A Will Eternal

Hey guys, I'm excited to let you know that Physician's Odyssey is now out of sneak peek and available for everyone to read, with 60 chapters to start!  This is a modern wuxia novel that is part of our big 2019 kickoff to more genres.  Authored by Smoking Pipe Bro and translated by Wuxiaworld veteran Thyaeria (who is also working with us on The Great Ruler and Tales of Demons & Gods), this Zongheng novel brings us the story of the brilliant physician Su Tao.  Su Tao is a medical genius, but just wants to maintain...

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Bai Xiaochun’s heart was pounding with nervousness. The exploding pill furnace had not only been shocking, but also a very close call....

“If I had been just a bit slower, it would have blown up my immortal's cave! But that’s not the scariest part. I might have lost my poor little life! That would have been a tragedy.” Bai Xiaochun ducked his head down, trying to look apologetic to the furious crowd around him. He quickly made some adjustments to the cave’s spell formation, and then hurried back inside.

There, he braced himself to face a mob, but after an entire day passed, nothing happened. Surprised, he waited even longer, but no one ever showed up.

“Weird.... Oh well. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ll just keep concocting. Now why did that pill furnace explode?” Sitting down cross-legged, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

What he didn’t know was that the reason nobody came looking for him was because of how people called him Nightdevil. He was already completely infamous, and although people wanted to go call him to account, the way he had slaughtered people with the blood sword left them no choice but to grit their teeth and endure.

Another reason was that, although the explosion had been a powerful one, and caused a lot of fires, other than that, it didn’t really influence anyone negatively....

Three days later, Bai Xiaochun slapped his thigh.

“In the past, my tier-3 medicines also exploded. But this time, the explosion happened for a different reason. When tier-4 spirit medicines are in the final stages of condensing into a pill, they absorb qi from their surroundings, which leads to instability!

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the bloodflame stones. The pill is being destroyed from the inside out!” Panting, hair in disarray, eyes shining with enlightenment, he quickly rolled up his sleeves and produced a new pill furnace to work with.

The concocting process went much more quickly this time. A day later, and the spirit medicine was already taking form. As it did, he paid close attention, and was also fully prepared for any outcome. Suddenly, the pill furnace began to turn bright red, and cracks started to spread out across its surface. A violent eruption was obviously building up, and the pill furnace even began to bulge in shocking fashion, even more dramatically than last time.

Bai Xiaochun gasped. Waving his sleeve, he collected up the pill furnace and then raced outside, where he threw it high up into the air. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to call out a warning this time....

A deafening boom echoed out as the pill furnace exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions, along with waves of violet-colored flames....

Booming thuds then rose up as the pieces landed on the ground. At the same time, enraged roars could be heard.

“Again?! What are you doing, Nightcrypt?!?!”

“Nightcrypt, are you really concocting medicine? If you want to kill us, why not just fight us!?!?”

“What pill is he trying to concoct?!?!”

There were about ten cultivators who were directly affected, and despite their rage, they didn't do anything other than gnash their teeth. They didn’t dare to cause any problems for Nightcrypt.

Bai Xiaochun remained in his immortal's cave, terrified. However, after some time passed and nobody came to complain, he sighed and looked off into the distance.

“You people understand the situation, and choose not to cause problems for me. Don’t worry. I promise this will be the last time.” Taking a deep breath at how sincere he was in his efforts, he once again began to concoct.

Three days later....

“Dammit, what’s wrong!?” Feeling like he was going insane, he rushed outside and threw the pill furnace up into the air.

BOOM!

Five days later… boom! Seven days later… boom! Ten days later….

“How could this be happening?!” He felt like he was going completely mad. This time, he threw an especially large pill furnace up into the air!

BOOOOOOOOOMMM!

During the ten days that passed, Middle Peak was driven insane. Every day or two, another pill furnace would explode, raining down shrapnel and fire. Many places on Middle Peak were scorched to the ground.

Many newly erected immortal's caves were burned to ash, and one cultivator after another was left screaming in rage. Eventually, not a single blade of grass or plant on Middle Peak was left unscorched.

Although Master God-Diviner’s immortal's cave wasn’t harmed, he did catch on fire at least once....

The killing intent of the Middle Peak cultivators continued to build until it seemed like it might explode.

The situation was a bit better on the upper finger. However, the fires eventually spread that far too, and the mid and late Foundation Establishment cultivators there were slowly building up into a rage. All of Middle Peak was turning into a ticking timebomb.

“Nightcrypt, are you looking to die?!?!”

“If I don’t kill Nightcrypt, then I’m not human!!”

“Dammit! Does Nightcrypt want to burn Middle Peak to the ground? He’s not concocting medicine, he’s trying to kill us!”

The unusually large pill furnace that he threw up into the air didn’t actually explode in until it landed. After it smashed into one of the blood waterfalls, a huge boom rang out, and masses of blood and water surged out in all directions. A miserable shriek rang out from Song Que’s mouth as he emerged, engulfed in flames. His hair and eyebrows were almost immediately burned away.

“Nightcrypt!!!” he howled, shooting toward Bai Xiaochun’s immortal's cave. His actions caused the suppressed emotions of the other cultivators to erupt, and they joined him in shouting at the tops of their lungs.

“Kill Nightcrypt!”

“If Nightcrypt doesn’t die, then we’ll all be killed!”

“First he messed with the blood qi, then he chased that rabbit, and now he has these exploding furnaces. Nightcrypt is a walking disaster!”

