Blue Phoenix

by Tinalynge

  Attacks using Wu Wei were definitely the rarest as they required a King ranked expert, or someone of a higher status, to write down the attack and seal it within the parchment.

  Extreme happiness was evident on Deng Wu’s face as he looked at exactly fourteen such inscriptions. The only thing he was uncertain of was which kind of attacks these Wu Wei scrolls contained, but he had no way of knowing before he used them. So they were a gamble, while on the other hand they did provide some safety.

  Alongside the fourteen Wu Wei inscription scrolls, one hundred and thirty four random elemental affinity attack scrolls were also obtained and also about fifty scrolls containing martial arts. All in all, Deng Wu’s strength increased by a lot, something which he had not expected.

  Deng Wu was not the only one who had gained something from the many items they found within the storage stones. Everyone within the group now possessed a great many light stones, along with food and drinks. A few close combat weapons were gifted to Sha Yun who so far had only used a halberd. A beautiful inscribed armor was gifted to Xie Lan as her defenses were lacking, and Wang Ju Long got flower seeds. It turned out that one of the men Hui Yue killed specialized in using plants when it came to fighting, much like she did. Unfortunately, he never had the chance to display his skills before his head was caved in by the white-haired young man’s beastly transformation.

  They were now no longer in any hurry to make it to the Dragon Core, and so they stayed within the cave for a few days as Wang Ju Long was fully absorbed in the breakthrough she was experiencing.

  Seeing her gaining insights caused the others to be even more focused on their own training. It did not take long before all the young members of the group were seated in deep meditation, refining the essence of the heavens and the earth into Qi and further refining that Qi into spiritual energy.

  While they were fully focused on meditating, the green hue around Wang Ju Long was growing increasingly stronger and eventually it was so strong that it could be felt by everyone within the cave. The energy it gave off was filled with life and vitality. It was obvious that insight she gained was related to healing.

  After the seventh day meditating, Wang Ju Long finally opened her eyes. A profound expression was on her face and a slim smile on her lips. Seeing that everyone around her, except the two Kings, were fully submerged in cultivating made her chuckle slightly.

  “Ju Long,” Xie Lan called out and Wang Ju Long instantly moved towards the woman she still considered her teacher. Unlike Hui Yue, neither of the other three friends had at any moment doubted these two’s loyalty. After all, Hui Yue never told them that they were working on behalf of Zhou Long.

  “What did you learn?” Xie Lan asked curiously. As a King ranked expert who had managed to cultivate past the Duke rank, it was obvious that she already understood the majority of the profound secrets of the Wood element.

  “Healing is not about just repairing an injury,” Wang Ju Long started, her voice slightly hesitant as she kept thinking about her enlightenment. “Healing is about the flow of time. To heal a wound we do not just repairing that specific location, we take control of the time with which it would take to heal and then force it to compress. That is why some wounds we cannot simply repair, some wounds are unhealable.”

  Hearing that, Xie Lan nodded her head. She had long since understood the truths about time. Time was indeed the most important aspect of healing, was one of the harder truths to gain insights into.

  “You understood this from the spar you had with Hui Yue?” She asked curiously. The spar had nothing to do with healing, nor time, but somehow it managed to spark such an enlightenment.

  Wang Ju Long nodded her head, “The way he moved was as though he was blending into the air. Moving as though air and he were the same.” She started explaining, her eyes shining with excitement, “Blending with air, forcing it to move the way he wanted it to. Tt was exactly like how we force the flesh, the bones, and the veins to move to our orders.” She continued.

  “Watching him move in such a way, I understood that seeing him was impossible; there was simply no time. He uses his speed to avoid time, to flow and blend with the air. I use time to compress, to force and create. We both use time, but we use it differently.”

  Hearing this, Xie Lan was completely at a loss. She did not think that Hui Yue was using time at all. She thought that what he was using was just sheer speed. However, in the end it did not matter if she understood or not, the main thing was that Wang Ju Long had a breakthrough. That was the important matter.

  Shortly after, Deng Wu woke up from his meditation. He was thrilled to see Wang Ju Long no longer in a deep trance focusing solely upon her insights. Moving slightly closer to each other, the four awake cultivators made guesses as to when and what their new plans would be.

  While doing so, Hui Yue opened his eyes and a satisfied smile appeared on his lips when he saw Wang Ju Long merrily chatting along with Xie Lan and Deng Wu.

  Standing up, he stretched his tired body before he too went to join the others. Moving towards them, Hui Yue went straight for Xu Piao.

  “How far are we from the Dragon Core?” He asked. Genuinely tired of traveling through this underground world. Although the civilization was very much familiar to his own, the constant roof above his head and the dark and dim tunnels made him feel as though he was a prisoner.

  “Not that far,” Xu Piao answered. “We have three caves between us and the Dragon Core. The closer we gets the more dense the population will be. Within the last two caves, the entire area is two big cities expanding over thousands of kilometers.”

