Chapter 224: Awakening (First)

An icy-cold sensation flitted across his forehead. Though cold in temperature, it was comforting in its touch on his head.

“Urgh….”

At last recovering somewhat from his ordeals, Bai Yunfei let out a small grunt.

“Oh! Senior Bai’s awake! Senior Bai’s awake!”

From somewhere around him, the excited voice of a person repeated itself before drawing farther away from him.

Bai Yunfei wished to open his eyes, but for some reason, his eyelids felt as if they were being weighed down by a thousand pounds of weight. It was a mystery on who was speaking, as the voice barely registered to his ears.

Some time went by before his mind cleared up enough for Bai Yunfei to think about circulating his soulforce.

“Boom!”

It came as a complete and total surprise to Bai Yunfei when the small amount of soulforce he was trying to move had suddenly come galloping out from his chest. In no time, the entire outer layer of his body was filled with his soulforce!

“Whoosh!”

So startled was Bai Yunfei that he leaped out from his spot, scattering the quilts that had been covering his body to the ground. It was then that he realized his resting spot had been above a bed—he was back in his own room on the Western Point.

“Haha, Yunfei, you’re finally awake I see….”

The sound of gentle laughter came from the side.

Turning his head, Bai Yunfei was surprised to see just who his visitors were!

Kou Changkong, Xiao Binzi, Huangfu Nan, and Cang Yu were all standing by Bai Yunfei’s bed. And in front of them, another old man with white hair stared kindly at him.

For a while, Bai Yunfei didn’t understand what was going on, but he stood up to bow to them only to realize that he was clothed in nothing but his underwear!

“Er….” Locking up into place, an embarrassed look reached Bai Yunfei’s face.

“Haha, don’t be flustered, go and put on a fresh change of clothes.” The strange elder chuckled at the slight misfortune Bai Yunfei was in.

With all the speed he could muster, Bai Yunfei changed into a new suit of robes and dressed himself down. Bowing properly to the seniors in front of him, Bai Yunfei spoke, “Junior Bai pays his respects to the master, the elders, and the….”

His salutations stopped there due to his confusion on what to call this next person.

“This is the master of your master. The previous headmaster of the school.” Kou Changkong warned.

Shock gripped at Bai Yunfei’s heart. Never did he imagine that this elder right in front of him would be the ‘legendary’ headmaster Zi Jin. Bowing his head deep, Bai Yunfei spoke, “This junior pays his respects to the previous headmaster!”

“Yes,” Zi Jin nodded his head with a smile, “There’s no need for such politeness. Come sit, I’ve questions I’d like to ask you.”

……

All of the elders were now situated by the table in Bai Yunfei’s room. Bai Yunfei himself was seated at the table, but he felt it extremely awkward and so he jerked and looked around himself every so often.

“Master, are you all here today about…”

He hesitated here, afraid of continuing his question.

Kou Changkong gave a small smile. “Yunfei, I’d like to ask you, what were you doing the night before yesterday in your cave?”

“The night before yesterday?” Bai Yunfei repeated. “I….I was out for an entire day?” He asked.

“To be more precise, it was a day and two nights.” Cang Yu smiled.

“Bai, are you still sleepy in the head? Do you understand what you’ve done to the caves that night?” Huangfu Nan shook his head in impatience.

“Uh….what happened?”

“You blew up half the cliff!!”

“……”

For a bit, Bai Yunfei went dumb.

But Kou Changkong shook his head as if to give comfort, “Yunfei, don’t pay attention to that for now. We’ve repaired the caves already. You just need to tell us, what happened that night?”

“It’s already repaired? The second elder said I blew up half of it and it’s already repaired?!” Bai Yunfei practically screamed to himself. He wanted to ask how in the world they managed to repair the cliff, but he knew better than to ask that now. Bowing his head down, Bai Yunfei let everyone stare at him even more as he tried to think of an answer.

After a long period of silence, Bai Yunfei finally looked back up at them. “Master, your disciple was trying to craft an earth tier soul armament so I tried to make use of the compression method….”

“What?!”

Everyone’s face changed drastically at the very mention of the compression method. Huangfu Nan spoke up first, “You used the compression method?! Are you not aware that this requires one to be a Soul Ancestor before even attempting? Even a primary-stage Soul Ancestor has a failure rate of at least ten percent; calling you reckless wouldn’t even be enough to do you justice!”

“I….” A reaction the size of this magnitude had been unexpected to Bai Yunfei. Was the compression method perhaps an extremely serious topic?

“Don’t interrupt him, let Yunfei finish speaking.” Cang Yu shot Huangfu Nan a withering glare.

Thinking a little more about what happened, Bai Yunfei spoke, “Your disciple….didn’t really think about how serious it’d be. When I….when I started, everything was going well. It was when I compressed several ores that things….”

Since there was nothing that could be said to be a ‘secret’ when Bai Yunfei was attempting the compression method, Bai Yunfei hid nothing in his story.

“What?! Not only were the supplementary materials not enough, you also tossed in several vermiculite and primal stones?!” Huangfu Nan exploded once more in stupefaction. “Are you an idiot?! You weren’t even running for your life by that point, did you want to die a terrible death?!”

“I….” Bai Yunfei was speechless. He knew that he had been far too rash in his actions. All he could think about was how he had lost control of the energy, then lost the opportunity to run away, and then he lost mobility in his body.

By the time Bai Yunfei finished the next part of his story of when he tossed in several types of equipment, everyone listening was staring at him strangely. Huangfu Nan himself passed up on the opportunity to berate him. Rather than criticism, there was a look of admiration in his eyes.

Whatever it was that Huangfu Nan felt admiration for, Bai Yunfei didn’t know.

“……”

“Then when I ran out of soul armament to use, I accidentally threw in one of my more important soul armament. Out of reflex, my hand reached in to grab it, but my hand stretched too far into the cauldron by then….After that, the energy finally broke loose in the cauldron and knocked me out. When I awoke, I found that my mind was in a strange place….”

He completely glossed over the Upgrade Technique and how he had upgraded several items in this strange place. The strange experiences that happened to him afterward were something he wanted to understand as well, so he tried his best to explain the situation in hopes that someone in his audience was experienced enough to give him an explanation.

But Bai Yunfei had been so caught up trying to recall and retell the story that he didn’t even notice that everyone was in a state of stunned silence from listening to his story….

“....And after that, I lost consciousness again until I woke up just now…..”

Finally ending his story, Bai Yunfei took in a deep breath and looked up; only to be surprised at what he saw.

Everyone’s eyes were as wide as they could be as if they had all seen something strange beyond strange. It was unsightly to see, and even the previous headmaster Zi Jin hadn’t bothered to hide his emotions. He instead looked to Bai Yunfei with complete and utter shock.

And a great amount of satisfaction too.

“The Anima Realm! That’s the Anima Realm!! Haha! It all makes sense now! There is no questioning how you crafted a lifebound armament then! Haha, excellent, excellent I say!” Zi Jin exclaimed aloud.

He hadn’t been untruthful on how he felt and spoke what was on his mind. Even his final words weren’t even enough to fully convey the excitement he felt right now.