Blue Phoenix

Opening his eyes slowly, Hui Yue was greeted by the worried faces of his friends as they looked down on him.

The stench of blood filled the air around him as the walls and ceiling were dyed red, glistening in the light which shone from the light stone in Wang Ju Long’s hand.

Seeing all the blood, Hui Yue could deduce that he had not been out for very long as the blood still had not coagulated.

Slowly coming to, Hui Yue noticed that the final few moments seemed to have vanished from his memory. He felt confused when he realised that he no longer could remember what had transpired between him and the big wolf.

Looking around he only saw carcasses of small wolves, and he slowly started to recall the frenzy into which he had been submerged; suddenly he felt sick to his stomach as he remembered how he looked at his friends. How the killing intent from deep inside him was urging to kill them, to rip them to shreds and devour them.

Fortunately for him, the tranquil cloud had used that moment to break through, surround, and overpower the killing intent. The struggle caused Hui Yue’s mind to reel with contrasting emotions, eventually the strain was too much and he collapsed.

The two emotions were not able to fully take over Hui Yue’s body, and Lan Feng who had hidden himself brilliantly up until now, had used a few rays of golden light to restore everything to their right order.

Sitting up, Hui Yue had a splitting headache, but once again he found to his surprise that the wound on his arm were completely healed, and as a result the green pearl within his dantian cave was smaller in size than it had been before.

Hui Yue was quite certain that this pearl had not been acting during the fight, but rather activated when his body collapsed on the ground. The white-haired boy made a mental note to later spend some time to truly test the abilities of the green pearl.

Unlike the killing intent which grew stronger and stronger the more Hui Yue killed, the tranquil cloud grew in size with each increase to his cultivation base. Whereas, the green pearl seemed to stay the same no matter if it was fully charged or not.

Though it did get smaller every time it’s healing properties were used, but it would be restored to its original size just after a few days, ready to once more pour its energy into healing Hui Yue, should the need arrive.

Rising slightly with a throbbing head, Hui Yue smiled apologetically to his friends who returned the smile with big grins.

“I’m sorry,” He sighed, as he looked at the bodies of many wolves in the tunnel. With a tired hand he once more withdrew Black Blood before he went to the first corpse and with a meticulous hand he started dissecting the bodies.

Fur was removed and stored with the previously collected fur, beast cores stored with the other beast core as well. Meat was packed in neat paper bags, ready to be dried or smoked whenever they found a suitable place to camp.

Their bones were cleaned of meat and packed in another storage stone, ready for Hui Yue to use them in his first attempts of subtracting energy. Bones could be used to make some strong tools, and the marrow was exquisite and filled with essence of the heavens and the earth.

Seeing that Hui Yue started to once more clean the wolves his friends could not help but either shake their heads, or release a hollow laugh as they saw how thorough he was. Nothing was left behind, even the blood had been bottled up in small jade bottles.

The clean-up took much longer than it was supposed to, as Hui Yue refused to leave even one beast corpse behind. In his mind they were in a hostile environment and the most important thing was to ensure that they had enough provisions and items, should they need it later.

Hui Yue had been prepared for eventualities like these as he brought with him a large number of storage stones. He stored them within each other to avoid having to wear multiple rings on each finger, or a belt adorned with stones everywhere one looked.

The clean-up took hours, yet during this whole time no magical beast had dared to venture into the area of the young cultivators as the stench of magical beast blood was heavy enough to cause them all to stay away. This in turn caused Wang Ju Long and Sha Yun to sigh in relief, as neither was interested in waiting for Hui Yue to skin and dissect more beasts.

“What should we do now?” Wang Ju Long asked, as she looked into the darkness which dominated these tunnels, an annoyed expression adorned her beautiful face.

“Wait a moment I will scan the area,” Hui Yue started, but before he had the chance to sit down and truly start scanning Sha Yun had already finished. A glance was sent towards Hui Yue making it clear that she did not hold his scanning abilities in high regard after he went the wrong way during the first maze they were captured within.

Hui Yue had a sheepish smile on his face as he had no way to retort. He instead with great pleasure went through his storage rings, looking at the immense amount of items they had already gained while waiting for Sha Yun to finish scanning.

“There is a stone chamber not too far from here,” Sha Yun’s voice sounded while her eyes were still closed. Looking at the snake-woman Hui Yue noticed how her entire tail had turned to stone, while the skin on her stomach was slowly turning to stone as well.

