Despair

The beautiful sky-blue eyes turned as cold as the frozen sea, as Hui Yue ran towards the stage on which Gao Yan lay, blood flooding from his abdomen.

Minutes before had been the start of the first quarter finals match. Gao Yan had been filled with positive energy as he jumped onto the now blood-soaked stage.

Gao Yan’s opponent had been Li Shing, the second cultivator who was a nine star Disciple. Every spectator had expected this fight to be the most thrilling, the most nerve-wracking display of all the quarterfinals. However, it had ended within mere minutes.

“Nurses!” someone finally yelled, breaking free from the daze. The referee’s face was pale and green specks of light appeared on his hands. This man was a Grandmaster ranked cultivator with wood elemental affinity.

This Grandmaster was, however, not specialized in healing humans so he could not perform any serious procedures. Still, he managed to stop the bleeding as both friends and teachers made their way onto the stage.

The Rong twins were both pale; all color had left their faces as their eyes were glued to the puddle of blood. Although Gao Yan was no longer bleeding, the puddle below him alluded to the fact that he had lost a considerable amount of blood already. His life was at risk.

While the Rong twins were focused on Gao Yan, Hui Yue narrowed his eyes as he looked at the complacent Li Shing. His eyes were wide open and alert as he looked around the bustling stage. Within these alert eyes was a certain amount of disdain and ridicule every time his eyes hovered over the now unconscious Gao Yan.

From the start of the fight till the finish, Li Shing had only used one attack. This attack seemed to be a middle ranked Grandmaster skill. Although this was not as rare as the high-ranked skills, it was definitely not something to laugh at.

This particular martial arts attack skill created a Qi Whip. This whip was as sharp as any sword and agile. The biggest problem, while the attack was fierce and intense, it quickly lost its usefulness if the opponent was to use his qi defensively.

This downside had caused Li Shing to immediately go all out, lashing out and cutting deeply into Gao Yan’s abdomen severely injuring him in the process.

The nurses had now arrived. While one of them focused solely on healing the wound the others slowly moved the wounded Gao Yan onto a stretcher; after which they ran towards the temporary infirmary tent.

“What do you think?” Deng Wu asked Hui Yue with a low voice. It was obvious that while the Rong twins were filled with grief and worried, Deng Wu and Hui Yue were the ones who took an overview of the situation together with Ma Kong.

As soon as Hui Yue saw the injury, he had sent Ma Kong to send a message to Lord Rong Liang containing the recording of the video. The reason Hui Yue had chosen to send a message to Lord Rong Liang was that the City Lord had personally taken in Gao Yan. Whether or not he survived was still a question. It would fall to the Lord to inform the parents.

“It was possible for him to win without causing such grave injuries,” Hui Yue answered, with a low voice. He still looked at Li Shing who was smiling happily as if he had done nothing wrong.

“Let us hope his next opponent is me,” Hui Yue said with a sinister gleam in his eyes. “I would love to return the gratitude he has shown Gao Yan.”

After saying this, Hui Yue turned around and walked briskly towards the infirmary closely followed by Deng Wu.

“He will survive,” stated the nurse who was currently inspecting the wound on Gao Yan’s abdomen. “His dantian is broken, but he will have a life as a cripple,” the nurse said coldly, and she quickly removed her hands from the wound stopping her healing which caused the blood to start flowing once again.

“Can you repair his dantian?” Hui Yue asked as he walked through the tent. The young boy was followed by Deng Wu, a boy who was both older and had a much more intimidating background. The speaker, Hui Yue, was a ten year old boy who acted as if he was in control.

“Listen, little boy,” the nurse said with disdain as she looked at Hui Yue. “This is a commoner boy. Although I am able to repair his dantian who will be able to pay for it?”

Hearing her comments caused great displeasure to arise within all present. Hui Yue was the first to react as he withdrew three spirit coins from a memory stone which he threw at the face of the nurse.

