"I"ll be relying on you next time when Qing Tan suffers one of these cold attacks again."Zhu Jiiao was thanking me so profusely that I couldn"t help but feel embarra.s.sed. I tried to wave his grat.i.tude away.
"It"s nothing, really."
"But are you sure you"re all right, though? That icy qi was enough to make my father bedridden for a couple of weeks! And you absorbed all of it too! Are there any ill effects?"
"Nope, none." On the contrary, the frosty demonic yin qi actually strengthened my const.i.tution and qi reserves. I actually benefited from this rather than suffered from it, which was great. I was going to need all the qi I could get.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure as sure," I replied impatiently. Zhu Jiao took the hint and stopped pressing. Instead, he grinned after glancing me over.
"You should just marry Qing Tan and come live in our household. Or bring her home. That way you can take care of her whenever she suffers from one of those bouts of chill attacks."
"Make sure Qi Hong never hears you say that, or both you and I will be dead," I warned. Zhu Jiao chuckled.
"Wasn"t she the one who rejected you? Getting on her high horse and spouting all that bulls.h.i.t about needing to focus on becoming the next sect leader, and therefore cannot spare any time or expense for romance? She doesn"t have any right to say anything if you find a girlfriend or wife, not when she was the one who dumped you."
"Firstly, she didn"t dump me," I corrected. "Yes, she"s totally focused on becoming the next sect leader, but we were never officially dating nor did I properly confess to her or anything." Well, I did, sort of, but to save some measure of dignity I pretended that it was a hypothetical confession rather than a sincere one. "And another, isn"t the whole point of venturing into the tomb, exploring it and finding the yin-nature artifact to permanently cure your sister so that she"ll never suffer from these bouts of chill attacks again?"
"Yeah, but you can still marry her. Of all my friends, you"re the one person I feel I can entrust Qing Tan to."
I snorted. As much as I appreciated his high opinion of me, I knew it was impossible. Qing Tan was definitely in love with her brother. She wouldn"t give someone like me a second glance, not when this was the first time we had met. I saw the way she looked at Zhu Jiao. It was clear that her feelings for him went beyond that of siblings.
Unfortunately, being the typical dense protagonist, Zhu Jiao did not notice her love for him at all.
I really want to smack this guy…
However, whatever romantic relationships Zhu Jiao got into were none of my business. And I doubted Bai Ning Xue would take too kindly to Qing Tan pursuing her own brother, even if they weren"t related by blood.
h.e.l.l, that "unrelated by blood despite being siblings" was a dead giveaway that she would eventually become Zhu Jiao"s harem member. It was so cliché and predictable that I wanted to drive my head against the wall.
"Anyway, let"s get ready. The sooner we head out and go into the tomb, the higher the chances of us actually getting anything before all the other elite cutlivators s.n.a.t.c.h away all the treasures inside."
"Oh, right!" Zhu Jiao"s eyes widened when he realized I was right. Fl.u.s.tered, he began running about the room and grabbing his stuff. "Wait outside for me. I"ll be with you in thirty minutes. Let me get packed."
"Sure."
I was relieved that I wouldn"t be going on this adventure alone. Though I would sorely miss Tong Xue"s intelligence and information-gathering abilities, having a strong comrade like Zhu Jiao would halve the danger. There was nothing the both of us, who had reached the finals of our academy tournament, couldn"t defeat.
…or so I hoped. Remembering that the tomb was full of death traps and most likely inhabited by powerful demonic creatures, I could only cross my fingers and pray to the Heavens that we wouldn"t run into any unforeseen circ.u.mstances.
As always, the Heavens were a b.i.t.c.h, and they loved to torment me…
*
All right, I"m done. Are you ready?"
Zhu Jiao finally emerged from his room, carrying nothing but a little pouch. Despite appearances, I was aware that the pouch was a spatial device. In other words, he could store an insane amount of things inside an alternative s.p.a.ce, no matter how small the pouch looked. It was clearly made from the poor Void Whale.
