Chapter 608: Recuperation
When Bai Yunfei woke up the next day, he immediately started to train in his room. Due to the weakness of his body, he had to have people come in to support him up. Rather than go out, Bai Yunfei practically secluded himself in his room for five straight days before he regained enough motor strength in his body to be able to walk around like normal. It took another five day for him to have enough motor ability to move like a commoner would.
The keyword here being ‘like a commoner would’. His current strength was still immensely low compared to what it was before, and he could hardly be classified as being as strong as the average commoner his age, let alone being quite robust.
In terms of the available soulforce for his body to use, Bai Yunfei couldn’t even said to be on the same level as a soul cultivator.
Because of the change in his two essence fireseeds, the usage of his soulforce was very hard to distinguish. Even a Soul King would be hard-pressed to sense Bai Yunfei’s soulforce.
It was like Bai Yunfei had completely lost his strength and was now a commoner.
The fact that he was able to regain enough bodily strength to move like a commoner had been gratifying enough. The horrifying thing was the fact that he found out that he….couldn’t progress from there after.
Or well, it wasn’t as though he ‘couldn’t heal. It was just that healing was taking ten times slower than before.
According to the trend he was going at, returning to his peak level of strength would take an obscenely long amount of time…..
Bai Yunfei was worried about it at first, but he soon came to the conclusion that he had to accept what life was giving him. If he had to heal slowly, then he wouldn’t force the issue. He’d put his effort to more meaningful tasks.
Like….upgrading.
With Bai Yunfei regaining a certain amount of his strength back, Bai Yunfei was free to further deepen his research on the Upgrade Technique. Him upgrading the Critical Glove before had Bai Yunfei upgrading several more equipment he had, but he had unfortunately failed more often than not. Now that he was a stage stronger in soulforce though, Bai Yunfei was pleased to find out that manually upgrading the equipment was easier than using the Upgrade Technique. Because of that, Bai Yunfei spent most of his time using that method to pass the time.
Aside from that, Bai Yunfei had a few other things he could do now that he could walk around.
……
One early morning on North Seventh Street.
With Zheng Kai as his companion, Bai Yunfei and his three soulbeasts walked towards the Soothing Heart.
Due to the relative earliness of that morning, there weren’t many people inside the Soothing Heart. Bai Yunfei and Zheng Kai’s entrance into the building was met with Dan Teng coming down from the second floor to greet them.
“You’re finally back, Yunfei.” He greeted them with concern, “I heard about what happened to you in Baishan City, are you alright?”
As small as the Soothing Heart was, the soul cultivators he had as patrons were by no means minor. They were people who traveled in certain circles and were thus privy to more knowledge over the rumors than others. By extension, Dan Teng was able to hear about the circumstances behind Bai Yunfei, and it wasn’t as if the rumors were small in any case.
Grateful for his concern, Bai Yunfei smiled, “Thank you for your concern, uncle Dan. There’s a slight problem with my body that exacerbated the damage to my soul, if I could have uncle Dan help me out….”
Dang Teng blinked once before he honed his eyes onto Bai Yunfei, who felt a faint ripple of soulsense wash over him. The scanning took a while before Dan Teng sighed, “As I thought….the damage to your soul is worse than before. We can’t even call this a side-effect anymore, but rather a full blown tear in your soul again. Fortunately, it’s not incurable. It’ll take a little longer with the Soul Consolidating Tea, but I guarantee you that you’ll be fully healed!”
“Really?” Bai Yunfei smiled. “I feel reassured then. Thank you very much, uncle Dan….”
“No need. Shouldn’t I be the one to thank you for your patronage? Haha….come up to the second floor with me. Yi Shu, prepare a teapot of some Soul Consolidating Tea.”
Bai Yunfei, Zheng Kai, and Dan Teng all enjoyed a cup of tea with each other before the former two left the Soothing Heart. How extraordinary the Soul Consolidating Tea felt to Bai Yunfei; the vexations in his heart felt like they had been drained away with each time he took a sip of that tea. And by the time he left the Soothing Heart, Bai Yunfei felt like he was gliding.
He was truly thankful for the Soothing Heart of Dan Teng and the Soul Consolidating Tea offered by them. If not for those, Bai Yunfei wouldn’t even know where to begin with how to deal with his current predicament.
Life soon fell back into an ordinary cycle. In the morning, Bai Yunfei would head to the Soothing Heart for some tea and return to his place to meditate and practice manually upgrading. He’d return later in the day for another pot of Soul Consolidating Tea and return to his usual training. If not for the wounds he was trying to heal, it would be a very comfortable and relaxing lifestyle Bai Yunfei was living.
Early one morning almost ten days later….
