CHAPTER 2

THE BALL OF LIGHT

Tang Jian was walking under the moonlit night humming a tune on his way to the lake some distance away from the village. The trail that led the way from the village to the lake went through woods filled with tall trees.

I wonder if they’ve found the tiger cub yet. Nah, those guys are all clumsy, they can’t do it without me, Tang Jian had somewhat of an arrogant personality.

But wait, what if it has a full-grown tiger protecting it? That’s way too dangerous for me. But at the same time, he wasn’t known to be a brave lad either.

But if I do find the cub, I can raise it as my pet, I can have a majestic beast as my pet. He was quite greedy as well.

With a tiger by my side, the other beasts would think twice before attacking me. Maybe I can even go on an adventure. Perhaps I’ll encounter some of those Immortal cultivators. Though that will all have to wait for a few years; my tiger is still just a cub, after all.

As he was busy dreaming about his future endeavors, Tang Jian suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

There, right in front of him, was a ball of bright white light the size of a fist! The ball of light seemed to have fallen from the sky and stopped in front of him, floating in the air, an arms’s reach away. For a moment, he just stood there wondering if what he was seeing was real or just something his imagination had cooked up. He moved around the ball of light, inspecting it from every direction. He was careful not to touch it at any point. After some time, he noticed that there was a tiny 火 (fire) character blazing with a red flame inside the white ball, however it was barely visible because of the white light which was almost blindingly bright. In fact, he had to look away from it from time to time to adjust his vision.

Tang Jian stood there with one hand on his chin and a frown on his face, looking at the ball.

"What exactly is this-”

All of a sudden, before he could even react, the ball of light flew towards Tang Jian’s face and entered his forehead. He felt nothing as it entered his forehead, however, before he could even think about what had just happened, he was instantly hit with severe dizziness and lost his balance, falling down on the ground.

His head was instantly flooded with red hot fire, the fire started blazing down his face and to the rest of his body through his neck, down to his fingertips and all the way down to his toes. The flames seeped out his feet and burned the ground. Even the stones instantly melted and vaporized. Everything within a three meter radius with Tang Jian at the center had turned to ashes.

Yet during all of this, Tang Jian only felt a slight warmth inside him and was completely unharmed; even the clothes on his body were untouched by the flames that burned the surrounding ground. He just sat there looking at the ashes; the dizziness had subsided by this point, but what it had been replaced by was a fiery strength that he couldn’t describe in words.

“Wh… what the hell just happened to me? Is this even real?”, Tang Jian asked himself with a shaky voice.

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a fireball came crashing down from the sky and fell on a tree nearest to him, lighting it on fire.

“You dare to still a treasure from the Temple, you thief!!!” An angry shout came from the sky.

Tang Jian immediately looked up, and his eyes went wide in shock as he saw the source of the voice. There in the sky was a young man of about seventeen years of age wearing a luxurious yellow robe. What was shocking to Tang Jian was the fact that young man was sitting in a golden carriage floating in the air. The carriage was being pulled by a large white horse. The horse looked rather normal apart from the fact that its mane and tail were on fire. Or rather, they were made of fire.

The young man had a furious look on his face as he glared down at Tang Jian.

Is he like one of the people that Old man Kui Ah mentioned? He looks really scary; he thought to himself.

Though out loud, he said with a strained voice, “What temple? What treasure? I think you have the wrong person here, brother.” Tang Jian wasn’t lying. Not entirely, at least. Although he didn’t know what temple this scary young man meant was, he could easily guess what the treasure was.

He looks like he’s going to rip me apart limb from limb if I tell him that thing is inside me. I’ll just keep pretending. Besides, it’s not like he was here to see that thing go inside me. Hopefully, he wasn’t.

“Are you mocking me, you imbecile?!”. He truly felt like he was being mocked by Tang Jian; as for why he explained, “The proof is all around you, you damned thief. You think I’ll believe your lies?”

Tang Jian looked down at the burned ground all around him, with him at the center.

Shit, how did I miss something so obvious? I should’ve just run away the moment I saw that thing, he thought regretfully.

“Look, I can explain. That white ball just went inside me before I even had a chance to react. Maybe I can just spit it out. Let me try.” saying that Tang Jian put three fingers down his throat and tried to vomit, in a desperate attempt to save his life.

But after hearing that the ball of white light had entered inside of Tang Jian, the man’s face fell.

“How could this happen? It chose him? It chose a buffoon like him?“ For a moment the man just kept staring at Tang Jian who was just barfing the rabbit he’d had for dinner that night hoping for a ball of light to come out.

“No. I can’t accept this. I refuse to accept this.”, he said in an unaccepting tone. He then pulled the carriage down towards the ground. He stood up in his carriage, fury in his eyes, and said, “That glory was destined for me and me alone. And nobody steals Chen Wei’s glory”, saying that he raised his hands in the air.

“Wait wait wait, We can talk this over.”, Tang Jian said, vomit dripping down his chin, terror in his voice. Eyes closed, he raised his hands in defense in a last ditch effort to protect himself from the fireball he knew was coming to take his life.

And come it did.

Chen Wei flung a fireball even bigger than the previous one. He had madness in his heart at losing something he had always longed for and losing it to someone who was no different from an insect in his eyes. However, what happened next left Chen Wei in shock and fear that he wouldn’t even have the time to register.

Unbeknown to Tang Jian, from his out raised hands came a wave of intense red flames a hundred times fiercer than the fireball heading towards him. It travelled from Tang Jian’s hands at a lightening speed, intercepted the fireball swallowing it and hit Chen Wei’s carriage, instantly incinerating it, the horse and Chen Wei along with it. Even the nearby trees had turned to ash.

Tang Jian was unaware of what he’d unconsciously just done. He merely felt some heat on his palm, which he believed to be from the approaching fireball. He was still waiting for the said fireball to hit him, but noticing that he was still alive after a few seconds, he opened his eyes only to find smoke, ashes and a few burning trees before him.

“Where did he go?”, noticing that he was alone and Chen Wei was nowhere to be seen, he looked around at the burning trees and the pile of ash where Chen Wei’s chariot had just been and he instantly connected the dots.

Tang Jian staggered a few steps back, his heart pounding, too afraid to believe the conclusion he had just thought of.

He looked at his hands with fearful eyes and wondered, “Did I do all this?”

Tang Jian was unaware that all this while, there was a mysterious old man who had been secretly observing him from a distance the moment he’d come across the ball of white light. He wore a bright red robe and had an aura around him which, if one looked at him, would make them think as if they were looking at the sun itself!

“He’s quite young.”, the old man silently muttered to himself. “You’re an extremely lucky fellow young man; your fate is about to lead you on a path very few people can reach. And fewer can survive.”

Looking at the frightened Tang Jian, he slowly walked towards him.