Chương 55: Chapter 54 – It’s Hatching!

Ren was out of time. The egg was about to hatch before his very eyes. All his prepared solutions were rendered useless. Moving the egg now to another formation wouldn't help. After months in its current position, the egg was a natural treasure closely tied to the flow of qi, and by starting to hatch, it was now as good as bound. Ren couldn't help but wring his hands in frustration. He had been so close! A series of significant changes had already begun.

From his current position, Ren couldn't know what was happening on the mountain above, but under the mountain, the qi had risen manyfold. It was as though the dragon vein were closer to the surface in this place. Ren could tell by how impure the qi was, resembling his spirit spring at the start, which was itself tied to the dragon vein. Wracking his mind on how to proceed, Ren hesitated.

'What can I even do here?' With how rapidly everything was changing and how little control he had over the situation, Ren felt like an ant trying to pacify a rampaging lion. But he didn't wallow in his despair. He hadn't come this far only to give up now. He frantically continued to examine his surroundings for the smallest chance. He extended his divine sense as far as it could go. A barrage of sensations was returned to him of the various types of qi flowing rapidly all around him.

His divine sense wasn't nearly good enough to separate the constituent parts of the impure qi, but it still gave him a lot of information that he couldn't understand. It was almost too much information! Ren stilled. Under the strain of the situation, he had been slow to realize, but his divine sense had actually extended much further than usual. Thus far it had been pushed back by the killing intent, but now the pressure exerted by the snakeskin had declined.

Another crack formed on the egg, and the pressure lowered once again.

'An opportunity!' His heart leapt! The egg was actually starting to absorb all the qi around it, including whatever energy remained in the snake skin. Ren didn't know much about hatching spirit beasts, but the little knowledge he had was enough to know the creature waiting to emerge was going to absorb a lot of qi for one final refinement of its bloodline before it hatched. A side effect of absorbing the energy of the shed skin was that it reduced the killing intent weighing down on him.

It was still very heavy, but now Ren could reach the egg if he tried. He took a step. Then another. This close to the egg, the pressure was once more almost too much to bear, but Ren didn't stop there. He took another step and came within arm's reach of the egg. He suddenly coughed up blood, his body under enormous strain. But he clenched his teeth and drew his sword. His arm was shaking like a branch in a storm, but he extended the blade to reach the snakeskin.

The Mutating Bamboo blade was developing cracks before his eyes, so he had to act quickly. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he propelled the shed skin away from him and collapsed to his knees in relief as the killing intent tied to the practically weightless snakeskin fell away. Dragging in rough breaths and blinking away the dark spots in his eyes, he slowly got back to his feet. Without the interference, he could do so much more now even if he had little time to act.

First Ren connected to the formation that allowed him to see what was happening on the mountain above his head. He took in the highlights as fast as he could. A roiling storm of qi rising up the side of the mountain. A crumbling formation. His main formation eyes acting as the last bastion. And finally, dusk was falling. An idea blazed through his mind, burning away the cobwebs of mental exhaustion. Ren moved before his thoughts even finished forming.

In his desperate circumstances, for even the possibility of a successful resolution, Ren would stake all on one throw. He cannibalized the now useless formations for the array flags. He drew out his personal set that he reserved for combat. And with all those array flags, Ren began laying out a formation. To summarize his predicament, the dragon vein that emitted impure qi and which was the cause of the storm of qi on the mountain above had been agitated by the hatching of a very powerful spirit beast.

The formation he had worked on for months on the mountain, which sought to establish order over that chaos, was now the main target of the built-up energy. Having done a very good job, using very powerful treasures as the eyes of the formation, Ren had inadvertently provided a force capable of putting up a fight. A losing fight, but a fight nonetheless. That clash would be catastrophic and possibly even damage the dragon vein. His idea was simple.

He would give the built-up energies of the dragon vein a point of release. But instead of merely dissipating it, he would use the stolen energy to power his formation. By weakening the storm while simultaneously strengthening his formation, he could overturn heaven and earth and allow his formation to take the dominant position. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Ren rapidly set up a qi gathering formation around the egg.

He then set up another formation near the hot springs where he would relax and tied the two together. The hot springs were likely fed by the same aquifer as his spirit spring, and being this close to the dragon vein was the main reason the spirit spring had formed in the first place. Now, Ren forced all the qi around him to sink into the same aquifer. The egg's natural absorption assisted in this endeavor.

