Chapter 17The next morning after Chen Zhen completed his morning routine he excitedly ran out to the stone platform. Shanggu Julong was already there waiting for him. Chen Zhen was practically hopping from foot to foot like and overly hyper child. Shanggu Julong let him stew in his excitement for a while be fore he began the lesson.
"You have learned to take in energy and circulate it around your body to strengthen it. And you have learned to store energy to release it for explosive attack power. Martial techniques are a combination of these two acts. But there is also one more factor you have to learn first, using spiritual sense. Spiritual sense is a second sight that cultivators can attain, but it is far more then just sight. Spiritual sense allows you to see the unseen, to feel your environment and not it as well as you know your body. With this, cultivators can know of dangers that may be present beforehand, allowing them to either prepare ahead of time, or avoid the danger all together. The stronger you become the farther your spiritual sense will be able to reach. Once you reopen your sea of consciousness the range of your spiritual sense will be hundreds of miles.", Shanggu Julong explained.
Chen Zhen had sat down as he was listening to Shanggu Julong"s explanation, now he closed his eyes to see if he could use this spiritual sense for himself.
"So how exactly do I use this spiritual sense that he was talking about?", Chen Zhen asked the clone.
[First allow your mind to drift out and feel the energy around you.]
Chen Zhen could feel the abundant Heaven and Earth energy around him. He could feel it entering and circulating around his body.
[Now open your mind more and allow the energy entering you mind to bring with it am image of what is around you.]
Chen Zhen started to focus more on the energy that entered into his mind. As he did so he could see the stone platform from where he was sitting. At first he thought it was just his memory of his surroundings, but then he noticed that Shanggu Julong"s long white hair and beard lightly swaying in the breeze. He could see Shanggu Julong walking down the stairs of the platform and heading toward the shack. Shanggu Julong could feel Chen Zhen"s spiritual sense observing him, that"s why he started to walk away. He wanted to see how far he could move before Chen Zhen couldn"t sense him anymore.
Chen Zhen could see Shanggu Julong leisurely strolling toward the shack, he quickly became distracted by the other things he could see in his environment. First it was the gra.s.s in the clearing, then the insects in the gra.s.s. Chen Zhen noticed a boulder that was mostly buried under ground. He noticed he could look inside the boulder with his sense like he had x-ray vision. His mind kept wandering and he made his way to the stream. Chen Zhen"s mind followed the water towards the woods at the end of the clearing. As he approached the woods he could feel a strange sort of energy fluctuation. This energy covered the entire clearing like a dome. When Chen Zhen sent his sense into the air it was hundreds of feet of the ground before he encountered the energy again. If this dome was a complete circle its diameter would be at least four to five hundred feet. Curious to know more about hits world and his surroundings Chen Zhen sent his spiritual sense to the woods at the end of the clearing again. It took him some effort, but he was finally able to push his sense thru the barrier. As soon as he did all of the sounds that were being blocked by the barrier came flooding into his mind. Chen Zhen heard the howls that sounded like wolves from the woods near him. When he followed the sound the scene in front of him shocked him to his core! Chen Zhen bolted towards the woods.
Shanggu Julong stood completely still on the path leading to the shack. As soon as Chen Zhen"s spiritual sense left him he thought that Chen Zhen had reached his limit. Even though Shanggu Julong had been walking slow he still mad it about fifty feet away from Chen Zhen, in his mind this was an excellent start for Chen Zhen. But then Shanggu Julong became startled when he noticed Chen Zhen didn"t reach his limit, he was just bored of looking at Shanggu Julong. The farther Chen Zhen reached with his spiritual sense the more amazed Shanggu Julong became. He was finally coming to understand that normal convention didn"t apply to Chen Zhen. As Chen Zhen"s sense reached the barrier Shanggu Julong had erected for Chen Zhen"s protection, he could feel Chen Zhen trying to force his way thru. Curious to see his disciples limits Shanggu Julong gave Chen Zhen permission to pa.s.s thru the barrier. The first thing that Chen Zhen discovered where the rank 2 Shadow Wolves that Shanggu Julong knew lived around here. Next thing that Shanggu Julong knew was that Chen Zhen was hurtling himself toward the wolves at his full speed.
Chen Zhen"s body met with a slight resistance when he reached the barrier. He pushed thru with all his strength, at this moment every second counted. As Chen Zhen raced thru the woods he could hear the excited yelps from the Shadow Wolves, they had caught their prey and knew they were about to make a kill. As Chen Zhen was running he threw off his shirt, which crashed into a pine tree knocking it down. Without the added weight Chen Zhen was now moving at twice his previous speed. As he was running he was planning his next move with the clone.
"I need you to provide me with as much energy as you can. I need you to push the energy to my arms and legs. As much as my body can take. I don"t care if it starts to hurt I must save them no matter what!", Chen Zhen said to the clone who just nodded its head. The clone knew just how important this was to Chen Zhen.
Since these were only rank 2 Shadow Wolves and Chen Zhen was now a level 5 body refinement cultivator Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian weren"t too concerned about their safety, but they were extremely curious as to what was going on with Chen Zhen. What could possibly make him fly off like a bat out of h.e.l.l all of a sudden?
