Garden of Shadows

by Tinalynge

  Seeing that Xue Wei had moved to the fifth floor, Bai Tianyi could not help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. He had not expected that he could move up that fast. He did not have a spiritual body after all.

  Chapter 9 - News Spreading Far and Wide

  The moment that Bai Tianyi reached the fifth floor, Xue Wei opened his eyes and the two of them exchanged glances before Xue Wei stood up. With this tacit understanding, the two of them descended the stairs and left the Soul Tower.

  While being in the tower, neither Bai Tianyi nor Xue Wei discussed what they had discovered. Instead they walked shoulder to shoulder out of the tower, greeting a crowd that was looking at them with stunned expressions.

  It was impossible to say exactly which one of them had been the one to step into the ninth floor. They only knew what they had seen from the lights on the tower, which did not divulge names, and thus they looked at them with the eyes of a hungry wolf, their questions in their throats ready to emerge, but neither Xue Wei nor Bai Tianyi paid them any attention.

  After glancing at the crowd, both Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi were aware of their purpose, but neither of them had any intention of telling them anything. They quickly departed from the area under the stunned expressions of the crowd.

  One has to remember—they were both two-eyed experts. Although one of them was clearly a monster, they did not have a high position in society, and it was only natural if they had tried to integrate themselves with the higher ranking teachers and students.

  When they finally regained their senses, they found that Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi had already vanished into the distance, neither having turned around even once.

  When they were out of the crowd’s hearing range, Bai Tianyi started to tell what he had encountered. “There was nothing on the ninth floor,” he complained. “I was there, and there was not even any pressure nor a shred of soul power! I have a feeling that there might be some sort of secret there, but after spending a full day inside I found absolutely no clues.

  ”On the eighth floor, the pressure was so heavy that even I felt that it was heaven. I stayed there for the majority of the time, and I managed to break into the third layer of the Earth Knight rank.

  ”There was no one else on the floor, so it seems that it is very difficult to reach the eighth floor,” Bai Tianyi continued to explain. “But on the seventh floor, there were three young ones.

  ”One of them was clearly pushing himself beyond his limits to be there, and I think I in fact injured him seriously when I went to the eighth floor because of shock, while the other two were much more tranquil.

  ”On the sixth floor were eleven experts, and you saw the fifth floor yourself.

  ”What was your progress like in the Soul Tower?” Bai Tianyi asked curiously. He had gained a such a lot of energy that he had smashed through into the Earth Knight rank and then up another two layers, but Xue Wei had also gained quite a bit, managing to just break into the first layer of the Earth Knight rank.

  It was clear that Bai Tianyi had gotten more benefits from visiting the Soul Tower than Xue Wei had; even though he’d wasted a day on the ninth floor, he’d still broken through as much even though his breakthroughs were much more difficult than Xue Wei’s, but he had also been on the eighth floor and swallowed so much soul power that it could be compared to a massacre of a thousand experts.

  Xue Wei had also absorbed a lot of energy, but while absorbing he had observed the Soul Tower. Even when they were quite a few amount of experts in the Soul Tower, the Soul Power never diminished, nor did it run out. The supply was at a steady, constant level all the time, and even when Bai Tianyi had been swallowing it up on the eighth floor like a whale swallows water, the energy had been replenished instantly.

  ”I assume that the mystery we are supposed to sort out might have something to do with the Soul Tower,” Xue Wei muttered to himself in wonder. At least that was the most wondrous thing he had encountered since entering the Garden of Shadows.

  Bai Tianyi had heard the words Xue Wei said, but he did not comment. In his opinion, he quite hoped that the problem came from the Soul Tower, since that meant that they would spend even more time within the tower and his breakthroughs would be even faster than before.

  Having once stood at the apex of the world, Bai Tianyi had a hard time accepting that he was no longer able to wield even a fraction of this strength.

  Although he was no longer weak, he was not considered strong yet, and this caused him to be endlessly frustrated. This was something he would never admit, but Xue Wei could feel it through their connection.

  However, although Bai Tianyi wanted to break through into stronger and stronger boundaries, he was aware that cultivation was not something that was achieved overnight. It was something one obtained after traversing a long, arduous journey step by step.

  Xue Wei had lived for years as a waste who could not cultivate, and although that had changed a few years ago, he still felt fortunate that his reality was different from what he had imagined it to be back then.

  For him, it was a joy to walk down the path of cultivation, to feel his body strengthening bit by bit and his inner energies swell with time. He did not fully understand the longing that Bai Tianyi felt, but he was not dismissive towards it.

  Together in silence, Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi returned to their courtyard. The behavior of the core students was as peculiar as it was before, all of them looking at them with curiosity but none of them stepping forward to actually initiate conversation.

  Although the multi-eyed experts were proud of their abilities and their amount of eyes, they were all gifted with quite some intelligence. They could easily guess that these people who had appeared with two eyes and managed to become core students could not be simple.

  Returning to the courtyard, they quickly awakened Lin Xiao and Hei Gou from their cultivation and gathered in Bai Tianyi’s bedroom. They had not seen the shadows of Mo Yi or Mo Er since they returned, but none of them cared about it and quickly started to discuss what had happened in the last week they had been apart.

