Aimless Ascension

Gale's Qi was lost in the whirlwind of energy, as his attempt to help bring stability to Xiaolin's channels failed before he could even start.

This was supposed to be impossible, but Gale had seemed impossible happening more than a handful of times. He pushed harder, coming with more of his Qi to stabilise her condition.

He couldn't just watch her groan in excruciating agony, as he Protected her with all his might, using his second fate lock. Even with that, he was barely sharing the pain with her, as he couldn't absolutely take away everything.

Plan was feeling the pain of her body breaking, and then it was transferring to Gale. The fate lock needed a moment to take away the pain, and that moment was enough for Xiaolin to regret life.

It hardly made the pain easier as it was constant, unrelenting agony, but it surely would leave her in a better state to endure everything.

However, another problem appeared before Gale could take care of the ones already he was dealing with. When he tried to stabilise Xiaolin's condition, it created more difficulties for her.

As Gale tried to slow down the pace of her cycling through moving his Qi in reverse in her channels, strands of energy broke out of the sphere chaotically, distressing her stress even more.

"Master, I can't," Xiaolin said, "I'm burning."

Gale was feeling that as well, not just his body, but even his spirit was boiling with swelling pain. Gale could easily shrug off the pain in his body, the swelling in his spirit was another story.

Although his spirit was more potent than most people, it wasn't invincible. Obviously, it wasn't like the time when he got the scar, but it wasn't just uncomfortable either.

The swelling was burning the aura around his spirit as Gale's mind grew worried. He could endure all this for hours to come, but not his disciple.

Although her spirit was resolute, it was compared with average iron rankers. But the agony wasn't something any average iron ranker could endure.

Not for how long this would take, Gale feared.

"Xiaolin, hold on," Gale said. He tried to shoot combustion Qi to break the contracts in the wall and let the rich Qi out, but even with that, the surrounding whirlpool remained. No signs of stopping there.

"I'm burning!" Xiaolin cried, embracing him tightly, tears dripped down her face.

Gale couldn't watch it anymore. "Hold on a second," he said and stood up, carrying Xiaolin in his embrace.

He shot out of the room, almost like flying, and barged out of the house, bursting the door with his Qi. Gale flew towards the bathhouse at an alarming rate, pulling everything he had.

With Xiaolin in his embrace, Gale submerged into the water, still Protecting her from the pain and her body from breaking into a bloody mess. Through that, Gale divided a part of his intent to make the water colder, as cold as the contrast could make it.

Within a few seconds, the temperature of the water decreased to an under-freezing point, but Gale kept on pushing further as the water seemed to vaporise around his disciple's body.

The change in atmosphere worked somewhat, though she wasn't totally out of danger. Xiaolin had brought the whirlwind of energy with her, which led Gale to think things might be different from he thought.

'Perhaps, it wasn't simply her losing control,' Gale mused, watching every minute change in his disciple's body as she clutched at him tightly. Her skin started to tear up already, and so did his, but his golden body was recovering it with the naked eyes, where Xiaolin was already stained in blood.

Xiaolin kept on groaning in his embrace as tendrils of smoke swirled around them. Gale felt his heartache looking at her pained expression.

But he couldn't do anything about it.

His only disciple, and he couldn't even help her free of this disaster.

Gale gritted his teeth and called for more power from his core. He pushed over every ounce of power in his control and tried to take control of the situation. He wasn't a spirit doctor or healer per se, but even he could see he couldn't do anything forcefully as the result would be more disastrous.

And it seemed his disciple had the same thought, getting it intuitively.

"Master, don't," Xiaolin said, her eyelids closed tightly as her nails dug into his bag. With her thin frame, she was having a hard time clutching to him.

"My stomach, it's burning," Xiaolin said. That was the location of her core, the place she envisioned to be her core of spirit arts. "The mark, I can see it. . . It's changing me. . ."

Gale momentarily paused and inspected her with his Qi sense. However, with the chaos coursing through her channels, his supernatural senses weren't enough to make the job.

