Chapter 218: A new goal.

Chapter 218: A new goal."You have had a hard time." Lee said with a sad shake of his head.

"It’s not like I’ve got anything to hide." Xiao Lian shrugged in return.

"I wouldn’t even try if I had." Lee said, "But I think it’s great she’s so ... feisty."

"I’ll show you feisty!" Qin Yujian stormed in, but it was hilarious to see how the lady that looked in her late fifties or early sixties was pouting like a teenager. Clearly Lee’s arrival has aroused some long forgotten memories even for her.

"Are you going to punish me like Ling Xiaotao did back then?" Lee said with a wide grin, "By the way, how’s she doing?"

"Sigh ... she couldn’t merge her consciousness with her spark ..." Qin Yujian said, "After hearing your story, my best guess is that she’s been long reincarnated."

She seemed to be sad and not, as if conflicted with herself, and only now Lee realized that these two monsters had probably buried hundreds of friends and loved ones during the past centuries. Everyone was cultivating to become as strong as possible, but the longevity that was considered a substantial bonus actually carried a tragic downside.

And the friends in sect were only a part of it. Surely the couple had children, grandchildren, and grand-grandchildren who didn’t even ignite their sparks, to not speaking of becoming elemental lords.

Lee was living his short lives, feeling emotionally empty without Lisa, but what about them? He had no clue what it meant to have a child, to not speak of loosing one. All this time he had been focused on himself and no one else seemed to matter, but there were amazing people in the world who kept going despite the pain they felt. And not a year or a decade – they carried the burden for centuries while continuously improving themselves.



’Am I always giving up too easily?’ Lee had a sudden revelation, but then inwardly laughed at himself, ’No, not always. I ran after Victoria until I died like a moth in a flame. I give up only when it’s convenient.’

"It happens." Qin Yujian said, misunderstanding the change in Lee’s expression, "Although because of you I’m going to start to look at each newborn differently. I wonder what elemental law governs the reincarnation principle."

"Obviously it’s a new life thus it has everything to do with a spark of life." Xiao Lian said.

"People don’t have sparks of life or death." Qin Yujian skeptically shook her head.

"They don’t have water or earth either, not when they are born." Xiao Lian said, "But they have bodies consisting of minerals and water."

"You drifted away from the initial question." Lee pointed out, "Heavenly laws, or the laws of nature if you will, and sparks are not the same thing."

The couple got startled for a moment and Lee realized they had forgotten about his presence in a heartbeat. Discussions like these were probably a regular occurrence in their household, moreover, they surely discussed things about cultivation he couldn’t grasp even if they explained him for days.

"Right, Yujian, back to the original topic. Why did you come?" Xiao Lian recovered first.

"Because you two are idiots!" She repeated her earlier words, "Why does he have to give up on cultivation and reincarnate until the overlord’s seal disappears along with the sparks? Who told you that?"

Her words were addressed to Xiao Lian, clearly fired up with the previous subject, and all of the sudden, Lee felt like a third wheel. He probably should leave to give them a chance to blow off the steam in a more intimate way.

Turns out that Lian was as clueless as centuries ago. He didn’t get the hint, and focused on Lee’s problem.

He said, "So you mean the seal is what has connected the sparks with Lee’s consciousness? So he either has to remove the seal of the sparks, right?"

"With consciousness or soul, I have no clue." Qin Yujian said, "But it’s clear that it has been done on a level way above ours. I’m even afraid to think how many Heavenly laws had been incorporated in that seal."

"But that would only mean that he needs to directly ask the Overlord of the Voidforge for help ... that’s kind of a stretch. No one even knows how to find him, besides ..." Xiao Lian said, his expression turning grave, but Lee interrupted him.

He said, "I’m not gonna do that. No way! Two of his followers whom I met are vicious bastards. You said yourself that one of them bathed this continent in blood. Think what’s the master like! He’ll probably cook me alive for stealing the seal. I’d rather live few short lives, do some fun stuff ... I don’t know, pick up fishing or something ..."

