[Last Emperor] Chapter 30 - Gut Instincts

There was a limit to how much he could help Su Da develop before she reached a major bottle cap and needed an equally major breakthrough. He had been giving her Concentrated Qi Pills for the past week. Leveling her up until the very peak of the mortal stages and could no longer advance. Instead, the Qi seemed to vanish into the ether.

Wasting dozens of Qi experience.

It hurt Tao Zi’s heart to see them turn into motes of nothingness without any advancement. He considered the possibility that it may just need enough Qi experience before she would finally get into the Qi Gathering Realms but decided against it. 

He was not about to waste more Qi on an experiment that was more likely to fail than succeed. 

So, he was forced to take the more traditional route.

Tao Zi brought the little girl before him and made her meditate for some time. Feeling the burning Qi within her. Qi that was tainted by his own cultivation and not pure Qi he later discovered when Su Da kept complaining and he checked her out. Little flames that looked exactly like the blue and white flames the dragon made for him. 

It seemed like the Concentrated Qi Pills were somehow given an element and resembled his cultivation as soon as they entered his ring pocket. 

He made a mental note to test it out later. They could be worth quite a bit if they could be used like miniature grenades. Su Da wouldn’t necessarily need to be at his level to help out, even if it took forever for her to make it into the Qi Gathering Realms following the more traditional route. 

Su Da crunched her face as she focused on circulating the Qi within her. “Master. This is too hard! It’s like trying to move a big stone. I can’t do it and it barely moves even a little.”

“It’s okay. Rain drops eventually carve through the mountains, Su Da. Continue without hesitation. Quitters aren’t allowed in my Dragon Emperor’s Sect. Only the most powerful, bravest, and determined peoples can enter it.” Tao Zi said as he continued to channel his own cultivation. Practicing to use his own Qi more efficiently and less haphazardly like the last encounter. Blasting a wave of fire without a plan was only a good idea in some cases. 

Not when he fought anything that had a lick of intelligence. More importantly, not something that would take advantage of him turning his back to them without thinking straight. Tao Zi ran the entire scene of saving Su Da a few times in his mind. 

As little as he could recall accurately. 

Mostly the terror the chimp showed and his own fright when he learned that he enjoyed the look in its eyes. 

Tao Zi shivered. He channeled his Qi through his meridians and let out a wave of flames that washed the entire testing wall, singeing it black. Creating smoke that needed to be filtered out. The fire stuck to the stone like it was a burnable material. 

Su Da coughed and hacked. Tiger ran to the entrance and watched from a distance. Heron was enjoying the fire as it danced between the flames. Sucking them up and doing its job as a firefighter. This was not the first or even the tenth time it happened this way. It was just another part of his cultivation and how it burned so fiercely. 

Water could not put it out. Covering it did nothing to weaken its flames. Only the lack of Qi and Heron eating it up to grow stronger did it vanish away into nothingness. This was nothing but a partial essence of dragonic flames. 

Tao Zi had to wonder what the real thing looked like. He couldn’t imagine it. 

“Master,” Su Da said in between coughs. “When will I be able to do that? I want to throw fire around like you! Become an immortal transcendent primordials’ predecessor too!”

He tried to hide his smile. Tao Zi had told her he was over a hundred thousand years old. That he’d seen the first primordials being born. A transcendent immortal that slayed dragons for breakfast and dinner. Fried phoenixes for desserts. 

The single strongest person alive if he was at full power. 

Except that his constituents of his glorious empire ages ago had gathered in the millions and worked together to not defeat him, but only leave a grievous, unseen, unfelt, and impossible to show her injury in his soul that limited his dragon flames to how weak it was now. A shadow of his former glory as the Dragon Emperor. 

“One day. Su Da. One day if you keep working hard!” Tao Zi said as he turned away from the bright shining eyes that glowed like stars she had. He couldn’t face her without getting embarrassed at the little… okay… gargantuan lie he told her. 

There was no one to prove him wrong. His current level and inability to defeat anything strong was solved by his injury alibi. Being unable to break free from the rift was solved due to his soul being too weak to survive the energies of the void during their transition. Only defeating the final beast that was placed to guard this area from him would restore his soul.

He had no clue why he made up all of that bullshit. It just came out. 

Without warning or reason. 

It took some time for the smog to disappear. Tao Zi needed to crack the boulder slightly for it to filter out and away. He hoped it would not bring anything more dangerous than what they’ve seen so far, but he couldn’t guarantee anything. 

He paused as he looked out of the crack. The remaining HellHound had not been around in some time. Missing in action. Not even Zarfu or any of the chimps had mistakenly stumbled across their little cave. 

It provided him with a lot of space and time to grow stronger, but it also left a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

The HellHounds had been insane in their attempt to get in. 

Yet,  ever since the massive battle he incited, there had been no noise. No sign or anything else to indicate anything was out there that could kill him. He could feel complacency set in after so long without anything dangerous and being unable to figure out how strong he actually was against something that could threaten him. 

It didn’t help that he hadn’t needed to leave the cave except to throw away cat shit. 

Heron refused to burn them with his smokeless fire. 

Tao Zi was not about to use his very smokey flames to burn them and suffocate the entire forest with the most horrendous smell and kill everything within a ten mile radius. Biological warfare of that scale was not part of his plan. 

Something was out there now. 

He could swear it. 

A sense that filled his chest and entire being. One that started a few days ago at most and seemed to fill his core whenever he cracked the boulder even slightly. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling or why, but it was there. Haunting him as he continued to practice to become stronger. He should have already made an attempt to hunt Zarfu or the last HellHound already. Yet, here he was. Worrying about what was giving him this feeling. 

Progress was slow now. 

The rewards and experience no longer gave him the same effects as before. He hadn’t made much progress towards Journeyman Stage 2 in the entire time. 

He pulled up his status page.

Mortal Stage 0

Cultivation Progress - 

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱ 49%

His body tempering progress was even worse than this sitting at a hard thirty-three percent. It was difficult to get a reward from doing workouts and exercises when it took multiple times the amount it used to take to find that limit he used to achieve easily. 

“You promise?” Su Da said, breaking him out of his trance. 

Tao Zi closed the crack he opened and turned towards her with a massive smile. “Of course. I'll teach you my cultivation technique myself once you are strong enough and can move your Qi very well. It may take time, but that's fine. We have nothing but an endless amount here in this realm.”

Congratulations!

Avatar of The Phoenix Risen - Level up!

Level 1 -> Level 1.2!

Heron jumped for joy and flexed his non-existent muscles as he posed. The avatar of flames looked no different than before, the same exact little menace that it was. The shy, anxious, and weak avatar. Tao Zi really had to wonder how the hell it was an A+ grade skill. 

Even the cultivation points he got were minimal and tended to be less than a single Qi experience most of the time he sat down to meditate. 

Hopefully it would start increasing, especially now that he learned he could feed the little guy his dragonic flames to make him grow stronger. Maybe there were better sources out there in the wild. He would need to figure it out. 

Another thing in his growing list of items he needed to figure out.