Volume One: The Most Heartless Phoenix Tree Blossoms Chapter Three: Jinwu

—The Golden Martial Void, 500,000 years before the destruction of the Xuanhuang Void—

A bitter, piercing wind howled recklessly outside the cave, sweeping with it icy pellets of snow and sand. Such was the perennial climate across countless eras in the Golden Martial Void. Had it been merely for assisting Zhuo Hua in his minor ascension tribulation, there would have been no need to come to such a harsh realm. Yet Lanling insisted that undergoing tribulation here was actually easier, as the Qi absorbed by the Stabilizing Pearl was purer and more potent.

“When you crossed your minor tribulation, was it one of thunder or fire?” Zhuo Hua played idly with a flame in his palm, asking the question half in jest.

Lanling sat in meditation, eyes closed, brow faintly furrowed, a flush blooming on her cheeks. A subtle red glow shimmered on the stone wall behind her, emanating from her formidable protective Qi.

Among the younger generation, Lanling was the first to have crossed the minor tribulation. Around her, true Qi radiated in a faint, flame-like aura—scarlet tinged with a striking trace of gold.

Seeing her unresponsive, Zhuo Hua assumed she had entered deep concentration. He rose and stepped out of their rocky refuge.

“I faced the tribulation of thunder and fire.” The words drifted to his ears, light as a breeze. Zhuo Hua abruptly halted, an involuntary shiver running through him.

He turned, incredulity in his voice. “Isn’t the tribulation of thunder and fire supposed to be the second level? How did you encounter it during your minor tribulation...?”

Zhuo Hua stared at Lanling, who sat draped in simple robes, her long hair unbound and cascading down her back. Her breath was steady and solemn, almost imperceptible. After a long silence, seeing no further reaction from her, he continued toward the cave entrance, still stunned by her revelation.

“At nine years old,” Lanling mused, “I triggered the heavenly tribulation with the cultivation of a ninth-rank mortal. I was still a child then, not burdened by many thoughts, simply feeling the energy within brimming, the Stabilizing Pearl providing me with endless Qi. I followed the method taught by Elder Blue, gathering and containing my energy without release. Soon, strange omens began to appear. The elders had only ever said that once enough energy was gathered, the tribulation would begin. I imagined it would amount to a flash of lightning or a few bursts of flame circling around me and be done. It was my first tribulation; I had no experience and was terribly nervous. I lost control and absorbed too much of the Golden Sun’s essence, amassing an excess of Qi. As a result, when the tribulation descended, it was both thunder and fire. I dodged and endured, wrestling with it for a whole day before the energies of heaven and earth were spent and the tribulation finally ended.”

As Lanling’s words faded, Zhuo Hua could no longer contain his astonishment. He teleported to her side, and in his excitement nearly collided with her protective Qi—a mistake that, given his current cultivation, would have obliterated him in an instant. Startled, he stumbled several steps backward.

He muttered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief, “Truly, comparison is the death of contentment. I struggle desperately just to trigger a tribulation, while you complain of losing control and gathering too much Qi. Alas!”

The Xuanhuang people were custodians of the laws and mysteries governing the void. All things in the void were bound to these invisible principles—unchanging since time immemorial, not wrought by any one race nor altered for any. Within the void, any person or event might change the causes, but never the outcomes. These granite-hard laws possessed an unassailable majesty, and yet, a beauty as gentle as water.

At the dawn of the Xuanhuang Void, their ancestors were taught the ways of elemental forces by the First Master, a knowledge that aided them through the darkness of creation and helped them elude the predatory Anli tribe. They studied and mastered the laws underlying all things, wielding them to aid their kin in transcending their limits. They could freeze water into ice, kindle wood into flame, transmute stone into gold, conjure forests from seeds, and even, like the First Master, create a void of their own. But such manipulation of the primordial laws came at a price: the heavenly tribulation.

“To those who exhaust the way of heaven and earth for the sake of mortal power, heaven and earth will deliver their censure.”
—Excerpt from the Annals of Xuanhuang Mysteries

Yet Zhuo Hua was not wholly convinced by the Annals’ view. He believed that his people drew their power from the essence of the Golden Sun, an energy that conferred eternal youth and the might to shape or destroy worlds. Such amassed energy inevitably provoked a reaction from the elemental forces—manifesting as fire or lightning.

Whenever one of their kin reached a certain level of cultivation, sooner or later they would trigger a tribulation. By mastering the laws, they could resist its destructive force. Should they survive, their powers would advance exponentially, their ability to absorb the Golden Sun’s essence growing ever more formidable, until at last they could rend the void, leap through emptiness, or even create a new void.

This was every clansman’s ultimate aspiration, though few ever achieved it.

Of course, the Xuanhuang people shared a common mission: to oppose the Anli tribe, whose sole purpose was to devour the Golden Sun of the void. For tens of millions of years they had hidden within the Xuanhuang Void, ever seeking a means to defeat their foes. By Zhuo Hua’s generation, the elders had placed all their hopes in Lanling.

During those millennia in the Golden Martial Void, Lanling watched Zhuo Hua’s every move in silent observation, occasionally offering pointed guidance when his dull wits faltered. The rare, gentle smile she bestowed was usually provoked by Zhuo Hua’s folly—whether he’d angered a wild beast and fled in panic, or ruined a Purian’s house or fields and suffered their bitter reproaches.

Zhuo Hua, however, was untroubled. Though he considered being assigned to this barren edge of the void unfortunate, with Lanling as his companion, life felt as warm and familiar as home. Each day, he trained with relentless zeal, battled great beasts, repaired Purian homes and fields, taught them to read and play music, and lived with unbridled joy.

Sometimes, Lanling would ask Zhuo Hua why he was so carefree.

He would widen his eyes, lips rosy, and reply, “Because you’re here! See, just to win your smile, I risk my life fighting those giant beasts—it’s no easy feat!” With that, he would feign exasperation and stride out.

The process by which Zhuo Hua endured his minor and thunder-fire tribulations was nothing extraordinary—neither perilous nor as effortless as Lanling’s. Aside from some bruises and hardships, there were few surprises. Yet Lanling would tease him, remarking, “If this is the extent of your tribulation-crossing, do me a favor and don’t tell anyone I guided you when we return to Xuanhuang.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll say I braved the desolate wastes of the Golden Martial Void all alone, relying solely on my own dim wits, and by sheer accident survived both the minor and thunder-fire tribulations. My fairy Lanling,” Zhuo Hua scratched the back of his head and turned away, muttering under his breath, “You hardly guided me at all! Mostly you just mocked me. Besides, all the elders in Xuanhuang know you volunteered to accompany me—ow! Rotten Lanling, why’d you throw a stone at me?”