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Sky Pride Vol. 5 Chapter 29- Foundations Fit for a Heaven-Piercing Pagoda
🕑 Added 2026-01-15 15:00:15 +0000 UTCTian felt his bones go soft. He collapsed to the ground, barely managing to cross his legs under him. His cultivation arts roared into action, Advent of Spring rejoicing in all the water aspected qi available, and the Hell Suppressing Sutra was even happier with the presence of both yin and yang qi. He cupped the thousand layer ice in his hands and let his body slowly absorb it. The instructions provided by the hospital, the repeated instructions to bring the treasures home- all forgotten in this blazing moment. Everything just flowed, and Tian flowed with it.
Liren didn’t seem to be in a much better state than he was. He saw her collapse into a sloppy meditation pose on the ground.
“I will have to scold her for a lack of propriety and decorum later.” The thought was faint and fleeting. He had far more urgent things to manage.
The Heartsear fruit was aptly named. The flesh was rich with juice and seemed to pour down his throat, filling his belly, then quickly spreading through his six bowels and five viscera. His small intestine and heart resonated, a bridge of fiery qi forming between them. The fire qi should have ignited the wood vital energy within him, but between the ice and the Hell Suppressing Sutra, there wasn’t any of that sort of nonsense. The energies combined in a steady vortex, spinning through his body, healing, perfecting and refining him.
There was one noticeable defect, a tiny spot on his heart. So small, you couldn’t even see it. But it was broken, and because of that, the connection to the middle dantian was damaged. And that was far from perfect.
The energies flowed into his heart, each with their own strange charm. The ice brought stability and deep nourishment, while the heartsear fruit brought passion and vitality. The defect was healed, the middle dantian was fully connected- and the dragon spirit finally made its appearance.
It hadn’t been lost. It had merely been dormant. Now it was crying, a dragon’s howl shuddering the Crimson Palace and echoing through his meridians. A declaration of unquestionable supremacy, of furious pride and carefree joy. A dragon soared through the sky, and the clouds and rains came with his call. This was the first lightning of spring, a wood dragon, purest yang, in the most yang spot in the body.
The sheer power of the qi slammed into his meridians. It filled his lower dantian to overflowing, pouring into his muscles, racing through the Hell Suppressing Sutra. His bones, already stronger and glossier than most, now took on a distinct luster. His muscles condensed, grew, and condensed again, hard as marble under skin softer than moonlight. His tendons strengthened and grew more elastic. His lungs swallowed air like a whale, and each exhale was like an arrow shooting down the sun.
His blood changed with him, becoming heavier, flowing like mercury, a vibrant purple flecked with gold. Each drop seemed to hold explosive strength and dreadful endurance. His heart beat with a slow, steady thunder, each beat driving the heavy blood through his refined muscle and bone, perfusing him with vitality. His milk-white skin flushed, blushed, like a plum blossom on a snowy tree. Then the color faded, leaving jade luster behind. Skin so soft, it looked like water would drip if you squeezed it, yet strong enough to be impervious to mortal steel.
His eyes brightened and sharpened, his teeth strengthened, his hearing grew more delicate, all his senses became more acute. His foundation deepened, becoming immeasurable. Even his crane-white hair lengthened, cascading down to the ground. Fluttering in a breeze only he could feel.
He heard a tiger roar in front of him. Some instinct telling him that he was complete, but not perfect. What he needed to be perfect was just in front of him. All he had to do was reach out his hands. Tian stretched his hands out, and Liren grabbed them. Like being grabbed by a blazing fire. He could see a star being born within her, a new sun forming. The yin qi stabilized her body and deepened her foundations even as the overwhelming yang reignited her stalled body cultivation. She wasn’t perfect either.
Not alone.
The two joined hands and the Hell Suppressing Sutra once again reached that mysterious pinnacle. Vital energy and qi circulated between the two young heroes. Microscopic imbalances and imperfections were corrected. Old broken bones were perfectly mended, then even the fused bone was smoothed into new strength. Any obstruction, any restriction, was cleared away. All impurity was incinerated and reformed into nourishment.
Were Little Treasure there, he would have seen a circling fate dragon, roaring and cheering the two on, the merit in them blazing like the sun at dawn.
Tian fell into a strange dreaming state.
He was a child again, watching a rich man beat a horse until it screamed.
“You want me to join that. To be part of that. Grandpa, there is no way.”
You don’t have many alternatives.
“Don’t I? Beasts can cultivate. I’ll cultivate like them.”
That’s possible. I think you will regret it, though.
“Living as a beast or as a human, who would pick human? They are animals that cause pain. The fact that they have fancy things doesn’t change that.”