"I"m waiting on you," I replied impatiently. "Actually, I"m more worried that you will have more stuff to do before we can go."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Zhu Jiao stared at me blankly.
"I dunno…stuff like you being a martial arts instructor for your fellow clan members, then a bunch of dudes show up from nowhere, insult you and the branch clan, you end up challenging them, and defeating the strongest of the bunch in a duel, and in doing so earned the right to travel with them to explore the tomb…"
"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Zhu Jiao demanded.
"Never mind. I"m mixing up Wu Dong Qian Kun and reality."
I sighed and shook my head in relief. It was better this way. For one thing, I wouldn"t get into trouble with copyright, and for another, who the f.u.c.k cared about clan politics? If Lin Dong, I mean, Zhu Jiao"s goal was to grab the yin-nature artifact to help his sister with her condition, then why meander off into a tangent involving random members of the clan no one cared about? Why spend several chapters dealing with clan politics and inner conflict instead of, you know, going straight to the tomb? Why did he even have time to train and instruct his fellow clan members?
Fortunately, there were no such tangents, and we could immediately set off. Despite Zhu Jiao staring at me suspiciously, there no further hiccups in our journey.
As we left Zhu Jiao"s house and proceeded to the streets, I could see that the town we were currently in, was bustling.
Wait a second…
"Hey, Zhu Jiao, you live near Tushan City?"
"Hmm? You mean that city over there?"
I hadn"t realized it, having been so distracted by my preparations, but after talking to Elder Zhao, I had left Tushan City and stopped by the nearest town to pick up cheaper supplies. That was how I ended up running into Zhu Jiao, who had just finished shopping for groceries in the town"s supermarket. All this time, I didn"t realize that Zhu Jiao lived so close to Tushan City, where I had been staying and training in all this while.
Just Tushan City, the little town was jammed pack with adventurers, I mean martial artists and cultivators, because of its close proximity to the Heavenly Fire Mountain Range. Particularly those who could not afford to stay in Tushan City"s more luxurious hotels and inns, they settled for the cheaper accommodations in the little town.
"How do you intend to get there?" Zhu Jiao asked as he glanced at the long line of martial artists waiting for cabs or buses to ferry them over. I glanced at the mountain range, and then at the unending queue.
"I suggest we walk."
Zhu Jiao grinned. "I was thinking the same thing!"
"Heh, great minds think alike." I returned his smile, and then proceeded toward the outskirts of the town. "Let"s go!"
The Heavenly Fire Mountain Range was located in a vast area between Tushan City and two other cities, with a handful of small towns like the one Zhu Jiao was living in dotting the region. Needless to say, the Mountain Range ran for over a hundred of kilometers hugging the border and forming a natural, impa.s.sable barrier. If a certain American president was to see this, he would have wept at how the Great Zhou Empire did not need to build a wall to keep out illegal migration. Of course the issue wasn"t that simple and clear-cut, and obviously people could climb and traverse the mountain range – especially if they were skilled and/or experienced enough. But it would have destroyed that particular American president"s bid to win the elections, and perhaps the world wouldn"t be in so much trouble with an idiot at the helm of one of the most powerful nations in the world.
Whoops, I was getting ahead of myself here.
Anyway, it was probably the largest mountain range in the Middle Continent, running along west of Tushan City and keeping out invaders and outsiders who weren"t foolhardy enough to brave the dangers of the lethal terrain. Dwelling within the mountains were innumerable demonic creatures and magical beasts, hostile and inimical to human life. According to rumors, even Qi Fusion stage pract.i.tioners had to be wary upon entering the mountain range, for if they were careless, they would find themselves maimed or worse, slaughtered by these merciless magical beasts.
