Twin Pupils Cry Out Again
By the end of summer, Long Tian had firmly reached level thirteen.
Zhao Xiaopang's evasion training had paid off handsomely. Though he still couldn't dodge Long Tian's Light Bullets, he could at least last another five or six breaths before being hit. Long Tian's attack accuracy had indeed been honed to ever more devious heights: his Light Bullets could make three turns to strike a moving target, and Shadow Stealth could glide silently over the surface of water, hugging the ripples. On the afternoon of summer's last torrential downpour, he used Yin-Yang Rotation twenty times in succession in the rain, hitting the same spot on an iron target thirty paces away every time. By the time he finished, a shallow dent had been blasted into the center of the target.
Mr. Wang watched from a second-floor window and finally nodded.
"It's time to prepare for your Second Soul Ring." That evening, he called Long Tian into his room and spread out the map of mountains and rivers. "With your current cultivation, you should be able to absorb a Soul Ring over five hundred years old. The Yin-Yang Twin-Pupil Python back then was seven hundred years old, already two hundred years beyond the limit. You managed to endure it thanks to luck and your unusual constitution. We can't take another risk like that with your Second Soul Ring. It would be best to find a Soul Beast of a similar age with both light and darkness attributes."
Long Tian leaned over the map to look. Mr. Wang's finger passed over several mountain ranges before stopping at a marker north of Spirit City: "Shadow Valley."
"The Yin-Yang Twin-Pupil Pythons in the Heavenly Wolf Mountain Range are things one can only encounter by chance. You were already lucky to come across one. Shadow Valley is a Soul Hunting area registered with Spirit Hall. There's a kind of Soul Beast there called the Luminous Butterfly. Its wings are black and white, and its cultivation is around five hundred years. There are quite a few of them, so they're relatively easy to find. Its Soul Ring has both light and darkness attributes. Though it's a little weaker than the Yin-Yang Twin-Pupil Python, it's better suited to your current absorption limit."
Long Tian silently committed the place to memory. Shadow Valley, Luminous Butterfly. Five hundred years.
"We'll leave in three days." Mr. Wang put away the map. "I won't be accompanying you this time. I can't get away from the academy. But I've found a guide I know in Soul Hunting Town. His surname is Xu. He's a retired Soul Master from Spirit Hall and knows the terrain of Shadow Valley very well. Can you make the trip alone?"
Long Tian was taken aback for a moment, then nodded. "I can."
Mr. Wang looked at his expression and asked no more, simply handing him a leather pack. "There's a map, dry rations, medicinal salve, rope, and a few soul coins in here. I've already paid the guide's fee. Just go to Soul Hunting Town and find Uncle Xu. Will three days be enough?"
"Enough."
Early on the morning of his departure, Long Tian stood at the academy gates with the leather pack Mr. Wang had given him on his back. Zhao Xiaopang came chasing after him and thrust a package of steamed buns his family had made into his hands, then went on at length about things like "run if you can't win" and "don't get greedy and pick a butterfly that's too old." Long Tian acknowledged each warning, patted Zhao Xiaopang on the shoulder, and turned to set off.
Soul Hunting Town was just as it had always been. The wooden sign at the entrance stood crooked, and a vendor selling dry rations beneath a shelter greeted the familiar face. Following the address Mr. Wang had given him, Long Tian found a low house in the north of town. He lifted the door curtain and saw an old man in his fifties or sixties, dark-skinned and callused all over his hands, squatting on the floor and twisting hemp rope. When he saw Long Tian enter, he grinned, revealing a gap where a front tooth was missing. "Mr. Wang's apprentice? You've got some nerve, kid, coming to Shadow Valley alone. Let's go while it's still early."
Uncle Xu set a blistering pace. Despite his age, he strode through the mountain forest like the wind, leaving Long Tian panting as he followed. The two of them headed north from Soul Hunting Town for most of the day, passing through a maple forest and crossing a mountain ridge. Ahead, the land suddenly dipped into a long, narrow valley. Mist hung thick at its entrance, and the sunlight that shone in was filtered through layers of treetops into dappled fragments. A faint, sweet scent of decaying vegetation drifted through the air.
"We're here." Uncle Xu stopped at the valley entrance and pointed to the dense forest below. "Luminous Butterflies hide by day and come out at night. During the day, they all sleep hanging from the shaded branches of old trees in the valley. Once you're inside, keep your breathing quiet and tread lightly. Look for a butterfly perched on an old locust tree, with wings that are half black and half white. A butterfly around five hundred years old has a wingspan of about a foot. The younger ones are only as big as your palm, so don't mistake them."
Long Tian nodded, tightened the leather pack on his back, and stepped into Shadow Valley alone.
The light in the valley was noticeably dimmer than outside. The canopy overhead covered the sky completely, like a thick green curtain. The layer of rotting leaves underfoot was soft and silent, and the air was damp and slightly cool. He edged inward alongside the tree trunks, scanning the branches on either side and the shaded backs of the trunks. After walking for about the time it took an incense stick to burn, he spotted his first Luminous Butterfly. It was palm-sized, with dull gray wings that fluttered slightly as it perched on the back of a low shrub. It was far too young.
He continued deeper. The second and third were also rather small, and the black-and-white patterns on their wings were still indistinct. Only when he reached a thousand-year-old locust tree at the bottom of the valley, its trunk so broad it would have taken several people to encircle it, did his gaze suddenly stop.