And live like a beast he did, retreating into the jungle. He lived as a beast and thought as a beast, eating strong creatures and natural treasures, moving on instinct and desire. In time, he became strong. In yet more time, he became very strong. At a certain point, looking more monster than man, he ascended to the Heavenly Realm. Even the goal of killing the mad god had retreated to a vague memory, a distant call to vengeance for the remembered suffering of his childhood. Periodically, cultivators would come and try to hunt him down. They didn’t succeed, until one day they did. He was besieged and killed. He didn’t recognize the uniforms, and truly, did it even matter?
He was strong, but it was a meaningless life.
Another dream. He was a child again, picking through the trash. A frozen hand plucked him up by the neck.
“Oh? I thought you were a little gremlin. Technically, I suppose you are a boy.” The woman who grabbed him didn’t look to be in much better condition than he was. Half her body was covered in pestilence, the other half withered.
“I am-”
“You are a test animal. That is all. And I have never cared to hear my experimental materials speak.” A needle was jabbed into his throat, sealing his voice.
He didn’t know what Hell was, at that age. If he had, he might have thought he had fallen into it without realizing. Year after year of horror. Then grandpa woke up, and whispered a little trick in Tian’s ear. The poisons flowing into his body were refined and condensed, stored in the saliva glands under his tongue. When his tormentor came and checked on him next, he spat a decade of suffering directly into her eyes. The screaming was truly heartwarming. It went on for hours, before she eventually died.
The lab was full of reagents and experimental records. More than enough to reforge a poison soaked body. In time, word of a poison master started spreading amongst the heretics. Eventually, he was recruited as a mercenary by Black Iron Gorge. He had a knack for surviving amongst monsters. He thrived, ascended, became a person of significance. The number of blue robes he left bloody in the red sands… he never bothered counting. There was only risk and reward, benefits and obligations.
Eventually he died. He outlived Black Iron Gorge, though. Lived for thousands of years. It seemed he had a knack for survival at all costs. Part of that knack was making sure others paid the price for him.
Another meaningless life. He left the world worse than he found it, and in the end, dead was dead.
He was in the Temple, and Brother Meng took him aside and showed him that weapons break, but a boxer forges an unbreakable spirit. The true path to the heavens was with bare knuckles and a bright heart.
He was in the Temple, enchanted by Brother Tang’s swordplay, the romance of the lone swordsman rooting in his soul.
He was sitting under the parasol trees by the little pond in Brother Fu’s courtyard, wanting to master long knives like the old man who had come to mean so much to him.
He was in the hospital, swearing he would dedicate his life to medicine, and nothing else.
He was in Burning Flag City, looking up at the sky, seeing the Manor in his heart, and realizing that there was just nothing there. Liren was important to him, and the others seemed like decent people, but so what? Did he really think he would learn or do anything that mattered, hiding away up there? Better to be a little tea venerable. So he went deeper into the city, found a caravan, and without a backward glance, vanished into the Broadsky Kingdom. Elder Feng let him go. What was there to say?
He knew he was dreaming, as he watched life after life speed past. There were a few major points where things could diverge wildly, but he tended to fall into similar tracks, meeting many of the same people.
What made his neck flush were the lives he fell into debauchery. He learned to love luxury. He appreciated wine, then delighted in drunkenness. He boasted that he was a wine immortal. He boasted that only the Dragon King of the Southern Ocean had more coral and pearls than him. He flaunted his concubines and slaves, and they were so, so many. Beauties, all of them. They sighed so sweetly and cried so tenderly under him. They clung to him so tightly. And he was happy.
That was the dreadful truth- he fell into debauchery, and he was happy. The happiness never lasted, how could it? But he was happy for a time, and then there was death or disaster or merely passing storms before the sun shone on his blessed life again. More meaningless lives, but merry ones. He never grew powerful, not truly, but was it a life better or worse spent than the life of a beast in the jungle or a poison god amongst the heretics?
In some of those lives, he became entangled with Liren. Friends, enemies, lovers, nodding acquaintances, old comrades. Sometimes he took vengeance for the Xia. Mostly he didn’t. Liren never stayed in his life forever. Either he left, or she did. In every life he saw, they were anything but dao companions.
It was only a dream. It was only as good as his understanding of people and the world and himself. But he was an honest sort of child. His dream was as true as he could make it. There were a thousand paths he could have walked, and a thousand more he could walk from here, and each day more and more paths would open before him. In all of them, he was born, lived a while, and then he died. Soon enough, the tiny ripples of his life vanished into the flow of time, and the world turned on, unchanged.
If that was so, then what made him happiest? What let him go the furthest, see the most, do the most, fly the highest? Where did he see his path to eternity, to making lasting changes in the world? Was there no road that led to him killing the mad god?
