Blue Phoenix

by Tinalynge

  Sighing deeply, a glance out his window allowed for him to see the massive horde of guards who were settled outside the city wall, and he wondered if they would listen to him.

  While Hui Yue was busy studying the many people outside, a black shadow slowly made its way inside his room where it disappeared in the ceiling. No aura could be felt just as nothing could be seen. The moment the shadow entered the room, it seemed as though he had flown right through the door itself without opening it and vanished into the ceiling the exact same way.

  As the day drew to a close, the woman, Li Meilin, was seated in her room. Her heart was beating steadily. Her eyes were closed as her head was resting in her palms, and her elbows resting on her knees. This was her last night in the capital of Shenyuan. Whether or not her life would be forfeit, she did not know but she would do anything in her power to return to the Siban Empire.

  *Knock* *Knock*

  Hearing the knocking sound on her door, Li Meilin was dragged from her thoughts, and she instantly stood up. Looking around the room, she was slightly nostalgic. The room was now completely empty of everything, and no one could tell that someone had been living here for as long as Li Meilin had. Although it was slightly nostalgic, the room also felt like a prison cell because it was somewhere she had been forced to stay when she would much rather be somewhere else.

  In the courtyard the guard was waiting for her, however this time, he did not wear a guard’s outfit, nor did he look like a humanoid beast any longer. He was a massive eagle, expanding at least seven meters long with the wings spread out. His height well above two meters.

  His proud eyes were filled with displeasure, and unfortunately, this displeasure was impossible to get rid of. The proud eagle allowed for the woman to climb onto his back, tugging tightly on the feathers around his neck and with a screech of displeasure, the eagle took to the sky as he quickly vanished into the distance. The direction leading towards the Siban Empire.

  The wind in Li Meilin’s face was crisp and fairly cold. Beneath the eagle was the vast jungle. The jungle which had taken over this entire section of the continent, and far, far off in the distance Li Meilin could see the tall mountain ranges which surrounded every single kingdom on the continent.

  Seated on an Emperor beast, Li Meilin was astonished to see how fast it flew. The jungle beneath had turned into a blur of green, and screech after screech sounded out, clearly showing how the eagle felt about the whole situation. Although he felt that it was undignifying, the eagle would in no way go against the will of the Queen of Shenyuan. The fastest way to get it over and done with was to rush to the borders of Siban and drop off the woman then head back home and pretend that this never happened. Acting as a this was nothing more than a stain on his past. As a magical beast with a consciousness being used as a mount was something which seriously put a dent on their dignity.

  The eagle did not rest at night, instead it kept flying and soon two days had passed. Two days where the distant mountain range got closer and closer, and the screeches fewer and fewer as the bird slowly came to understand what was occurring.

  Li Meilin had been on high alert ever since she got onto the back of the eagle. At first, she had been incredibly worried. Every bit of turbulence or wind which was stronger than before made her terrified that the eagle was intentionally going to make her death seem like an accident; however, no matter how much the eagle swung in the incoming winds, never once was she close to falling to the ground.

  Knowing this, Li Meilin felt a little ashamed of herself because she knew that she did not trust the beasts. She was also well aware that these beasts most likely had their own agenda, something which she had no way of knowing.

  Sighing deeply, she paid no more heed to the plans made by the beasts, and instead her eyes shone with happiness as she saw how the cliff wall was right in front of her. She tugged harder on the feathers as the bird shot into the air, flying directly upwards aiming to get over the mountain range. During these two days the two, human and beast, had not spoken at all since the eagle had taken flight, and the woman could not think of anything to talk with the beast about.

  Flying past the mountain range, happiness shone in the eagle’s eyes as he landed on the ground. He didn’t wait a moment as he immediately shook his entire body, making the emperor on his back drop to the ground. With a final screech, the eagle once more took to the skies and vanished in the distance.

  Watching the beast depart, Li Meilin felt that everything was surreal. She expected that the chance of her surviving was less than twenty percent, yet here she was, standing on the edge of the Siban Empire without even the slightest scratch.

  With one last glance at the mountain range, Li Meilin bowed deeply to the jungle behind the forest in respect to the beasts who helped her return home and allowed for her to survive. Standing like this for a few seconds, Li Meilin turned around, and while trusting her own legs, she stomped hard on the ground propelling herself forward. Without another glance behind her, the Emperor rushed as quickly as she could back to the capital. She had a lot of information which she needed to share with the Emperor and the Taiyang Kingdom. Even if this was a trap set by the beasts, Li Meilin was willing to follow their plan as long as it allowed for her to evacuate citizens and prepare the army.

  Chapter 241 - Balance of Energies

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  Chapter 241: Balance of Energies

  Hui Yue was once more seated within his chambers in the castle belonging to Wan Qiao. He spent all his extra time cultivating. He felt that for every day he spent cultivating, he got closer and closer to the King rank which was his current goal on his long journey of cultivation.

