Sixth Jump Snippet: Battle Through The Heavens Part 3

Previously on 'OH GOD, WHO GAVE THE SNAKES FIRE?!':
  Valki takes an (un)willing trip across the desert and ends up before Medusa. After a chat with her he donates some of his Heavenly Flame to her so she could fuse with the Seven Coloured snake and better protect her people. Only, once he get back to his family, he is shocked to discover that Medusa's new form had stowed away in his belongings as it was attracted to the aura of Sunny. With Xiao Cai refusing to leave him, he reluctantly agrees to let her come with him.

Now:
  Valki had predicted correctly and his brothers groggily woke up the next morning, hungry and thirsty. They were understandably confused about their condition and the lack of the family they thought they were staying with. They queried him on what exactly happened and Valki patiently explained that the family was actually a group of bandits who had been hoping to kidnap and ransom him for riches from the Xiao clan. Before they could work themselves up with worry, he reassured them that nothing like that happened. A passing cultivator had been kind and saved Valki from them.
  The brothers attention then turned towards Xiao Cai who had who had just woken up with a cute yawn. The younger of the two walked over to it and started making baby faces at it, asking who it belonged to. He was promptly bashed through two walls after she whacked him with her tail. Valki's eldest brother stood there with his jaw wide open. He pivoted to Valki and, pointing at Xiao Cai, demanded to know what that was and why it was in the house. Valki was about to deny knowing why it was with them when Xiao Cai climbed onto his shoulder and started nuzzling his cheek.
  With a gloomy expression he conjured some fire for her to eat and outlined how it had followed him through the desert, seemingly attracted to the flame he contained. His brother had a contemplating on his face, before shrugging. He ruffled Valki's hair and said he could bring her with them as long as he made sure she didn't poop on the floor. He swiftly found himself lying dazed atop his brother after being smacked by an irked Snake.
  After that little interaction the two brothers made sure to always put Valki between them and Xiao Cai. With no more reason to stay in the desert, the group headed back to the Xiao Clan. On the way back Valki practised using his new Heavenly Flame in secret, using it to forge a few 2nd rank pills. Out of pure curiosity as to whether he could do it, Valki also attempted, and succeeded, in making a Voluptuous Boobs Pill. He stashed it away in one of the darker corners of his domain. Didn't want that get into the wrong hand. He wouldn't put it past Pandora to feed it to him in his sleep or something.
  On the way back, they also encountered a minor magical beast. It was a weak one too, only equal in strength to a mid star Dou Zhe. It was easily dealt with. It contained something rather valuable though. Valki would have missed it if not for Xiao Cai rooting around and extracting it from the corpse. It was a beast flame, probably one of the weakest but a beast flame all the same. She sniffed it a few times before snootily turning her nose up at it. Valki guessed that after a buffet of Heavenly Flames, an ordinary beast flame was akin to a rotten egg. Still, Valki had a use for it. He pocketed it and they resumed their journey back home. One beast flame down, only 999 more to go.
  It was nightfall by the time they reached the entrance to the compound. Valki bade his brothers goodnight and headed for his room, Xiao Cai riding along on his shoulder. When he got to his room, he found Leo curled up on his bed, ears and tail displayed to the world. Finding it slightly strange, but feeling too tired to care, he quickly sealed the room to unwanted guests and climbed into the bed to cuddle with Leo. It was one of the most restful sleeps he had had in weeks.

  The next morning he woke up to the presence of Xun Er right next to him. He opened his eyes but all he saw was Leo's mop of hair. Glancing around the room showed nothing. He closed his eyes again to focus on her energy signature and frowned. It was definitely coming from Leo. Extending his range, he could feel Leo's signature just slightly further out in Xun Er's room. He suddenly remember what Leo had been yelling out when he had cut communication with her and the puzzle came together.
  He sent a quick message to Leo to come to him, while he gently woke up Xun Er. She sleepily opened her eyes (which Valki thought looked adorable on Leo's face) before taking in her surroundings and her face lit up like a firework. Valki petted a blushing Xun Er's head until Leo arrived in the room after promising her that he would sort stuff out.
