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Translator: KuroNeko
Editor: Samskor
Chapter 11: The Strange Golden Fish (1)
Xi Fei shook her head, saying, “Father, they haven’t returned. Grandpa Owen, it is our fault. If brother Feng and I didn’t go into the sea to swim, big brother Ah Dai would not have gone to find us.”
Owen was filled with worry, naturally he would not blame them, but his heart had long flown to the sea. After a year, the more he interacted with Ah Dai, the more Owen came to like the kind-natured child. Although it had already been a year, Ah Dai still continued to miss his teacher Gliss every day. The silver-tin bun was placed under his pillow, and he would stare at it every morning, muttering a few words. Everything about Ah Dai was so innocent, child, you must not be in danger! By this time, Ah Dai was already in the sea for around an hour.
Just then, two silhouettes came out from the sea, it was Xi Zhong and Xi Fa. Owen instantly rushed over, hurriedly asking, “Did you find Ah Dai?”
Xi Zhong and Xi Fa looked at each other, revealing expressions of guilt. Xi Zhong replied, “Uncle Owen, the waves are simply too big, we also didn’t dare to go too far in. I’m afraid Ah Dai was swept away by the waves, we could not find him.”
A cold glint flashed across Owen’s eyes. If it was the old him, he would have killed all of them to vent his anger, but he could not do that now. He merely said, “You have tried your best, go home and tell this to Schiel. I’ll try looking for Ah Dai again.”
“Uncle Owen, I think it’s too difficult, the waves are too big, with the addition of the rain, it really is too hard to find him!” Xi Fa persuaded.
Owen responded angrily, “No matter how hard it is I must try, Ah Dai is my only family, how can I just watch him die? All of you can go back first.”
The three brothers were shocked, the usually suave Uncle Owen had suddenly become so irritable. The three of them each grabbed their own child, and walked towards the town. In this sort of weather, unless it was the Sipho Tribe’s fleet of ships, normal fishing boats were unable to withstand the strong waves.
Owen took a deep breath, and circulated his true qi within his body, stabilizing the silver bead which was suppressing the poison. With a howl, he jumped into the air, towards the boundless sea. The jump of his, was at least 30 metres far. Without any hesitation, he lightly stepped on the crest of the wave, ascertained his direction, and leaped across the waves further into the sea. His true qi continuously circulated in his body, in just a short while, he already could not see the shore. If not for the Boundless Life Art, he would not have been able to support his constant depletion of true qi. It was really too difficult to find someone in the vast sea, Owen’s true qi was constantly decreasing but he still had not found any trace of Ah Dai.
Suddenly, a flash of gold light came from under the sea, leaping out of the sea surface. Following his instincts, Owen chased after the golden light. After five minutes, he finally saw Ah Dai who was floating on the sea. Immense joy spurred Owen on, as he shouted loudly, stretching out his right hand. A white light flashed, and Owen actually blocked a huge incoming wave. Waving his hand, he carried Ah Dai into his arms. With a touch, he found out that Ah Dai was not in danger, just that he had drank too much seawater.
Carefully carrying Ah Dai under his arms, Owen gathered his qi and quickly leaped towards the shore. The true qi inside his body circulated constantly, but it was no longer enough to support his rate of expenditure.The shore was just ahead, but Owen had only 50% of his true qi remaining. He could no longer continue using his true qi, if not the Matchless Holy Water’s poison would act up again. Helplessly, he could only jump into the sea and continue swimming forward. Fortunately, he grew up near the sea, and he could still remember how to swim after all these years. After much effort, he finally succeeded in bringing Ah Dai back to shore.
“Big brother Owen.” Schiel’s voice sounded, he was anxiously waiting with his three sons near the shore. Once he saw that Owen had brought Ah Dai back, the four people immediately rushed over. Xi Zhong carried Ah Dai from Owen, while Xi Fa and Xi Bai supported Owen. It turned out that, the three brothers were afraid that their father would blame them in the future, thus they did not heed Owen’s words, and told Schiel everything that had happened. Schiel was furious at his grandchildren, but did not have time to lecture them, and instead rushed over to the sea with his three sons.
“Big brother Owen, how are you?” Schiel worriedly asked.
