Dungeons of the Divine (Blue Phoenix Book 2) (45 page)

Having split up their spoils of war, Hui Yue sat down and started meditating. He was curious to see which changes took place in his body during the short time he was fully taken over by the red mist.

At first glance, everything within his body looked the same way as it had before. No extraordinary meridians were broken through, he had not risen in rank and turned into a higher star Grandmaster, nor was the red cloud any larger than it had been before.

In fact, the red cloud was incredibly docile considering its usual behavior, something which caused Hui Yue to look at it tentatively. He was not sure if this was the calm before the storm, or if it was actually exhausted after the fight earlier.

Observing the red mist, Hui Yue slowly noticed a small black gemlike item hiding in the middle of the mist. This was a small black item he had seen many times before. It was, without a doubt, a demon core, or beast core as they called them aboveground.

Seeing the demon core within the red mist, Hui Yue was taken aback, especially because the core was in no way special. It was a black core, something which showed that it was owned by a very mediocre demon beast. A beast which was not even the same strength as a Master ranked expert.

Knowing the strength he possessed when he taken over, there was no way that he was inferior to other middle dantian cultivators. There had to be a reason for the demon core to be nothing more than a low-grade one.

‘Don’t worry too much about it,’ Lan Feng commented with closed eyes as he was focused on refining Wu Wei. With the two of them sharing a soul, it was easy for the phoenix to feel anything Hui Yue felt, and the sudden confusion caused the bird to finally open his mouth.

‘The beast core appeared while you were fully taken over by the beast. I imagine that it will grow into a golden core if you are taken over by the beast for a long period of time.’ Being quiet for some time, Lan Feng added. ‘I suggest you don’t let the red mist free anytime soon. It is likely that you will harm your own friends when it takes over your body.’

Hearing the warning Hui Yue nodded seriously. He understood perfectly well that he was incapable of controlling his body when the red mist was in control. He turned into a liability whenever he was affected by the mist, someone who would harm his friends he fought so hard to free.

‘Don’t be too downcast.’ Lan Feng continued, ‘It is a great trump card to have, not to mention that although the red mist was impossible for Hui Yue to deal with on his own, as long as it did not grow much stronger, Hui Yue still had the blue cloud assisting him.

The blue cloud was a cloud which he understood even less than the red mist. The red mist was easy to understand. It grew with every kill, and it fought to take control of his body. Having seen what he turned into, it was obviously some savage animal Hui Yue had been in a previous life; however, the blue cloud was so tranquil, so gentle, that he had no idea what or whom it could possibly have been. He had never heard about a human, or any other creature, with such a tranquil atmosphere.

The wings were just as questionable. Did he gain wings because he had been a winged creature before? But if that was so, how come the wings were made of Wu Wei? The wings should be easier to use had they come from a beast.

The green pearl was as easy to understand as the red mist. Hui Yue assumed that it came from someone who specialized in healing, however, whomever it was, his personality was simply horrible, as it rarely bothered showing its might.

Thinking about all the different phenomena which were residing within his body, Hui Yue could not help but sigh deeply. They were all troublesome, yet at the same time useful. Where they came from and what they did was something which Hui Yue did not understand for now. All he could do was learn how to deal with them.

Opening his eyes, Hui Yue saw that all his friends were busy doing their own things. Xie Lan was healing Xu Piao, Deng Wu was still focused solely upon the many inscriptions he had suddenly gotten his hands on, and Wang Ju Long was training with her staff; ripples of energy spreading out from each and every move she made showing just how powerful she had become.

Sha Yun was not training like the others. Unlike humans, she was a magical beast, a demon beast who managed to break through the ranks of cultivation without too much effort. However, as a demon beast the percentage which she could merge with the earth was not something she could training like humans. It was an innate ability always at its maximum but never able to increase further.

Sha Yun’s way of cultivating was to refine the essence of the heavens and the earth which allowed her to keep improving.

For now though, she was not refining energy, instead she was sitting next to Hui Yue waiting for him to wake up from his meditation.

Seeing him open his eyes, her mouth opened as though she was about to say something, but she quickly closed it again. Her face turning slightly red as she opened and closed her mouth, unable to say whatever it was she wanted to.

Seeing Sha Yun like this, Hui Yue could not help but laugh dotingly at her as he patted her head before his face turned serious, “What’s wrong Yun?” He asked in a soft voice, “You know you can ask me anything, so there is no reason for you to be so embarrassed.”

Hearing his words a wry smile appeared on Sha Yun’s face. She was well aware that Hui Yue would answer her question, however, what she was worried about was exactly that. The answer to her question.

The question she wanted to ask was whether or not Hui Yue liked Wang Ju Long. Seeing their behavior it seemed as though he did, but he had not said anything so far. Thus the snake-woman kept hoping. However as she saw the hug he gave her when they reunited this caused Sha Yun’s heart to quail in despair and she felt that now she needed to know.