Thanks to that, other than the professional magical beast and demonic creature hunters, even martial artists rarely ventured into the range. Of course, the existences beyond the fourth wall must be wondering why I never went inside to eat the demonic creatures to increase my strength. Again, it was because of diminishing returns. Even if I ate another Silverback Wolf or a creature of a similar level (I didn"t mean levels literally, I didn"t care about ranks), my growth in strength wasn"t going to be much. It wouldn"t have made up for the sheer differences of qi quant.i.ty with those who received artificial qi. I would have to hunt much more powerful monsters to gain a more substantial return, and the risks were just not worth it.
I would be risking my life and sustaining injuries just to grow substantially stronger – except that the substantial would be a small fraction of what my schoolmates would gain when they received s.e.xagenaries of qi. A single powerful monster wasn"t going to give me a year or two worth of qi, never mind six decades.
Anyway, n.o.body cared about the risks right now. Upon learning that there was the tomb of a Nascent Soul Stage pract.i.tioner hidden inside the Mountain Range, never mind the ferocious demonic creatures and magical beasts lurking within there, even if they had to face the undead legions of h.e.l.l themselves, the martial artists and cultivators from everywhere would greedily throw themselves into battle to obtain the treasures, artifacts and weapons locked within the tomb"s hallowed vaults. Since I was one of them, I had no cause for criticism.
"There really are a lot of people," Zhu Jiao observed, demonstrating his penchant for stating the obvious once more.
"Yeah," I agreed diplomatically as I glanced around. There were hundreds, if not thousands of martial artists streaming into the place. The Heavenly Fire Mountain Range, which used to be peaceful, had transformed into a tourist attraction in just a week. Despite the vast area, I could spot at least one other group somewhere ahead.
"Uwaah!"
"?!"
I jumped when Zhu Jiao suddenly cried out. The cause for his panic was revealed shortly. A human corpse was lying at the base of a tree, his throat ripped out. Having survived Sen Lin Forest, I recognized the wounds that killed him.
"He got chewed out by a magical beast…a Psycho Panther, most likely."
"Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Zhu Jiao shook his head, calming down. Even though he had lived near the wilderness – his town clearly located near the forests that surrounded the Heavenly Fire Mountain Range – he was not used to seeing people die. Even though the Wu Ling Academy students called themselves martial artists, they were mostly sheltered kids who had never tasted the tension of life-and-death combat.
"There"s another dead person there…"
We hadn"t even proceeded another couple of kilometers when Zhu Jiao caught sight of yet another poor victim. This time, the unfortunate guy had been mauled by a Shadow Leopard. A few paces ahead, we ran into a dead girl, who had been ensnared by the vines of a Mandrake. She had done enough damage to slay the Mandrake, their bodies lying entwined together.
"Shouldn"t we bury them?"
"Are you going to stop and bury each and every dead person we see?" I countered when Zhu Jiao raised the suggestion. "There are probably countless people who lost their lives in these woods, especially given the frightening number of magical beasts. If we stop and bury each and every of them, we probably wouldn"t reach the tomb in a month."
"Even so…"
"Who"s more important? Your sister or respecting the dead? These guys are dead. Even if we leave them, that"s not going to change the fact. But if you don"t get the yin-based artifact, your sister will continue to suffer."
Zhu Jiao nodded, seeing the wisdom of my words, but he still looked pretty uncomfortable.
"You don"t seem…disturbed by this," he remarked. I smiled wryly.
"I"m used to it, pal. Remember when I had to spend a few months in the abyss of Sen Lin Forest? And that time when I was abducted by the Chinese Parasol Tree Sect?" I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of those nightmarish memories. "I"ve seen far too much."
"Right."
I glanced in the direction of the Heavenly Fire Mountain Range, knowing that the deaths in the forest were only the beginning. The casualties would continue to mount up, shooting up sharply the moment we entered the tomb. For when we explored the tomb, magical beasts and demonic creatures weren"t the only threats we had to contend with.