So Gale tried to lift her up from his embrace and check with more scrutiny. However, Xiaolin was stuck to his chest, unprepared to leave.

"Linlin, let me see," Gale whispered into her ears. "I'm not leaving you."

That got her a little freer as Gale lifted her from his embrace. He supported her with his left arm on the back with her stomach facing skywards.

Gale didn't wait ceremoniously. He tore over her wet robes in her belly and found an impossibly complicated runic mark glowing on her abdomen.

The mark was far greater than what Xiaolin showed him a few days ago. Some part of it was still obscure, but a part was glowing with‌ brilliant golden light. Almost a fifth of the mark was visible, glowing as if imprinting itself onto her being.

And that was exactly what was happening. Xiaolin's spirit was transforming, and this was merely the physical manifestation of it.

If Gale didn't know well, he would consider Xiaolin to be from the lineage of the Celestial Radiance. With the gold light, peculiar constitution and all.

However, that wasn't the case. This differed too much front the lineage of Celestial Radiance. Well, even if it weren't the mythic race of celestial beings, Gale was absolutely sure Xiaolin wasn't entirely human. Not in the way normal humans were conceived at the very least.

However, Gale didn't dwell on those thoughts as a more urgent matter on hand. Xiaolin was going through a metamorphosis, which might just be unique to her lineage.

He has to help her. Somehow.

Gale took in a deep breath and assessed the changes happening. Xiaolin was accumulating Qi at a tremendous rate, though most of it was moving to refine her body. However, in the centre of it all was the revolving sphere.

"Linlin, listen to me very carefully,' Gale whispered into her ears as Xiaolin moaned in understanding. "You're going through an advancement metamorphosis, your physical and spiritual aspect is changing all together, we can't stop this process in midway."

"Master," Xiaolin called through her whimpers. She opened her tore up eyes to look up at him. "Master, will I. . . be alright?

"Yes." Gale touched her cheek softly and soothingly as he embraced her again. This process would take hours if not a complete day if we keep at it, and Gale feared Linlin's condition and chances of making it would only decrease as the time went on.

But Gale won't let that happen. Not on his watch.

"Focus, the pain will be unendurable for a time, but you must complete this process as quickly as possible," Gale said. "I'll help you, but the only thing I can achieve is assisting you in your way. Linlin, you have to get it together."

Gale forced a link with the energy in the surroundings and made his way through Qi into her system. His energy joined in the race of revolving around the sphere of amassing energy. The pace of revolution doubled instantly as Xiaolin groaned aloud.

The burning and swelling in their spirit rose, as Xiaolin started to shiver again.

Thankfully, Vale barged into the bathroom with a tremendous pace, feeling the shift in Gale's spirit. He had been hunting in the mountains, as it was his favourite thing to do during the afternoon.

But the moment he sensed his companion was compromised, he fired up all his might to get back to Stormhold.

Vale pushed his guardian power and Protected Xiaolin. More pressure was lifted off the poor girl as she could finally breathe air, not comfortable, but she would get there.

Gale put his every concentration of helping Xiaolin accumulate the changes faster, forgetting about everything.

About half an hour later, spirit marks of gold, silver, and iron burst out of his void lock in the surroundings. Since there was no cultivation script in place in the bath, Gale had to divide his intent yet again and crush the perfect spirit marks as a burst of rich spirit energy filled the bath.

His mind chilled as he crushed the spirit marks. He was passively aware he was doing something that shouldn't have been possible for him. Perhaps it was another thing he unlocked, getting closer to becoming a true master of Spirit arts. He had no mind to dwell on that currently.

Gale was busy making sure Xiaolin didn't burst out into a blob of a bloody mess with the amount of spirit energy coursing through her body.

Gale figured Xiaolin would be alright after her spirit went through the change, which would complete in about a couple of hours, but the physical transformation would take time.

Her body was soaking Qi at an alarming rate as she cycled them, but none of them were sure when how long it would take for her constitution to be satisfied.