There wasn’t. The mad god surely wouldn’t leave any latent dangers for himself. All roads leading to him had long since been broken.
Dreaming or not, Tian knew he was teetering on the edge of a life defining choice. He could chose any path at all, the future wasn’t fixed. There were endless ways to live, and to live well. Regardless of what he chose, like all under heaven, he would live a while, and then die.
He felt the fire blazing in his heart, felt the joyful dragon swimming through the crimson palace and cherishing the little lamp he had hung there, a light of human compassion that had brought in so many people and so much meaning to his life.
The mad god had broken all the paths to him? Fine. The heavens decreed he would never find a dao companion? Fine.
Since when did he give a damn what the heavens decreed? The heavens had decreed his death, and he had lived. Despite everything, he had lived! He had found paths where none existed and lived and found happiness despite the pain and if there was no path to eternity without Liren, then surely there must be one with her.
Under the blazing plum tree, the two young immortals blazed gold.
Comments
Wheels42
Pure poetry thank you.
Jeryd Greer
The chills! The fuckin chills.
Chillitsagame
Adding to your point: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
kapo
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you for listening
Fayhem
Together, forever. As it should ever be.
P.R. Bakker
The burning questions remain, did Liren get paler, curvier, did Tian fingers regrow and most of all did he get taller?
Josiah Elliott
I think you're completely right, tribulations in basically every other cultivation story are seen as a normal step or maybe one for a real genius, but still just a step. Here Tian is actively denying the mad gods world order and reforging himself as a fire to consume the mad gods insanity.
Andrew Lechner
"Three cheers for my grandson! Three cheers for his Dustless Physique! Three cheers for his Natal Qi reinforced meridians and Daitians! Three cheers for his python muscles and lotus breath. Three cheers for his Stormborne Endocrine system and his fully revitalized body! Three cheers for the generations he will father on this earth, and three cheers for the heavens he will pierce!" I think he wants Tian to have kids. A lot by cultivator standards.
Jsblunt549
It’s either gotta be next chapter, or when Tian becomes a heavenly person
William
But either way, there will be thunder
Robert Mullins
Any bets on Gramps making his first comment of the volume next chapter?
Rachel Christensen
This is the only cultivation story I read where I feel like the heavens are actually being defied. So many of them talk about defying the heavens but then never do any defying.
SquiddlyWinks
Wheel of Time indeed
Endgame
Oh my. I can't wait until tomorrow's chapter.
Thomas Lawless
Zap zap time!
Chris Fey
Basically this: "He was a soldier. He was a shepherd. He was a beggar, and a king. He was a farmer, gleeman, sailor, carpenter. He was born, lived, and died Aiel. He died mad, he died rotting, he died of sickness, accident, age. He was executed, and multitudes cheered his death. He proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn and flung his banner across the sky; he ran from the Power and hid; he lived and died never knowing. He held off the madness and the sickness for years; he succumbed between two winters. Sometimes Moiraine came and took him away from the Two Rivers, alone or with those of his friends who had survived Winternight; sometimes she did not. Sometimes other Aes Sedai came for him. Sometimes Red Ajah. Egwene married him; Egwene, stern-faced in stole of Amyrlin Seat, led Aes Sedai who gentled him; Egwene, with tears in her eyes, plunged a dagger into his heart, and he thanked her as he died. He loved other women, married other women. Elayne, and Min, and a fair-haired farmer's daughter met on the road to Caemlyn, and women he had never seen before he lived those lives. A hundred lives. More. So many he could not count them. And at the end of every life, as he lay dying, as he drew his final breath, a voice whispered in his ear. I have won again, Lews Therin. Flicker."
Matt DiMeo
D-a-o-com-pan-ion-ing
SquiddlyWinks
To the readers saying “but where’s the tribulation lightning” the storm clouds are gathering in the chapter. Bet you a delightful fishy snack it’s coming.
Robert Mullins
That's because most stories that have 'dao companions' don't actually have them. They just have love interests that make the MC look stronger and cooler. The reason it works in this story is that the story doesn't give preference to Tian. It treats them both as MCs and never feels a need to make one of them more important than the other.
João Vene
I'm wondering if he'll have all 10 by the time he ascends to heavenly person, or if that's just one more finger regrowing opportunity. I also like the joke he won't stop growing fingers during fortuitous encounters. He'll have 30 fingers on each hand by the series end.
Steve Wright
So. Damn. Good.
Trasen56
I really like this interpretation of dao companions. It gives it so much more meaning than many other cultivation stories where there is lots of talk like this, but actions like the exchange of the treasures or anchoring ones entire path to heaven on travelling with their dao companion never happen.