There were still the traps. You know, like Indiana Jones? Gosh, but Harrison Ford had certainly grown old, to the point where his character got killed by his son in the Disney produced sequel.
Zhu Jiao seemed aware of that, so I didn"t remind him. It would only come across as patronizing and create friction between us. n.o.body likes a show-off or know-it-all.
"Maybe we should have taken the bus. We might need to wait ages, but at least it would be safer."
"Are you sure about that?" I asked when Zhu Jiao voiced what sounded like common sense. He stared at me, befuddled.
"Why wouldn"t I be?"
I shook my head. I was about to reply when I caught sight of smoke drifting from a region just ahead, to our right. Striding in that direction, I gestured for Zhu Jiao to follow me and merely told him, "Keep walking."
He obeyed, and we continued on for a couple of miles until we reached the source of the smoke I had spotted. The wreckage of a bus was lying there, with several corpses strewn about. While the number of corpses indicated that a good number of the pa.s.sengers had managed to survive the crash and leave the site on foot, there were still a significant number of casualties.
They weren"t killed by the crash, though. The same thing that shredded through the metal carapace of the bus had torn their throats out or ripped their chests apart.
"Demonic Drakes," I whispered, recognizing the tell-tale signs their vicious claws would leave on both flesh and metal. The size of those rents in the bus, especially given how the buses could fly, made it more than likely that the flying demonic creatures were what wrecked them. Moreover, such power creatures were capable of tearing even decent martial artists apart.
This journey was getting more and more dangerous.
"See?" I told Zhu Jiao, who looked incredibly ill. "Even if we took the bus, we"ll still get attacked, and we"ll end up having to walk the rest of the journey anyway. Might as well just go on foot. Plus we would attract less attention than those…"
A roar overhead drowned out my voice, a bus soaring above to punctuate my point. It almost disappeared into the horizon when a flock of Demonic Drakes descended upon them, slashing and pecking.
"We"ve got to help them!" Zhu Jiao cried, rushing forward. I shook my head.
"We"re too far away. We"ll be too late."
"Even so…!"
Zhu Jiao dashed off in the direction of the bus, which was rapidly descending as it took damage from its a.s.ssailants. I cursed and followed him, but we hadn"t taken more than a few steps before the bus plunged into the forest and disappeared from sight, the Demonic Drakes following after it.
"We have to hurry!"
Yelling, Zhu Jiao poured on his pace. Suppressing a sigh, I tailed him as closely as I could, despite knowing that it was too late.
Contrary to what most people believed, martial artists could not fly. Sure, we could probably pull of superhuman acrobatics, jump from treetop to treetop, walk on water (or run on it, to be more accurate) and maybe even hover in the air, but we couldn"t soar across the skies like these hovercraft vehicles that were powered by qi.
"No way…"
By the time we reached the crash site, it was too late. The dead were beyond rescuing, the bus was wrecked beyond repair, and there was no sign of survivors. That was not to say n.o.body survived the attack, but the survivors had disembarked, proceeded to slaughter the Demonic Drakes attacking their ride, and then moved on. And long ago, at that.
"I told you so," I muttered, staring at the carca.s.ses of bloodied Demonic Drakes. One had been cleaved in half by an axe, another had been sliced to pieces by a sword. "Either they take care of the problem themselves, or they die. We wouldn"t be able to make a difference either way."
"At least not all of them died," Zhu Jiao said, relieved. Typical Mary Sue protagonist, always worrying about others more than himself, and wanting to save everybody. d.a.m.ned goody two shoes. While that was exactly why we were friends, we couldn"t afford to waste time chasing after every crashing bus.
"Let"s go," I said instead, and the two of us proceeded toward the mountains.
It took us a whole day to walk to the outskirts of the Heavenly Fire Mountain Range. At first I thought we were late, but I caught sight of hundreds of people gathering in a campsite just outside the mountains. Buses flew over, dropped their pa.s.sengers, and drove off. I thought back to the corpses we encountered in the forest and wondered if they should have spent their money or endured the extremely long wait in the relatively safe buses.
