Bai Jingshen traveled a lot further on his ship before he showed any weakness. He could barely keep himself up at the moment, having been forced to use his strongest power yet.
Technically, his earring would count as his strongest power, but they weren't as reusable, so he rarely counted it. Not that this method was any more reusable either.
'I should've used my Blood Essence instead, Bai Jingshen thought. 'I may have survived with it!
He didn't want to keep it up to chance, however, which forced him into using the other method. He hated having to use it though, considering how much of his energy it drained in a matter of seconds.
Each attack or defense took chunks out of his Divine energy, and after just defeating 8 White Tigers, his Divine energy was at a pitiful amount. He couldn't have let anyone see him like that, which was why he chose to leave in his ship.
He traveled through the land on his ship for half an hour before he recovered enough Divine energy to keep himself on his feet. Once he was, he activated his right earring and teleported away.
He arrived back in the White Tiger palace, appearing directly in his room. His wives came to greet him upon his arrival, and each one started asking why he had returned so early.
"Is Pearl back?" he asked, but none of them knew. They were surprised to just find out that Pearl had already left the Fighting
Island this early, considering there were supposed to be 2 more years before the time came.
Bai Jingshen walked out of the room and made his way to Pearl's room. He didn't even bother to knock and walked in, only to be relieved when he saw Pearl and Alex sitting next to each other patiently.
"Brother Shen!"
"Grandpa!"
The two had been waiting for him ever since they returned.
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Pearl asked.
"Who do you think I am?" Bai Jingshen said with a prideful look. "No one can hurt me."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "They let you go? I was sure they would want some repense."
"They tried, but they couldn't," Bai Jingshen said, explaining no further. "So, what's going on? We have a lot to talk about. Tell me everything that happened."
Bai Jingshen changed the topic as cleanly as a muddy rag cleaned a window. Alex let it be.
"Shouldn't we notify the patriarch first?" Alex asked. "They need to know Pearl was attacked."
"That... he should," Bai Jingshen said with a small sigh. He tapped on his right earring once and closed his eyes. A few moments passed and he opened his eyes again.
"He's been notified. He was more or less aware of the situation himself and says that he will first deal with the others before he talks to us."
Alex blinked, a blank look on his face. "Your earring lets you talk to the patriarch?"
"Not exactly. It more so connects to the talismans I have within this earring," he said.
"It holds talismans too?" Alex asked.
Bai Jingshen chuckled. "It doubles as a rather large storage space when it's not collecting teleportation aura."
Alex's eyes shined with a curious look. "You have to let me take a look at it one of these days. I want to learn how they function."
Bai Jingshen thought for a moment and shrugged. "Sure, but I doubt you'll find anything from it. As far as I'm aware, it doesn't function in any way that a normal artifact should."
"I'll still love to give it a go."
"Fine," Bai Jingshen said. "Where were we again?"
Pearl chuckled a little. "Patriarch won't meet us."
"Right! He needs to deal with the other tigers before he can get to us. I've told him that you've failed, and he says he'll see what he can do. Although, truth be told, I don't think he can do much."
"Everything he's done to help you has been well within the bounds of his authority as the patriarch. However, should he let Pearl pass the trial, even though he clearly failed the main criteria, others will believe that he's started being subjective with the White Tigers instead of remaining objective."
"Changing the 100-year trial down to 10 years was already pushing it. Letting you pass on top of that would open too many holes in his authority, allowing others to take charge, and we don't want that." Alex nodded slightly, a look of understanding flashing through him. "So, how exactly did you fail? How did they find you?" Bai Jingshen asked.
Pearl explained the strange artifact that Bai Yanbei had, which he had used to locate Pearl. Upon hearing about it, Alex searched through his Soul Space to find Bai Yanbei's mangled corpse and pulled the Soul Space in the corpse inside out to release all the items inside.
They weren't waiting to go through the loot just yet, but an early look wouldn't hurt anyone.
Alex brought out the artifact, showing it to Bai Jingshen.
"Ah! This," Bai Jingshen said, taking it. "It's normally meant to locate
White Tiger's bloodline in the wild. There's a nearly dead Divine soul in there that they were using. I can't believe what sort of object they
let the participants carry into the lawless land."
Alex shrugged. "It's lawless. Makes sense."
Bai Jingshen said nothing, gesturing for Pearl to continue.
Pearl explained most of the fighting that happened, some of which
enraged Bai Jingshen, some of which made him proud. After Pearl ended his recounting of the event, the beast turned toward Alex.
"He wouldn't have failed if you were with him, you know," Bai Jingshen said. "You must have a great reason to abandon him."
"I do," Alex said. "The Black Tortoise Matriarch asked me for my help."
Bai Jingshen blinked for a few seconds, unable to immediately prehend the meaning of his words in that very order. "The Black Tortoise Matriarch... needed your help?" he asked.
Alex nodded.
Bai Jingshen let out a deep sigh. "Alright, explain to me how that
works."
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