Ren barely had any idea what he was doing, moving partly by instinct and partly on deep-rooted fundamentals of formation making. But causing such drastic changes to the environment rarely came without consequences. If he shoved all the energy from the dragon vein into his spirit spring, then it was possible his formation on the mountain peak, which refined it, would be overwhelmed. To prevent such a scenario, Ren set up a drain for unwanted energies.

Anything his formation failed to use would be sent back down to the hidden cavern in the base of the mountain, where it would be directed toward the energy-hungry egg. After a flurry of activity, Ren finished laying out his formation. But nothing happened. The qi gathering arrays moved sedately to push the qi into the aquifer while the dragon vein continued to belch out more and more impure qi until it was almost visible to the eyes in thin clouds.

Ren held his breath as he continued to monitor the situation on the mountain above.

'Any moment now…' The formation he had spent so much time and resources on was a mere skeleton. Ren wanted to cry tears of blood but continued to watch with bated breath. Dusk fell and the stars came out, dotting the dark sky. Like a slumbering beast being woken, Rens' formation roused itself into peak efficiency. All of a sudden, the qi was being sucked into the gathering formations with renewed urgency. The impure qi was forced to feed the spirit spring, which was ripping it apart into useful energy.

The flow stabilized. Ren grew hopeful but didn't relax just yet. As he beheld the glowing formations, the anticipated problem rose. There was simply too much energy for the formation to handle. Then the second part of Ren's solution activated. The excess energy was sent back down where the egg was allowed to absorb it. The relief he felt when the cycle stabilized was indescribable. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Ren fell back, unable to hold on to consciousness any longer.

Ren sat up slowly, his thoughts flowing like thick honey. The air around him felt humid and hot. Rubbing his eyes, he recalled the events before he passed out. With a start he looked around. The formation was still running, meaning it was the same night still. He quickly connected to the formation to see what had happened to his mountain and gasped.

"It's still there!" Ren felt a wave of joy as he saw his formation eyes were still purifying the glowing spirit spring. The bones of his formation still remained, meaning rebuilding wouldn't take as long. The storm of qi had been pushed back considerably, though it still contained an immense amount of energy. His eyes misted. After a month of struggle, his gambit had paid off. The killing intent had been grueling to push through, and his fears and worries about the unknown had tormented him.

But it had all been worth it. It was only a matter of time now before he truly conquered the mountain! Ren was still smiling broadly as he looked around the cavern. It had also undergone some serious changes. But before he could examine them closely, his eyes fell upon the egg. He stumbled closer, his body still protesting movement. It was covered in glowing cracks now. The other two eggs beside it were also softly glowing. The qi gathering formation around them was still working at full strength.

That was when Ren finally noticed. The glowing eggs and the heat in the cavern were all signs of yang energy. Ren's mind, still full of thoughts of joyous celebration, was slow to pick up on the cause, but he eventually found it. The excess energy his formation was incapable of handling. His heavily yin oriented formation. Naturally, it had sent back great amounts of yang energy into the cavern and the eggs. The one hatching egg was even now absorbing vast amounts of yang qi during its final refinement.

Ren didn't know the consequences of a drastic shift in qi attribute during such a crucial stage, but before this point, the snake eggs had all shown indications of earth attribute. What would emerge from the egg now? Ren settled back down to watch, his thoughts a mixture of joy and curiosity. He would also occasionally check the formation on the mountain peak, which was still refining huge amounts of qi. If nothing else, the treasures in the formation eyes would all be fit to burst after such a feast.

As he sat idling, Ren recalled where he had thrown away the shed snake skin but couldn't be bothered to go find it just yet. It had probably lost some of its effectiveness, but he just wasn't ready to subject himself to that killing intent without a reason. Not yet, at least. Finally, when dawn was about to break, Ren focused once again. If any problems were to occur, it would be now, when his formation no longer worked at peak efficiency.

His fear was unrealized as he saw the storm didn't immediately boil over into another clash. The dragon vein, agitated by the hatching egg, had been calmed. Just then he heard a soft crackle. Crick Crack. The shell of the egg was poked from within. A small snout delicately pushed a fragment of the shell aside. Ren watched on with awe. It reminded him of when his tortoises had hatched. The marvel of new life taking its first breath. The shell dimmed until it stopped glowing.

With another push, the egg fell apart into tiny pieces, and a tiny black snake with glowing red lines around its scales emerged. It turned its head drunkenly and finally settled in Ren's direction. Its small tilted head flickered out a forked tongue.

"Hiss?"