  Unlike his previous experiences, the spiritual energy sea was not close to overflowing, nor were there any sensations of his cultivation pressuring the opening of the upper dantian; instead, The more energy drops he created, the more the sea swelled, but despite this the gate to the upper dantian was still locked. Frowning, Hui Yue understood that it was not enough to just cultivate. Although cultivation was important, insights were equally important, and Hui Yue came to the conclusion that he needed to reach a higher rank was enlightenment. He needed insight on his path of cultivation.

  Sighing, he stood up from the bed and stretched his sore body. He had been cultivating for quite some time already, but just now he came to the conclusion that to breakthrough would require insight. Knowing this, he decided to go to the training grounds and train his physical body.

  The training grounds were now completely empty. All the guards had moved outside of the city, causing Hui Yue to have plenty of space to himself. With a wild howl, Hui Yue felt his body starting to creak as he grew noticeably and fur sprung forth across his body. His face turned into the face of a wolf, and his blue eyes slowly turned red. His hands turned to paws, and his nails turned into razor sharp claws. Looking at the transformation, one could imagine just how much stronger the young man was afterwards.

  Being in his wolf form was something Hui Yue had not done for quite awhile because he had needed to spar with anyone. He Started his training by running. Hui Yue once more started to feel the comfort of making his muscles work. Working his muscles, Hui Yue couldn’t help but smile. Anyone who saw this would be terrified because really instead of saying he was smiling it was more of a merciless and incredibly sinister grin.

  Running for two hours straight, at first slow but slowly picking up his pace, Hui Yue felt ecstatic. This was what he liked having his strength balanced.

  Suddenly, Hui Yue felt a sharp pain in his forehead, and he had to sit down as the world around him turned black. A dizzy spell appeared, and the world seemed to float. The ground was suddenly above him, and Hui Yue was nauseous about to vomit.

  Having sat still for what felt like hours, but in reality was only around a few minutes, everything slowly returned to normal. Hui Yue opened his eyes with a sinister grin on his wolf-face.

  Hui Yue wanted to gain insight into what it was that would allo
w for him to open the upper dantian, however who would have guessed that he had just been blocking himself this whole time. As soon as he started running and felt comforted from the balance of external and internal strength he understood that it was exactly this. That Wu Wei was a balance. One needed to balance himself with the world, one needed to become one with the world.

  To become a real expert, to become a deity, one needed to turn into nothingness. One needed to become a perfect balance of energies.

  ‘Well done!’ Lan Feng’s excited voice was heard in the mind of Hui Yue, and the young man himself started smiling widely. Although he now knew how to unlock the upper dantian, he still had yet to unlocked it. Looking around, Hui Yue rushed back to his room and sat down on the chair allowing for his consciousness to enter his inner body. He appeared in the lower dantian from where he slowly made his way through the middle dantian towards the upper dantian.

  Standing at the entrance to the upper dantian, there was a massive gate. A gate where nine different orbs of fire were carved into the door. As soon as Hui Yue touched it, the gate seemed to vanish, to turn into golden streaks of light. These golden streaks all entered the room behind the gate.

  With a pounding heart, Hui Yue stepped inside only to feel a gentle warmth surround him. In front of him was a pedestal, a pedestal on top of which a golden sun was rotating. Rays of golden light were constantly being emitted warming anyone inside the dantian cave.

  ‘That is quite a significant amount of Wu Wei you have there,’ Lan Feng said with a satisfied nod, ‘You managed to refine some earlier not to mention the energy you absorbed from the Divine Flower the Deng Family gifted you.’

  ‘This is incredible,’ Hui Yue said. His eyes shining with excitement as he finally broke through the bottleneck into the King rank.

  ‘It is, but you will need to work harder from now on,’ Lan Feng warned. ‘To refine energies, you need the spiritual energy in your dantian; however, you also need one more thing. You need to merge that spiritual energy with both the Yin or Yang energies which can be found in the world around you.’

  ‘Did you ever wonder why you look so much like a girl that even Deng Wu was hitting on you back when you were a kid?’ Lan Feng asked. Hui Yue could feel the excitement within the phoenix, and he saw a happy smile on the lips. This was clearly something the phoenix had wanted to ask for a very long time, however it seemed it wasn’t the time to do so before now. He had held it in for eighteen years.

  ‘Why did I look like a girl?’ Hui Yue asked, startled. He asked partly out of curiosity and partly because he wanted to play along with the bird within him.

  ‘When you and I merged our souls, some of my energy entered your body.’ The phoenix started, his voice was low as he spoke slowly; the grin on his face grew. ‘I was a Saint, so I had plenty of both Yin and Yang energy,’ He continued, ‘Yin energy is easier to cultivate by women. As a man you need to cultivate in a specific way to be capable of refining Yin energy, however Yang energy is easiest to refine as a man; you can easily refine it.’

  ‘However although it is easier to refine you need to make sure that you always have a balance of yin and yang within you. These energies need to be balanced, and the more balanced they are, the more one can merge with the world. When you become one with the world, your body will be changed. You will no longer have the body of a mortal, but you will have the body of a deity; a body created purely from Ancestral Worldpower.’

