The Ascension of Contracted Spirits

Chapter 52 - 51: The Great Grey Day_1

"You’re too young, the ’Spitting Water’ you’re releasing, can’t even harm a baby in its swaddle."

"Yiye~ Yiye~"

The little tadpole didn’t understand and chose to ignore selectively.

However, it found the game of target practice particularly fun.

With quick consecutive spurts, three jets of water almost formed a straight line, hitting the target dead center once again.

The little tadpole was delighted and its joy overflowed in the form of a fourth jet of water hitting Ye Hanjun right on the nose.

"Isn’t this interesting?"

Ye Hanjun laughed gently, then walked to the wall and knocked on it five times in a row.

"Let’s increase the difficulty a bit."

"Kaka kaka——"

The hidden mechanism slowly started up, and more moving targets began to appear on the floor, the ceiling, in the corners... around the training room.

They weren’t stationary, some would move horizontally, others would spin in place, and some would even suddenly pop up before disappearing immediately.

"There are a total of thirty moving targets, you have one minute, let’s see how many you can hit."

Ye Hanjun pointed to the front, and the little tadpole blinked its eyes.

Although it didn’t quite get it, all it had to do was hit the targets!

"Pupu—— pupupu——"

In the beginning, GuaGua didn’t move at all.

It simply lay at the mouth of the bottle, blasting away at the targets within its range.

Its talent was indeed astonishing, it didn’t need much guidance. After failing a few times, it quickly figured out the movement patterns of the targets.

By predicting where its shots would land, the accuracy naturally improved. Once the minute was up, it had hit a total of seven targets.

"Tsk, you little monster."

Ye Hanjun activated the mechanism again, the targets that were hit stood upright once more, and a new round of challenge began.

"Pupupu—— pupupu——"

This time, ten targets were toppled over.

If not for the limited range, powerless against targets fifteen meters away, the little guy would probably have taken out a few more.

"Yiye!!"

GuaGua seemed to realize the problem of its limited movement, but it wasn’t annoyed, it just cocked its head, making a pondering expression.

"Can’t be trying to grasp a new skill, can it?"

Now that such a thing had happened before, Ye Hanjun couldn’t help but hold his breath.

With other Fond Spirits, some conjectures could be made, but the Pure White Tadpole–– it could be left to its devices.

"Yiye!"

The seeming moment of epiphany fell flat, this time, GuaGua decided to tackle the challenge head-on.

It used the Floating Bubble to fly up, trying to poke its head out from the bubble, and then spat water from the outside.

That, of course, could not possibly be a success. With a forceful protrusion, the bubble was suddenly punctured, and the little tadpole, along with a splash of water, spattered down to the ground.

"Bang bang bang——"

Because of the location of the fall, which was just near the Desert Witch, Ye Hanjun didn’t rush to the rescue.

The golden sand was pushing Huazhu to move forward, and in the ongoing process, the black scorpion tail had already rolled into a ring-like formation, reluctantly forming an irregular pit, trying to catch the falling little tadpole.

But...GuaGua didn’t need it!

On its way down, it spat out water with a ’poo’ sound, successfully hitting a moving target that had flashed past.

Then, just before it was less than a meter away from Huazhu, a bubble narrowly came out of its mouth, enveloping itself once again.

"Yiye~~~"

GuaGua was bouncing and hopping around in the bubble, wagging its tail at the Witch, and then setting its tiny eyes on Ye Hanjun. The glimmer in its small pupils was dazzling.

You saw that, right! It hit the bull’s eye again!

Hehe! It’s fun! Let’s play for a while longer!

The bubble floated up again, and when it rose to sufficient height, timing it just right, GuaGua once again burst the bubble.

"Pupu——"

This time, it turned out to be a double attack.

Even though one shot missed, the other successfully hit the center of the moving target.

This made the little tadpole shine with radiance, waggling its little tail in joy.

Just before it hit the ground, it spit out another bubble to shield itself.

"Can it do that too?" Huazhu was visibly surprised.

"High intellect, remarkable talent... Is this the terrifying power bestowed upon the Pure Beasts by the ’Innocence’?"

Ye Hanjun’s eyes shimmered slightly, he sighed as if in admiration.

— The future is promising.

With enough time, the Pure White Tadpole will undoubtedly shine with its own spirituality on the world stage.

What needs to be done now is to guide, accompany, protect, and instruct...paving the way for its growth.

"Yiye~~~ pupupu!"

The little tadpole was full of energy, continually using its Skills, it surprisingly didn’t show any signs of fatigue.

Ye Hanjun watched for a good five minutes. Seeing that the mechanism had switched to autopilot mode, and GuaGua was happily playing with unabated enthusiasm.

Ye Hanjun’s attention started to wander and he was no longer wholly focused on GuaGua.

He turned to Huazhu, urging her to practice Micro Sand Control, and try to multitask and combat on both sides.

From time to time, he would make some pointers and further explain the related concepts, principles, and knowledge to her.

"...That’s pretty much it, now spend half an hour finding your way."

After a while, Ye Hanjun ended his guidance, concentrating all his attention on himself.

For some reason, ever since he had signed the Witch, there was a weird sensation that he couldn’t put into words.

