The Pathway

"Ah, there"s always a danger in such a fame."

Ju Feng was half way to the sect"s haven, when he pa.s.sed by the Youxiu training center of the core disciples. At a corner of the training center, he saw the core disciples" group of Shao Cheng. With a quick glance through their numbers, all of them were there, except for Su Ming. Quan Zhi was in a mock combat with another core disciple, while Li Ling was testing out a technique on her own.

Although, the Youxiu area was off limit to the outer and inner desciples, Ju Feng really wanted to check on them and ask about Su Ming. He walked slowly towards them and stopped at the outskirts of the area. Ju Feng noticed the stratospheric level of fame the group appeared to be recieving. If he thought that he was recieving some acknowledgements from the students and the acolytes, the attention that Shao Cheng"s group was recieving, was way more than he could have imagined.

Everywhere he looked, he could see eyes fixed on the core disciples as if they were celestials. All around them, were regarding eyes, showing respect and appreciative acknowledgement. Afterall, they had used their skills and techniques, to help fight a dangerous ascendant that could have resulted in the death of many students. It was true that fame was a distraction, nonetheless, they truly deserved every bit of it. They could all have easily lost their lives in the encounter. They should be revered, moreover, they were core disciples with the best techniques. The future of the sect.

"Best techniques! The benefits of being a core disciple."

He shook his head slightly, and sighed inwardly. Somehow, he had to be a core disciple.

Shao Cheng noticed Ju Feng and recognizing his face, waved him over to Ju Feng"s utter surprise. This was the core-disciples training area, not to be tresspa.s.sed by other disciples. Ju Feng waited to see if Shao Cheng was actually waving him over or waving him off. After confirming that Shao Cheng wanted him to approach, Ju Feng cautiously but steadily, walked over.

There were some dangerous gazes, non-chalant gazes and mystifying gazes. He turned his attention to the sounded voice of Shao Cheng.

"Ah, you again. Ju Feng, that"s your name, isn"t it?"

"Yes, Xiong Shao Cheng. I meet you all well."

Replied Ju Reng with a cupped hand.

"Hm. We meet you well too, Ju Feng."

Said Shao Cheng as he nodded at Ju Feng, as he regarded his state of being. He couldn"t help but wondered at the remarkable recovery of this young kid. The yellow pill that Su Ming gave him must be a treasure indeed. All the same, he had survived an ascendant force-field at the early stage of the Zhuji. How about that?

"I can tell you need something, Ju Feng. You must know this place is for the core disciples. Any loitering around will draw unnecessary attention. You should be more careful."

"Yes, I know. I just want to find out if everybody is fine."

"You mean, if we are still alive? Yes we are, as you can see. And I know you really want to know about Su Ming."

Said Shao Cheng as he waited for Ju Feng"s confirmation before continuing.

"She"s recovering well. Should be out by tomorrow."

"So happy to hear that. I will check on her later to give my thanks. Thanks xiong Shao Cheng."

"Think little of it. By the way, be careful around Su Ming. Quan Zhi is a little bit over protective."

"I will remember that. Thanks xiong Shao Cheng."

Returning to his room, Ju Feng decided to check the items he brought back from the forsaken palace. Sitting on the floor, he took out the items and placed them in front of him, one by one.

A primordial seed of pure element of water called the Star-Tide bead.

A large yellow-gold crystal known as the mystical order.

An antique white medallion with G.o.dly touch but no inculcated energy.

A blank scroll of unknown origin.

A copper coin.

A Soul Banishing scroll.

And, the heavenly solitude spirit fruit.

In truth, these were more than he bargained for. Despite not knowing the function or reason for most of these items, he knew they were more than a fortune on their own. Some were luminous and heavenly treasures while others were still unknown. He would examine them properly later. He put them carefully, back in his spatial sac before putting it away.

He headed towards the direction of the training center where he met Chenric and Da Xia. Both were synchronizing to some martial arts move until they saw Ju Feng and came over.

"h.e.l.lo Da Xia, Chenric."

"h.e.l.lo Ju Feng."

"We are getting ready earlier for the coming compet.i.tion. If we don"t get to be core disciples, we should be inner disciples at the least."

Said Da Xia with grim determination.

"But, the compet.i.tion is still some miles away."

Ju Feng voiced in light-hearted manner as he tried to take away the grim seriousness.

"That"s why we are training now, Ju Feng."

With a wry smile on his face, Chenric replied. Paused for a second before continuing.

"Good things are involved in being one."

"Hm. I know."

Ju Feng nodded in agreement.

"h.e.l.lo everyone."

Said Ying Jie as he flashstepped into their midst.

"h.e.l.lo Ying Jie."

"Sorry I came a bit late. Took care of few things."

"It"s alright. Now, you are here."