  Hearing this, Hui Yue could not help but raise an eyebrow. He felt relief whenever he thought about the fact that they were getting closer and closer to the Dragon Core, he could not help but feel elated.

  While chatting with Xu Piao, it did not take long before Sha Yun awoke from her meditation and the group settled together. They looked at Hui Yue awaiting his decision for what they were going to do.

  “We are fairly close to the Dragon Core,” Hui Yue said, sharing what Xu Piao said earlier. “Our goal is to travel through the Dragon Core and find a way to leave these tunnels.”

  “We need to keep an eye out for the Laws,” He continued, “Although it has nothing to do with us, it has something to do with Lan Feng, and as such we owe it to him to see if we can find out what’s going on at the very least.”

  Hearing Hui Yue talk about Lan Feng, Sha Yun, Deng Wu and Wang Ju Long all nodded their heads. The three of them knew that Lan Feng was a divine beast living within his body, while Xu Piao and Xie Lan believed Lan Feng was an expert whom, with a priest help, had his soul merged with Hui Yue.

  Hearing that it concerned Lan Feng, Xu Piao knew that Hui Yue would do anything in his power to figure out what was going on. Hui Yue was the kind of person who repaid other people’s kindness tenfold. It was easy to see that so far he was the one receiving help from the hidden expert behind him.

  It was obvious that he was the hidden expert who directed the four of them to venture down underground for the sake of fighting. It was also obvious to the Guild Master, that the hidden expert had saved Hui Yue on numerous occasions for example during the duel against the Demon Dancing family.

  Seeing that Hui Yue was set on returning the favor, Xu Piao nodded solemnly as he decided that he would assist the young man. He always considered himself a good friend of the young man, and he was still feeling guilty for his choice of reporting their actions back to Zhou Long.

  Deng Wu’s eyes grew darker than usual and anger was visible on both Sha Yun’s, and even Wang Ju Long’s faces.

  The three of them remembering the small children who were the laws for the seasons along with Sun who had been captured. Although Sun seemed apathetic about her own future, she was still a living creature; she was someone whom had emotions and was living her life.

  Seeing how the Dragon Corps treated these Laws left a bad taste in Hui Yue’s mouth. Although he k
new that he owed nothing to the Laws, he was still disgusted by the way the Dragon Corps treated other living creatures.

  It was one thing to kill them. Hui Yue understood that he was living in the world of martial artists, a world where death was looming around every corner and where only the strong would prevail. This was something he had long since accepted, something he even felt was thrilling.

  However, he believed in swiftly killing one’s opponent or enemy. Capturing the laws was in no way for the sake of killing them. It was obvious that these creatures could not die no matter what was done to them, and Hui Yue highly doubted that they were being gathered at the Dragon Corps for the sake of a gentle conversation. The word ‘cargo’ alone showed how the Laws were viewed.

  Sighing deeply, a determined look appeared in Hui Yue’s ice-blue eyes before he cracked his neck and gestured for his friends to follow him, “Next stop, the Dragon Core!”

  Chapter 183 - Traveling through Dragon Avenue

  * * *

  Chapter 183: Traveling through Dragon Avenue

  Having left the dark cave, Hui Yue and the group started battling their way through the dark tunnels. Shortly after they once more followed the flow of people traveling through the lit parts of the tunnels.

  Their journey towards the capital was now done in a completely different manner than before. Before none of them were in a hurry. They met Scarface and the meeting with him caused the group to slow down further, however, he finally understood that Scarface was not the only danger they would encounter on their way.

  To be honest, Hui Yue was slightly disappointed in Scarface. The man had shown up and started to kill members of his group, but then suddenly stopped. He left behind nothing but a bad feeling within everyone, a feeling of constant danger because no one knew when he would attack the next time.

  At first, Hui Yue was very worried but having thought more about the situation, Hui Yue came to the conclusion that perhaps Scarface truly was not as dangerous as he thought at first. He never saw the man actually attack. The tiger by his side carried out the attacks. Seeing that he used sneak attacks proved that he had no confidence taking on the masses, including the two King ranked experts.

  After having thought about this, Hui Yue no longer felt that worried about encountering Scarface. Instead inside of him was a flame of excitement burning; a flame from the anticipation he felt about the fight he knew was likely to break out when they met.

  Traveling through the tunnels, they soon reached yet another cave. This cave was nothing like what they expected because the majority of the cave was used for agriculture. Looking in the distance, one could see a large city situated in a valley.

  “This place is what feeds the Dragon Core and the Dragon’s Avenue Cave.” Xu Piao said and Hui Yue nodded in return. It made sense. As Xu Piao had said previously, the two final caves, the Dragon Core and the Dragon’s Avenue Cave, both contained two cities consisting of their entire caves leaving no space to farm. Instead they relied on the earlier caves and mainly this Cave of the Divine Feast.

