia found himself to be excited for nothing.
He had been waiting for this moment for it had been a long time since he received a prompt from Fortuniel like this. Regardless, he ignored this and looked at his disciple who was still trying to stabilize his foundation.
"Do not use any other cultivation techniques or arts. It would be useless against what I will give to you now," Yang Lujia said, warning his disciple beforehand. "This one will be the most perfect for you. It will be called the Golden Lotus Scripture."
Sheng Ao opened his eyes and felt his dantian churn at the mention of this scripture. He felt it in his bones as well—as though he could not wait to cultivate this scripture. It was like his own body was calling out to it, at the mere mention of its name.
"What kind of…" He was baffled but when he saw his master, he knew that this must be something very heaven-defying for him to react like this. "What is this scripture..."
Before he could his trailing words, Yang Lujia smiled at him and began his explanation. "You should know that the lowest tier for cultivation techniques is called techniques themselves. When elevated or those of the higher tier, they will be called cultivation arts. However, do you know what's higher than arts, Sheng Ao?"
Sheng Ao's heart buzzed. He had an idea in his heart, but he felt like this was a bomb to him. It was very overwhelming just to think of it. A scripture like the Golden Lotus Scripture…
"Yes, what you're thinking is right. This Golden Lotus Scripture belongs to those of the highest tier of cultivation techniques. They are specially classified as cultivation scriptures. You should also know that scriptures are further divided into human-ranked, earth-ranked, and finally the highest, heaven-ranked. This scripture that I will impart to you… it will be at the heaven-ranked…"
Heaven-Ranked Scripture, the Golden Lotus Scripture.
Sheng Ao was perturbed… not in a bad way. He even could feel the thirst in his throat as though he wanted to swallow this scripture right away.
Yang Lujia then said, "Sheng Ao, you are not to share this with anyone without my permission, alright?"
"Yes, master!" Sheng Ao stood and went near his master.
"Good! Before I impart this to you, though, I have to remind you that you are not the only disciple I have. I have already three of them out there. Two of them are your senior brothers and the other one will be your senior sister. Your first senior brother, Lin Diyu, had cultivated with me the longest and I don't know what height he had already attained by now. As for your second senior brother, he was merely about 15 years old now, or if I didn't count wrong. He is a dragon. I think he is now in the Dragon Emperor Palace. Other than that, your third senior sister is a phoenix, and she is now on a quest to fetch her little sister home, to the Asura Prison of the Nether Universe, a world separate from the Five Realms."
Sheng Ao felt like his mind exploded the moment he heard the words from his master. His master actually had other disciples like him?
"Among the four of you, the most talented so far is your second senior brother, although he is the youngest," Yang Lujia said. "But don't worry, under me, no one can touch you."
However, Sheng Ao did not mind his master's domineering words. He was instead glued to another thing he never knew. "Master, what's this Asura Prison where my third senior sister—"
"It's in another world other than the Five Realms. I don't know much but your third senior sister belongs to a big clan in that world called the Nether Universe. Moreover, she is a former saintess of that clan. Also, mind you that your third senior sister's clan is far stronger than any one of your strongest here…"
"Then, how strong is third senior sister…"
"I can't monitor her progress when she's afar, but we'll be meeting your first and second senior brothers soon. I can feel it. They will be able to give you some clues about their strength. You might not know, they might have already reached the peak of the Saint Emperor Realm, even stronger than the Holy Light Emperor."
GASP!
**
Author's Note: In the Philippines, we are already 14 days away from Christmas Day and 20 days away from the New Year. I am actually not feeling well after all the school works that I had to do. Regardless of all that, I am very thankful to each and every one of you who continued to support me in this journey with Yang Lujia. I cannot thank you enough for all the support. I think it's already been past six or seven months, I think since I began telling this story. Anyhow, thank you for your support. I hope that you will support me as well with the next stories I have in line to release in the Year 2023.