Against The Heavens

While everyone was eager to see how the situation unfolded, Tian Zheng swiped his interspatial ring and took out a table and three chairs. He placed the table in front of him, one chair on his side and two chairs on Li Yang"s side. He sat down on his chair and took out a porcelain kettle filled with fragrant tea from his interspatial ring, placing the kettle as well as three cups on the table, beckoning towards the two empty chairs.

"Please take a seat, standing while chatting is rather tiresome."

Li Yang raised an eyebrow in slight surprise, sweeping the table and the tea with a quick glance before sitting down on one of the chairs, Fang Ying taking the seat at his side. Tian Zheng poured some tea into the three cups, sliding two of them closer to Li Yang and Fang Ying.

"There"s no need to worry, I haven"t put any poison in t..."

Li Yang raised the cup before Tian Zheng got to finish his sentence and took a sip of the steaming tea, which had the faint taste of apples and cinnamon. Li Yang placed the cup down after taking the first sip, a revigorating stream of energy coursing through his body after the tea entered his stomach.

"I wasn"t worried about you putting any poison in them."

If there was one thing in this world that Li Yang didn"t fear, it was poison. His law of destruction automatically ate up any poison that entered his body. And even if there somehow managed to exist a poison that his law of destruction would not eat, sitting at his side was Fang Ying, the greatest poison user Li Yang had ever known. Tian Zheng wasn"t fazed by Li Yang"s swift and confident actions, leisurely sipping the tea in his cup while talking with a faint smile.

"I guess I should be grateful for your trust then. Don"t worry, I won"t bore you by beating around the bush, let us get directly to the matter at hand. First, I want to thank you, secondly, I was curious if you were able to sense anything specific about the Demonic beast or the treasure it is guarding. Since both are located in a volcano, they should be more closely aligned to the law of fire."

Contrary to what all the people around them expected, Tian Zheng was engaging in a polite yet casual conversation with Li Yang, it was far more boring than what any of them had expected. Li Yang took another sip of the tea, his gaze drifting between Tian Zheng and the volcano.

"Thank me, huh? Seeing as you are asking for my opinion, I guess that the people from the Tian clan have already given you a detailed report?"

Tian Zheng was likely trying to thank him for saving the people from the Tian clan on the island where the Devil"s Grasp Vine resided. Had he not carved a path through it so that they could escape, they would likely all have died there. Tian Zheng didn"t deny Li Yang"s guess, nodding his head.

"Indeed. I truly regret not being present to see the grand scene that they described, it must have been spectacular. It was most definitely grander than the scene you caused in the Cloud Wilderness back then. Then again, had you pulled out something like that, none of our people would have been able to leave the wilderness alive, I should probably thank you for showing mercy back then."

Tian Zheng wasn"t a fool, it was easy to connect the dots. Back when the clans sent people to the Cloud Wilderness to investigate the strange occurrence, several people were killed while the rest were forced to flee the Cloud Wilderness. Due to the attacker"s golden flames, they thought he might be the Golden Dragon Prince, they just couldn"t figure out how he was able to use golden lightning and a strange ice element.

Now that Tian Zheng had received a report stating that Li Yang was able to use those three exact elements, even using golden fire and lightning, it wasn"t hard for him to figure out that Li Yang was, in fact, the one that had pushed the clans out of the Cloud Wilderness back then. Li Yang wasn"t too bothered about Tian Zheng finding out about his actions back then, it was fine as long as he didn"t learn about the Liang tribe. He gave a casual shrug of his shoulders, his gaze once more landing on the volcano.

"I didn"t show them any mercy, they simply hadn"t done anything that would warrant me killing them. And to answer your earlier question, no, I cannot sense anything specific about the Demonic beast or the treasure that was born. The best I can sense is that the treasure should be made up of at least six different elements, and the beast guarding it should have reached the Primordial Rune realm in strength, probably around the middle or the late stage."

The people from the Tian clan hadn"t killed or hurt any of the Liang tribe members so Li Yang hadn"t seen a point in killing them back then. As for what he sensed about the treasure and the beast, it was mostly guesswork based on what he felt. For the energy waves to be this chaotic, with the elements so blurred that they were nearly indistinguishable from each other, the treasure clearly had to have quite a few different elements mixed into it. And since the Demonic beast guardian felt stronger than the panther they had faced in the palace, its cultivation was definitely higher than the panther, which had reached the early stage of the Primordial Rune realm. Tian Zheng nodded his head with a light smile, turning his head to look at the volcano with gleaming eyes.