"We are simply too weak."

"Uh?"

"Why did you say so, Chenric?"

Chenric looked around and shook is head slightly. There was a tinge of helplessness in his eyes as he turned around, staring into the far distance.

"My time inside the forsaken palace showed me how weak we all are.

"I accepted the fact that eye of the Crucible was a divine artifact and that the golems were G.o.dlike, I still can"t accept what happened inside the forsaken palace. I know it"s all good in the end, yet... . The moment I stepped into the forsaken palace, I heard the voice of the giant, Darggek, saying the same words as mentioned by Da Xia. At first, I was also concerned about the whole portals thing, though, I wasn"t scared that much. I knew if the dangers are getting overwhelming, I only had to say the safe word. So I went with it.

"As soon as my right foot landed, I found myself at the mouth of a yellow mountain, close to another five human kids of my age. From the look of things, they were yet to reach the Zhuji stage. But just like us, they should be at its gates. You are dead right, at first, I was a little surprised and shocked to see them. Moment ago, I was in the palace belonging to an emperor and now, only to find myself at the mouth of a yellow mountain, looking at some kids. Yes, I was surprised. Though, I was a bit taken aback, they were not at all. It was as if it was alright for me to be there."

"That was a little strange."

"Yes, I thought so too, at first. Then, they beckoned to me to come closer. The five of them, three boys and two girls. Duan Yang, Zeng Wuhan, Dong Jun, Xie Heng and Jia Ai. All human mortals. From the way I was addressed, I think they thought I was from the next village to theirs."

"Which village was that?"

"The amber forest village. The village next to theirs, the Twin-Dragon village. On a planet known as Jarlig."

"Jarlig? Never heard of that before."

"Neither had I before then. Imagine, I was transported to a different world. My shock was more profound but I kept it hidden. From them, I learned about the yellow mountain. Yellow mountains were the homes of the Goutou creatures. Little nasty creatures that love to horde minor treasures. And they believe there were some treasures inside this very mountain. So, with an adventurer"s heart, I followed them as we proceeded into the mountain.

"The smallest kid, Duan Yang, was extremely good at tracking, hence, he was the one taking the lead. As we entered the mountain, we noticed that forceful torrents of water had run into its depths. The force of the corrosive water had left a slantwise crack in the area of limestone at the right part of the mountain while the other areas had shafts scattered with boulders, pebbles and potholes. It had scoured the shaft smooth, burnishing the stone to a more brilliant yellow l.u.s.ter.

"We bounded from boulder to boulder. I kept up with them despite finding the going more difficult. It was at this time I started noticing their strength. At times, the slope would approach in a vertical part, making them slowed down slightly to readjust their trajectory. I kept up with them by using more chi energy. We continued our journey until we reached a place where the path descended into a pit."
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"Though we didn"t know the depth of the pit, Duan Yang, the smallest and the scout, crouched and leapt down the pit."

"t.i.tan"s torso! Anything could be down there."

Uttered Ying Jie in a whisper.

"Dead right. At this stage, I wished I had reached the Zhuji stage to be able to use a little bit of spiritual sight.

"We continued watching and waiting to hear from him until he called to us that everything was fine at the bottom. I remembered the saying that, the heart of an adventurer, was that of a leap into the unknown. I totally reasoned with that. I fortified my body with Chi energy, and together with others, jumped into the unknown. I landed a little rough to a gentle laugh from all of us. But we pressed on.

"We came to a narrow crack, lined with geodes that were winking silver in the light of the bugs that were attached to the mountain walls. Beyond the crack was darkness. One of the kids, the one they called Zeng Wuhan, opened his backsac and took out the hundred manifestation firebug."

"That was a risk, wasn"t it? If there was something powerful in there, you could have been in mortal danger."

Said Da Xia, looking at Chenric angrily.

"Yes, I thought so too. But, after careful delibration, we all agreed with him sending the firebug. The firebug multiplied instantly, and its light filled the whole crack s.p.a.ce and beyond. We could see the path was clear and cautiously followed as Duan Yang led the way through the crack and into another cavern, as huge as the one before. There we saw the Goutou creatures. The kids made light work of the Goutou as they antic.i.p.ated the arrival of mountain spiders, the necrophilias. That was a battle when the giant spiders arrived but we killed them.

One thing was glaring to me. The strength of those kids, were mighty in battle. One of them could crush a boulder in a battle with bare hands."

"Heavens tears!"

Exclaimed Ju Feng as he imagined the scenario before asking no one in particular.

"Battle-Frenzy talisman? The Berserker Seal? The G.o.dly-Essence technique?"

"That, I do not know, Ju Feng. All I know is that they were beyond our level despite being at the same stage. Anyway, after killing the spiders, we heard a splash off in the darkness and the boy, Zeng Wuhan, quickly directed his firebug in that direction as we followed, manouvering our way across the uneven shards of rock.