However, the transports, as I mentioned earlier, were not immune to a.s.saults from demonic creatures. Already Zhu Jiao and I had seen with our very own eyes the wreckages of at least two buses, and pa.s.sed by smoke that could only have come from a downed vehicle. Of course, unlike the movies where vehicles dramatically exploded when they smashed into the ground, the buses did not catch fire. The smoke was caused by volatile qi overheating and causing some sparks, but even with those sparks it was nowhere near the fiery sight of a crash that people were so used to from popular culture.
It had already turned dark, night encroaching upon us and wrapping the crowd in shadows. Illumination glowed from portable flashlights, the fluorescent lights providing some visibility, but also stupidly alerting magical beasts and drawing their attention to this location. Some had even had the foresight to stoke campfires, probably for cooking, or for the spirit of camping out. In my original timeline, that would have worked to keep wild animals away. In this timeline, the magical beasts would be drawn toward fire, some of them able to wield it.
However, there were strength in numbers. With this many human martial artists gathered in one place, a magical beast or demonic creature had to be insanely reckless to jump in and attack. I could sense them lurking in the woods, though, prowling around the edges of the forest and waiting for an opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h a straggler or two away, dragging the poor victim into those dark depths. One of them – a Shadow Leopard – caught my eye, and then slunk away, clearly afraid of me. I didn"t know why, but I guess magical beasts had keener instincts than humans.
"Let"s set up camp here on the outskirts," Zhu Jiao suggested, blissfully ignorant of the magical beasts roaming about nearby. He reached into his spatial pouch and produced a super-convenient tent, which we both proceeded to set up. I had planned to just sleep in the woods, but Zhu Jiao offered to let me share his tent. So who was I to refuse?
After we inflated the flexible material and built it properly, we casually hung out at the entrance of the tent, watching the other campers idly. Demonstrating his roots as a country boy, Zhu Jiao didn"t turn on any lights. He was also a lot more skilled and efficient at setting up the tent, which made me embarra.s.sed for criticizing him earlier. Looked like I had a long way to go as a person.
Good thing I hadn"t voiced that out. I woud have wanted to bury myself in a hole.
"Hey, Wu…there"s quite a lot of people camping out, isn"t there? Has no one entered the tomb yet?"
Zhu Jiao made a great observation. I nodded. Even if we arrived late, the number of people gathered outside the mountains were far too many to be simply those who happened to show up in the evening.
"And…there"s so many of them too…"
Zhu Jiao gulped and glanced at the mountains, looking worried. I understood his concerns. With so many people lurking around, if we were all to explore the tomb at once, there wouldn"t be anything left for us to pilfer.
"Whatever happens will happen," I a.s.sured him. "But you"re right. It"s strange that so many people haven"t entered the tomb yet. I wonder why…"
"Ha ha! That"s because there"s a barrier protecting the tomb!"
"?!"
I jumped up when I heard the familiar voice. Glancing around, I caught sight of two very familiar figures.
"Lao Ren, Lao Tou!?"
The pair of old men swaggered toward us, Lao Ren drinking from a bottle. Judging from the faint scent of alcohol, he was probably drinking wine.
"Hey, Fei Wu. It"s been a while."
"Indeed! How have you been?"
"Oh, you know. The usual." Lao Ren took another swig, then wiped his mouth. "Anyway, the Nascent Soul Stage pract.i.tioner set up a barrier around the tomb. After all this time, the seal has weakened, and a few people were lucky enough to be able to sneak in. Unfortunately, they were not able to get very far into the tomb. This is still, in the end, a barrier created by a Nascent Soul Stage pract.i.tioner. Of course it"s not going to be easy."
"Yeah," Lao Tou growled gruffly. "Ordinary people will never be able to break through the barrier."