Owen was panting nonstop as he circulated the true qi within his body, slowly recovering. He had rescued Ah Dai at last, and he could finally relax. “Schiel, I’m fine, but Ah Dai has drunk quite a lot of seawater, Xi Zhong, quickly help him get the seawater out. Schiel, don’t blame the children, it isn’t really their fault, Ah Dai overestimated himself.”
Schiel glared at his three sons, scolding, “It’s all because of your children. Big brother Owen, let me support you back. Ah Dai is really such a kind child.”
…………
Ah Dai slowly opened his eyes, his mouth was dry, his stomach felt empty and his body was devoid of energy, “I, am I dead?”
Owen’s voice sounded, “If I arrived just a bit later, I’m afraid that you would have drowned. You know you can’t swim well, yet you still want to save people, tsk! Quick, drink this ginger soup to drive out the chill.”
Gently, Owen helped Ah Dai sit up, and brought the ginger soup to his mouth. Ah Dai looked at Owen, and his eyes immediately turned red. Without bothering to drink the ginger soup, he tightly hugged Owen, crying out, “Uncle, Uncle, Ah Dai died, Ah Dai died.”
Owen’s eyes also turned red, he put down the ginger soup, and patted Ah Dai’s back, soothing, “Ah Dai did not die, uncle has already saved him from the sea. Come, drink some ginger soup first.”
Ah Dai loosened his hands while sobbing, and looked at Owen who was full of concern, “Uncle, am I really not dead?”
Smiling, Owen pinched Ah Dai’s arm and asked, “Does it hurt?”
Ah Dai let out a grin and nodded, “Yes.”
Owen laughed, “If it hurts, that’s good, it means that you can still feel it, therefore you are not dead. You really scared me, here, be good and drink some ginger soup, then go take a rest. Everything will be fine tomorrow.” He picked up the bowl of ginger soup, lightly blew at it, and slowly fed Ah Dai.
After a bowl of hot ginger soup, Ah Dai’s body instantly felt warmer. Looking at Owen’s concerned expression, Ah Dai’s heart also felt warmer. It was at this moment that he had truly liked the handsome-looking uncle.
Owen placed the bowl at one side, and helped Ah Dai lie down again. As he tucked in Ah Dai, he said, “Ah Dai, this time was really too dangerous. If not for the bountiful life force in you, you might really have died. Don’t be so rash next time, saving people is good, but you need the ability to do so.”
Ah Dai struggled to sit up, worriedly saying, “Uncle, Uncle, quickly save Fei Er and Little Feng. I haven’t found them in the sea, they must be in danger!”
Owen scolded, “You silly kid, how can you treat other people’s lives as more important than your own. They are better swimmers, and came back long ago. Quickly lie down.”
Once he heard that Xi Fei and Xi Feng were not in danger, Ah Dai relaxed his breath and lied down on the bed, muttering, “That’s good, that’s good.”
“Oh right, Ah Dai, what happened to your leg? It seems to have been pierced by something sharp, even the muscles on your leg have been pierced through,” Owen asked.
Ah Dai replied, “It was a strange fish, … … “ He recounted the whole experience of meeting the strange fish and how he freed it.
Owen said in realisation, “No wonder, when I was finding you, there was a gold flash of light in the sea, and I followed it to you. That means, it was the strange fish that saved your life. What goes around comes around! Your kindness has saved your life.”
Ah Dai suddenly remembered something and raised his left hand, “Uncle look, this was what the strange fish gave me.”
Owen glanced at it, it was just a normal white jade ring. From its appearance, there seemed to be nothing amazing about it, but Owen could faintly sense that it contained something special. He carefully took off the ring from Ah Dai’s finger, the jade grew warm when it touched Owen’s hands. He circulated some true qi into the ring to inspect, there seemed to some energy that was constantly moving within the ring, removing Owen’s true qi. After looking at it for a long time, Owen finally placed the ring back on Ah Dai’s finger, “Keep this ring properly, it might have some use in the future.”
Ah Dai nodded, he quite liked the white jade ring.
“Go and sleep, you still can’t eat now, tomorrow Uncle will cook porridge for you.”
“But, Uncle, I haven’t cultivated today.” Since he came here, Ah Dai had never gone a night without mediating, he felt uncomfortable that he did not meditate for one day.
