Chapter 326 - The Heavenly Lightning and the Returning Cycle

Chapter 326: Chapter 326 - The Heavenly Lightning and the Returning Cycle

Several storage vessels were placed around the ruined training ground.

Huo Yan had captured a large amount of Heavenly Blessing Descent during the first phase of Su Bai’s tribulation. The vessels had originally been prepared so the sect could study the blessing later and distribute it to those who had missed the event.

Nobody had expected the first person asking for it to be a dead man.

Su Bai’s Nascent Soul sat cross-legged beside his corpse.

The sight was strange enough that even the Ancestors occasionally looked at him with complicated expressions.

Nascent Souls could cultivate.

That was not the surprising part.

What bothered them was how naturally Su Bai was doing everything less than a quarter of an hour after dying.

Lu Canghai remained close.

"Are you certain about this?"

Su Bai shook his head.

"No."

His master stared at him.

"That does not inspire confidence."

"I’ve been dead for less than an incense stick, Master. My experience is limited."

Lu Canghai’s face twitched.

Huo Yan almost smiled despite himself.

The tension around the training ground loosened another fraction.

Su Bai stopped joking and closed his eyes.

His awareness shifted toward the spiritual structure reflected inside his Nascent Soul.

The ten spiritual cultivation centers remained.

The Meridian Web connecting them was present as well.

Most importantly, the reflection of his Crystalline Tree Spirit Root had survived with him.

Su Bai shifted his awareness toward one of the nine Gateway Dantians.

There, the newly completed golden Spirit Root stood where one of the original Root Seeds had once been.

It had matured during the Heavenly Blessing Descent after absorbing remnants of Lian Qingyue’s blessing, heavenly blessing properties, and white-gold heavenly lightning.

Su Bai had never fully understood what it was capable of.

Now, standing between life and death, he understood one part.

"Please open one."

Huo Yan released the seal on the nearest vessel.

Soft white-gold radiance escaped.

The atmosphere immediately became warmer.

Several disciples farther away instinctively relaxed when the blessing spread through the air.

Su Bai felt the opposite reaction beginning the moment the power approached his physical body.

Reversal had not disappeared.

Even death had apparently failed to give him that convenience.

’Good.’

He had not wanted it to.

If his entire foundation suddenly changed just because his heart stopped, everything he understood about himself would become useless.

Su Bai did not allow the blessing to touch his corpse.

His Nascent Soul reached toward it instead.

A thin stream of white-gold radiance separated from the vessel and entered his spiritual foundation.

The golden Spirit Root reacted.

Its leaves brightened.

Su Bai immediately felt the complexity contained within the stored blessing.

Vitality, restoration, nourishment, and deeper within all of them, the familiar characteristic carried by the heavenly lightning that had helped complete the root.

His concentration sharpened.

He did not try to use the blessing.

He separated it.

The golden root trembled.

White-gold radiance circulated through its branches, and the gentler blessing properties gradually dispersed outward instead of being drawn deeper.

Something more violent remained.

A thin spark appeared, then another.

White-gold lightning crawled across the golden leaves.

Huo Yan’s eyes widened.

The Ancestors noticed immediately.

"He is refining the stored blessing?"

"Not exactly."

One Ancestor narrowed his eyes.

"He is extracting something from it."

Su Bai did not hear them.

The process demanded too much concentration.

The golden Spirit Root continued separating the compatible heavenly characteristic until the gentle radiance around it had been reduced to a concentrated thread of white-gold lightning.

Su Bai opened his eyes.

He stared at the crackling current floating before his Nascent Soul.

A grin slowly appeared.

"That works."

Lu Canghai looked between him and the lightning.

"What are you planning to do with it?"

Su Bai glanced toward his corpse.

"Wake something up."

Before anyone could respond, he guided the white-gold lightning downward.

The current entered the dead body.

Several people tensed.

Nothing happened at first.

The lightning passed through ruined meridians and the collapsed circulation system until it reached the Infinite Dantian.

There, buried inside a body that no longer possessed a life aura, stood the Nascent Origin.

The first spark touched it.

One Tribulation Mark lit up.

Su Bai’s eyes widened.

A second mark followed, then the third.

White-gold lightning crawled across the dark crystalline surface as the remaining marks awakened one after another.

By the time all nine were shining, Su Bai felt it.

The faint connection between his Nascent Soul and the Nascent Origin strengthened.

It was still weak, but it was no longer fading.

His expression changed.

’So it really survived.’

The Nascent Origin had never died.

It had simply gone silent when the physical foundation collapsed.

Su Bai immediately turned toward Huo Yan.

"Another one, Martial Uncle."

Huo Yan opened it.

More Heavenly Blessing flowed outward.

Su Bai’s golden root began refining again.

This time the process was faster.

The Spirit Root had already found the path once.

Soft radiance entered the spiritual foundation, was separated, and gradually condensed into another stream of white-gold heavenly lightning.