By ordinary, he wasn"t referring to non-martial artists and non-combatants, but ordinary martial artists. Realizing that, Zhu Jiao gaped at him.
"Even a Qi Fusion Stage pract.i.tioner?!"
From his troubled expression, I could tell that the reality of how difficult our task was going to be had only just hit home. All this trouble just to enter an old tomb, for a miniscule chance of obtaining something valuable.
But if we did obtain whatever we came here for, then all that trouble would be totally worth it.
"Nope." Lao Tou shook his head. "You"ll need to be at least at the Pure Spirit Stage if you want to break through that."
"And how do you differentiate between stages?" I asked, getting tired of all these stupid things about realms and stages and levels. "Based on the amount of qi?"
"Based on strength, of course," Lao Tou replied as if it was obvious. "A Pure Spirit Stage pract.i.tioner will always be stronger than a Qi Fusion Stage pract.i.tioner."
"And how do you measure how much more strength he has?" I repeated. "By the sheer quant.i.ty of qi?"
I wasn"t being annoying here. I felt like I had a valid point to make. After all, with the invention of artificial qi, concepts such as quant.i.ty of qi being superior or not had been rendered meaningless. Even if you only cultivated for a year, you could get as much qi as someone who cultivated for sixty years if you received a s.e.xagenary of artificial qi.
"That"s…"
"Well, whatever. We"re just the vanguard. You don"t seriously think weaklings like us will be the only ones gathering around here, do you?"
Lao Ren smiled knowingly, changing the subject quickly.
"What do you mean?" Zhu Jiao asked skeptically.
"You think the major sects are just going to sit back and watch other people explore the tomb? No, of course they will be sending their most talented and elite martial artists. Especially those who have already reached the Pure Spirit Stage."
"We"ll be relying on them to break the barrier," Lao Tou agreed.
"Cool." Zhu Jiao"s eyes shone in wonder as he imagined what sort of event would transpire the next day, when all the elite pract.i.tioners arrived. "I wonder who they would be."
"There"s Bai Ning Xue from the White Tiger Sect, leading a group of elite disciples."
"Oh, I know! Ning Xue already told me she will be coming."
"Boy, you know Bai Ning Xue?" Lao Ren looked surprised. Zhu Jiao nodded, and I quickly stepped in to explain.
"Zhu Jiao is childhood friends with Bai Ning Xue, and is currently her boyfriend."
"Her lover! Ah, you must be the rascal who defeated her in last year"s school tournament!" Lao Ren threw his head back and laughed. Then he narrowed his eyes and studied Zhu Jiao, who shifted uncomfortably. "Hmm…yes, you do have an impressive amount of qi and a robust const.i.tution. No wonder you could beat her!"
"Ha ha, it"s nothing."
"Who else? I heard the Green Dragon Sect was also sending out Li Chun Long and Qing Xin Xia."
Li Chun Long had just recently finished serving his sentence in isolation training. Evidently he didn"t waste his time in isolation, and used the chance to hone his skills and advanced his Solar Celestial Dragon Formula, or rather, his Solar Celestial Shock Formula to level 4 or something like that. I had no idea what that meant concretely, other than he had grown stronger.
Despite my enmity with him, I nodded in understanding. "Makes sense to send him. He"s the strongest Green Dragon Sect disciple right now."
"And Kun Lun Sect"s Wu Xing is leading an entourage of genius Kun Lun Sect disciples."
As they trailed on and on, I spoke up.
"I do hope the Lin Clan isn"t going to send Lin Lang Tian, or Lin Dong is going to flip out."
All three of my comrades stared at me.
"What Lin Clan?"
"Who is Ling Lang Tian or Ling Dong?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind. Nothing." As usual, I was mixing up Wu Dong Qian Kun and reality, and I really should stop doing that.
Feeling a bit tired, I excused myself and crawled into the interior of the tent to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, and I needed all the energy I could get.
Just how big, though, at that time I still had no idea…