22 GAINING OFF PAST TRAUMA (2/2)

A hint of sympathy appeared in the golden dragon's, Blindlight's, eyes: had it not been for him reverting back to his infant stage - thus giving Cheng Hao no reason to imprison him - he would have been sealed in the tower in the Hellish Nightmare Dragon's place. Although it would have been only a temporary measure until he would freed once again in the future, living in a place devoid of absorbable Qi and Spiritual Energy wouldn't exactly have been considered pleasant.

Amongst the many unique abilities of Heavenly Beasts there existed something called Re-Life. Re-Life was something that all Heavenly Beasts reaching the stage of Supreme could accomplish. It was basically restarting from scratch once again, rewinding back one's lifespan and cultivation for another chance at Immortality.

After all, no matter how much effort went into one's cultivation, it would only be upon reaching the rank of Immortal that one would finally be granted eternal life and an undying soul! Or at least, so the legends foretold...

Those Heavenly Beasts who felt that they would be unable to reach the Immortal Stage would thus chose to gamble it all on a next life, again and again, until they either got killed or reached Immortality. Although during the process of Re-Life they would revert back to their infant state and lose all their cultivation, Heavenly Beasts would still keep their memories and experiences, which would aid them greatly in any future attempts.

After the battle with Tian, Blindlight had re-lived in order to escape revenge from the Lord of the Nine Heavens. After that, he had laid low for a thousand years without even bothering to cultivate, hoping to live a peaceful and unhindered life... Unfortunately, through the power of the Spark, Cheng Hao had found and transported the golden dragon into this Plane of Existence, their current location. Since sealing the cultivationless Blindlight into the Immortal Ascension Tower would have amounted to nothing, he had ultimately chosen not to, and had ultimately chosen to trap the Hellish Nightmare Dragon instead. Still, Cheng Hao couldn't let such a source of knowledge and (he would of course never admit this last bit publicly), a great friend that had accompanied him for a lifetime already, go away. After all, knowledge and cultivation can be acquired, however such a good friend was hard to come by. So he had decided to keep him as a pet or, in Goldy's words, an 'Animated Encyclopedia'… and a 'Living Escalator'.

[AN: Why escalator, you ask? Well, the scenario in which such a skill would possibly be useful would be so far off in the future it simply would not be worth mentioning at this moment, so that will only be explored later on. Ahem! Anyways, back to Cheng Hao & Co...]

Goldy beamed as his gaze fell upon the black 'scarf', ”How much time until Lil' Black awakens? After all this harassment from you, I need to pay it all back somehow! But since I can't harm you yet, I can only let my feelings out on this Heavenly Beast of yours!”

Cheng Hao smiled but did not reply. In his mind, he was currently playing a simulation of the currently cultivationless Blindlight facing off with the Supreme stage Blacky... Yep, no matter how he put it, it was an absolute bloodbath. Seeing the happy and somehow perverted smile on Goldy's face though, the child couldn't help but put aside the thought of telling him that. After all, he should give the Hellish Nightmare Dragon a chance to vent its anger, otherwise... Remembering the three enraged pairs of glowing eyes, Cheng Hao shuddered a bit as he thanked the Heavens (of course not the Nine Heavens of Tian but the original, True Heavens) that his bluff with the flames and eyes had worked. Fortunately, it seemed like the figure of the Evil Saint had left quite the impact on the poor Nightmare Dragon.

Although he was only in the Inferior stage, Cheng Hao could still, even if barely, somehow manage to use a small portion of the abilities he had wielded as Xu Ling. That is, for a limit of roughly twenty breaths, at least at the moment. That was mainly due to the over-powered Qi he had just absorbed from the Immortal Ascension Tower... The 'Sovereign Qi', as he had come to call it, was simply so high-quality and boundless it not only allowed him to use abilities despite it being different than the Qi he had had as the Evil Saint (The Golden Gates of Old), but he could also utilize them at the lowly Inferior stage!

[AN: for those who did not deduce this yet, certain abilities that are available with a certain Qi (eg, a Qi with a fire attribute) might not be available by using a Qi of different attributes (eg, a Qi with a sword attribute). The Sovereign Qi however transcends that and has no restrictions of that matter.]

Sealing Blacky in the Immortal Ascension Tower had been something done on a whim, and honestly definitely not something that had been all that well thought out. After noticing the disparity in cultivation between the two of them, Cheng Hao had also been racking his brain on how to convince, or more accurately force, the beast to join him, as the contract between the two from more than a thousand years ago had already expired. However, once he had first experienced the Sovereign Qi having just broken through, he had noticed that he would indeed not only be able to use his skills from his past life in this new body sometime in the future, but that he could also slightly display them with his current cultivation too!

Thanks to this, he had come up with the plan: he had bet on the fact that he, as Xu Ling, had been so cold blooded and ruthless towards the black-scaled dragon he should have left quite a mark. Of course however, he would have never imagined that 'mark' had actually turned over time into such a trauma.