Chen Zhen could now see the Shadow Wolves. One of the wolves was already in the air pouncing toward it"s prey as Chen Zhen arrived. Chen Zhen didn"t even think twice, he launched himself in the air and punched the side of the wolf. By the time the wolf noticed Chen Zhen"s presence it was already too late, there was nothing it could do. There was a loud bang and then the sound of breaking bones, it was as if time slowed down. After the sound of the last broken bone time seemed to return to normal and the wolf Chen Zhen just punched was launched twenty feet away before crashing into a tree and knocking that tree over.
Chen Zhen and the wolves stared at each other. They were all panting in an aggressive manner, at this point no one could tell who was and wasn"t a wild animal. Chen Zhen slowly backed toward the woman and two children, making sure to keep himself between them and the wolves. The remaining three wolves eyed Chen Zhen apprehensively. They didn"t know where this human came from. This is there territory and they had hunted this prey for several days now and this human had never shown up before. Looking at their size each wolf was the size of a horse. They knew they had the advantage in strength and numbers, so even though Chen Zhen had caught their brother off guard they felt they were strong enough to win this fight. Coming to this realization the wolves crept forward tightening their encirclement around Chen Zhen and the others.
As the wolves pressed forward Chen Zhen didn"t know what to do, he was running on adrenaline and pure instinct. He had to protect the people behind him at all cost, even if it meant giving up his own life.
Seeing the situation becoming dire Lou Tian decided to help Chen Zhen out.
"Do exactly as I say right now!", Lou Tian shouted to Chen Zhen, "Take the energy you have stored in your right hand and spin it as fast as you can in your palm. You want this energy to start feeling hot. The hotter you can make it the better! You will know you"re doing it right when you see sparks."
At the same time Shanggu Feng was also giving Chen Zhen advice, "Take the energy in your left hand and make it vibrate. You want to create as friction as possible. You will know you"re doing it right when you see sparks!"
Chen Zhen looked inside himself at the clone, but he didn"t even need to say anything. They just both nodded to each other once, Chen Zhen focused on the right hand and the clone focused on the left.
Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian had never expected Chen Zhen to listen to both of them at the same time. If he had just listened to one of them then that would been fine by them. To their joint surprise both of Chen Zhen"s hands began to spark. As Chen Zhen and the clone push more energy into his hands the sparks grew brighter and more intense.
The Shadow Wolves could feel the large amounts of energy being pulled into Chen Zhen"s body. As soon as they saw his hand begin to spark they knew they couldn"t wait any longer. Two of the wolves leapt at Chen Zhen, one from the right, the other from the left. Chen Zhen didn"t even think about what he was doing he just punched at the two wolves with all his might. While Chen Zhen"s right was flying thru the air a series of m.u.f.fled bangs could be heard. As his right fist made contact with the wolf"s head the sparks surrounding his fist became a deep dark red flame. The explosion that followed left a fist sized crater in the wolf"s head and the ensuing flames burned the rest of the wolf to a crisp.
The left fist began to make a sizzling sound right before it struck the wolf. Upon impact there was a bright flash that made everyone looking close their eyes and turn their head away. It was as if the lightening bolt suddenly struck at that very moment. The wolf hit began to convulse and twitch on the ground while sparks of electricity flashed across it"s body. In the end it was foaming at the mouth and its eyes rolled back in its skull as it died.
At this point Chen Zhen was a mad man. His eyes were glowing red and his anger caused him to lose control of himself. Chen Zhen wildly took the energy from the lightening and fire that was coursing thru him and began to circulate then together. Shanggu Feng and Lou Tian were yelling at him to stop before he blow himself up, but he couldn"t hear them. The clone was helping him to balance the opposing energies as much as it could, but this was still putting a huge strain on Chen Zhen"s body. The remaining two wolves stalked back and forth in front of Chen Zhen waiting for an opportunity to attack him. Chen Zhen suddenly put his hands together and started pushing the energy in his body into his palms. A small sphere of flames the size of a marble formed in between his hands. As Chen Zhen forcefully pushed more and more energy into the sphere it started to expand and contract almost like a beating heart, while bands of lightening began to form on it.
When the wolves sensed this new energy they were instantly frightened! They both took off running as fast as they could to get away from this new threat. Immediately as they took off running Chen Zhen launched himself high into the air in the direction they ran. Holding the sphere of flames that was now one foot wide, swirling with bands of lightening, Chen Zhen aimed at a spot ahead of the wolves and launched the sphere with all his might.
The wolves who thought they had gotten a good distance away from danger were suddenly blocked by a glowing sphere of flame and lightening. They had no time to react before the sphere hit the ground in front of them and exploded. Everything within a fifty foot radius of the explosion was instantly vaporized. The woods in that area were turned to ash that blew on the wind. Flames and sparks inside of the crater were the only things left until they slowly dissipated as well.
Chen Zhen saw none of this because the backlash of using so much energy caused his body drain almost instantly. Chen Zhen had pa.s.sed out as soon as he threw his attack. His body fell ungracefully to the ground leaving him battered and bruised. If his body refinement hadn"t been at level 5 he would have died from the fall, let alone the ma.s.sive amount of energy he just used. As he lay there the woman and children behind her walk up to him. Looking down they wonder who this stranger that saved them was?