  Leo had just closed the door and turned around when he swapped them back. It was vaguely interesting to watch Xun Er's face go from mildly annoyed to furiously blushing. He only had a second to appreciate this before he was yanked down by the ear to stare at an glaring Leo. The next 20 minutes Valki spent in seiza position as Leo lectured him on the proper use of powers and why he should be more careful. By the end he was forced to accept one, as of yet unspecified, punishment. The smirk she gained boded poorly for him, and he dreaded what it would be when Leo walked out with Sunny to discuss it. The Queen Fairy Flame felt slightly different since then, a bit of magic seemed to be woven into its core. The Flame concealed the magic enough that Valki couldn't tell what had been done.
  The group took a real shine to Xiao Cai and her them. She still preferred staying with Valki but she was willing to go with one of the others if need be. It was also at this time that Valki informed Xun Er and his father about his plan to hide his cultivation progress for now, at least until he was strong enough to properly defend himself. They agreed and over the next month slowly spread seeds of the rumour that his cultivation had stalled. People were initially sceptical but as a year passed by and his cultivation appeared to stay the same, they started to believe it. He was still nothing to scoff at but he had also lost much of his fame. People took him as an example of burning twice as bright for half as long.
  It was as he turned nine that the next interesting event happened. Medusa's soul inside Xiao Cai woke up for the first time. Regrettably for her, spending all that time with Valki and co and feasting on the Queen Fairy Flame had strengthened Xiao Cai's soul and body. She could not fully dominate her soul and when she assumed human form it was that of a young girl. With Xiao Cai wanting to stay with Valki, and Medusa herself being curious as to how he would advance, she elected to stay with him for another few years, until she was once again fully grown and at full power.
  It was also after their first encounter with Medusa again that Valki finally learnt what had been done to the Fairy Flame. At Medusa's request he had fully manifested Sunny's power, to let her attempt to rate how strong it was. When it fully manifested Valki had once again changed into a girl and was wearing a dress extremely reminiscent to the one Sunny wore. From his, now her, back extended two large fairy-like wings. He had essentially become a fusion of Sunny and Valky. Leo found it hilarious. She said that he could stay like that for three days, equal to how long Xun Er and Leo had been swapped, before she could change back. This also meant that Valky had to keep Sunny's flame manifested for the full three days.
  She stayed out of the public eye for those few days. No need to attract all sorts of attention just when she had finally gotten rid of it. Since she had manifested the flames though, Valki decided to practise using the Heavenly Flames. The Blue Lotus Flame was said to invoke volcanic activity so Valky conjured up some lava to test it's effects. Turns out that it was very good at causing the lava to expand and erupt in certain directions. She could definitely see how once taken to a high level this could be used to cause proper volcanic eruptions.
  Next she tested using the Void Devouring Flame. It did much like what it's name suggested. It devoured everything that entered it and turned it into energy for Valky. It was initially unable to really effect magic but after exposing the Flame to mana a few dozen times it started being able to consume that too. It's efficiency for it was not that great though. It would have to devour a lot before it could convert a reasonable amount of magic into energy.
  Valky moved on to testing the Queen Fairy Flame. The Queen Fairy Flame was derived from Sunny and so it's quirk manifested in the ability to control the other elements to a degree. Using it Valky could temporarily change her Dou Qi attribute too match the skill she was using. The fiery dress acted as a form of defence and would absorb and incinerate most incoming attacks. If Valky combined this with the Void Devouring Flame then she would be damn near untouchable against cultivators several realms higher than her. The wings acted like the Dou Wang wings and allowed him flight. Luckily it didn't use much Dou Qi so she could maintain it for hours at a time.
  Finally, Valky tested out using Pandora's flame. This one was the trickiest since at first it didn't seem like it had any kind of effect. There was no noticeable abilities when using it and the fire itself wasn't very hot. Valky had gained a slight penchant for using illusions but that seemed more like a passive thing. She finally figured it out when she noticed that her soul was just a tiny bit stronger after using it for an hour. It made sense when she thought about it. Pandora's fire was made up entirely of willpower and a divine goddess's soul. This meant that her flame acted to nurture it's users soul. It was an extremely slow process but Valky's soul would constantly strengthen while using her flame. Valky hypothesised that it could also be used to refine or burn soul power.
  Once the three days were up Leo and Sunny agreed to remove magic they had cast on the Queen Fairy Flame. They immediately encountered a problem. The magic has lain dormant inside of the flame for over a full year and had slowly integrated slightly with it as it matched Sunny's magic signature. At this point it was still fixable, but then Valky had had it active for a full three days and this had allowed the spell, which was in full effect, to finish properly integrating into the Flame. It was just another one of the effects the Flame would have from now on. It was still theoretically possible to remove it but that would drastically weaken the flame at this point and Valky was not bothered enough by the change to weaken such a valuable things, not to mention that it was a part of Sunny so would almost invariably end up hurting her somehow. Valky couldn't stomach that so staunchly refused to remove it.