The only downside was that although she wished to know, she was completely unable to ask the question. Her heartbeat rose, her heart felt as though it was stuck in her throat blocking the words she wanted to say. Eventually she just shook her head and walked away, finding a quiet corner in the small cave and sitting down. After which She started refining the essence of the heavens and the earth.

Seeing the odd behavior of Sha Yun, Hui Yue was puzzled for some time before he shook his head and moved towards Wang Ju Long.

The black-haired woman was so engaged in her work that she did not notice Hui Yue arriving. As she attacked with a slash using her staff it was blocked by the backside of a black dagger.

“Let me spar with you for a bit,” Hui Yue asked curiously as he jumped in front of the woman. Wang Ju Long’s face instantly turned red as she remembered the embrace she was given earlier, but she quickly sent a sly smile and nodded to her friend.

Hui Yue was excited to hear that she agreed to spar. He instantly started, his eyes glistening in excitement as he poured spiritual energy into his dagger and activated Velocity Flow rushing into the range of the woman in front of him.

Wang Ju Long knew what he was about to do and a snicker appeared on her face. She swung her staff heavily above her head colliding against the dagger and causing Hui Yue to retreat slightly. A red hue appeared, however, this red hue was not caused by Hui Yue, but appeared from Wang Ju Long. A small weasel was apparent on top of her staff snickering at Hui Yue as the young man’s face was filled with laughter and excitement.

Seeing that Wang Ju Long was using all her power, everyone within the cave quickly stopped whatever they were doing and instead watched the two youngsters who were fighting one another.

Wang Ju Long’s staff was so swift that no one could see it unless they focused solely on the staff itself. To the naked eye the only thing visible was a shadow flickering here and there.

Hui Yue felt astonished to see that she improved to such a degree. A happy and warm emotion appeared in his heart as he focused solely on the staff shadows in front of him, dodging one shadow after another. Hui Yue was moving so swiftly that they could only see him if they tried their best.

Seeing that she was unable to deal with him the way she was currently fighting, Wang Ju Long accessed  the small weasel with a thought. Within moments a heavy energy ripple spread out like a ring in water, everything it touched on its path was turned into dust. Not even Hui Yue dared take this frightening attack head on.

Relying on Velocity Flow, Hui Yue backed up before he jumped high into the air. High above the energy ripple as he shot like an arrow towards the woman and the red glowing staff.

Shooting forward with a speed so swift that the previous shadows seemed as though they were as slow as a turtle, Hui Yue arrived behind Wang Ju Long in less than a second. However, just as he expected to defeat her, his stomach was hit by the back of her staff. She had thrust the staff backwards and Hui Yue was once more forced to retreat.

Retreating, both he and Wang Ju Long ended up standing in front of one another. Their weapons whirled around them, sounds of weapons clashing against each other rang throughout the silence of the cave.

Their attacks gained in strength and their speed constantly increased. The staff was handled by Wang Ju Long with both hands, while Hui Yue only used his one handed weapon to counter, however the weapon he used was Black Blood fortified with his spiritual energy.

Slash after slash, thrust after thrust, the two cultivators were locked in a standoff neither able to win but at the same time refusing to give up.

Wang Ju Long was, in worse shape than Hui Yue. Although she had learnt how to control the amount of spiritual energy her staff consumed, it was impossible for her to keep up the fight for much longer. Her beautiful face starting to pale and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.

Seeing this, Hui Yue backed away once more while blocking the staff and went out of range. “I forfeit,” He said with a smile on his face as he looked at the panting woman in front of him, a gentle smile on his face.

Looking at Hui Yue with gratitude in her eyes Wang Ju Long leaned against her staff catching her breath before she nodded towards the white-haired young man.

“I lost,” She said with a quiet voice before sitting down and started to cultivate. It seemed as though she had made a breakthrough.

It seems that her breakthrough did not raise her rank. However, her body was shining with a green light which showed she gained some insights into her elemental affinity for Wood.

Seeing this, a surge of happiness appeared in Hui Yue’s heart. The more insights and breakthroughs they had, the stronger their group became. Despite all his cultivating recently, he still felt he was far from strong enough to be able to look after his friends. Due to this he wished for them to improve so that even when they reached the Dragon Core, none of them would be easy targets to pick on.

Sha Yun was constantly improving even if she did nothing at all because, as a magical beast, as she grew older. This was something which made Hui Yue less worried about her.

After Deng Wu spent time looking through the immense amount of new inscriptions he obtained he quickly found that they contained high ranked abilities, some of which even contained Wu Wei rather than spiritual energy.

The way an inscription worked was that abilities were etched onto the parchment and with the help of spiritual energy merged with Metal, one would be capable of unleashing the attack from the parchments.

Every inscriptions had various runes and looking at these runes was the way to determine what kind of attack they contained. The color of the runes determined which kind of elemental attack it was. A white rune would be a martial attack made from Qi, a silvery rune would mean it was a spiritual art attack with no elemental affinity, and a golden rune meant that it was an attack using Wu Wei.

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 on 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 get the more densely populated it 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 knew 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!”