The Yuhao Chronicles - Volume 1 Chapter 43

Yuhao pulled himself to his feet just in time for Ma Xiaotao to arrive. As he looked at her while absentmindedly brushing off the sand on his pants, he could clearly see her amused face looking back at him. Without saying a word, Yuhao got the impression that not only did she manage to see what just happened, but it was quite entertaining for her.

They stood there for several minutes before Yuhao couldn’t take her not doing anything anymore, “Ok, can we get to the place now?”

She only smirked at this question, so he decided to play around a little, “I know I am handsome and mature, definitely something you must be looking for in a husband, however, I would need to know you better first before we do anything.”

As he talked more and more, Ma Xiaotao’s smirk dropped very quickly. She ended up blushing quite heavily, with a slight glower being sent in his direction. When he finished, she curtly told him to follow her as she quickly spun on the spot and speed-walked off towards some of the buildings in the centre of the island.

Each building was quite large, and they all surrounded several much taller buildings, some which were built into the side of the tree. In the centre of these central buildings was a giant tree, which Yuhao knew to be the Ancient Golden Tree that Tang San planted just before he ascended to the Divine Realm ten thousand years ago.

As they weaved between the buildings, they passed by several older students and teachers who didn’t even glance in their direction as they were focused on doing their own things. Finally, he entered with Ma Xiaotao into one building. Inside the building, which surprised Yuhao, was by the looks of it, her own personal house. It had several features of normal houses such as a kitchen, dining table and a lounge room with cultivation mats, along with several other rooms that he couldn’t see, but he would expect to be her bedroom and bathroom.

She directed him into the lounge room, that had two red velvet couches sitting opposite one another.

“You must really like the colour red” Yuhao said, looking around at all the different areas that had the colour in the house.

Ma Xiaotao shyly nodded as she realised that this was the first time someone outside an elder or her master had entered her personal house. She sat on the left-most couch, leaning on the armrest as she said, “So, now that we are here, what did you need to say in private?”

He took a moment to think on the right way to say his idea, “As you very well know, it was Wang Dong and I who encountered you on that day. Something you don’t know is that I don’t just have the single spirit essence. I also have a spirit essence called FrostFire which allows me to control both fire and ice elements. It was that spirit that I used to counter your own flames and out of control behaviour.”

She nodded to show her understanding before countering with a question, “How was your spirit able to contend with my flames. My own spirit is the Evil Fire Phoenix, which is quite a lot more powerful than regular spirit flames.”

“While that may be, the first ring that I absorbed happened to be an Ice Jade Scorpion,” Yuhao said, causing a spark of wonder to appear in Xiaotao’s eyes. “Despite it only being a one-thousand-year-old spirit ring, it is still able to provide me with the ability to launch ice attacks of the ultimate variant.”

Ma Xiaotao smiled excitedly, “That’s great! You can help me then!”

Yuhao nodded tentatively, causing some levels of confusion in Ma Xiaotao as she was unable to understand why. Before she could ask, he said “Yeah about that….While my ultimate ice would be able to suppress your demonic fire, it would either eventually have diminishing returns as I am sure you experienced with that water-type student from before, or your spirit itself would become weaker after constant suppression from my ice.”

Her face was scrunched up in thought as she quickly tried to think of a different way around the issue. Yuhao gave her a moment before continuing, “On that day, I noticed your evil fire issue. I hypothesised that you would seek me out at a later date to help you suppress your spirit from having a similar outbreak as before. Because of this, I have been constantly thinking about different ways to help you in a more long-term fashion rather than a continuous short-term solution which could have long-term negative effects. If that makes sense”

“Have you come up with anything?” She asked hopefully, her favourability of Yuhao rising considerably, seeing that he was willing to try and help her.

“Yeah, I think I have found a couple of ways, however before I tell you anything, I need a promise that you won’t go telling others of this conversation,” He said seriously, his tone becoming cold and sharp.

While it may seem silly doing so since he had no real way to enforce the promise, based off what he has slyly managed to get out of Zhou Yi and Xiaotao’s personality in the stories, he was fairly confident that he could trust her to keep these things to herself.