“Repair his dantian, and never again show your face in front of me,” Hui Yue hissed with undisguised contempt within his voice. A sudden gust of cold wind entered the tent and sent shivers down the spine of the woman. The gust of the wind on top of the cold voice and disdain within the ice-blue eyes caused the woman to feel an uncontrollable fear.

The nurse was shocked. She had just been threatened by a ten year old boy. He was obviously within the Student rank. Despite that, he managed to cause her to feel fear from deep within. She, who was a Grandmaster ranked cultivator!

Picking up the coins, the nurse quickly shook off the fear, and instead gave her all to heal the dantian of Gao Yan.

“I’m back,” Ma Kong said breathlessly as he entered the tent. Rong Ming and Rong Xing were, if possible, even paler now than they had been before. Even Deng Wu was pale as he did not even attempt to use this opportunity to get closer to Rong Xing. Deng Wu was standing patiently behind Hui Yue as he watched the green specks of life entering Gao Yan’s abdomen.

“His dantian is broken,” Hui Yue explained his eyes never once leaving the nurse. “We are currently healing it. Unfortunately, his qi has already dispersed, and so he will need to cultivate from the beginning again.”

Hearing this, a glint of black killing intent flashed through Ma Kong’s eyes as he knew what this meant.

“Do not worry,” Hui Yue assured Ma Kong while still coldly observing everything which was done. “I will help Gao Yan establish his cultivation base so that he will not suffer too great a setback.”

Hearing this caused a bit of color to return to the faces of everyone present. Although Hui Yue had many secrets, he had never acted the way he did today. He was no longer responding as a small child, but as an adult who seemed to be taking responsibility for the entire group.

Hour after hour passed as Hui Yue and the others stood guard in front of Gao Yan. During these hours the nurse worked hard and used up her entire capacity of qi.

Finally, the last speck of green light disappeared. The nurse collapsed to the ground sighing deeply in exhaustion.

“Ugh….,” Sounds arose from the previously unconscious Gao Yan as he slowly woke up. “What happened?” he asked groggily as he rubbed his eyes. A feeble feeling of utter uselessness had overtaken his body.

“Your dantian was destroyed,” Hui Yue said straight forwardly, shocking everyone present. “It has been repaired, but you will need to redo your cultivation all over again.”

After hearing this, an ugly expression appeared on Gao Yan’s face, but it only lasted for a minute before it changed to shock.

“Why would they waste their time to repair my dantian? I am nothing but a commoner,” he asked quizzically. He looked at the exhausted nurse who was currently seated in meditation on the floor in front of them.

“Hui Yue paid for the healing,” Deng Wu bluntly stated, causing a wave of gratitude to sweep over Gao Yan.

“I have some things to explain. Let us head back to my courtyard,” Hui Yue said quietly, as he turned around to start walking.

Although Gao Yan was feeling feeble and currently with no cultivation base, it was still possible for him to walk to the courtyard. He no longer had any injuries within his body as the nurse had done a perfect job of healing his body.

The six people were moving at a slower pace than usual; nevertheless, they still moved as a group. Hui Yue was walking at the front with Deng Wu on one side, and Ma Kong on the other. Gao Yan and the Rong twins were right behind him following at the fastest speed possible for Gao Yan.

On the way towards the residential mountaintops, Hui Yue took a small trip away from the group as he went to the Medicinal Pill Outlet. None of the students knew why and Hui Yue said nothing as to what he was doing. The only one who seemed to understand him was Deng Wu who also kept quiet.

Returning to courtyard 1009, Hui Yue went to his room where he put down his student emblem and made the others do the same.

“Why do we need to remove the student emblems?” Rong Ming asked curiously, as he did what he was told.

“The emblems are capable of recording everything they see,” Hui Yue said matter-of-factly. “What I am about to tell you is something no one else can ever know about; this includes your families and your friends.”