  They did tamper with the power slightly though. They managed to make it so that Valki would turn back within minutes of having stopped using the flames instead of the few days it took last time.
  Over the next year Valki started collecting various beastflames that he could find or buy. He had posed as a 1 Star receptarier several times to sell some pills in order to get some spending money. He had a ongoing deal with the local auction house to notify him of any beastflames that became available. Once he collected them he started to study them, to better understand them. A lot of them ended up being near identical, so Valki assumed they wouldn't count to the total amount of flames he had studied. By the time he was ten he had gain understanding in almost one hundred different flames. In his mind a technique had started to take form. It was only 1/10th done and completely unfathomable, but Valki somehow knew it was the Life Transforming Flame technique.
  On his tenth birthday Valki received two presents from his mother. The first was a familiar black ring that his mum had bought him from the market. The second, and completely unexpected, was the news that he would soon become the older brother of a cute baby girl. His mum was once again pregnant and would be delivering the child in no more that three months. He was so shocked that he almost missed the small tendril of energy from the ring covertly latch onto his cultivation and start trying to drain it. It was slow for now but Valki knew that it would soon pick up. Hopefully it would be less damaging to him, as he had progressed to the level of 6 star Dou Shi. If it got hazardous Valki knew that Sunny would step in, with or without his permission. In fact, Medusa may sense and then deal with him before it even got that far if he wasn't careful.
  Valki put the ring out of his mind for now to focus on the news that his mum was pregnant again. Xiao Yan didn't have any younger siblings as far as he could remember. He also knew that his mum had died at some point after giving Xiao Yan the ring. That meant that either things had changed enough that she had happened to get pregnant again when she ordinarily wouldn't (which was entirely possible given how long he had been making ripples) or she would die sometime in the next three months. He hadn't even thought about this before, so he quickly kissed his mum and activated a power that he used so infrequently that he almost forgot he had it: the precognition power. With it he would see the next great danger to her life. What he saw was a vision of her smiling while walking in the garden when she suddenly gasped and grasped her chest. She staggered and swayed before collapsing. The vision ended seconds after.
  If Valki was seeing right, it seemed like she had had a heart attack. Her stomach wasn't much larger than now either, but still had a noticeable lump. Valki would need to properly scan her in order to find the cause and hopefully fix it before it became an issue. That night, once he was sure his parents were asleep, he slipped in through the window and took his mother to the Lailalo. Once on board he put her in the restoration/sleep pod while he had the ship analyse her body for any issues. It took only a minute to find several arteries that were nearly clogged and would soon cause a fatal heart attack if not removed. With pin point precision he used his magic to slowly chip away at the build ups. Any minor nicks he made to the walls of the arteries were healed swiftly by the pod.
  Once that was done he had the computer scan the fetus to make sure that everything was fine on that end and was given a healthy green light. A thought occurred to him at that moment, and he quickly checked with the computer on board if it was possible, taking into account the magic and Valkyries he had available. He was given another green light. With great care he slowly inserted a bit of his Ixioran Altan DNA into the fetus. She would not exhibit the strength of a pure blooded super soldier, but she would be hardier than even most magical beasts at an equal cultivation level. Once that was done, he returned his mum back to the bed and slipped back to his room, content with the nights work.
  Valki wasn't one to fall into the trap of complacency and made sure to give his mum a check up every other day for the next few weeks. Happily no other problems cropped up and just shy of 3 months later the clan was celebrating the birth of Xiao Ying. During this time Valki had been feeding Qi into the ring. He could feel the soul inside growing stronger at an extraordinary rate. If he was right then Yao Lao would be able to manifest by the time Valki had reached 9 star Dou Shi in a few months. By that point he would also be one of the stronger people in his clan in pure cultivation, never mind combined with Heavenly Flames and everything from other jumps.
  The next few months of peace were brought to an abrupt end when Birdy got into a fight with some brats from another clan. Even though they had a higher cultivation level than her, her body and experience were more than enough to make up the difference and they were swiftly laid out on the ground. The clan naturally didn't take this standing so sent a few people to teach her a lesson. Multiple broken bones later they tried a different approach. They had learnt that she was an orphan staying at the Xiao clan and made a plan with that in mind. One of the elders came to compound and explained how they had been looking for the run away from one of their families. They then described Birdy as well as they could.