  ”Everything here was the same as one could expect,” Lin Xiao said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Many experts appeared to speak with us, but we had told Mo Yi not to let anyone disturb us, and thus no one was able to go further than to the entrance of the courtyard.”

  ”We have been cultivating while waiting for you to return from the Soul Tower. Although there is a surplus of soul power within this area, there is also a decent amount of heaven and earth essence for us to absorb, so our cultivation speed has not been slow.

  ”Although we have not broken through, that would also be too much to expect within a few days, but our foundations have been consolidated and we are almost at the bottleneck of our realms.

  ”How were your gains in the Soul Tower?” Lin Xiao looked at Xue Wei curiously, and to his surprise, Xue Wei frowned in response.

  ”The Soul Tower is a great place to cultivate one’s spiritual energy,” he began hesitatingly. “The soul power within is so dense that it can increase your cultivation speed by a lot, depending on how far up you go. On the second floor, you can get double the efficiency, on the third floor it’s three times the efficiency, and so on, all the way up to the eighth floor.”

  ”What about the ninth floor, then?” Hei Gou did not know much about the Soul Tower, but he did know that it had nine floors, and he could not help but frown when Xue Wei only said to the eighth floor.

  ”The ninth floor is a scam,” Bai Tianyi said with a grumbling voice. “There was absolutely no energy. All there was, was an empty room. I wonder what exactly the point is.”

  Xue Wei’s brows furrowed. “I want to get to the ninth floor and have a look for myself,” he said. It was not that he did not trust Bai Tianyi, but it was simply too strange that the top floor was completely empty.

  Bai Tianyi did not feel insulted by Xue Wei’s words and nodded his head. “You should,” he agreed. “I couldn’t find anything, but you might be
able to. Who knows.”

  Lin Xiao and Hei Gou exchanged glances with one another, understanding that there might be something in the Soul Tower that they were looking for, but for now it was not possible to fully explore it.

  ”Since we cannot go to the Soul Tower, you guys have to deal with that. What do you want us to do while you investigate the Soul Tower?”

  ”That is quite easy,” Xue Wei smiled. “This place fortunately does not discriminate against Primordial Beasts, so Hei Gou, you and Lin Xiao are to socialize with the other experts within the academy and establish an intel network for us so we can tap the grapevine for the latest news and rumors.

  ”At the same time, I need you to really focus on information about people that have been ‘spirited away’, or mass disappearances of a lot of people, massacres or somehow. The Soul Tower has a lot of soul power, and soul power comes from the dead. To have that much soul power in one place, they have to have killed a whole lot of people or have some other way to gain access to soul power that we do not know of.”

  ”I found it quite strange,” Bai Tianyi suddenly said. “The soul power was so dense that even if you were to kill people for it, you would have to constantly execute people to make the equivalent of the eighth floor possible; it is not a possibility at all through ordinary means, so they need to have some other way of gaining soul power.”

  ”But how else can you gain soul power?” Xue Wei asked with a frown. Bai Tianyi just shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he had no idea.

  Silence descended over the small room, and the four friends could not help but sigh in unison, all of them quite unhappy with the elusive task they had been given.

  There was simply too little information about their issues. They did not know exactly what was happening, and they were completely foreign to this location so figuring out what was out of place would take time.

  Fortunately, they had two years to solve the problem, but when one considered that the other inhabitants of Yan Dalu had actually tried to spend their entire lives trying to solve this problem, they could not help but feel slightly frustrated.

  ”Well, Xiao and I will start gathering information in that case,” Hei Gou finally said after their mutual moment of self-pitying and then picked up the task at hand. They would get nowhere by feeling sorry for themselves. They had to act.

  ”Many have tried to come in contact with us over these last few days, so I am sure that we will be able to mingle with the rest of the core students quite well,” Lin Xiao added.

  Xue Wei nodded his head. He felt at ease knowing that those two would deal with that, but he was at the same time worried about his own task.

  Although he had managed to reach the fifth floor on his first venture up the Soul Tower, there was a massive difference between the fifth floor and the eighth floor. The pressure on the eighth floor was so much heavier by comparison that Xue Wei would be squashed like a fly if he were to enter it at his current level of strength.

  But Xue Wei wanted to enter the ninth floor. He had to figure out a way to get up there, and preferably a way that did not take too long. He only had two years!

  As he contemplated these things, an idea suddenly appeared within his mind.

  Chapter 10 - Restaurant

  Xue Wei was aware that his biggest trump card was his identity as a Sovereign Beast. His bloodline of the Azure Dragon was able to create miracles.

  In his mind palace was the golden dragon, and within his dantian was the azure dragon spirit. These dragon spirits were exclusive to the Azure Dragon race, and they made his cultivation speed in their respective fields much swifter than normal experts, eclipsing even a proud son of the heavens.

  Sovereign Beasts had not gotten their reputation because of their mild tempers but because of their overwhelming strength and natural talent.

  They truly had something that other races did not have. They had been the true overlords of the entire world many years in the past.