Upon hearing this curiosity arose within all the friends. They swiftly placed down every memory stone they were wearing; this included the storage stones and message stones as well. One couldn’t be too careful.

After leaving behind their memory stones, everyone moved outside the courtyard where they sat down beneath the tree in a circle.

“As you most likely all noticed I have some secrets which I did not feel like explaining before. I now feel like I need to tell you,” Hui Yue took a deep breath before continuing.

“When I was walking around in the Magical Forest, I came across the tomb of an ancient expert,” Hui Yue had edited the story slightly, as he knew they would have trouble understanding the initial story. His initial story was the one thing that only Deng Wu knew.

“The soul of this extreme expert was sealed within a magical item. When I touched it, the soul entered my body. The two of us are now sharing a body.”

After each word Hui Yue said, their eyes widened until they were so large that they could no longer open them any further.

“This expert is helping me increase my cultivation, and is teaching me various high-ranked attack skills to improve my ability to survive.”

Ma Kong gaped for a bit before he started laughing. “You are Li Fen!” he said between the laughter. As soon as he said this, the others suddenly realized that this was the case and an expression of veneration appeared within their eyes.

Hui Yue just smiled neither confirming nor denying the statement. Instead, he pulled out a large case created from jade which he placed in front of Gao Yan.

“These are Qi Congregating pills,” Hui Yue said as he opened the jade case and revealed a hundred pills. “Take them,” he said as he pushed them to Gao Yan.

“I am going to give you a cultivation method,” Hui Yue continued while looking at the now crippled Gao Yan. “This cultivation method is not creating qi as pure as mine and Wang Ju Long’s,” Hui Yue explained. “But it will give you slightly higher quality qi than you had before which will allow for quick cultivation.”

As Hui Yue said that Lan Feng moved within the dantian cave; he quickly took over Hui Yue’s body. A finger was quickly pressed against Hui Yue’s smooth childish forehead, and a silvery light shone. This light stayed on the pale finger as it was quickly placed on Gao Yan’s forehead.

The light shone brilliantly before entering his head. Included within this transference was a cultivation method which Lan Feng had gained somewhere back when he was still the blue phoenix. It was known to be a decent cultivation method those four thousand years back, but it was far superior in speed to the one Hui Yue had been using.

Cultivation methods were methods which determined how the user gathered the essence and refined it into qi. These methods were what built one’s foundation. Although it was possible to change the cultivation method during the period of cultivating, usually it was not beneficial, but harmful.

If the qi that was within a dantian cave was of different qualities, then it was highly likely that the qi would be unbalanced which would cause severe damage to the cultivators themselves, as well as make the martial arts skills unbalanced and unreliable. Some qi was purer than others.

Two types of purity would not be able to work together. Having two types would cause the skills to either fail to activate or their outcome to be unknown whether it would be strong from the pure qi or less efficient from the less pure qi.

“Gao Yan this cultivation method and the hundred Qi Congregating pills are a gift from me to you. The rest of you I will also give a high-ranked martial arts skill so that you can defend yourself in the future. I will not allow for my friends to be hurt.”

Hearing everything which Hui Yue had said and having seen how he had treated Gao Yan instantly caused the five others to tear up. Giving away a high-ranked martial arts skill was not something people would do unless they truly valued the recipient.

Ma Kong was the first who made a slight cut on his finger which he then forced a few drops to leave the cut.

“I, Ma Kong, from the Ma family at this moment swear an oath by blood that I will never mention what happened today to anyone other than us five present.”

As the words left his mouth, a blood red world seemed to appear as the drops of blood which he had squeezed out turned golden, and forced their way back into the body.

Seeing Ma Kong invoking a blood oath caused the Rong Twins and Gao Yan to nod with a grave expression before they, too, followed suit.

One blood curtain after another appeared within Hui Yue’s small courtyard as they all swore the blood oath to never reveal what had occurred on this fateful afternoon.