  It wasn't the most believable lie, and most people saw right through it, but the underlying message was the important factor. They wanted Birdy. Before his father could say anything in response Valki loudly and forcefully voiced his denial of their 'request'. Everyone kind of gaped at him for his blatant disregard for subtlety. The sect elder composed himself quickly and patronised Valki for thinking that he could stop them. He revealed that their clan was in fact quite well liked by the Yun Lan sect, more so than a clan that produced a quote 'talentless heir that hadn't advanced in years'. He warned them that if they didn't give her to them within the next six months, they would bring to bare their might against the Xiao clan. Valki spat on them. The guards of the elder visibly had to stop themselves from attacking Valki before they turned and left.
  Xiao Zhan clapped Valki on his back and commended him for his bravery and loyalty, but commented that maybe diplomacy wasn't his strong suit. His eyes then hardened and he solemnly proclaimed that the Xiao clan would be going to war for the first time in decades. He then leaned down and whispered in Valki's ear.
  "It's time for you to show your true strength to the world"
  For the next few weeks Valki dedicated himself to cultivating. He also used his rather impressive stock of ether pots to summon a bunch of Valkyries to help in whatever capacity they could. He split the mana storage pots into tenths and used them to perform 10 high level summons. The first two gained him some weak SR rank Slime Queens. The third and fourth gained him Ninja Hatsune and Yami respectively. The fifth got him a piece of amalgamation material for a previous valkyrie. The sixth was Nagatsuki, a fox girl that sparked a small pang of sadness at her similarity to Yuki. Seventh and eighth were two copies of Apollo that immediately started bickering when they met. The ninth finally gave him what he was hoping for; an LR ranked Hrungnir, a goddess of storms. And then in a stroke of pure luck Valki managed to summon her storm cloak amalgamation material with the tenth and final summon. With that, her strength more than doubled. She was now the strongest Valkyrie he had by far. Each Valkyrie moved to his Kingdom which had fused with his Godly Domain, ready to be summoned at a moments notice. Hrungnir immediately set about improving the storm defences around the kingdom. They quickly reached a level such to even be a threat to other LR ranks Valkyries.
  Valki finally realised the mistake he had made in his plan a few days after. With the upgrade to her abilites Hrungnir would take a staggering amount of mana to summon, even for Valki. At most he guessed he would be able to have her out for about 30 seconds with his current mana reserves. In the meantime, he sent out Yami to perform reconnaissance. She reported that the other clan was slowly gathering experts to their sides while also warning people of what would happen if they joined up with the Xiao clan. It helped explain why the Xiao clan had been having such problems with gathering allies.
  Two months before the battle was officially due Yao Lao contacted Valki for the first time. He appeared in front of Valki while he was meditating on his bed. He declared that he had found Valki worthy and would like to train him to become a receptarier. Blinking at the sudden introduction, Valki accepted. The first thing Yao Lao did was tell Valki to forget his previous Dou Qi method and learn a new one. When questioned, he smirked and produced a slip with the method on it. He proclaimed it to a powerful technique that would evolve with time, the Flame Mantra!
  Valki stared at him awkwardly as he stood with his chest puffed out in pride. Scratching his head, Valki sheepishly explained to Yao Lao that he was already using that technique, before summoning up a small bit Queen Fairy Flame. Yao Lao blinked owlishly at him before crouching in the corner and drawing circles on the ground with his finger. A small depression cloud broiled over his head.
  Swiftly recovering Yao Lao started Valki's tuition in being a receptarier immediately. He rated Valki to be slightly off from a rank 2 receptarier. He had a good talent but his foundation was lacking. Over the next two months he took Valki over the basics of pill creation again, making sure that he had no problems with any of the core parts of it. During this time he also, with Valki's permission, studied the Queen Fairy Flame as to him it was an as of yet undiscovered Heavenly Flame. He eventually rated it as about equal to that of the rank 16 flame in pure spiritual weight, but the sheer amount of power in it made it equal to his Bone Chilling Flame.