  The Azure Dragon blood that flowed in his veins made him quite different from experts of other races. He had two spirits within his body: one within his mind and one within his dantian, both assisting him in his breakthroughs.

  These dragons were exclusive to the Azure Dragon race, and their power was in no way inferior to any of the other sovereign beasts’ spirits.

  Although Xue Wei was originally only half an Azure Dragon, Lan providing him the blood essence back then had fully awakened his bloodline, and thus he now had as pure a bloodline as those who were full-blooded Azure Dragons.

  Xue Wei could not help but feel that it was necessary to take a risk. Although he did not know exactly what the dragon spirits within him were capable of, he knew that their capacity to absorb energy was enormous.

  If he relied on the spirit’s endurance, would he not be able to step up to a higher level in the soul tower under its protection?

  Seeing that Xue Wei was pondering something, no one interrupted him and all of them just sat quietly in their positions and looked at him as he frowned.

  It was not before Xue Wei stopped frowning and looked at them again that Bai Tianyi quietly said, “Don’t rush too much. You managed to get to the fifth floor in one day. We have two years. It’s impossible for you to not reach the ninth floor before that.”

  “I know,” Xue Wei answered and released a sigh, “but that does not change the fact that I would like to solve the issues sooner rather than later. Not to mention that we have other things to do in these two years so I cannot stay at the Soul Tower for all the time.”

  “Do you have any plans?” Hei Gou asked tentatively. It was not like Xue Wei to be rushed like this, but the time limit truly made them feel helpless.

  Although two years sounded like a lot of time, the opposite was true. To cultivators a single blink could mean the passage of two years if the moons aligned correctly, not to mention that they had to solve an issue that not even the citizens of this continent had been capable of solving for over a century if not more.

  There was a sense of urgency in the hearts of Xue Wei and the others. They absolutely had to travel with the next delegation to the Demon Phoenix Continent. They could not wait for the delegation that came later, because they would simply be wasting far too much time like that.

  Xue Wei sighed and shook his head. “I have a theory that might make it possible for me to enter the upper floors, but it involves me revealing my golden dragon spirit. I think that if I let it materialize out of my body, it will be like Bai Tianyi, just absorbing the soul power much like air.

  “Then, under the cover of the spirit dragon, I would enter the ninth floor. However, the tower is filled with people every day. If I really did this, then they would all see the dragon spirit from my mind palace. I do not think this is a great idea.

  “Although it is an inherited thing, there are no Sovereign Beasts on this continent, and they are likely to believe it is some kind of treasure, making me the target for everyone’s greed.

  “That’s not an option we should use right now,” Bai Tianyi agreed, thinking it far too risky. “Although we only have two years, I assume that you will be able to reach the sixth floor within a week; a month later you should reach the seventh floor and after half a year you should be capable of reaching the eighth floor.

  “When you make it to the eighth floor, you will be fine. As soon as you can get onto the floor, you will be okay. The pressure does not increase at all from the first step towards the stairs leading to the ninth floor in the same way as it does on the other floors, instead it is steady all over until you reach the stairs where it will slowly diminish.”

  Xue Wei contemplated. Although he was not willing to spend two years to get to the ninth floor, half a year did not seem to be too much of a loss and, currently, the Soul Tower was their best lead towards the mystery they were expected to solve.

  Hearing the words from Bai Tianyi and his estimated times for when he could reach the ninth floor, Xue Wei once more sank into deep thoug
hts. It was very risky for him to let the golden dragon spirit exit his mind palace and protect him as he climbed the tower, so if there was even the slightest possibility of getting to the ninth floor without relying on it, that would naturally be the best.

  However, was he really willing to wait half a year? Half a year was not long, but relative to their current time schedule, it was not a short amount of time either.

  “You know, it does not mean that it will absolutely take half a year,” Bai Tianyi could see the unwillingness in Xue Wei’s eyes, and he continued, “The seventh floor only had three experts last time I was there. They cannot be there all the time. As soon as we are the only ones on the floor, you can summon your spirit and then head straight up to the eighth floor.”

  Xue Wei’s eyes suddenly lit up and he seemed to understand that although it might not be easy to get to the ninth level, the half year estimate was the most conservative number. It was possible to get there even faster.

  “Let us do it like that then,” Xue Wei said and nodded his head. “Bai Tianyi and I will focus on the Soul Tower and the clues that might have been left within while Lin Xiao and Hei Gou will focus on gathering information from the rest of the students.”

  “Remember, focus mainly on massacres, or people vanishing, either amongst the common folk or here in the academy itself.”

  Lin Xiao and Hei Gou nodded their heads. They were not sure if they could get the results they needed, but they would without a doubt do their very best.

  “Well, we will start tomorrow.” Xue Wei stretched lazily. “For today, let us find some place to eat.”

  Although they no longer needed to eat food to sustain their bodies, they still enjoyed a meal from time to time, and it had felt like eons since they had had their last meal.

  The academy had a restaurant that specializes in spiritual food. The price for the food was calculated with merit points and a meal could easily cost a hundred merit points per person. Fortunately, Xue Wei and the others each had been awarded a bit more than ten thousand merit points from their hunts of the bandits. They stepped inside the restaurant after finding it.