Primordial spark

Elders occasionally brought in young disciples and left with them again after a few hours. Lydia spent her time laying near the edge of the lava lake, basking on the warm stones. After an indeterminate amount of time a spark ran across her body and shocked Dave awake. A spark warning. This was a sign that her tribulation was imminent. If it matched his own tribulation, nothing in the surrounding area would survive. He quickly unfurled his carpet, placed the groggy Lydia on its back and took off. Hurriedly he left, but he had barely overflown the volcano before the first lightning bolt fell. He could not continue flying out of fear of hitting one of the bolts that were falling all around. Leaving him no choice than to speedily lower the carpet vertically to the ground. On the ground he returned the carpet to his spacial ring, so it would not be destroyed by the tribulation. There was lightning everywhere. Eventually the lightning petered off, but the last bolt was larger and struck Lydia directly. Dave stepped over the top of her to protect he from further bolts, damn the consequences.

In the brief silence he suddenly heard crying, human crying. When he looked down he saw a human toddler laying on the fresh spring grass. A lock of grey hair on her forehead. Dave was briefly utterly confused, but he gathered himself and took his burned robe out of his spacial ring and swaddled her as best he could in the ruined fabric. Dave looked back up and watched the clouds gather again. Then they waited until the second tribulation started. Ridiculously thick lightning bolts fell. Every time Dave tried to look in a direction he was flash-banged by a different bolt, eventually he just gave up and held Lydia close, in case the last bolt would strike her again.

The lightning abruptly stopped, leaving his ears ringing. In the distance he could see a large group of sect enforcers heading over to inspect the site of the tribulation on their flying swords. Dave decided it would be better to meet them halfway, so headed towards them on his carpet, while holding Lydia in his arms. “Greetings great elder, what were those two tribulations just now?” One of the enforcers asked, while the rest continued on to the site of the tribulation. Now just a crater of burnt ground with a tiny island of unburnt land in the middle.

“My monstrous beast, Lydia, had her tribulation. It happened suddenly, so I barely had the time to vacate the caldera of the volcano. I hope no one was injured.” Dave answered politely.

“We will go check for injuries. Where is your monstrous beast by the way, it did not perish in the tribulation? Did it?” The enforcer asked Dave with a raised eyebrow.

“No she did not, she is right here.” Dave held out his arms with Lydia.

“What in goddamn! That's no monstrous beast, that's a child. Why did you bring a toddler to someone's tribulation?” The enforcer asked in visible confusion and with worry on his face.

“I swear that this is Lydia, my registered beast. When she ascended to the nascent soul realm she transformed into this baby.” Dave held his ground and insisted on the facts of the matter.

“I have heard that nascent soul realm beasts can take a human form, but those are fully grown adult forms and not 'this'”. The enforced said slowly.

“I'm going to ask the sect master about it.” Dave decided.

“Yes, that would be best.” The enforcer supported his decision.

Dave took off again, carefully holding on to the complaining Lydia.

Landing in the backyard of the sect leaders office he decided to enter through the back to avoid drawing attention. His large stained-glass window showed a silhouette inside the office, so the sect leader was probably inside, working. Dave knocked on the door and got an indistinct answer from inside. While waiting for the door to be opened he rubbed the baby's head.

The sect leader opened his door and when he saw Dave, he motioned for him to come inside.

“What brings you to my humble abode?” The sect leader started the dialogue. “I have a few questions regarding this.” Dave said and pointed towards the baby he presumed to be Lydia. “Why do you have a baby, and with such a peculiar hair color?” The sect leader said after leaning forwards and examining Lydia closely. “This is what my travel companion, the monstrous wolf Lydia turned into after her nascent soul tribulation.” Dave said while being confused at the entire situation. “Most monstrous beasts gain the the ability to take a human form at the nascent soul stage, but those forms are fully grown and they gain the associated knowledge from the heaves during their tribulation. This is clearly a baby in the wandering immortal stage which is already impossibly outrageous, she also seems to have not gained the knowledge on how to move as a human or her body is too young to work yet.” The sect leader said while prodding and poking Lydia. When his finger got near her mouth she bit down, the sect leader flinched back and nursed the small bite-mark he gained on his finger.

“How long is she going to stay like this?” Dave asked impatiently.