"That’s is why I said the two of you are idiots." Qin Yujian shook her head in disappointment, "Who told you that you need to meet the creator of the seal? He’s not the only overlord in the universe."

"Overlords are aloof and eccentric beings. Besides that, no one knows where they live! If they don’t want to be found, you never will no matter how hard you try." Xiao Lian said.

"He doesn’t have anything to do anyway." Qin Yujian said, and it was so logical Lee couldn’t agree more, "I remember reading about an overlord in old Qin clan’s records. I think it’s a good place to start."

***

They discussed the subject till late evening, but in the morning Qin Yujian left. Qin clan was only few hundred miles away and an elemental lord like her could get there and back in no time. It was a question whether the Qin clan’s records had mentions of a world where an overlord resided, but Xiao Lian was certain that if she said she remembered, then it was so.

While Qin Yujian was going through old scripts in her clan, Xiao Lian and Lee hung out, mostly doing nothing but chatting, strolling around the Xiaogong city, or Lee observing Xiao Lian showing off while crafting artifacts. Both felt like they had returned back in time, except for one it was a bit more than sixteen years, but for the other – more than six centuries.

When Qin Yujian returned with positive results, the three had a sumptuous dinner while discussing the potential challenges of the Droskar Dominion, the world an overlord supposedly inhabited. There wasn’t much information available to begin with, thus they came to a unilateral agreement that Lee was way too weak to go there, in fact, he was too weak to go anywhere, thus he had no choice but to go.

It sounded amusing, but for some reason Lee even looked forward to the challenge. Meeting the couple has somehow ignited his will for adventures once again and he felt he shouldn’t stay in Xiaogong. Xiao Lian had already spent too much time with him – as a patriarch he had way too many important things to take care of.

"Then I guess I’ll leave these things with you." Lee said, putting the two spatial bags on the table. They were filled with the artifacts he stole from the Celestial Abyss and he didn’t want the items go to waste in case he would die again – a thing that was likely to happen.



"Keep them." Xiao Lian said, "The Celestial Abyss might be on another continent, but if they find out that the Xiao clan has any of those items, we’ll have serious problems. Besides, I can craft anything I want myself, remember?"

Then he took out a small, slim package and pulled out an item. It was something that resembled a piece of cloth or leather, but when Xiao Lian unfolded it, it turned out to be a glove.

"You know, when you didn’t come back from the Celestial Abyss, we decided that you were dead." He said, "I kept Soulcleaver at my wall as a token of our friendship until that butcher arrived, looking for you and his sword. That was when I began to have doubts, or rather, to have hope. Even Yujian, who has always been the voice of reason in our marriage, admitted you could still be around. So, in my free time, I crafted this."

He passed the glove to Lee, who took it and curiously inspected. It was in the color of bare skin, extremely thin, but surprisingly heavy at the same time. When he wore it on his right hand, it perfectly blended with it, making it impossible to tell he was wearing anything at all.

"I used a bunch of spatial sparks to create a storage space in it as well." Xiao Lian said, "It’s impossible to make it as big as that of a spatial bag, but you’ll be able to store your collection there. Of course, you could prefer to store gourds of water like we did back in the day ..."

Lee looked back at his old friend in shock. Xiao Lian spoke about the glove casually, but it was clearly a masterpiece. This artifact surely could be exchanged for a city if not country, moreover, it probably took an enormous amount of resources to craft it.

"Thank you! It’s amazing!" Lee e said, "To be honest, I’m a bit jealous of how far you have come, both of you."

It was silly to attempt to flatter, and he didn’t have anything to repay them. But Xiao Lian didn’t expect anything anyway.

He said, "Alright. Then let’s call the kid over. He still owes me one."

Then he took an item from his spatial ring, fiddled with it and placed in an empty spot in the dining hall. A moment later a man stepped out from a rift, but he was greeted by Lee’s surprised shout, "You?!"