Fang Yuyou was guilt-ridden. While inside the tunnel, Xuanyuan had never been happier.
His practice had accelerated by ten-fold when inside the dense Qi of the jade mine. He kept practicing by using the heavenly dragon technique. He continued to punch out with his full strength, the more he punched, the more he seemed to resemble a powerful dragon.
The marrows in the arms and legs were being refined with each punch. Like liquid metal, they were then molded into tiny dragons, which roared from inside Xuanyuan’s bones. He had almost reached the full completion of the wild realm. He would reach the peak of the wild realm after he refined the marrow contained in his spine.
His strength had jumped from a hundred and eight dragons to a hundred and eighty dragons – a shocking improvement. His strength was comparable to some of the most powerful king realm fighters!
The amount of Qi he was able to store inside his body had greatly expanded. Before he practiced inside the jade mine, he was able to withstand six hundred dragons of attack power before his Qi was depleted. He could now withstand a thousand dragons of attack power before his Qi was depleted.
The mine was originally glowing dimly with a warm and refres.h.i.+ng light, but that light had now faded. Surrounding the egg was a large ring of dull grey powder.
Xuanyuan stared at the egg. A circular red mark the size of a fist had formed on the sh.e.l.l. Xuanyuan cried out, “Is that the red sun mark?”
“That’s right. The six hundred jin of crystals you bought a few days ago helped to speed up its recovery. That’s why it is able to absorb Qi so rapidly. That six hundred jin of crystals was equal to six million jin of top cla.s.s jades. This mine probably had one hundred million jin of top cla.s.s jades and that Qi formed the first red sun mark.” Greed’s explanation only further irritated Xuanyuan. Only one mark appeared! He still had to make more appear, but that wasn’t the end of it. Greed continued, “Each mark will need more Qi to appear. You have to work even harder, boy. Don’t let us starve.”
“Greed, how was your progress then? Didn’t you say you can recover to the peak of the grandmaster realm with just the Origin of Memories? With all those jades, you probably reached the imperial realm, right?” Xuanyuan was tired just listening to Greed.
“You wish. The Origin of Memories more or less limits the speed of my recovery. Unless I have access to an abundance of Qi to break through the barrier. I can only step into the completion of the grandmaster realm.” Greed sneered.
“That’s it? That was a lot of Qi…” Xuanyuan rolled his eyes.
He didn’t even have time to finish his sentence before demons jumped down from the tunnel into the mine, while screaming frantically. It seemed like they were just running to their deaths, Xuanyuan thought. He took out his Wind Spirit spear and began slaughtering the demons. With a seventy-two dragon increase in strength, the demons were no match for Xuanyuan. He didn’t need the dagger to continuously absorb their Qi. He now felt like his body was a whirlpool, constantly pulling the Qi towards it. Now that he had reached the completion of the wild realm, his speed and strength were improved exponentially.
Xuanyuan continued slaughtering the demons with the Wind Spirit spear. He moved like a whirlwind, spinning and defending himself against the demons which attacked him from every angle. When he released his fighting Qi with his attacks, it was like a ripple on the surface of a lake, hundreds of demons were blown into the air and chopped into pieces.
The blood was streaming down to the centre of the tunnel, created a puddle where the egg was placed. The blood contained the life essence of the demons which was quickly absorbed by the egg.
“Boy, faster! Kill! Devouring Qi and life essence together is the best! Faster!” Greed was pus.h.i.+ng Xuanyuan to kill faster. He fought for six whole hours without feeling any fatigue. When he finally killed the last demon, his strength had stopped increasing at a hundred and ninety dragons of strength. A quarter of his spinal marrow had been refined. There was no longer any rust visible on the dagger. It was now s.h.i.+ning with a dim black light.
The Qi in the mine become extremely thin and the glow had disappeared. Xuanyuan noticed that they had sucked every drop of Qi from the jade mine. He looked at the red sun mark on the egg and sighed, “Two blood sucking b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”
He approximately killed eight thousand demons and collected a hundred demon elixirs. He put the egg back into his ring, picked up the dagger, and turned around.
Suddenly he heard rapid footsteps approaching and a shadow appeared at the entrance of the tunnel above. Fang Yuyou was covered with demon blood and had a face filled with terror, but her face brightened the moment she saw Xuanyuan.
“Master Xuanyuan! How wonderful! You’re alive!”
It was then that Fang Yuyou and her guards realized the mine was filled with corpses that formed a small mountain. They were speechless. Only six of the guards had stayed alive. The ones remaining had all stepped into the king realm through constant fighting.
“What… Master Xuanyuan. You killed all these demons alone? Unbelievable….” One of them gasped.
“That’s impressive. There are at least five thousand demons. No… more than that. How did you achieve it, Master Xuanyuan?”
“Master Xuanyuan produced the seven-coloured light. Of course he can do it.”
Xuanyuan knew that Fang Yuyou must have been worried sick about him. He smiled at her and leaped towards the tunnel. She immediately embraced him when he arrived.
“I’m so glad you’re alive. I thought you must have been killed!” She sounded like she was weeping.
Xuanyuan suddenly felt his heart warming. He smoothed out her bloodstained hair with his fingers as he teased her, “I am the legendary Xuanyuan, I can’t be killed by demons. It’s all right, don’t cry. People will start to think you are falling in love with me.”
She suddenly pushed him away. Her eyes were red, but so was her face. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not in love with you. I didn’t cry for you. You saved us, that’s why we came here to rescue you. If you’re okay, we’ll be on our way.”
“Hahaha, the little girl’s embarra.s.sed. Boy, I think you have a girlfriend now…” Greed teased Xuanyuan.
“Cut the bulls.h.i.+t.” Xuanyuan replied to Greed as he followed Fang Yuyou out of the tunnel.
Everywhere they looked, there were the corpses of demons. They gathered the remains of the guards that had died in battle. It was impossible to bring them out of the mine, so they had to leave them here. They quickly buried the guards’ remains, after all of that, they were truly exhausted. They all sprawled across the floor, exhausted.
“We still need about twenty jin of crystal before we have completed our mission. How about you?” Fang Yuyou asked.
“I’ve got the hundred jin of jades, but I still need to find fifty jin of crystals. Does anyone know where the crystal mines are?” Xuanyuan shrugged. Then he pa.s.sed them the twenty jin of crystals he took from the group who attacked him. “I found these crystals earlier. Take them and leave the mine. I want to go look for a crystal mine.”
Fang Yuyou was surprised to hear that Xuanyuan needed fifty jin of crystal for his mission. She said, “Where are you going to look? We have only used one of the ten days of our mission. We should go together.”
“No, go back. There are many powerful people who are aiming for my life. You’d only make things more difficult for me.” He gave one final smile and then departed.
Fang Yuyou gritted her teeth angrily, “I’m much stronger than you can imagine. One day, you’ll need my help.”