Kain
Personally I think people are reading a bit too much into the use of “Perfect” obviously he’s not actually there will be further improvements to every aspect of himself throughout heavenly person realm, possibly even still in earthly person realm, he’s in a state of euphoric unification and doa comprehension just because he “feels perfect” doesn’t actually make it so. All this to say he’s def still missing some fingers after this and that’s not unreasonable or inconsistent. And he/it’s also probably referring to the state of his “foundation” we don’t have concrete levels or qualities of foundations in this book but “perfect” and “beyond perfect” foundations are a constant trope in xanxia and they do not mean that actually all imperfections and impediments are removed just that the MC has done any and everything “possible” in that realm to set up for further realms. And things like his cursed fingers are quite possibly things that simple “can’t” be dealt with at his current realm.
zero
😭😭😭
General Obvious
I've really loved these last couple chapters, in particular the tender moments in tian and liren's relationship. I'm looking forward to the after volume recap because I'm very curious about how liren's character has evolved in this volume compared to what was intended at the beginning of the story. Was it always the plan for Tian to have a Dao companion or did that develop organically?
EvilLittleThing
Women aren't grabby?
Adunn
Nah I bet he’s still missing them.
Robert Mullins
I like how the author manages to fit their gender role dynamic into even the small moments. Like the fact that it was Liren that grabbed Tian's hands. It's a small thing that would have 0 implications in any other novel but here it just fits as another part of their dynamic.
Akkido
TO CULTIVATE IS TO DEFY FATE AND THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES!
Johan Persson
Woop, let's go!!
Robert Mullins
The heart dantian.
Pedro Henrique
lets just count our blessings that there will be at least one more chapter tomorrow before the weekend break.
Tyler glass
YES YES YES YES YES THIS IS PEAK
João Vene
So true bestie
Logrus
>, in the most yang spot in the body. uhhhh....
James Faulkner
I can’t wait to see what insane bloodline unlocks when tian gets all his fingers back lol. I imagine that has to be happening right now? It would kinda fuck up the whole “all imperfections are fixed” bit if he’s still missing fingers
Jackson Albert
Pretty sure it's level 9. This is an important revelation, but it's not actually about immortality. Rather, it's Tian wholeheartedly deciding to chase it with Liren.
JTP
Let's go!
JTP
Hey, mad God, do you want dao companions to come kill you? Because this is how you get dao companions to come kill you.
Len
well at least they are Dual Cultivating.....by holding hands.....muhahaha when they have sex i expect tribulation lightning!
Baconwargod
Ive read sex scenes less intimate than this. They sit under a plum tree dual cultivating while staring into each others eyes. Each seeing the lives they could have lived without each other realizing they would all be meaningless. Each resolving to defy the Heavens and the world to be with each other into eternity. Jesus Fucking Christ
Robert Mullins
Considering the mention of jade luster I don't like his chances...
EvilLittleThing
Is this becoming-heavenly-person level insight? Did they just skip level 9? Or is it healing-heart-demon insight? Also, bring the treasures back before consuming them? Pshht
Kain
Agree new finger, but make it on the hand that already has more fingers let’s make things even more asymmetric.
Luis
New finger please
Robert Mullins
No, they aren't breaking through to the next realm yet. That will be a more violent event than this with a lot more lightning.
Veridescent
Kain
Grandpa’s gonna come around just in time to either encourage or dissuade Tian from giving him great grand kids.
Mobb
Are they breaking through the heavenly realm? It might sound a bit weird, but I honestly was hoping to see what they could accomplish in the earthly realm after all their fortuitous encounters. Still a banger chapter tho
Veridescent
I couldnt help in spite of the moment thinking of Juns comments on dragons and imagining a actual dragon seeing the dragon of spring in a human and rolling its eyes and having tea with some other rain gods about single aspect "amateurs". Anyway so we get more definement of a immortal moment, what it means to exist into perpetuity or rather to imprint a change perpetual.
Robert Mullins
The real question is whether tian will be even more of a jade beauty after this, stay androgynous or finally lean more masculine?
David Bailey
I hope they have a LOT of melon seeds to snack on
David Bailey
I would *love* to get a glimpse of what Liren sees.
Robert Mullins
The other 3 just standing around awkwardly watching these 2 do the ol daoist tango.
SlaveToMyWhims
If there ever was a time for a double chapter, this is it.
William Johnson
Liren and Tian sitting under a tree, [not yet] K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Thanks for the chapter!
Joshua Gunty
"if there was no path to eternity without Liren, then surely there must be one with her." LETS GO
Cameron Bacon
WOOOOOO YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
