Chapter 222: Soul Binding!

As Bai Yunfei’s conscious started to clear, he began to ‘wake’ up.

When he ‘opened’ his eyes, the sight that came to greet them startled Bai Yunfei.

A crimson glow flooded the area with its red luster. Along with the light, elemental fire danced wildly all around as if taking up all the oxygen to leave none behind to breathe in.

But what surprised Bai Yunfei the most was the hundreds of weapons ‘floating’ all around the place!

His very first instinct was to back away.

But even when the thought occurred to him, a horrifying discovery was met.

He had no ‘body’!

Calming himself down as swiftly as he could, Bai Yunfei ‘looked’ around the place with a mind racing in thought.

“This feeling’s pretty familiar….soul sense….or just my own thoughts!

“I….I was crafting a soul armament when I lost control. After that….I used everything I could, but I still ran out of soulforce.

“But what happened after that?

“And what’s going on right now? How are my thoughts coming to this place?

“Hold on….the things around me….” Bai Yunfei’s eyes observed the floating weapons all around him.

“Equipment! These are the equipment I threw into the cauldron!

“But how! How did this happen? Did my soulsense get sucked into the crafting cauldron?! This….this doesn’t feel right though. Not only that, my entire spirit feels like it’s here too!”

This situation baffled Bai Yunfei. He could make neither heads nor tails of what was going on, or how this was happening to begin with. Even when he tried to feel his way around the place, he got no reaction from his senses.

“Is….is my ‘body’ gone already?!” Having no answers for this situation, Bai Yunfei’s hairs stood at their ends when this horrifying thought came to his mind.

But after some time went by, Bai Yunfei came to the startling realization that there was indeed one sensation he was suddenly feeling.

Fatigue!

His consciousness was slowly growing faint!

This was a monumental distinction. Now that he could guess that his body was gone, Bai Yunfei knew that should his consciousness sink any further, his very person could very well be the next thing to disappear….

Subconsciously, Bai Yunfei began to go through the process of waking himself up by using his soulforce as was taught in The Arte of Training the Soul.

“It works!!”

Much to his joy, the teachings of the manual worked even in here!

Throwing out every other thought in his head, Bai Yunfei started to train in this strange place.

A strange wind was starting to take form in this crimson-red space. Stirring up the elemental fire around the area, the winds began to focus it into one ‘focal’ point. The winds picked up in speed with such speed that the elemental fire became a vortex that swirled and picked up in might as it condensed together.

Time was hard to measure in this place. Perhaps it was a few hours. Or perhaps just several moments had passed from when Bai Yunfei ‘opened’ his eyes.

But whatever the case was, all he could feel in this one moment was unlimited ‘power’.

‘Looking’ down, Bai Yunfei could see the elemental fire condense and take on the form of a palm.

Somehow, Bai Yunfei was melding the elemental fire of this space into a ‘body’!

“Will this….be enough?” Bai Yunfei clenched his fist tightly. “I can feel my ‘consciousness’ is a lot stronger than before. Can I leave this place now?

“Eh? Hold on….” Just at that moment, his eyes could see an object floating several meters in front of him; a brick!

Startled, Bai Yunfei thought to himself, “Hold on, just hold on! You’re telling me this thing is still here?!”

Bai Yunfei hadn’t realized it before since he had been so caught up in forming a body for himself, but this brick had been constantly floating by his side!

Somehow, Bai Yunfei had the feeling that the brick was….

Protecting him?

Even as his mind came up with this outlandish thought, Bai Yunfei’s ‘hand’ reached out to grab at the brick.

But as soon as his ‘hand’ made contact with the brick, a new development immediately took place!

Making contact with the brick had been like some sort of switch being flicked on. The entire space around Bai Yunfei began to tremble and shake. All of the energy inside and all of the soul armaments that were still floating around began to act as one. As if being ordered by something, they started to fly towards Bai Yunfei—or perhaps it’d be more accurate to say they were flying towards the brick in Bai Yunfei’s hand!

In the instance where his consciousness had lost balance once again, Bai Yunfei felt a notification streak across his mind.

…………

At the crafting caves of the Western Point.

Time had barely started to move for those at the top of the destroyed cliff side. Some of the stones were still dropping from the skies while Bai Yunfei was still sleeping on the ground.

Suddenly, the ‘object’ that had been floating up above Bai Yunfei’s body began to swell and expand outwards. In several seconds, the object became cuboid in shape and slowly took on the shape of….the brick!

At the same time, the essence fireseed that had been burning almost silently to itself on the ground jerked slightly. As if being summoned, the essence fireseed flew up to touch with the ‘brick’!