“You’re dead, Nightcrypt! You destroyed my immortal's cave during the blood qi incident, then again because of the rabbit, and now again with a pill furnace!!”

Never before had the cultivators of Middle Peak been united in such a way. Ninety percent of the cultivators, from early to late Foundation Establishment, raged with murderous auras as they shot toward Bai Xiaochun’s immortal's cave, intent on joining hands to destroy it.

Even if the sect prohibited such action, they didn’t care. They were convinced that the sect wouldn’t cause problems for all of the Foundation Establishment cultivators on Middle Peak because of a single person.

When Bai Xiaochun saw what was happening, his scalp began to tingle with fear. Even though he was already in the mid Foundation Establishment stage, and was sure he could easily crush even a large group of opponents, it was a shock to see so many Foundation Establishment cultivators racing toward him, including both Mortal-Dao and Earthstring types, from the early to the late stage, all of them bristling with killing intent, and many without any hair or eyebrows.

Song Que was leading them all, a pack of hornets whose howls shook the mountain peak like thunder.

“Listen to me, people!” Bai Xiaochun cried, face ashen from fear. Backing up, he tried to offer explanations, but his voice was drowned out by the howls of rage. As the people closed in, their cultivation bases surging with shocking power, they became like a wave of rage, upon which the rowboat which was Bai Xiaochun teetered on the verge of death.

That was when a cold snort echoed from Ancestor Peak, a snort filled with frigid iciness. It pierced into the maddened minds of the mob, and all the cultivators who had been planning to attack Bai Xiaochun were instantly shaken to their souls.

Only a prime elder or a patriarch would be able to calm down such a large group of people so quickly. It didn't matter who it was that had just snorted, it left everyone shaking.

Simultaneously, Grand Elder Song Junwan appeared in front of Bai Xiaochun. Looking around coldly at the group of cultivators, she frowned and said, “Enough is enough. Nightcrypt didn’t do any of this on purpose. It's hard to avoid accidents when concocting medicine!”

The surrounding Foundation Establishment cultivators could say nothing in response. However, despite the fact that they feared and respected the grand elder, they were haughty and arrogant people by nature, and inwardly, were still just as angry as before. Even their eyes radiated a brutal coldness.

“The patriarch agrees on this point!” Song Junwan continued coolly, her eyes radiating cold light. When the Foundation Establishment cultivators heard that, they had no choice but to sigh bitterly. Biting their tongues, they turned to leave. Of course, their hatred for Bai Xiaochun still burned hot inside of them.

All of them were thinking the same thing: “You can’t keep this up. The patriarch’s patience has a limit, and sooner or later, you’ll meet a bitter end!”

Inwardly, they chuckled coldly, filled with expectation for the day that Nightcrypt would be punished by the sect.

After the crowd dispersed, fear still lingered in Bai Xiaochun’s heart. Looking over at Song Junwan, he slapped his chest and said, “Those people were being so unreasonable! I'm concocting medicine for the sect!”

Song Junwan, who had already been turning to leave, looked back at Bai Xiaochun with a strange expression on her face. Then she shook her head. Even she would never have been able to imagine that pill concocting could prove to be so dangerous....

After a moment of hesitation, she said, “Nightcrypt, you had better end up concocting a pill that pleases the patriarch.”

With that, she gave him a deep look, and then left.

She didn’t want to go into any more detail than that. She was sure that Nightcrypt would understand her meaning; the leadership of the Blood Stream Sect cared about the result, not the process. If, in the end, Nightcrypt was able to concoct a pill that pleased the patriarch, then everything that happened along the way wouldn’t matter. As long as he didn’t go too far, they wouldn’t just ignore the mishaps; they would shield him from the consequences.

However, if he failed to produce a satisfactory medicinal pill, then he would be viewed as useless, and the sect would demand restitution.

Essentially, the more useful he was, the more they would use him, and the more powerful he would be in the sect!

Bai Xiaochun’s eyes flickered. Naturally, he understood what was going on. He had come to understand the way the Blood Stream Sect did things way back on Corpse Peak....

“They look at the result, not the process.” He sighed. “What a great sect!” Coughing dryly, he returned to his immortal's cave and continued concocting.

Back on Ancestor Peak, the Song Clan patriarch was sitting in a large hall. Looking away from Middle Peak, he smiled at the two prime elders who were there to accompany him. All of them seemed quite pleased.

“Aren’t Nightcrypt’s concocting methods a bit excessive?” one of the prime elders said with the shake of a head.

The other prime elder chuckled. Sounding a bit sarcastic, he said, “That’s what Blood Stream Sect disciples are supposed to be like. Don't concoct pills like everyone else! You can see at a single glance that he walks a devilish path. Everyone else concocts pills as if they’re drinking warm water. He concocts them with explosive flair!”

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Translator: Deathblade. Chinese language consultant: ASI a.k.a. Beerblade. Editor: GNE. Memes: Logan. Meme archives: Tocsin. Transcendent Patrons: Daoist Elder N, BLE, ttre208

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Okay, it took me a few days longer than expected, but I've chosen the winners of the BXC comic strip contest. There were a lot of really good entries, which made it hard to pick the winners. In any case, here they are:

Er Gen Universe winner.

Troll winner.

Funny winner.

I will be contacting the winners shortly on Twitter regarding the prizes.

For everyone else, thanks for participating. Seriously, there were lots of very funny comics, I really had a blast looking at them all. If you come up with more funny comic strips in the future, please send them to me on Twitter!

By the way, in other news, I'm starting a series of videos called Chinese Fantasy Novels FAQ. More info can be found in this introductory video.