“I have no idea. Monstrous beasts who gain a human form are vulnerable for a while after their ascension to the nascent soul realm. Which is how we killed the last one who ascended in the eastern forest. Your monstrous beast could take years before she figures out how to turn herself back into a wolf.” The sect leader said while shrugging empathetically.

“I guess I have no other choice than to raise her.” Dave said while feeling defeated.

Walking out of the office, Dave questioned why the heavenly Dao was treating them so differently from everyone else. Incomplete tribulations, incomplete knowledge transfers and failed transformations. There had to something wrong with the heavens in respect to anyone from Earth, man or animal. It all looped back to the question the heavens had asked him during his first tribulation: “How did you kill the heavens?”. Everything the heavens of this world had done was to minimize contact with them, avoiding them like an infectious plauge.

Dave headed for the woodworker's shop in the craftsman's district. Woodworking was a loud activity so it had been relegated to a remote corner of the district, together with the smithy. They were both placed far from any residential areas. A request for several baby's cribs were filed, as Dave was certain that Lydia would destroy at least a few before learning how to move properly as a human baby. Next he headed for the clothiers to have some baby clothes made for her. At the tailors they luckily already had babies clothing in excess, due to the apprentices training using these small pieces of clothing to improve their dexterity while using up less good fabrics.

A fully clothed Lydia sat in front of him in no time at all.

Dave took her home and placed her in his hammock to crawl around a bit, while he waited for the carpenter to finish her crib.

It became evening while he listened to occasional complaints coming from Lydia. She looked really cute fighting with the fabric of the hammock, he had to remind himself that no matter how cute she looked, she could turn any ordinary human into paste. Resolving himself to raise her properly he decided that he would have the tailor create a baby-carrier he could wear on his back. At least he did not have to worry about changing her diaper, as they were both well past the stage of having to consume physical food and could live off purely absorbing the ambient qi.

Before it became completely dark outside, he remembered that still had to learn techniques to defend himself, otherwise he would be a sitting duck if anyone attacked him regardless of his high realm.

Heading for the library, he saw Mo Xiuying, the sect master's granddaughter and waved to her in passing. He reached the library and approached the receptionist. Before Dave could ask her anything, she said: “Greetings grand elder, with your status you can borrow as many books as you want without any spirit stones as collateral. Your assistance to the sect has been so monumental that there is no way to ever pay you back.”

Giving her a small nod, he continued further into the library. There were no sections for nascent soul or wandering immortal, since those were realms no one in the sect had ever achieved before, or maybe they had a few techniques in those realms. Perhaps the sect master was protecting them elsewhere, he would have to ask later.

What he needed right now was a technique that let him survive his own domain at full power without turning into a popsicle. His trouble was just that he could seemingly only use ice qi, so he had to search for a technique that did not deal with heating and instead of simply surviving low temperatures.

Dave found his first clue when he came across the “Glazier skin” technique, it created a large amount of ice qi, fed it through a person's skin and super-cooled skin would form a layer of ice on top. The technique utilized water qi to speed up this process. More importantly, the skin of the person using it was clearly far below freezing without being damaged by the temperature. This technique was originally designed for foundation establishment, which meant that it was very easy for Dave to learn with his improved qi control. It turned out that technique used the quick flow of ice qi through tissue to prevent said tissue from freezing. It was a relatively simple matter for him to apply the same technique to his entire body, whenever he used his domain. Now he just had to test it.

Dave had to return soon, otherwise Lydia would start trashing his house, but he was too curious about what the full strength of his domain looked like now.

Taking off on his carpet, he headed for an open area a good distance from the sect.

When he activated the technique, a small film of ice quickly formed on his skin and his body felt uncomfortably cold. Then he released his domain. The world went still. His feet were standing in a freezing liquid, the full moon was shining from the sky and illuminating the entire scene with its eerie glow. His breath was stolen from his mouth and turned into small eddies of fluid that flowed down the front of his body. An ever increasing amount of liquid was raining down into his domain. He struggled to breathe, very little entered his lungs, he had no choice but to deactivate his domain again, for fear of suffocating.

Fluid had reached his knees and it was now boiling away in the sunlight.

Dave had enough and decided to head back to the sect.