"That"s plenty specific already, it"s certainly better than what I and my men were able to sense. With the treasure being made up of at least six elements, it should either contain enough energy to force the different elements into a stable state, or all the elements it"s made up of are ones that can work together in a harmonious manner. Either way, it will be something spectacularly grand, and sufficiently deadly at the same time."

Li Yang didn"t respond to Tian Zheng"s statement, he didn"t see a need to respond to such an obvious statement. Tian Zheng turned his head away from the volcano, looking at the large group of people around them for a short moment before tilting his head and looking at Li Yang.

"More and more people should arrive within the next few days, the other future clan leaders should also arrive, at least those that are close enough. What do you think, should we wait for them or should we just risk it and head in on our own?"

Li Yang and Fang Ying raised an eyebrow in surprise after hearing Tian Zheng"s question, the two looking at each other for a short moment. Li Yang emptied his cup of tea and placed it down, his eyes looking Tian Zheng up and down for a bit as he spoke.

"I must admit, you are acting far more amiable than I first thought you would. After all, all these people are spreading rumors that I stole your future wife, it must have hit your pride quite hard."

Li Yang had expected Tian Zheng to at least say something about it, but he hadn"t even mentioned it since the start of their conversation. For someone with such a sky-high pride, it was quite a feat to act as if nothing had happened. Tian Zheng poured some more tea into Li Yang"s cup, chuckling lightly as he responded.

"Indeed, my pride was dented quite severely when I found out that Junior Sister Ying had never planned to become my wife and was apparently already the wife of someone else. By the way, one of these days, you must tell me how the two of you got acquainted, it must surely be a wonderful tale."

No matter who they were, their pride was doomed to take a hit when something like this happened. The higher the pride, the stronger the hit would be, some people might go completely mad in an attempt to regain their lost pride. Tian Zheng placed down the porcelain kettle, raising his head high as he looked at Li Yang, his chest puffing out slightly.

"But I am Tian Zheng, the future patriarch of the Tian clan, the well-being of the clan is my top priority and my greatest source of pride. I"ll be honest with you, the Tian clan needs Junior Sister Ying, I will not allow it to do anything that might make her unhappy and push her away from us, that includes forcing her to marry me. Another way we can look at it is like this, as long as we keep a good relationship with Junior Sister Ying, our clan will also have close ties to an enigmatic person such as you, which I am certain will benefit us greatly. What do you say, do you want to join the Tian clan once this compet.i.tion ends?"

The Tian clan needed strong people with boundless talent, people like Fang Ying and Li Yang. Tian Zheng hadn"t interacted much with Li Yang, but just the reports he received made him certain that Li Yang was someone who the Tian clan would benefit from greatly if they maintained a good relationship. He used three extremely strong elements, had already used two arrays that the Tian clan had no records of, and his strength increased incredibly fast.

If there was one downside to him, it was that he was too enigmatic, they had no idea where his strength or his arrays came from, it was impossible for a simple child from a small tribe in the outskirts of the Cloud Wilderness to get his hands on such things. But even this downside could be somewhat remedied thanks to his relationship with Fang Ying, someone who the clan trusted completely. If she trusted him this greatly, then he should at least be trustworthy if one had a good relationship with him. Li Yang accepted the now filled cup of tea, taking another sip while responding to Tian Zheng, not completely rejecting him.

"Maybe, it"s certainly not impossible. But let me answer your earlier question before we get sidetracked any further. You can enter the volcano right now if you want to, but there is no way I am setting a foot in there before there are at least two more people as strong as you here."

Li Yang was already thinking about joining the Tian clan after meeting up with Fang Ying, doing so would allow him to be much closer to her. He just didn"t want to immediately say yes, just in case something came up later during the compet.i.tion. Tian Zheng nodded his head after hearing Li Yang"s declaration, casting a sideways glance at Fang Ying and making sure that she was agreeing to what Li Yang was saying. When he saw her nod her head, he swiped his interspatial ring and took out an empty porcelain kettle, filling it with water and some dried leaves, snapping his fingers and causing a small flame to appear beneath the kettle.

"I see, then I guess we"ll have to wait a few days, It"s a good thing I made sure to bring plenty of tea that we can drink while chatting."