A Will Eternal

“Patriarch….” Bai Xiaochun said, a look of shock on his face. He had assumed the patriarch had come to give him a magical item, or perhaps some other rare object. Never could he have imagined that the gift would actually be the Frigid School’s true spirit….

“Um… Patriarch, I don’t think it’s really appropriate for you to give me this true spirit. She’s so important, and I’m so clumsy! What if I accidentally drop her or something? If something bad happened…. Why don’t you give her to someone else?” He really had a strange feeling about the patriarch giving him a coffin as a parting gift….

Although the coffin contained a true spirit, it was still very odd, and didn't seem very auspicious as far as Bai Xiaochun was concerned.

“Take her with you….” Patriarch Spirit Stream repeated. The reason he was giving the coffin and the true spirit to Bai Xiaochun was because of all the deadly close calls the River-Defying Sect had been through. Thankfully, Bai Xiaochun’s return ensured that everything worked out fine in the end. But Patriarch Spirit Stream was still worried about what could happen in the future.

He didn’t want to gamble with the true spirit. Therefore, he gave the coffin to Bai Xiaochun, which he felt would be safer than keeping it in the River-Defying Sect. Most important was the fact that it was a suggestion by his Master, the monkey. Even though Patriarch Spirit Stream was now a deva, he still held eternal respect for his Master.

Bai Xiaochun could see how determined Patriarch Spirit Stream was. It didn't seem that he would take no for an answer! Feeling a headache coming on, Bai Xiaochun looked at the coffin.

“Why don’t we talk this over a bit, Patriarch? I really don’t think it’s appropriate. What if there’s a mishap…?”

“There won’t be any mishaps, and there’s no need for discussion. Take her with you, Xiaochun!” With that, Patriarch Spirit Stream clasped hands and bowed deeply.

Sighing, Bai Xiaochun shook his head and looked at the baby girl in the crystal coffin. Her eyes were closed, making it seem almost as if she had already perished. However, Bai Xiaochun knew that she wasn’t dead… just sleeping deeply.

Back when he had united the Lower Reaches sects to attack the Sky River Court, that baby girl had woken up and transformed into a god-like young woman!

Before falling back asleep, that young woman had looked deeply into Bai Xiaochun’s eyes, and then revealed to him the secret formula for the River-Defying Pill.

“I can barely take care of myself, let alone a true spirit!” he thought, frowning at the thought of essentially becoming a stay-at-home dad. However, he knew that this little girl was extremely important to the Spirit Stream Division. After all, Patriarch Spirit Stream had told him long ago that the original reason why the Spirit Stream Sect wanted to make their way upriver was for the sake of this girl.

After more vacillating, Bai Xiaochun looked at Patriarch Spirit Stream and then back at the crystal coffin. Finally, he nodded reluctantly. No matter how much he wanted to avoid accepting the coffin and the profoundly mysterious baby girl, he really had no choice.

When Patriarch Spirit Stream saw that Bai Xiaochun was agreeing, he sighed in relief. After looking one last time at the baby girl in the coffin, he left Bai Xiaochun’s immortal's cave.

“Ah, whatever,” Bai Xiaochun thought, shaking his head and sighing. He waved his sleeve, pulling the coffin into his bag of holding. As he did, he suddenly remembered something, and shouted, “I know you’re in there, little turtle! You listen up. Behave! You’re absolutely not allowed to bother the girl in that coffin!”

Although he didn’t get any response, he was sure that the little turtle had heard him. After putting the coffin away, he meditated through the night, and then rose to his feet at dawn. Flying up into the air above the River-Defying Sect, he looked down and sighed, then transformed into a beam of light that shot in the direction of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect.

“Back when I left the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect, not very many people knew me. But things are going to be different now.” Thinking smugly about his deva cultivation base, and how he was the sixth deva in the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect, he couldn’t help but start to get excited.