Especially after waking up, this perception of spirituality had grown increasingly intense.

"Where did the problem arise?" Ye Hanjun brooded, head bowed in thought.

Perhaps, for a lower-ranked Patron, it is difficult to perceive, hard to observe.

Even if they accidentally capture a strange feeling, the moment of bewilderment may simply be shrugged off as an illusion.

But Ye Hanjun was different.

Intuition was an enigmatic thing, unpredictably profound, immeasurably deep.

But he possessed the fused authority of "Super Spirituality"; if even he found something amiss, the chances of a misjudgment would be as likely as stepping on dog poo every time he left the house.

"Whoosh——"

The sensory system went into full throttle, this time not expanding outward, but infinitely retracting inward.

Closing his eyes, Ye Hanjun seemed to see a pair of invisible eyes, rapidly traversing through his own flesh and blood.

Pores, muscles, fasciae, blood vessels, organs... including every beat of his heart and the color and temperature of his blood... scrutinize every inch, conduct repeated inspections.

After an unknown period, Ye Hanjun arrived at his brain, faintly glimpsing his own soul.

Then, with a bang, his eardrums vibrated. An inexplicable palpitation suddenly sprayed out from the deepest part of the Sea of Souls, erupting outward.

Ye Hanjun suddenly opened his eyes.

Then he saw... a sky full of stars!

Unknowingly, the metal ceiling vanished, and what covered the top of his head was an incredibly vast sea of stars!

"?!"

The Desert Witch was stunned, and all the sand floating on her forearm fell down.

But she was completely oblivious, her lips tightly pursed, suppressing the almost emerging scream.

"Yiye?" The little tadpole not far away suddenly stopped bubbling.

It rolled over, adjusting to a backstroke position, its rice-sized eyes blinking, reflecting splendid stars as if they were about to overflow.

"This is..."

Ye Hanjun was numbed as if struck by lightning.

In that instant, his soul felt empty, as if his spirit had drifted away from the world, lost and oblivious.

The next second, he jolted awake, his neck almost craned back to the limit.

The stars in the sky were scattered like pearls, or shattered silver, densely sprinkling the night sky.

They were shining too brightly, maybe not as divine and splendid as the sun, but the light that spilled down from the sky was as brilliant and colorful as an inverted galaxy.

There was not any sound around, everything was sleeping.

Occasionally, a meteor streaked across, its long tail briefly ablaze. Clouds leisurely drifted, moonlight bright and pure. The noise and impatience of the mortal world seemed to have been cleansed here. In this dreamy world, there pervaded a serene and beautiful holy air.

And then...

Boom!

An unlimited grey sun crushed the earth, rising directly from beneath Ye Hanjun’s feet.

It was grander than any giant mountain, like a god who had created the world.

When it soared into the sky, the vibrant world shattered.

Dark, crude, eerie...indescribable grey light bloomed, the moonlight no longer cold, the stars no longer twinkling. Terror-stricken and unable to escape, they all retreated a thousand miles away.

"Hum, hum, hum——"

The soul screamed, the heart trembled.

The grey sun hung overhead; its entwined grey light seemed like its flame, neither hot nor cold.

It sat high above, as if on a cloud, looking down at everything in the world, indifferent, yet magnificently majestic.

As the grey light spread madly, the starlight, now squashed, could only transform into its star-ring, grovel under its oppressive power, orbiting around it with mournful wails.

Ye Hanjun, who witnessed all the changes, had a violent jump in the corner of his eyes on his stupefied face.

What did he see?

In the tremendous grey sun that seemed to devour the earth and sky, there was a towering gate at the very top.

It was encased entirely in the center, massive and majestic, with an unadorned grey color, not knowing how many cycles of time it had weathered.

A rotten, desolate, cyclically iterated ancient aura seeped from the gate frame bit by bit.

The grey sun, the grey light... the ultimate origin was it?!

In the face of all this, Ye Hanjun seemed to have lost his voice.

The hair on his back stood up as if possessed, held in place, his mind a blank.

Without a doubt, it was the stone gate that appeared for a fleeting moment when the contract was signed.

At that time, he found it unbelievable and had no clue about its appearance.

Has it now reappeared? In such a shocking way?

"Sir..."

The words of Huazhu choked in his throat, unable to emerge.

In the blink of an eye, the scene before his eyes changed again.

Just now he was looking up as if gazing at a god.

Then in the blink of an eye, the shattered starlight disappeared completely, grey oppressing his organs, his legs went weak, and he almost kneeled down.

Huazhu tried his hardest to stop his trembling body, forcing himself to focus and look at his surroundings, his pupils shaking again.

Could it be...

They had reached the top of the clouds?

By the time he turned around, looking at him once again...

With a thump, Huazhu’s face turned pale due to his heart’s seizure, he could neither speak nor put forth any strength, completely flabbergasted.

At this moment, they truly hung in the heavens, and moreover in the center of the grey sun!

That stone gate was no longer stood at the ends of the earth but was behind Ye Hanjun!

One as vast as the cosmos, the other as insignificant as dust.

One as wide as the sky, enduring as the earth, the other frail and scrawny.

With a near suffocating gaze which seemed eternal, Huazhu was struck dumb.