  Just like in canon, Valki and Yao Lao worked together to provide the Xiao clan with a ton of 1st rank pills. They had the skill to make better ones but lacked the resources to make them in any reasonable quantities. Valki had told Yao Lao that they could trust his close friends with his secret, so Yao Lao had introduced himself to Birdy and co. After watching them in action for a while, he decided to give them cultivation techniques that would suit them. Each of the cultivation manuals he gave out would make a stir through the entire kingdom, but he cared little for that.
  The day before the battle, Yao Lao had mentioned to Valki that he would very interested in seeing the Queen Fairy Flame in action. Valki gave him a bright smile and assured him that it would be a sight to behold.
  The next day had people up and about bright and early. The day was a pretty one but an undercurrent of tension was detectable among the population. Some time before mid day the clan members had their attention drawn to a large group of near the gate. Above them floated five cultivators upon Dou Wang wings. The elder leading the pack gave one last chance for the Xiao Clan to give up Birdy to them.
  His answer was a face full of flame from Valki. Valki had barely put any power in it so the guy was left with only partly singed eyebrows, which were twitching in anger. With a roar he declared war on the Xiao clan and ordered his forces to attack. Leading the pack, he leapt straight for Valki to deal him a revengeful blow. He was not expected a lowly Dou Zhe to catch his fist that had the power of a 2 Star Dou Wang with one hand. It was surprising enough that those following him stumbled to a halt in shock. A cloak of Dou Qi slowly started to rise off of Valki as he brought out his full power as a 1 star Da Dou Shi.
  The elder tried to pull his arm back but Valki's hand was clamped like a vice around it. He was taking full advantage of Ixioran strength augmented by cultivation power on top of a divine soul. In front of a shocked crowd, the elder caught fire and burned to ash before he could even let out a whimper. Valki turned his eyes up to the Dou Wang specialists that were floating above. He raised one eyebrow tauntingly. One of them launched as an attack at him but it was batted away with ease using a whip of fire. That unleashed the flood gate and the others all launched attacks at Valki too, slowly obscuring Valki from view by kicking up dust into the air. The Dou Wang cultivators cautiously floated down to the ground. They were unsurprised when Valki swept away to dust to reveal that he was completely unharmed. They ordered the weaker cultivators to attack while they prepared a powerful blow to hopefully wipe out Valki and those around him. This lead to the first actual clash between the clans as both sides rushed each other. With the Dou Wangs occupied the Xiao clan was slowly gaining ground but they were not moving fast enough to prevent the true threats from finishing their preparations.
  Above the compound floated a massive bloat of purple viscous liquid that gave those that looked at it an ominous feeling. With a superior laugh the warriors unleashed it down upon the masses, not caring that their allies were among the group. It never made it to the ground. Before it could touch a single person, a blanket of rainbow coloured flames soared over the courtyard and blocked the attack. Any liquid that touched it immediately turned to steam and faded away. Eyes turned to the source of the flame and saw Valki floating in the sky. He was much different from only a minute previous though still recognisable as him, or her as the case currently was.
  She stood in the air ten feet up, great big flaming wings extending out of her back. On her body was a bright white dress whose edges curled and flickers like a candle. Her eyes were hard and serious as she stared down at those who would so callously claim lives. What generated the most shock and fear though, was the giant woman that stood silhouetted behind her. Sunny's projection stood with her arms crossed behind Valky and glared at those in front of her. The aura of power she was releasing was enough to make some of the cultivators on the ground flee for their lives while others remained rooted to the spot. Sunny's form exploded into fire and rushed through the courtyard, skillfully weaving past the members of the Xiao clan and latching on to all the aggressors. Some she simply bound in chains of fire, while others that she could sense great evilness from she simply burnt to a crisp. The Dou Wang cultivators put up more resistance but this only meant they lasted a few more seconds than the others. Within moments the fight was put to an end, which the Xiao clan having sustained barely any injuries.
  Once that was finished Valky let out a deep breath while letting the flames around her fade. After half a minute he was back to normal. He stumbled slightly after expending so much Dou Qi and nearly collapsed. In a flash his father was next to him and supporting his side. He smiled at Valki and told him that he had done well. Valki smiled back up at him before limping back into the compound and collapsing into his bed. He slept through the chaos that followed in the wake of the reveal, as the truth swept across the kingdom. The Xiao clan heir had not stagnated and had single-handedly defeated 5 Dou Wang cultivators using a Heavenly Flame that no-one had heard of before.
  Things were going to be much more interesting for Valki when he woke up.