"There in front of us in a seperate chamber, was the pile of treasures. It was a lot of gold to be true. Enough gold to make a cultivator"s life easier in a world where resources are harder to find. Enough gold to make a mortal rich for the rest of his or her life. A lot. And it wasn"t just gold, either. There was the occasional flash of other treasures; there were chalices, few swords and all sorts of other items poking out of the pile. The pile was a treasure, but the true treasure was what was under the pile. A golden glowing stone, the size of a head. This made them extremely happy. This was a treasure of their village. They will be rewarded.

"We were actually happy with what we found and we just finished with the sharing, when we heard a giant impact on the ground. We thought it was a quake of the ground until we heard a form of alarm whisper coming from the kid they refered to as Dong Jun."

"What happened?"

Asked Da Xia in antic.i.p.ation as she urged Chenric to continue who quickly obliged.

"Couple of yards away, there were two feet planted on the ground. The disturbing aspect about these giant feet was that the body to which they were attached wasn"t visible. Not that there was no attached body, exactly; the body was just so ma.s.sive that we couldn"t see it all in the average light of the bugfire. All you could see was a pair of huge, scaled, greenish feet, each with four toes, each toe sporting a claw the length of an adult mortal"s arm. Also visible, hanging about fifteen feet off the ground, was a brown mastodon, clutched in a huge, clawed hand."

"A Shouren? Heavens tears."

"A Shouren humoid? And you are still alive?"

"Yes, very much alive as you can see. And, a very angry Shouren humoid. Maybe because of the missing pile of treasures, the dead Goutou and the spiders or just seeing us in the place. The Shouren was really angry. I was standing near where the treasures were, but instinct made me moved away. The moment I left where I was, the ground exploded in a deafening burst. It was a terran attack that I didn"t even see coming. I could have died right there."

"How could you have seen it? A Shouren is at the least at the evanesce core stage."

Ying Jie stared at Chenric before shaking his head.

"Yes. I was aware of that fact. So, immediately, one of the girls, Xie Heng, threw a mist in front of the giant Shouren. The mist turned blood red as the giant froze in place."

"The Bloodfrost?"

Asked Ju Feng in slight shock.

"You know about the mist?"

Chenric asked the surprised Ju Feng.

"Yes. Uncle of mine made mention of it before. Very rare to get. That was a treasure."

"And we all know that where you find one Shouren humoid, there will be more around. Thus, we decided to run for it. We had only started, when we were cut off by the rest of the Shourens. It was a great battle. From where I was standing, I could see the kids fighting the Shourens, head on. Four Shouren taking on five powerful kids and me. And, we were winning. The two girls had removed one Shouren from the battle. He was down injured. The Shourens were on the back foot, retreating, until a dark glowing Shouren appeared. This one could only be of the Jindan at the least and their leader. Without waiting, the two girls took out two seals and activated them.

"Giant pillars of black water formed between us and the Shourens just in time to block the terran attack of the glowing Shouren that shook the entire mountain. Even the girls knew deadly power when they saw one. The fear in their eyes was like a solar flare. We knew that the pillars won"t hold them forever, so, we quickly used our flashsteps, to reach the place where we jumped down before. The loud wailing sound at the distant, was an indication that the pillars had collapsed or will soon do so. All the kids started bounding up. I was about to do the same, when I saw a blue-white light after a narrow crack we didn"t see before. I turned to look at the kids, but they were already out of my sight.

"I knew the Shourens would soon be after us and we wouldn"t escape them unless we get to into the light of the dsy outside the mountain. I wanted to leave but the blue-white light kept calling to me. It was like a fate I couldn"t escape. So, I decided to check it out. Afterall, the heart of an adventurer is taking the leap into the unknown."

"That was dangerous and silly risk. How could you do that?"

Asked Da Xia in a seriously angry mood.

"What happened then?"

Asked Ying Jie, grinning expectantly as he ignored Da Xia"s anger.

"Well, I reached the source of the light just as the Shourens were reaching the s.p.a.ce outside the pit. I was just placing the item in my sacbag when I saw the glowing Shouren, blurring towards my direction. He was pa.s.sing through the cracks without stopping. He was almost through to me when I uttered the safe word. It was a dangerous move, probably silly too, but I believe it was worthy of the risk."

"What did you find, Chenric?"

"What was the source of the blue-white light?"

"So, what is it? That you almost killed yourself for?"

"See for yourself, Da Xia."

Chenric answered and opened his sacbag as others gathered around the bag to see the treasure inside.

"The Azure Dragonblade!"

"A blade of unknown nature. Worldly? Heavenly? Luminous? Divine? n.o.body knows."

"Heaven"s tears!"