Owen smiled and said, “Forget it for today, you can’t rush while practising martial arts, we will see how tomorrow. Uncle is going to rest as well, in order to save you, I’m thoroughly exhausted.” As he finished speaking, he blew out the candle and walked out. The storm outside had stopped and Ah Dai was safe, there was a feeling of indescribable happiness in Owen’s heart.
After Owen had left, Ah Dai struggled to sit up. He accidentally touched the wound on his leg, causing him to feel waves of pain. Although he was stupid, he knew that Owen had high expectations of him. Uncle had treated him so well, so he could not disappoint Uncle. A year long of living together had made the kind Ah Dai forget his previous hatred of Owen. He took a deep breath, and started circulating what was left of his true qi.
It took a whole ten days of rest, before Ah Dai recovered. Apart from Xi Lei, Xi Fei and Xi Feng did not want to play with him anymore. The reason was that they got a harsh scolding from Schiel because of Ah Dai. Ah Dai was sad, but he could do nothing about it, therefore he spent all of his time training instead.
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The seasons passed, and another two years had passed. Ah Dai had already cultivated the Boundless Life Art to the Fourth Stage. Breaking through each stage of the Boundless Life Art was extremely difficult. If not for the Fruit of Rebirth that Ah Dai had eaten, he was probably unable to reach this stage even after ten years. Although he had already reached the Fourth Stage, he still could not fully display its might. Owen had told Ah Dai that the Boundless Life Art needed to reach the Fifth Stage before there was a significant difference, and Owen had only reached that stage when he was 28. Despite that, Ah Dai could already transform his true qi into the dou qi outside of his body, and there was a faint white light surrounding his body every time he trained. The fifteen year old Ah Dai was around 1.8 metres tall, and even though he did not do any heavy labor, his body was still unusually sturdy. After three years, despite his few hours of meditation, he could already produce a blue flame with his flame spell. Once, he tried to secretly execute the fire meteor spell, the fireballs that he produced were almost 3 centimetres large, and all of the fireballs were blue. Each day, apart from cultivating and meditating, Owen would also explain some of the situations in the continent, as well as teach him the culture and customs of the various countries. Ah Dai had already mastered the Holy Church language to the extent that he was able to converse fluently with Owen. And in the two years, he had also learnt a bit of the Prosperous language. The dumb Ah Dai, had now mastered the four languages of the Holy Church, Heaven’s Gold Empire, Prosperous Empire and the United Regions Commonwealth. This was because his memory had greatly improved after cultivating the Boundless Life Art for a long time.
[TN: Just to clarify, after cultivating the Boundless Life Art, the true qi in Owen and Ah Dai’s bodies are “sheng sheng (life life) true qi” becoz of the art, but it sounds weird to translate it, so i just left it as true qi. So their true qi is special from other ppl’s true qi because they cultivated that art.]
Ah Dai would still think of Gliss often, missing his Teacher who was far away from him. However, the care that Owen showed him had also made him very touched, and he had long treated Owen as his real Uncle.
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Spring, Year 992 of the Holy Calendar.
“Ah Dai, let’s go, Uncle will bring you somewhere. From today onwards, you will be learning new stuff.” Owen said in a strict voice to Ah Dai who had just eaten his breakfast.
Ah Dai was shocked for a moment, and asked, “Uncle, are you going to teach me that flying martial art?”
Owen let out a smile, and replied, “Uncle does not know how to fly, just that I can jump a bit higher. You can also do that in the future. After three years, your improvement was faster than my expectations. Originally, I thought that you would need five years to be at the stage where you are at now. Now that you have cultivated the Boundless Life Art to the Fourth Stage, your foundations are already stable, and you can continue in the next step of cultivation. What you need to do now, is to undergo physical and combat training. Uncle has already thought of an idea, and prepared it a few days ago. I will bring you there now.”
“Okay!” Ah Dai readily agreed. After three years of simply meditating and cultivating, even though Ah Dai had a strong willpower, it was still too simple and repetitive for him. With his childish attitude, he was extremely willing to try something new.
Leaving their house by the sea, Owen brought Ah Dai towards the South, along the shoreline. After walking for half an hour, they finally arrived at a large area of rocks.