Like a chain reaction, the surrounding air bubble around the objects began to swirl around rapidly. Contracting even faster and faster, the ripples around its outer shell started to scan Bai Yunfei and the brick next to him.

Moments later, the air bubble around the two gradually started to dissipate as if it had never existed to begin with….

In the next moment, the floating brick released a flash of red light, assisting the previously fist-sized flame into the air and returning into Bai Yunfei’s body like a tired bird coming back to roost.

Finally, there was a chance to the previously sleeping soundly Bai Yunfei. A finger on his hand twitched slightly and his eyebrows wrinkled together by a small margin. His lips trembled somewhat as if he was experiencing some sort of pain...

When all of the light was gone, the brick slowly descended down onto Bai Yunfei’s chest. From the looks of things, this brick looked no different than from what it was before as a +13 one.

Though the light around the brick was gone, the place was still lit up in a red hue as it was before.

This was because of the light from the elemental fire. It was starting to congregate on the outside of Bai Yunfei’s body!

……

From the outside, the red light illuminated the night skies quite nicely. There were even some parts of the sky where the air twisted in on itself like a ripple of water across a pond...

And in the next moment, the silhouette of a person came walking out from the air!

This person wore white robes to complement his elderly white hair. Despite the color in his hair, the man looked to be in his sixties and was relatively average in appearance. An appearance honed from age and a kindly expression reminiscent of a benevolent old man.

But the fact remained that the elder was standing up in the air. From this alone, one could tell that he was no ordinary old man.

His eyes swept across the place, confused. “Strange,” he muttered, “I could’ve sworn there was a law I’ve never felt before….did I imagine things?”

His eyes fell upon Bai Yunfei who was still strewn about over the ruined caves. “He managed to destroy half the cliff-side….what a hot-headed child.”

And yet, how did he manage to pull this off?”

“Hm? I can see that he’s…”

From right behind, the sound of wind blowing around the place made itself clear. Several figures came flying over before coming to a stop behind him.

The elders of the Crafting School, Kou Changkong, Xiao Binzi, Huangfu Nan, and Cang Yu; they’ve all assembled in this one place!

Both Kou Changkong and Xiao Binzi had a faint red glow outlining their figures while Huangfu Nan and Cang Yu had a congealed red light underneath their feet.

Nodding his head, Xiao Binzi greeted the first person to arrive, “Brother.”

Kou Changkong bowed his head to the man, “Master.”

Both Huangfu Nan and Cang Yu bowed their waists deeply, “Master.”

This person was the headmaster of the previous generation, Zi Jin!!

The man gave a faint nod of his head in response before diverting his attention back to Bai Yunfei. “Changkong, is this youngster from the internal school?”

Kou Changkong had already seen that it was indeed Bai Yunfei who was laying down on the ruined grounds of the cliff. Surprised by what he saw, the man answered Zi Jin with an incredulous expression, “Master, this one is called Bai Yunfei. He’s a disciple I decided to take in three months ago.”

“Eh? A disciple?” Zi Jin’s eyebrows rose up on his face. “And three months ago, you say? He was only in our school for three months?”

“Yes.” Kou Changkong nodded. “He joined when he was a late-stage Soul Sprite. His talent at crafting allowed him to walk 3.7 kilometers into the cave, but then….”

Kou Changkong began to explain the backstory of Bai Yunfei to Zi Jin. Afterward, Zi Jin remarked in surprise, “He was able to withstand nine rounds in there? He was able to make a late-human tier soul armament in three months then! How could it be that he was only able to walk 3.7 kilometers then? There must be a mistake in the trial….

“Tasking him with the creation of an earth tier soul armament is far too harsh of a trial, don’t you think?”

“I only wished to see his determination at that time. After much consideration, I decided to forego that trial and took him in as a disciple.” Kou Changkong mentioned. He sighed when his eyes met Bai Yunfei’s body, “But he must’ve been too stubborn. Eager to prove something, he must’ve made a mistake, resulting in this. It’s a good thing nothing else happened….”

“Nothing happened? Senior, you speak quite lightly of the situation. The cliff was made to be dense beyond all else. Even an explosion from making an earth tier soul armament shouldn’t be able to cause anything like this. But this youngster has managed to destroy half the cliff, what in the world could possibly accomplish that?” Huangfu Nan exclaimed. “This youth is an enigma! What has he done now, we must find out!”

As he spoke, Huangfu Nan was already moving to reach Bai Yunfei. A single footstep was all it took before the man had bounded several hundred meters down to where Bai Yunfei was.

But just as he knelt down to touch Bai Yunfei, something unexpected happened!