Xiaotao was shocked at the sudden change of his tone before nodding determinately, “I promise on my life.”

She wasn’t sure why she promised on her life, seeing as she barely knew him, however, making that promise in the schemes of things is quite minimal when you compare it to ensuring that she won’t be killed by her own demonic flames.

Yuhao gently nodded, “Just something you should know, my spirit power is quite a lot purer than the spirit power of any other student I have seen. My first idea is to basically use my purer energy to attempt to purify your spirit. This the worst idea I have thought up with, as I believe it would severely reduce your talent. The talent drop would be because it is essentially removing a major aspect of your martial spirit.”

“Mhm,” She mumbled, urging him one.

“The other two ideas I believe are only possible once I have gotten a second spirit ring on my FrostFire spirit. More specifically, once I have gotten a fire-attributed spirit ring. I plan to do this during the mid-year break so if you wanted to attempt this method, you would have to get by until then with my ice suppressing your demonic fire,” Yuhao stated.

Ma Xiaotao tilted her head unsure as to the reasoning. Catching her confusion, Yuhao said, “While my martial spirit is fire-attributed, I don’t have the control over the fire element to the same level as I do the ice. In order to have the any chance of it working, I believe I would need to have a fire spirit ring absorbed.”

“That’s understandable, but what are the two ideas?” She said, her curiosity peaked.

Yuhao looked up at the roof as he began, “Well, they both attempt to achieve the same thing, with one simply having more benefits and a greater chance of success. The first idea of the two is to use my control over fire and ice energy to suppress the demonic attribute while also purifying the negative effects it has on your body and psyche. If my theory is correct, with both of us focused on achieving the same thing, we could alter the suppressed demonic attribute into something more useable and suitable for your fire and martial spirit as a whole. Possibly change the evil fire to something along the lines of destructive fire?”

Ma Xiaotao nodded happily as she liked what she was hearing. While it did sound complex, it wasn’t too far fetched to not be possible or doable. Martial spirits have been studied and confirmed to be influenced by a whole range of varying causes, with one of those causes being the intent of the spirit master themselves.

Seeing him pause, she asked, “And the last idea?”

Here is when Yuhao had no idea how to actually say his idea. The idea does have a lot of merit, not only from novels he has read back on Earth, which like the Douluo Dalu universe, should also exist, but also from several instances where the process has succeeded with similar effects on this continent. However, it is kind of an awkward thing to say, especially to someone that you haven’t really known long at all. While Yuhao himself may know about her from the novels and what he managed to secretly get out of Zhou Yi, she has only just become aware of his existence.

Scratching his cheek subconsciously, he decided to just say it. “The other idea that would allow for the greatest chance of success, while also possibly providing other benefits such as an increase in the quality of your spirit fire and providing a significant boost to your cultivation would b-”

“That sounds great!” She excitedly exclaimed, cutting him off before he could finish. “We should definitely do that one! How is it done though?”

He looked at her with an unsure gaze, “Yeah, well here is the thing. The only way I know to achieve that effect would be through the process of coital or dual cultivation…”

Xiaotao’s aura flared harshly hearing those words, suffusing the room with evil fire energy. Seeing that she was struggling to contain it after her outbreak, Yuhao released some of his ice energy to help her out and suppress her demonic fire to controllable levels. After a couple of seconds, the room was back to a more moderate temperature, however, they still sat awkwardly in silence.

Knowing that she would be unable to make a decision right away, seeing how her insane determination and drive for cultivation would fiercely clash against her value to cherish her body and chastity, Yuhao decided to leave, offering her some final words before they parted, “I do not want to pressure you into that solution. I know what that solution is asking of you and if I wasn’t assured that it would have the best chance of success with the possibility of other benefits, I would not have even considered mentioning it. With the ice energy I just infused into you, you should be more than fine to keep in control over your spirit until just after the mid-year break. Think about it and let me know once I get back.”

As he walked out the door, Ma Xiaotao was unable to even offer a nod in return as she was currently fighting an internal battle on what solution she should take. As she sat there on her couch, even the most immature and dense individual could read the extreme uncertainty and indecisiveness spread across her face.