Heavenly Battleground Technique

"Bzzzzz"

"What's this sound?"asked Yun Sutao, lowering his gaze on his leather pouch. He could hear a strange buzzing sound coming from inside the little bag, constantly growing in intensity.

"I don't hear anything" said Pinocchio, looking around the small clearing with a suspicious look in his eyes. The glade that surrounded them was calm, the tall grass gently swaying in the afternoon sunlight.

"Maybe you need a pause brother, Yun… you're getting too much tired" suggested the thin long-nosed man, clapping the ring's owner on the shoulder.

However, Sutao didn't relax: he knew that his senses were way more developed than those of his childhood friend, especially now that he had trained cultivation.

Not too far from the two friends, under a large tree, a giant bearded youth was sitting cross-legged, practicing cultivation in silence.

Suddenly, Ironboar opened his eyes, looking towards the two other members of his tribe. There was a spark of dangerous energy hidden inside his gaze, making him more imposing than before.

His eyes narrowed and he continued listening carefully for a few seconds, only to then frown with concern: he could also hear the buzzing if he concentrated strongly enough.

"It is coming from your purse, Sutao" echoed his deep voice.

A curious look appeared in Yun Sutao's face, and he passed his gaze over the body of the giant hunter sitting under a tree not that distant from him. He immediately noted small waves departing from his body. They were feeble, but they were there.

His eyes widened in surprise. "Incredible, he already managed to condense some form of energy inside of his body… what a monster" thought the bare-chested man looking at the giant with a strange expression.

He knew from first-hand experience that cultivating without the right condition meant going incredibly slowly. The Heavenly Battleground Technique required very specific condition to progress without any impediment, using it in places that were completely unrelated to those requirements would slow down the rate of improvement.

"He's a natural" Yun was starting to feel envious. "Does he even need to use the spirit cave?" he found the situation incredibly ridiculous.

If he wasn't worried about the strange sounds coming out from his sack, he would have completely dedicated his energies understanding how did Ironboar make such incredible advancement in such little time.

"Yes, I think it's the ring…" confirmed Sutao, putting his hand inside the sack of leather and taking out a small iron ring.

"I guess that… ???" he was still at half of his sentence, when a deep sensation of crisis arose inside him. The ring suddenly became scorching hot and a pulse of silver energy exploded from it, hurling Yun Sutao, Pinochio and Ironboar away.

The group of teenagers was thrown into the ground, receiving even some serious wound in the case of the fragile Pinochio.

At the same time, the body of Winter Leaf emerged from the silver light and also was heavily blown against a tree.

Hidden behind the dense light curtain, a fast shadow darted away from the clearing, disappearing in the foliage that surrounded it.

Naturally, that fast figure was Darkscale.

The serpent had passed a couple of days in the Cave extracting information from Winter Leaf, his new servant. The woman told him that it wasn't a good idea to target also Ironboar, Pinochio or Yun Sutao.

He agreed immediately for the last one, because he didn't want to fight against someone who was already on the path to becoming a cultivator like himself.

The other two, instead were common humans. He didn't get why he should let them out of the hook.

"Ironboar would better die and become a servant and Pinochio would never betray Sutao…" explained to him the ugly biped.

When he proposed to just kill them, both Carelia and Winter Leaf dissuaded him: they were both famous in the village and their disappearance would make people come and investigate their deaths. It would become more difficult for Winter Leaf to just leave the region and get reassigned to the border.

In the end, they agreed on a more careful plan: Winter Leaf would go back to her tribe and find a way to leave for the outpost in Yellow Lake Region.

Darkscale would wait around the tribe for the moment. Previously he wanted to go with her, but in the end he realized that it would be too much of a problem, especially with the green-haired fatty looking for him.

After having put a great distance between the clearing with the tree humans and himself, Darkscale finally stopped under a giant brown mushroom.

There was a second circle near his head, under the one made of darker scales. This new circle was gray, almost metallic.

"Let me in" thought the serpent.

Immediately, a silver light started to emanate from the gray circle around his head. The light enveloped the little snake. It all lasted a couple of seconds, after which the only thing that still remained under the large mushroom was a metallic ring.

Darkscale appeared inside the Blue Cave, welcomed by the gentle voice of Carelia.

"It all went well, master Darkscale"

"Mmm, those suckers didn't even have a chance to stop me" proudly announced the snake, moving next to the Ghost Pond.

"I have finished compiling the Heavenly Battleground Technique, it is an extremely interesting cultivation technique." Continued the MAID.

"You told me that I couldn't cultivate an Immortal Path Technique…" answered dubiously Darkscale.

Naturally, Winter Leaf gave him the technique that was imparted to her by Yun Sutao. Darkscale wanted to cultivate it immediately, but Carelia had stopped him saying that Immortal Techniques weren't made for him.

She explained that the Immortal Path was for people who could find their own way with meditation and enlightenment, things that the serpent despised.

Darkscale agreed. He really couldn't bear to live a life when he needed to meditate and seek enlightenment on things. That simply wasn't him.

"Cultivating techniques from different paths is very dangerous… you will build up a very weak cultivation base, making it more easy to see it fracture, or even worst, implode… that's true…" considered the calm voice of the MAID.

"However I realized that this Heavenly Battleground Technique isn't an Immortal Technique, it's a mix one… the only problem is that the version that Winter Leaf had was modified to suit an Immortal Cultivation Base…"

She made a brief pause, while a blue screen appeared in front of the snake.

"I modified it slightly to make it adequate to the Devil Path… it's a very high-grade mortal technique, or even an earthen… I can't tell from the version given by the human"

Darkscale knew immediately what she was talking about when she said "earthen". It was a commonly used classification, it could be found in almost all the books on ores and metals that he read.

Mortal, Earthen, Heavenly, Primal and Ancestral. The Rankings of everything, be it a cultivation manual, a technique, an object or an ingredient.

All could be described using this classification.

"What's the use of having access to the poison if I can cultivate the Heavenly Battleground Technique?" wondered the snake, giving a cursory look to the cultivation technique on the blue screen before him.

"You still would have access to a powerful poison technique" answered immediately Carelia.

"Yeah, I know that… but I thought that you could use only a single cultivation method to form and maintain your cultivation base" responded Darkscale.

"It's true, but the Soul Agony Venom Technique is an auxiliary method… that's why your friend from Black Hand Market sold it to you without first giving you an affinity test. Contrary to the Heavenly Battleground Technique, the Soul Agony Venom Technique is an auxiliary method that can be used in conjunction with others."

"So? Should I cultivate it or not?" Asked again Darkscale.

"You should try, if you don't feel like you are having a good time cultivating it, just stop it. Probably that would mean that you hadn't any affinity with it." Explained the clam and gentle voice.

"Naturally, it would be way wiser to wait for an affinity test before trying anything else… but that is quite impossible in your case… plus even if you could take the affinity test you will be still left facing the problem on how to obtain a mortal technique that suits your affinity"

Darkscale nodded his head. Even if he knew his affinity, in the end he was bound to the techniques that he had.

"This Battleground method is very good! Even if you had a mortal technique of your own affinity it won't be better than this it… it can be considered a quasi-earthen grade one after all" explained further.

"Are you saying that no matter what, the battleground technique is better?" asked Darkscale.

"That's correct"

"Bring it on, then!"