“I wonder how my inn is doing. And what the hell have Big Fatty Zhang and Xu Baocai been up to? Back when the sect was in danger, why didn’t they come back to help?” He suddenly started to feel a bit uneasy. It didn’t make sense for Big Fatty Zhang and Xu Baocai to act like that.

“Did something happen to them?” he thought, speeding up a bit.

Considering the level of his cultivation base, it didn’t take much time or effort for him to get through the Middle Reaches. Before long, he was on the border of Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect. As he neared, he sensed three auras reaching out to scan him. Almost immediately, they shrank away in shock.

Moments later, three people flew out from a nearby mountain, where they clasped hands and bowed in his direction.

“Well met, Patriarch Bai!”

They wore the garments of Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect disciples, and were tasked with standing watch over this border region of the sect. They had heard the news about Bai Xiaochun, and considering that they were the closest spot between the main sect and the River-Defying Sect, they had been waiting for Bai Xiaochun to show up. At a single glance, it was possible to see how nervous they were.

Bai Xiaochun didn’t know them, but was pleased with how they were treating him. Clasping his hands behind his back, he struck the pose of someone of the elder generation, and nodded magnanimously before speeding along his way.

Upon his departure, the three disciples breathed sighs of relief and then exchange glances. All of them could see the veneration in each other’s eyes.

“Who would have thought that somebody like him, a nobody from a tiny sect, a simple hostage, would end up as a deva patriarch from the Hall of Steel Veins…?”

“You make it sound like becoming a deva patriarch is an easy thing. I heard that right after Patriarch Bai became a deva, he defeated three other experts who were in the mid Deva Realm. Then the sect’s demigod patriarch looked with favor upon him.”

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s too bad we weren’t friends with Patriarch Bai back when he first came to the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect. If we had, we would already be on the path to fame.” Sighing, the three disciples took out transmission jade slips and sent news back to the sect about Bai Xiaochun’s arrival.

Word soon began to spread that Bai Xiaochun was on his way. The Hall of Steel Veins was the first to react, and emerged en masse to form ranks and wait for his arrival.

All 100,000 members of the Hall of Steel Veins were present, including many soldiers from the five legions. It was a shocking sight to anyone present to see it.

Chen Hetian, Li Xiandao and Bai Zhentian were not happy at all. After returning to the sect, all of them had gone into secluded meditation. Considering that, some of the disciples under their command also went into meditation, whereas others went out to receive Bai Xiaochun.

For the most part, though, the disciples of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect emerged to greet Bai Xiaochun upon his arrival. Some knew him, but most were strangers. However… even the strangers knew of his name.

“Patriarch Bai was once a hostage from the River-Defying Sect. He instituted a reign of terror as soon as he arrived in Sky City.”

“He also caused a big stir when he made it into the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Superstars!”

“You’ve never heard of Bai Xiaochun? Well, you’ve heard of that inn over in Sky City, right? That’s his! That entire 50-kilometer area is his personal property!”

A buzz of conversation soon filled the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect. Of course, there had been a lot of talk about him after he was bestowed a title by the demigod patriarch. Therefore, as soon as the Hall of Steel Veins went out to prepare for his arrival, the talk intensified.

Of course, there was one patriarch in the Hall of Steel Veins who looked particularly happy. He waved his hand, causing bells to ring out to fill the entire sect!

They tolled eight times, which indicated that someone of incredibly high status was coming. In fact, the only higher number of bell tolls was nine, which was reserved for demigods. Eight bell tolls meant a deva was coming!

As the bells tolled, ripples spread out through the sky, causing immense pressure to weigh down on the disciples. At the same time, everyone looked off into the distance, where a beam of light appeared, shooting at top speed toward the sect!

In the four cities beneath the rainbow structure were countless people looking up at that beam. Whether or not they knew Bai Xiaochun, they were all deeply shaken.

As for the cultivators from the Hall of Steel Veins, they were the most prepared of all. As soon as Bai Xiaochun appeared, they joined their voices together into one mighty, thunderous greeting. “We offer respectful greetings, Patriarch Bai!”