A row of seven or eight Luminous Butterflies of various sizes hung on the shaded side of the old locust tree's trunk. The largest was a full foot and a half across, its wings spread like two sheets of translucent silk. The left wing was black as ink, the right white as silver. Flecks of fluorescence flowed through the veins of its wings, flickering in the gloom. Its body, too, was strangely colored: one half pitch-black, the other silvery white, as if an invisible blade had split it down the middle and the halves had been joined together again.
Over five hundred years old, perhaps even close to six hundred.
Long Tian held his breath and approached slowly. Shadow Dragon Power quietly covered his entire body, and his footsteps melted into the shadows of the trees, even the faint rustle of fallen leaves suppressed to a minimum. Ten paces, eight, five-the Luminous Butterfly's antennae quivered slightly, as though it had sensed something. Long Tian hesitated no longer. Golden light flashed brilliantly from his right hand as he charged a Light Bullet to its limit and blasted it out with a thrust of his palm!
The Luminous Butterfly reacted swiftly. Its black and white wings snapped open, and two beams, one black and one white, shot from their tips to meet the Light Bullet. But the bullet was already upon it. The instant the attacks collided, a dazzling burst of golden-white light erupted, and the shock wave sent several smaller butterflies nearby fluttering away. Before it could catch its breath, Long Tian's Shadow Stealth had already risen silently from the roots of the tree. Two dark, vine-like tendrils wrapped around the base of the Luminous Butterfly's left wing. That wing was black, and Shadow Dragon Power shared the same origin with it, so the resistance to binding it was much less than he had expected.
The Luminous Butterfly struggled and beat its wings, the silver light from its right wing slicing toward Long Tian's neck like a blade! Long Tian ducked and rolled aside, then summoned another Light Bullet in his right palm and blasted it at close range into the white half of the butterfly's body. The twin blows of light and darkness landed on the strange Soul Beast at the same time. It let out a piercing cry, fluorescence pouring from the veins of its wings and scattering across the ground as its struggles gradually weakened.
For the final blow, Long Tian brought his palms together, condensing Light and Darkness Chaos Power into a slender beam that pierced the center of the Luminous Butterfly. The butterfly shuddered violently. Its fluorescence faded away, and its wings slowly drooped as a black-and-white Soul Ring gradually rose from its remains.
Five hundred years old, perhaps less than six hundred. But its presence was pure and full, and the attributes of light and darkness were evenly distributed within the Soul Ring, forming a more harmonious whole than in the Yin-Yang Twin-Pupil Python's Soul Ring.
Long Tian reached out and placed his hand on the Soul Ring, then sat down cross-legged.
The instant he drew its Soul Power into his body, the familiar tearing sensation surged through him again. But this time it was much milder than when he had absorbed his First Soul Ring. Partly, his cultivation was higher; partly, the layer of markings inside the First Soul Ring had taken effect. The markings lit up on their own, like a bridge guiding the way, gently drawing in the power of the Second Soul Ring. They first blended it with their own power, then divided it into two streams and directed them into the light and darkness cyclones.
The First and Second Soul Rings resonated with each other in his dantian. The two black-and-white Soul Rings rotated gently, one above the other, like two tiny suns and moons turning slowly along the same orbit. The markings inside the First Soul Ring had spread farther, covering nearly the entire inner surface and giving off a soft, chaos-colored glow. Nascent patterns were also beginning to emerge on the inner surface of the Second Soul Ring, fine strands like newly sprouted roots.
"Growth..." Long Tian opened his eyes and looked down at the newly risen Second Soul Ring beneath his feet. It was black and white, identical to the first. The corners of his mouth curved upward, and he murmured to himself, "The Soul Rings grow bridges on their own. The longer the bridge in front grows, the wider the road behind becomes. I don't have to build the bridges myself. The Soul Rings can do it themselves."
The discovery filled him with wild joy, but he kept himself from jumping up. After all, Uncle Xu was still waiting at the valley entrance. He took one last look at the Luminous Butterfly's remains, its wings folded where it had fallen, and pressed his palms together in thanks before turning and striding toward the entrance.
By the time he made his way out, the sky had grown mostly dark. The Luminous Butterflies began lighting up the forest with patches of faint blue fluorescence, like floating stars, turning the whole of Shadow Valley into a dreamlike sea of lights. As Long Tian passed through the glow, he slowed for a moment and looked up at the blue flames filling the forest. An indescribable feeling welled up in his heart.
He was walking alone in the darkness, surrounded by someone else's world. But he wasn't afraid. The two Soul Rings in his dantian turned leisurely, light and darkness mingling, warm and reassuring.
Uncle Xu had built a fire at the valley entrance while he waited. When he saw Long Tian emerge, he grinned through the gap in his front teeth. "Did you do it?"
"I did." Long Tian sat down by the fire and took the flatbread Uncle Xu handed him. He bit off a large mouthful and added indistinctly, "Second ring."
Uncle Xu added a piece of firewood, and the leaping flames lit both their rough faces red. He studied the two black-and-white Soul Rings rotating slowly above Long Tian's feet, one above the other, and clicked his tongue. "Twin Light and Darkness Dragons, two mixed-color Soul Rings. In fifty-nine years, this is the first time I've seen anything like it. Kid, you'll be extraordinary someday."
Long Tian smiled as he chewed his flatbread, firelight dancing in his pupils. He looked north, toward Spirit City. The night blurred the horizon in that direction, with only a few stars hanging at the edge of the sky, cold and bright. Of the two-and-a-half-year deadline, more than half a year had already passed. He had one year and ten months left.
The night wind swept through the valley entrance. The fire crackled, sending sparks flying into the night sky, where they mingled with the blue lights of the Luminous Butterflies in the distant forest until it was impossible to tell fire from stars.