Chapter 43 (Part B) – Seeds

If he did lose his mind, he at least wouldn’t have to suffer any more.

Suddenly, he regained control over his mind, and he felt the pain in its most raw state, with all its force.

Bi Fan wanted to scream, vent it out, but the pain was so extreme that nothing came out of his mouth.

“Endure it!” Bi Fan had always been good at tolerating pain, for he had suffered so much of it in the past.

The pain was so intense that Bi Fan thought that he would soon faint. From past experiences, he knew that fainting would at least relieve him of this suffering temporarily.

The Yin Yang Lotus continued to manipulate Bi Fan’s body and he continued to move forward.

It wasn’t just his mind that was suffering; his body too was feeling the pain.

So much aura and so many spirits had been entering his body, maybe it was too much to handle or maybe some of them had managed to escape the Lotus. Bi Fan felt as if they were going to split his body open, from the inside.

Bi Fan was suffering on both ends, ceaselessly.

Suddenly, a method that he had learnt from that battered jade book, started working on its own. The technique started refining the Spirits and the aura to enhance his physical strength.

Bi Fan was so shocked, that he even forgot about the pain and started inspecting the method, which was in action.

The method must be a very powerful one; for a second, even the spirits that were attacking his body crumpled under its influence, before resuming attacking his body again, while the technique continued to use them to enhance his physical strength.

Obviously Bi Fan could feel the improvement in his physical strength consistently. Even the pain had subsided to a great extent and he felt very relaxed all of a sudden, relatively.

Since the situation had changed, Bi Fan was now, in no hurry to leave. If he stayed here, then his strength would continue to improve, so at present, he was willfully volunteering to subject himself to the pain he was suffering.

His body was drenched in his sweat and his head was exploding with pain.

He was happy to continue, as long as it didn’t kill him.

It’s such a pity that Longevity burst is a very low level technique, which meant that it wasn’t capable of functioning on its own, otherwise Bi Fan would have loved to use it as well to enhance his powers further.

Obviously, at present, since Bi Fan had no control over his body, he couldn’t practice it, as much as he would have liked to.

The Yin Yang Lotus was absorbing the spirits and the aura at a much faster rate now; the seeds were growing in size at a good rate and so was the rest of the Lotus.

As time elapsed, things continued to progress at their slow and steady pace; Bi Fan had, by now lost track of how long he’d been here, and had no idea as to how much longer it was going to take.

Bi Fan was roused by the hiss of a tiger from out of nowhere, and he instantaneously halted inspecting the Lotus that was inside his body.

A giant black tiger had somehow managed to appear in front of Bi Fan; the tiger was quite close to Bi Fan, and judging by his glaring red eyes, Bi Fan could tell that the tiger’s intentions weren’t very much in his favor.

The tiger looked at Bi Fan, roared a few times, and then charged in Bi Fan’s direction.

Bi Fan could tell that this black tiger was awfully strong as his pace was even faster than the Chimera’s.

Bi Fan exerted his body with all his strength, desiring for it to move so he could dodge this incoming attack, but his body didn’t budge, having refused to obey his command.

“It’s over now.” Bi Fan closed his eyes, he had done everything he could have; he had tried really hard; but now, it was time to go.

As the black tiger’s bloody mouth was almost upon Bi Fan head, ready to tear it off the rest of his body, he was suddenly stopped. Suddenly, the tiger found himself struggling, as his body hung there, in midair.

Bi Fan opened his eyes, only to be surprised. The black tiger was being encompassed in a net of silky black threads, which were beginning to restrict his movements.

Suddenly, the black tiger started howling in pain, and his body started to dissipate.

Watching the tiger stripped down to his bones made Bi Fan a little nauseous.

Soon, even the bones had faded away, and the net broke down into strands of silky black threads which returned to their place inside Bi Fan’s body.

Bi Fan felt a bit numb as he tried to fathom the power of these black silk threads. He vaguely guessed that these odd black threads might have something to do with the Lotus that resided inside his body.

Instead of being scared, Bi Fan was pleasantly surprised and even reassured. There was a force inside his body that was capable of protecting him in critical moments, and seemed to be showing up whenever he was in grave danger.

Bi Fan quickly peeped inside his body, hoping to enquire the occurrence of these threads.

The Yin Yang Lotus seemed to be busy absorbing the aura and spirits as normal, and nothing seemed to have changed with that.

In such a short span of time, Bi Fan could sense that his physical strength had reached almost six Yun Shi, which was almost at par with his inner energy.

“Amazing! Now, I can even fight with the ‘enormous strength’ layer.” Bi Fan was overjoyed.

Not only that, Bi Fan could see that the two seeds were now mellow and ripe.

Apart from this, two other holes in the Lotus’s stamen seemed to have sprouted a seed, each.

Consecutive surprises had diverted Bi Fan’s mind from the pain he was in. Had he been in control of his body, he would have celebrated this out loud.

Bi Fan was standing at a very advanced position inside the zone and he could sense that spirits were getting even more powerful and aggressive, which was being testified by the force of the whirlwind that was surrounding him at this moment.

The wind that was hitting him in the face, felt like the edge of a knife, sharp.

The Yin Yang Lotus resembled a bottomless pit. Bi Fan had no idea how many ‘magical powers’ layer spirits, this Lotus had already absorbed and even then, the lotus still continued to carry on, without experiencing any massive transformations.

Apart from the two seeds that had formed a proper shape inside the Lotus’s stamen, the lotus hadn’t changed an awful lot.

“Keep at it! Keep at it! ….. Just don’t get me killed.” Bi Fan didn’t care about the pain, at the moment.

The pain hadn’t stopped, but Bi Fan was willing to endure all of it, his desire to grow strong was providing him with the strength to endure the suffering.

Bi Fan, however, was beginning to lose interest in exploring the core of this anomalous activity. The force of the spirits was already unbearable on the outside of the central region; he couldn’t even imagine what it would be like, to be at the center of this activity.

Judging by the torrential cyclone that the spirits formed around him at present, Bi Fan estimated that he must be fairly close to the center of the zone by now. The benefits that he could get from the entire aura that was stored inside the Lotus, was nothing less than a dream to him.

Bi Fan was just waiting for the Yin Yang Lotus to reach its saturation point, and then he would quickly exit the zone. His strength had already improved a lot, so he was more than happy at the moment.

A man who is never satisfied with what he has, is like a snake that is trying to swallow an elephant. Too much greed is often met with misfortunes, and can split one open thunderously.

His mind was just pondering over this notion when he heard the voice of another human. This one was extremely strong, and Bi Fan was a little scared, so he wanted to get out of there immediately.

The strength he was sensing this time was stronger than the ones he had felt earlier. The people that he had sensed earlier were at least in the ‘emerging from the womb’ layer, and even then, they hadn’t dared to venture this deep into this forsaken zone. These new comers on the other hand, were coming in strong.

“Yin Yang Lotus, don’t be so greedy. Your greed is going to get me killed.” Bi Fan started to lose heart, fearing the worst.