  ‘When we merged our souls, some of my power entered you, and the power which entered you was all the Yin energy I had within me. As you might have noticed, although I am a Saint, I am weak compared to many of the others. This is because all my Yin energy is now within you.’

  ‘Giving up this energy caused my own energy to become unbalanced, however you are more important than my strength. While working together like this, you will be able to return me to my original body. At that time, I can start cultivating once more. The most important thing is to defeat An He, I will have no more regrets in life only after he has been defeated.’

  Hearing this, Hui Yue was greatly shocked. That this phoenix was actually willing to give up his own strength for Hui Yue sake caused him to be greatly moved.

  ‘But just because you have my Yin energy, it is not enough for you to reach the Saint rank,’ Lan Feng warned, ‘The Yin energy will at most be sufficient to raise you to the peak of the King rank, and even then it might now be that much. What you should do is slowly refine Yin energies at the same time as you refine yang energies. Eventually, you will be able to break through into the ranks of a God.’

  Hui Yue nodded his head solemnly as he understood what Lan Feng was saying. ‘Which way is the easiest to refine Yin energy?’ Hui Yue asked curiously, and the phoenix instantly shook its feathers in a pleased way. He always loved it when he could prove that he was indeed a beast who had lived for a very long time already.

  ‘The easiest way is to sit outside in the moonlight and refine the essence of the heavens and the earth. Now that your upper dantian has been opened, you will be able to subtract Yin and Yang energy from the essence. Another way to get Yin energy is to rely on medicinal pills. There are some which contain Yin energy. That is the most used way as it is far swifter than refining it yourself. You can also find an incredibly cold area; the colder the area, the stronger the yin energy will be.’

  ‘Hmm, I see.’ Hui Yue mumbled. He would have loved to have some medicinal pills, but, sadly, he had none with him, nor did he have any way to obtain some currently. As far as he understood, the beasts rarely bothered with pills. They considered it cheating, which was also one of the reasons that the beasts usually were stronger than humans of the same rank.

  Sighing deeply, Hui Yue stretched his back as he accepted that once more he needed to work hard. Having just broken through, Hui Yue knew it was time for him to examine his body thoroughly. Spreading out his hand a small ball of golden energy appeared within, less than a second after having called forth the energy.

  Unlike spiritual energy and Qi, Wu Wei did not travel through his meridians. It would instantly vanish within the upper dantian and reappear wherever it had been summoned to. It could be the ball in his hand, or could be a palm above his head, or perhaps the golden Wu Wei wings which were currently resting in his lower dantian.

  No matter what Hui Yue tried, the Wu Wei was so swift that the young man’s eyes were filled with admiration and happiness rose in his heart. He was finally a King ranked expert. He had finally stepped into the world of strong cultivators!

  Just as he was about to train a bit further he heard knocking on the door, and he instantly stopped what he was doing. He steadied his breathing before he opened the door. Outside was the smiling face of Wan Qiao, and in her arms was sheet after sheet of paper, all of which had information on both the front and the back.

  “Here you go,” She said proudly as she stuffed all the papers into Hui Yue’s arms, “It took me forever to do this, but now I’m done, so you better prepare to read a lot. If you skip as much as one paper, then I will not be happy!” She said before she turned around and lazily waved at him, “Time to get some sleep,” She mumbled as she rushed back to her chambers.

  Standing in the doorway, Hui Yue felt a headache coming. Within his arms was document after document filled with information, but now that they had been stuffed into his arms it was obvious that they no longer laid in the order they were supposed to be. The young man had to fix this before he could start reading the documents and learn about the Saints. Then he could decide who would join him during the war and who would stay behind.

  Chapter 242 - List of the Lords

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  Chapter 242: List of the Lords

  “I guess it is time to start working then,” Hui Yue mumbled to himself as he took all the papers to the desk. He had only used this desk once before when he wrote the message to his friends, but here he was. The table was filled with documents which he ever so slowly started to get orga
nized. Hui Yue was elated when he saw that Wan Qiao had been kind enough to write the page numbers on the many pages, since otherwise he had no idea if he could have actually sorted them out.

  Having finally found heads and tails of the many sheets, he slowly started reading. Each document truly contained all the information Hui Yue could wish for. This included the age of the beast, the species, their main attacks, whether or not they were a strong or mediocre beast, and whether or not the beast wished to join the war.

  Hui Yue currently felt a calm he had never felt before. He had been far more stressed than he expected about reaching the King rank, but now that he had achieved his goal a strange calm enveloped him, and with a gentle smile on his face he dug into the list of lords.

  The upper dantian was located in the forehead, behind the two eyes, and while Hui Yue was busy reading the light energy was floating through his entire body reconstructing every single cell, adding extra resilience to his body, and boosting his strength tremendously. As his body was remade, energy also appeared within the lower dantian. As it appeared one cave wall which was blocking a cave within his dantian shook and slowly started to crumble under the rays of golden energy.