Bai Yunfei had only just stepped out from the Soothing Heart after finishing his tea. Rather than walk home, he took another path and headed for Tianhun Academy.
Now that he was feeling much more manageable than before, Bai Yunfei wanted to resume teaching. As an instructor, he didn’t want to ignore the students he was in charge of.
Having been notified earlier, his students were already waiting for him at the top of the mountain. In regards to what happened to Bai Yunfei in Baishan City, the students were far more knowledgeable than others. It was only natural in any case with them all working hard to find Fang Tianmeng the day before her rescue. Though they didn’t go to Baishan City to save her, what they heard from Fang Tianmeng astounded them all, and their respect for Bai Yunfei grew immensely.
Bai Yunfei wasn’t the only one getting some measure of newfound respect; Wu Yang was being received quite well with the other students now. The matter in which the fourth prince had stuck up for Fang Tianmeng in the dining hall and his efforts in utilizing the Royal Family—namely the First Prince to go help save Fang Tianmeng in Baishan City—had left its mark onto the other students. To them, Wu Yang wasn’t as hedonistic as the rumors claimed him to be. He wasn’t a bad character at all.
As such, even Mo Wanxia seemed to be treating him better than before, much to Wu Yang’s secret satisfaction.
The students and instructor spoke warmly with one another for a while before class started in earnest. “It’s been almost a month since our last class, I hope everyone has been practicing. How far have you all gotten?”
Mo Chen spoke up first, “Haha, of course we have! We’ve already starting crafting our own soul armaments, and….hehe, it’s not so bad!”
He shook his hand to retrieve a strange triple-tipped weapon and presented it graciously to Bai Yunfei.
Bai Yunfei took the weapon into his hand to observe it. “This is...a mid-human tier soul armament! Did you craft this?!”
“Ah, instructor Bai’s amazing, you knew the tier of it with a single glance!” Mo Chen laughed, “Yeah, it’s the soul armament I crafted yesterday. How is it? Is it passable, instructor Bai?”
He could already craft a mid-human tier soul armament?
Bai Yunfei was surprised with Mo Chen’s progression. Nodding his head, he praised him, “Haha, not bad. Not bad at all. You’ve really exceeded my expectations.”
“Hehe, it was nothing. Aside from Fang Tianmeng and her circumstances, everyone else beat me in crafting a mid-human tier soul armament.” Mo Chen laughed in embarrassment. “Big brother Ye Ming’s even more amazing, he was able to craft a high-human soul armament.”
“Oh?” The surprise in Bai Yunfei grew even larger as he regarded Ye Ming. “Ye Ming, you’ve….become a Soul Exalt?!”
Previously a Soul Exalt when he destroyed his essence lightningseed, Ye Ming had dropped himself down to a peak late-stage Soul Ancestor. But now that Bai Yunfei looked at him, Ye Ming was back to being an early-stage Soul Exalt!
Ye Ming nodded. “It happened two days ago when I crafted my high-human tier soul armament. Somehow I managed to breakthrough.”
The art of crafting was another style of training that could help a person improve their strength. Unlike other methods of cultivation, crafting didn’t prioritize the elevation of soulforce. But if a crafter were to have success in their crafting attempt, there would be a great deal of energy that’d transfer from their attempt to themselves and benefit them greatly. Many crafters as a result took crafting to be a great chance to break the bottleneck they were at.
It was just unbelievable how Ye Ming was able to craft a high-human tier soul armament so quickly after being introduced to the art. Talent this high was comparable to the disciples of the Crafting School.
The students showed Bai Yunfei the fruits of their training one by one after that. Because of her kidnapping, Fang Tianmeng was slightly behind in terms of success, but even she was able to craft a low-human tier soul armament. The others were all able to craft a mid-human tier soul armament which gave Bai Yunfei no small amount of surprise.
While he was giving them quite high praise, their average rate of progression wasn’t at the same level as the students accepted into the Crafting School.
“Haha, the fact that you’ve all managed to get this far in such a small amount of time is very good.” Bai Yunfei praised them all with a nod and smile, “Let’s return to our crafting caves then. I’ll look over how you all craft and then teach you some of the more specific ways to use certain materials when crafting….”
The students all entered their own caves and soon enough, red light began to shine out from their respective caves. The heat in the area grew as well, and before long, the entire mountain peak was washed with a red glow.
……
As Bai Yunfei was teaching his class, a brown-robed figure stood high up in the clouds somewhere in the Training Forest. Peering through the clouds and over the countless distance away onto the mountain, the figure hummed to himself….
“A class seven permafrost mastiff, a class seven prisma oriole variant, and a peak late-stage class six blue-eyes wyrm variant. How interesting….”