Su Bai sent it into his corpse.

The nine Tribulation Marks brightened.

The connection strengthened again.

He repeated the process.

The gathered cultivators watched without speaking.

Little by little, the dead body began responding.

At first, it was almost impossible to notice.

One damaged meridian trembled.

A tiny amount of Qi shifted inside the Infinite Dantian, then something deep inside Su Bai’s chest twitched.

Lu Canghai froze.

His spiritual sense immediately entered the body.

"His heart."

Everyone turned toward him.

The ruined organ contracted weakly.

Once.

Several breaths passed, it moved again.

Su Bai felt the second beat through the returning connection.

For someone currently sitting outside his own body, feeling his dead heart suddenly move was an experience he had never expected to have.

He almost laughed.

’Did the lightning just shock my heart back into working?’

The explanation was probably more complicated.

He decided not to insult the heavens by comparing their lightning to emergency treatment just yet.

The heartbeat remained weak.

His organs had suffered catastrophic damage and were nowhere close to functioning normally.

But the corpse was no longer completely still.

Su Bai continued drawing from the stored Heavenly Blessing.

Each cycle fed more white-gold lightning into the Nascent Origin.

The Tribulation Marks accepted it eagerly.

The golden Spirit Root became increasingly efficient at separating the blessing from the heavenly-lightning characteristic it required.

Importantly, almost none of the restorative blessing was allowed to circulate through Su Bai’s physical body.

Reversal would only turn that kindness against him.

The lightning was different.

It was not being used to heal him.

It was feeding the Tribulation Marks and awakening the foundation that had survived his death.

As the Nascent Origin brightened, Su Bai’s spiritual awareness reached farther into his physical body.

The Infinite Dantian responded first, then the nine Gateway Dantians.

The physical structures were damaged, but they had not vanished.

The Myriad-Path Meridian Web remained broken in many places, yet enough of it existed for a tiny circulation to begin.

Su Bai’s expression became serious.

He had reached the point that actually mattered.

Reconnecting the Nascent Soul to the body.

He drew his spiritual form closer.

The full-sized Nascent Soul floated above his chest.

Su Bai followed the faint line leading toward the Nascent Origin.

It resisted him.

The sensation was strange.

His own body felt familiar and foreign at the same time, almost as though the path that once welcomed him naturally had been forced shut.

Su Bai pushed.

The Nascent Origin answered.

The nine Tribulation Marks flashed.

The connection widened.

A pulse spread through the physical foundation.

Deep inside the dead circulation system, something that had stopped after the Heavenly Palm struck began moving again.

Yin answered first, then Yang attempted to follow.

The Macro-Taiji trembled.

Su Bai’s eyes opened sharply.

Everyone around the training ground noticed the change.

A faint Yin-Yang circulation had appeared between the Nascent Soul and physical body.

It was weak enough to collapse at any moment, but it existed.

Lu Canghai’s face brightened.

"You are reconnecting."

Su Bai did not respond.

He could not afford to divide his attention.

The Macro-Taiji tried to complete its cycle.

The Yin side moved smoothly through his spiritual foundation.

The Yang side entered the dead physical body and immediately became unstable.

Su Bai’s expression tightened.

The problem was obvious.

His physical foundation had been crushed too thoroughly.

The Macro-Taiji wanted to circulate through a body that could barely support Qi.

The Myriad-Calamity Vajra Body had recorded the damage inflicted by the Heavenly Palm, but recording damage and recovering from death were two entirely different matters.

Without a stable physical circulation, the constitution could not begin rebuilding properly.

Su Bai slowed the cycle.

The slightest mistake could collapse the new connection and force him back to the beginning.

The Nascent Origin continued glowing beneath the nine Tribulation Marks.

His heart gave another weak beat, then another.

The intervals shortened.

Su Bai guided the Yang portion carefully through what remained of the Meridian Web, reconnecting one damaged path at a time.

A faint warmth gradually returned to his corpse.

The gathered cultivators sensed it.

Nobody celebrated yet.

They had already watched Su Bai die once today.

No one wanted to tempt fate.

Su Bai continued stabilizing the cycle.

The Macro-Taiji turned.

Once, then a second time.

The Yang side shook violently.

Su Bai forced it back into balance.

On the third circulation, something resisted him.

His attention immediately sharpened.

This was different from damaged meridians and different from broken organs.

Something left behind by the Heavenly Palm remained inside his physical foundation.

Su Bai finally understood why returning felt so difficult.

The heavens had not merely crushed his body.

They had left something behind to make sure it stayed dead.

His eyes slowly opened.

The people around him immediately noticed his expression.

Lu Canghai leaned forward.

"What is it?"

Su Bai looked down at his corpse.

The heart was beating again.

The Nascent Origin was awake.

The Macro-Taiji had restarted.

But he still could not return.

A faint smile appeared on his translucent face.

"There is one more thing I need to remove."

Deep within the physical foundation, the remnant of Heavenly Law stirred.