Chapter 150: Give Up
When Bai Yunfei had sent his soulforce into the body of the Thunderbird, something totally unexpected had happened.
He hadn’t even the time to inspect the inner body of the Thunderbird before the soulforce had been accepted into the body. It had been a strange effect, and it felt as if the Thunderbird had taken to the soulforce as if it were a lost child that had seen a friendly stranger and rushed to get close to them instinctively.
With Bai Yunfei’s strength, he was far from a level of strength where he could exchange soulforce like this. But because he was extremely close to the Thunderbird and because of the fact that it had been ‘allowed’ by the bird, this scan had been successful and his soulforce had ‘rushed’ into it.
In this startling moment, Bai Yunfei’s first thought hadn’t been to pull out right away in terror. It was because of the fact that he couldn’t sense any malice at all. To be even more accurate, he didn’t feel any ‘emotions’ at all. The Thunderbird had only allowed his soulforce through it without taking any further action.
Amidst the chaotic purple light, Bai Yunfei could ‘see’ an irregular shaped purple crystal that was emitting an equally purple light off into the surrounding area as it rotated around itself.
There had been a series of complicated-looking lines and markings around the crystal, and upon closer investigation; they were in fact writing! But this sealscript writing had looked a little ‘worn’, and some of the markings had faded so much that only half of it remained even. Yet, despite the worn down state of the sealscript, it did not seem to completely impact the structural design of the seal. It was more like the actual seal itself was starting to fade away and resume back to its original state…..
When his soulforce drew closer to the seal, the soulsense of the Thunderbird around it had given off its first fluctuation of emotion; it seemed as if it was growing slightly nervous.
Stunned by this revelation, Bai Yunfei realized that this seal pattern had to correlate with the changes of the Thunderbird itself. But it was only a guess and not something he could confirm himself.
He had once heard from Hong Yin before that the beast tamers of the Beast Taming School would inflict a slave seal onto the soulbeasts. This slave seal was mysterious upon mysterious and nothing was really known about it. After the slave seal was inscribed, even the most weakest of soulbeasts would have their conscious and soul possibly erased by the seal. From that moment henceforth, they were completely under the whim of their master. Even the act of eating and drinking required the command of their master in order to be done. With the soulbeast in such a state, even if their own master were to try and probe in with their soulsense, there would be no response. If any single person outside of their master were to forcibly intrude into the soulbeast’s soul, then it would lead to the complete collapse of the seal, and from there, self-detonation of the soulbeast would happen.
But there was clearly a stark contrast with what he had been told and with this situation Bai Yunfei had on hand. Not only was the soul of the Thunderbird not sealed, it had put up no guard at all for him. Bai Yunfei had been able to enter easily and without any response from the slave seal.
In this moment of pondering, Bai Yunfei could then sense yet another change in the soulsense of the Thunderbird. It was clearly urging Bai Yunfei’s soulsense towards the slave seal!
Despite his surprise, Bai Yunfei had immediately tried to communicate with his soulsense. But like before, there had been no response. This had to be a natural response from the body of the Thunderbird instead.
“What’s going on….” Bai Yunfei ‘turned’ his eyes to look at the slave seal to think while carefully extending with his soulsense.
“Boom!”
In his mind, Bai Yunfei could feel an explosion go off as soon as the soulsense made contact with the slave seal. A look of disappointment had flashed across his face for a fleeting moment as he snapped to awareness. But to his discovery, his soulforce was flowing into the Thunderbird’s body in an unending flow as if there was some sort of magnet that attracted it to the bird. As it flowed into the Thunderbird, all of the energy had moved towards the already halted slave seal and directly into the purple crystal.
“Bzzzzz…..” He didn’t know if it was just his imagination or not, but Bai Yunfei had clearly heard the crystal slowly buzz and hum. Upon closer investigation, he could see a rich amount of soulforce come spilling out from it and encompass his own soulforce to circle around the crystal.
Under Bai Yunfei’s dazed eyes, practically half of his soulforce had been ‘absorbed’ into the Thunderbird’s body. It had been like a strand of his soul had been taken from his body and was being urged to go towards the degraded slave seal. To his befuddlement, the already worn down seals were starting to break down even more and more! The crimson coloration from its eyes was fading away, and the seal markings were slowly dissolving into nothing to leave behind an even more simplistic version of the seal. But during the times the crimson coloration of its eyes came back, the seal markings did as well, making it look as if it were new.
At the same time, Bai Yunfei was slowly coming to the realization that when his soulforce went even deeper in the Thunderbird, a seal matrix relatively similar to the old one had started to form slowly….
“This is….this is a soul contract!”
Bai Yunfei had came to a swift conclusion–in this current moment, the Thunderbird was trying to form a soul contract with it!
As long as the two consented, then a soul seal would be formed onto their souls. This Thunderbird would then become the soulbeast partner of Bai Yunfei, and from then on, they would share harmony and discord with one another!
Bai Yunfei had dreamt of having a soulbeast partner for himself. So with this opportunity prompted right in front of him, wouldn’t he be happy to accept it with both hands?
The answer was….no!
Because of Hong Yin’s influence, Bai Yunfei saw a soulbeast partner as something extremely important. How could he form a soul contract with a soulbeast he knew nothing about from the Beast Taming School that enslaved it? Although with all things considered as a soul cultivator, this was akin to the saying ‘being tossed a bone from the heavens’. But still, this was not what Bai Yunfei wanted.
“Sorry, but the soulbeast partner I want isn’t you. This soul contract–I’ll have to decline!”
When the Thunderbird had happily asked to form a soul contract with Bai Yunfei, he had immediately cut off the flow of soulsense and closed his eyes. Kicking off the ground, he jumped backwards away from the Thunderbird. And from there, the red and purple light receded and plit away.
Jing Mingfeng had already charged out from his room by that time and had been privy to the sight of the amalgamation of red and purple soulforces between the two. Straight away, he charged towards Bai Yunfei–Bai Yunfei and that Thunderbird were forming a soul contract!
“But…but how! That Thunderbird was clearly a soulbeast puppet that the Beast Taming School enslaved! Soulbeast puppets! How in the world did ol’Bai manage to form a soul contract with one! What is going on!”
He had been thoroughly shocked, but he couldn’t do anything to stop them either. Just as he was frantically thinking of what to do, even more frantic footsteps could be heard rushing into the courtyard–it was Ye Ting, Ye Quan and Ye Tianwen. In a flash, the three of them arrived by Jing Mingfeng’s side while Tianming caught up to them later with gasping breaths at the door–he had been weaker than them, so it was inevitable that he was slower as well.
Tianming had been discussing with Ye Ting and the others about what had happened in the Aroma Delicacy moments before this had happened and had been able to sense the explosion of soulforce the moment it happened. The four of them had all been startled when it did happen and immediately stood up to run towards the courtyard. Without hesitation, they ran even closer to see what was happening, and from there, Tianming had been utterly at a loss for words at what he saw.
“Master Jing, what’s….going on here?” Ye Ting asked in confusion as he took in the situation in front of him.