“Sounds good,” Hui Yue said with a smile, yet Sha Yun was still not finished. “There are a few magical beasts on the way,” She said with a furrowed brow, “and the stone chamber seems to belong to a beast as well but he is not home. We should be able to defeat all of them from what I can sense.”

Having said that, Sha Yun opened her eyes and her body which had previously been turning to stone suddenly reversed.

A few moments after the four set out in the direction which Sha Yun indicated. At first the snake-woman insisted on just crashing through the walls, as it was a much quicker path, however Hui Yue instantly turned it down.

The reason they had entered the tunnels was to ambush the Dragon Corps when they arrived with Sun. If the tunnels were broken, then it was likely that they would not enter the city in Cave’s End, and even if they did they would definitely be on high alert.

Making their ways to the stone chamber was in no way a hard task, despite Hui Yue wishing to dissect and keep every beast they killed on the way. Wang Ju Long quickly convinced him to allow her oversized poppy flower to eat them causing it to grow in strength and size.

The stone chamber was much bigger than Hui Yue had first expected. The size alone was definitely no smaller than the courtyard they had previously occupied at the City Lord’s mansion at Cave’s End City, and Hui Yue quickly took a liking to the cave itself.

At one end was a small spring with water which flowed by an area which was filled with magical beast’s bones. These bones were all broken and the marrow had long since been sucked dry from them, cleaning them perfectly. Looking at the bones, Hui Yue thought for a short amount of time before a flame appeared above his fingers igniting the bones and reducing them to a small pile of ash, which he quickly threw outside the stone chamber.

The middle of the chamber had a small raised platform and Hui Yue could feel how the essence of the heavens and the earth was thicker near the platform.

Climbing on top of the platform, Hui Yue was stunned as he saw a small red flower which was at the center of the energy ripples which were emanating out.

The flower was clearly a divine flower, much like the one Hui Yue had gotten earlier, yet unlike the previous one, this one seemed much weaker. The stem was created by Qi together with the petals, but this one was not dripping small drops of spiritual energy into the outside world, instead it was gathering them within its pistil where a small lake of silvery liquid was apparent.

It seemed as though this silvery liquid would soon be devoured by the flower and upon doing so, it would allow for the flower to evolve. So that no longer would it only create silvery drops of spiritual energy, but also golden rays of Wu Wei.

Looking at the flower, Hui Yue could not help but contemplate whether or not he should pick it up and eat it, or if he should leave it to keep growing while they were living in their new residence.

‘Idiot!’ Lan Feng’s voice sounded from within the dantian cave. This was something which happened rarely nowadays, as the phoenix was focused on refining Wu Wei. Even if Hui Yue tried to converse with the bird, he would completely block out the younger boy.

‘I told you before that a flower will keep growing as long as there is essence from the heavens and the earth,’ The lecturing voice of Lan Feng drifted into Hui Yue’s mind making him faintly remember that the phoenix did indeed say something similar to that previously when they had gained the flower from the Deng family.

Plucking the flower, Hui Yue gently placed it within a jade case before placing it inside his storage stone. Even within his storage stone the flower would still finish its evolution.

Jumping down, Hui Yue told his friends about the harvest. They all decided on discussing it when the flower had successfully turned into a divine flower which could refine Wu Wei.

Hui Yue then started a fire, however this was not a spiritual energy fire. Instead he picked out wood from a storage ring and made a true campfire, before he added certain herbs to the tree he was burning, allowing for the smoke to have a spiced scent. After doing that, he withdrew bag after bag of wolf meat which he sliced into long strip that he placed on top of the fire, allowing for the smoke to cook the meat.

Smoking the meat was something which took some time and it was also something which Hui Yue could in no way rush. While he was smoking the scent of meat could be smelled throughout the tunnels causing magical beast after magical beast to appear around the stone chamber.

These beasts were not apart of any packs and they were easily dealt with by Wang Ju Long and Deng Wu.

The two had decided to work together as they both benefitted from killing these beasts. Deng Wu managed to catch more beast soul shadows while Wang Ju Long ensured that her poppy ate the corpses.

The flower which had before been oversized compared to its original shape, had now grown from being as tall as the waist of Wang Ju Long to exceed her height. The vines were now a metre long and the roots no longer laid under the stone floor, instead they were slithering around on the ground as if they were snakes.

The roots and the vines were all covered by small red spikes. These seemed to contain the same kind of poison as the beautiful petals, making one wish to touch them, however one would be very stupid to casually touch a flower with such a mean demeanour. Even Hui Yue felt respect towards the poisonous plant.