A Will Eternal

Bai Xiaochun almost couldn’t control his breathing, and his eyes shone with intense brightness.

The mere thought of this good fortune caused him to visualize himself wielding a massive sword forged from the northern lands. He would sweep across all creation, and countless individuals with weaker cultivation bases than himself would gaze at him with awe and fervor.

That would truly be the peak of life! He could imagine how he would throw his head back and laugh uproariously, then flick his sleeve, stick his chin up and coolly say, With the flick of a sleeve, I, Bai Xiaochun, reduced all heaven and earth to ashes….

As he continued to imagine the scene which would play out when he became the ruler of the north, he saw the twin Master Cloud Lightnings, the furious Feng Chen, and even the demigod patriarch, all standing next to him, their hands tucked into opposite sleeves as they bowed and scraped….

Already, his excitement was building. However, after a moment, he hesitated. To have something amazing like this just fall out of the sky into his lap seemed a bit odd. At the same time, he figured that it wouldn’t be good to seem too eager.

Therefore, he cleared his throat and hesitantly said, “Well, the thing is--”

However, before he could say anything else, the baby girl interrupted. “I can’t stay awake for very long before needing to sleep again…. Tell me your answer the next time I wake up….” Then her voice faded away into nothing.

“Huh?” Surprised, he called out into his mind a few more times, but got no answer. Shaking his head, he came to the conclusion that the baby girl really had fallen unconscious again.

“She passed out way too quickly! I wasn’t even finished talking!” At this moment, his heart was itching with anticipation. The good fortune the baby girl had offered him was simply too enticing.

Sadly, there was nothing he could do about it now. The baby girl was too weak, so he would have to wait until the next time she woke up before continuing to discuss the matter. Sighing, he tried to figure out if the girl had intentionally fallen asleep right at that moment….

After analyzing the matter a bit, he couldn’t be sure, so he started thinking about what he would say the next time he could talk to her.

In the following days, he continued to look bored, but the truth was that with this new topic to ponder, he had plenty to think about.

Ten days passed by in a flash. Bai Xiaochun waited and waited, but the baby girl never woke up. It reached the point where he was so anxious for it to happen that it felt like ants were marching across his heart day and night.

At the same time, he had gotten used to life in the north. He followed all the rules, neither leaving the Cloud Order, concocting pills, or absorbing any of the energy of heaven and earth in the area.

Because of how well he behaved himself, the northerners, while they still didn’t like him, also couldn’t find anything to complain about.

He was still kept under close watch, though. Even the six devas would occasionally keep tabs on him. Countless disciples in the Cloud Order would talk about him, and even laugh coldly sometimes as they looked at his residence from afar.

“Bai Xiaochun has a reputation for being really aggressive, but now that he’s here in the north, he had no choice but to bow his head! You know, it feels great to be able to bully a deva like this.”

“Deva? Ha! Here in the north, he can’t do anything! You guys should have seen it when he got put in his place. It was hilarious!”

“You know, I heard stories about Bai Xiaochun before. Supposedly, he causes disasters everywhere he goes. I’d always assumed he was some kind of superhuman monster, but I guess those were just exaggerations!”

Talk like this floated around the entire time. Although Bai Xiaochun wasn’t interested in listening to it, his keen deva divine sense made it almost impossible not to.

“This is outrageous! I can’t believe they’re being so sarcastic even though I'm behaving myself!” The more he heard, the angrier he got. Furthermore, considering that the baby girl wouldn’t wake up, it eventually got the point where time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl.

“Enough is enough! I don’t care if I have no freedom, I have to work on my cultivation!” Bai Xiaochun had never thought of himself as a person who was truly into cultivation. But now that he was in the north, he had really begun to miss it.

After all, whenever he was in seclusion practicing cultivation, it was almost like being asleep. Time would fly by incredibly quickly.

“My Undying Blood needs life force, but I don’t have access to any cultivation resources, and I can’t bring that golden skeleton I found out into the open…. My Sun-Moon Vast-Sky Incantation requires the energy of heaven and earth, but the northerners won’t let me absorb any….” It was a really frustrating situation, like an endless useless cycle. No matter what ideas he came up with, nothing seemed viable. There had to be a way to circumvent the three-point covenant and figure out a way to work on his cultivation!

A few days later, he looked up, hair disheveled and eyes bloodshot, yet shining with bright light. Smacking his thigh, he laughed loudly.

“I, Bai Xiaochun, am a complete genius!! Hahaha! Won’t let me leave the Cloud Order? Fine, I won’t! Won’t let me absorb the energy of heaven and earth! Fine, I won’t! Won’t let me concoct pills? Fine, I won’t! I can always go sell medicinal pills!”

He was already starting to get excited at the prospect of selling some medicinal pills to earn spirit stones.

Then, he could use those spirit stones to work on his Sun-Moon Vast-Sky Incantation. As far as how quickly he could progress, it would all come down to how many spirit stones he could get.

“Ordinary medicinal pills won’t be easy to sell. However, I have two types of pills that will definitely work!” With that, he excitedly slapped his bag of holding to produce two medicinal pill bottles.

Looking down at them, his eyes began to burn with passion and pride.

“Everybody needs an Aphrodisiac Pill once in a while! And once you consume a Fantasy Pill, you’ll never want to go back!” Sighing, he mused that it was a good thing he had concocted so many medicinal pills in his spare time back in the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect. Without the stockpile he had built up, he would really be at a dead end here in the north.

He had already figured out the best way to go about selling pills. Obviously, he couldn’t just sell these two types, so therefore he would add in some other miscellaneous items as well, and sell everything together. After getting everything ready, a bit of hesitation lurked in his heart. But then the thought about how outrageous the northerners were being, scorning and ridiculing him constantly. And then there was the blood feud between the Frigid School and the Nine Heavens Cloud Lightning Sect. At that point, he gritted his teeth.

“You people are forcing me to do this!” he murmured, rushing out the door.

As soon as he was out in the open, the gazes of countless northerners locked onto him, gazes of ridicule and mockery. Just as many of them had said openly, it was their first time being able to openly bully a deva, and it was something many of them had come to enjoy.

Because they had the tacit approval of their demigod patriarch, none of the disciples were worried about any consequences. However, at this point, Bai Xiaochun didn't care. In fact, the more people who were paying attention to him, the better.

After swaggering around a bit to make sure plenty of people had noticed him, he selected a public square near where people in the Cloud Order gathered for trials by fire.

Within the square were nine gates that led into nine separate arcane pocket realms. It was very similar to the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect in that the disciples who went into the pocket realms would be ranked according to their performance. As a result, it was a big center of competition for the disciples.

After finding a suitable location, he sat down, spread a white cloth out in front of him, and started pulling things out of his bag of holding. In front of him on the white cloth, he arranged magical items, medicinal pills, and other random items. At the moment, he didn’t put any Aphrodisiac Pills or Fantasy Pills up for sale.

After arranging everything properly, he waited for customers.

His actions had garnered quite a bit of attention, and before long, disciples were heading over to see what was happening. When they did, jaws dropped, and many of them began to openly laugh.

“He set up a vendor stall? A mighty deva is selling stuff on the street? Hahaha!”

“Looks like we really drove him crazy. He can’t leave, can’t concoct pills, and can’t practice cultivation. Now he has no option other than to sell random stuff on the street!”

The cultivators in the public square weren’t the only ones to notice and start poking fun. Even the devas in the black coffin noticed, and sent down streams of divine sense to observe.