  Although Hui Yue was intrigued by the cave he kept moving quickly through the landscape. Only one night was spent in the city relaxing before they once more started moving.

  Traveling through the Cave of the Divine Feast took a little more than one week. They spent every day spent traveling and only a few hours each night to rest. Entering another tunnel, they stayed on the lit parts; all of them astonished because the tunnels were much more trafficked than the previous ones. There were carriages bringing harvested vegetables, corn, and meats to the two cities ahead of them.

  Seeing all the carriages, although it surprised them, had no influence on Hui Yue or his friends and the trip through the tunnels was uneventful as they reached the Dragon’s Avenue Cave.

  This was considered a suburb of the Dragon Core, a place where the second most influential families lived. Looking around many Duke and King ranked experts were visible, and Hui Yue understood that it was incredibly important for him and his friends to not insult anyone. Although he felt capable of dealing with Duke ranked experts he was likely to suffer severe damage while doing so. Within this city the majority of the Dukes present had higher ranked experts at their back, experts ready to avenge them should they be beaten or killed.

  Hui Yue’s intent was to travel through the city quickly entering the Dragon Core as soon as possible. Currently the strength of his group was quite low considering how powerful the citizens walking around were, and Hui Yue felt that they were tempting their good luck staying longer than needed.

  What he forgot was that the city filled the entire cave; despite it being one big city, the cave was no smaller than the previous Cave of the Divine Feast. Traveling through this Dragon Avenue Cave was indeed more time consuming than what it had taken them to journey through the previous cave.

  Traveling through the Dragon Avenue Cave took ten days. This was three days longer than the previous cave. This was due to them spending every night at an inn, not to mention the roads which were crooked making the trip more difficult, and finding the way towards the tunnel was not always easy.

  However, now here they were in front of the final tunnel system. The final part of their journey and Hui Yue felt excitement within. They was finally closing in on the final cave.

  “This is the true Dragon Avenue,” Xu Piao said with a wry smile on his face as he looked at the tunnels they were about to enter. Paying the fee, everyone stepped inside and breathed in the familiar stale air once again. The air which had at first felt stifling and discomforting suddenly made them feel excited. This was the final time they had to travel through these tunnels. It was time for them to get ready to finally exit these dark tunnels and this strange underground world.

  The six travelers joked with each other as they made their way through the tunnels, and four days after they entered the exit was visible. Everyone, even Xu Piao and Xie Lan, had their hearts skip a beat as they paid the entrance fee and stepped into the Dragon Core.

  As soon as they stepped inside, everyone was astonished as they saw King ranked experts moving about everywhere within the city. Only a few groups of Dragon Corps soldiers were lower ranked; all ranked in the middle dantian tier as they got ready to leave the Dragon Core.

  A few Duke ranked experts were walking the streets, all wearing astonishing clothing and having King ranked experts by their sides.

  Looking around, Hui Yue was unable to find traces of anyone familiar, not Scarface, nor anyone else.

  “Let’s find the Dragon Corps office first and hand in the mission,” Hui Yue said with a sigh as he looked around. They started moving towards the center of the city thinking that the office had to be there.

  With his friends following behind Hui Yue made his way through the city. They slowly saw more lower ranked experts, who were youngsters much like Hui Yue and his friends, clearly the younger generation.

  Just as Hui Yue was observing his surroundings various people on the street noticed a large group of lower ranked cultivators; all of them curious as to why they were in this city and whom these newcomers were.

  Arriving in the middle of the city, they saw a massive marketplace and not the building they had expected; however, after asking around for a while they figured out where the Dragon Corps’ main office was.

  The office was located where yet another tunnel should be. It seemed like the reason it was located there was so the Dragon Corps could determine who entered the tunnels leading to the other three parts of the Dungeons of the Divine.

  Along with the entrances to the other tunnels, it also had the Stairs of Hope, leading towards the Center Palace above ground. The location He had claimed to be his own.

  Traveling towards the office took nine days as the group rushed as fast as possible, and suddenly they arrived in front of a magnificent castle which was built into the cave wall.

  The castle was more than two hundred meters tall and a hundred meters wide. The gates were open, but King r
anked experts were standing guard; they ensured that only those who were allowed inside could enter.

  Walking towards the entrance, Hui Yue flashed his B ranked emblem. This was something which made the two King ranked experts instantly show a great amount of respect towards the group, as they stood aside allowing the group to enter.

  “What can I do for you?” A woman asked who was standing at the front desk waiting for groups to return from their missions. Seeing this group of youngsters who clearly did not look at all like Dragon Corps members made her incredibly curious. When Hui Yue handed over the items he got from Zhou Long, she was deeply shocked.

  “Please wait here for a moment,” She said before she rushed up some stairs, leaving the six alone in the lobby.