Chapter 243: Emerging Ambition at Dragon-pressing River
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
“Hand me the map!”
A muddle-headed Junior Leopard was standing in front of the boundless river that was shaking the heavens, looking at the map.
“Zhu Ba, we didn’t head the wrong way, did we?”
“I’m not sure, you’ll have to ask Jiang Xiao, but I do not see a river right here on the map!” said Zhu Ba, confused.
Junior Leopard then turned to Jiang Xiao, who was holding the map.
With a wry smile, Jiang Xiao said, “Your Excellency, we’ve been heading in the right direction all along.” Staring sharply at Zhu Ba while pointing out a thin line on the map, he continued, “The map was made by the Hanlin Academy in a hurry. Moreover, it was made by magnifying the complete Northern Yuan map, which may lead to a lot of mistakes and leave out many things. This was marked on the map with just a thin line, nobody thought it was actually a scary river instead of a minor ditch.”
Looking down at the map, then looking up to the river, Junior Leopard said, “Does that mean we have lost our way after two months of effortless walking in the middle of the prairie?”
“Don’t worry, Your Excellency. We’re far from being lost. It’s just that the map is not as accurate as expected. If we manage to get past the river, we will be at your fief within another two months.”
Junior Leopard twitched the corners of his mouth and said, “Another two months?”
“Your Excellency, it’s not that bad. Your fief is already closer than a lot others!” said Jiang Xiao smiling superficially while grumbling secretly, “We would have arrived already if you was willing to ride rather than sit inside a carriage.”
But, he dared not to say so out loud. It was strange to him that Junior Leopard would prefer riding in a carriage rather than atop a horse. The latter was far more convenient and speedy.
“It must be a famous river to be so wide.” Junior Leopard said. He then put down the map, walked to the river, and thought for a moment, “You guys stay put here. I am going to see if there’s a bridge to get over it!” and with a sudden jump, he flew several feet up high into the sky. He then used the Dragon Flying Technique and glided away against the wind, disappearing in a blink of the eye.
“That is the power of an expert!”
The people left behind showed enormous admiration for Junior Leopard, who was flying away. It was a common sense that a Level Seven expert could fly, but they still felt jealous and shocked when they saw it with their own eyes. Especially since there was not much to see before.
They had completely ignored the fact that a Level Seven expert could only fly in the sky with Gang Qi.
Flying in the sky, Junior Leopard was not looking so good. With such a broad river traversing the prairie where his fief was located, there was not much leverage for future development.
As a foreigner to this world, and with the sense of the previous life, after understanding that he may never return to his original world, Junior Leopard began to work hard to cultivate a sense of belonging to this world.
But, it had not been easy.
Now that he had a great opportunity to own a piece of a fief in accordance with the rules of this world. This was an awesome opportunity for him to regain a sense of belonging that had been lost for over a decade.
He surely would not miss it.
Therefore, he intended to take a carriage when leaving Yunzhou. The first reason was that he did enjoy the privacy in the carriage during the trip. Second was that he planned to get familiar with the routes and environment leading to his fief for future use.
He didn’t expect that the journey would last for two months, let alone encountering such a wide river that was even wider than the Yangze River in his previous life, which separated his fief from the Central Plains completely. It upset him a lot.
Thus, he decided to fly out for a break.
As for bridge-searching, it was a total joke. Based on the architecture technique in this world, it was impossible to build a bridge over such a wide river.
“Damn, the river is even longer than the Yangze River and it runs so turbulently. It’s also out of the reach of my fief, which could be a pain in the ass when transporting goods in the future. Oh! I see some people over there!”
Standing in the air, Junior Leopard clearly saw a group of people as well as horses walking slowly down the prairie. Their destination was seemingly to be the river too.
Junior Leopard flew towards them directly.
They had more numbers than Junior Leopard’s group, up to a hundred people. Junior Leopard was able to find out their backgrounds from the way they spoke. It was the Zhao family. They were just like Junior Leopard who had contributed in the war. However, the size of the Zhao family was much smaller than the Wu Family, which was similar to an unlucky friend of his teacher, Xu Yong, in Ningzhou City. Xu Yong’s power was limited to a small county. But the Zhao Family was lucky enough to rob a tribe of a precious treasure, and then they dedicated the treasure to the imperial court when the Family Head of the Zhao Family trod over Northern Yuan. Later, the Zhao Family was conferred with a county title along with 100km2 fief located in Northern Yuan.
Yes, it was only 100km2. Now a large group of people, mostly family servants and distant relatives, were assigned here to accept the fief on behalf of the Zhao Family. But, their Family Head was not here. Though they had numbers, their strongest one was merely a Level Three expert who was not even entering the Bone-Forging Realm.
Just like Junior Leopard, the Zhao family halted in front of the river. With over a hundred people and tons of luggage, way more than that of Junior Leopard, they were at the end of their rope faced with the river.
“F*ck, you damn Tartar. Are you leading us to nowhere? Why is there a river?”
Out of a sudden, someone leading the group caught the man in front of him by the collar, shook his body and fiercely asked, “Why the hell is there a big river?”
“Cough, cough, cough, cough, here, here…” The man was lifted up from the ground by his collar, choking his neck. His face quickly turned purple.
“Zhao Ke, you will strangle him to death without getting any answers!”
“Well!” Zhao Ke, quite strong man, threw the man fiercely on the ground, pointing to his nose he cried, “You’d better start explaining, otherwise, I will feed you to fish!”
“I told you earlier, (coughing), I’m from the Mosang tribe, and I’ve never gone beyond Small Stone River!” The man on the ground said on and off.
Zhao Ke glared at him, intending to beat him even harder before he said, “Then why would I keep you? You’re a total waste of food!”
“I know this place, please…” the beaten man said instantly.
“You ass*, don’t you dare fool me!” Zhao Ke became angrier by saying the word out loud.
“I have never been here before, but I do know the place. I am honest with you!” Cried the beaten man. He held his head and crawled back to a corner trying to avoid Zhao Ke’s greater anger.
From his accent, Junior Leopard could tell that he was a local of Northern Yuan.
“I was so stupid. I should have found a local Northern Yuan guide earlier. It would’ve save a lot of time!”
The whole thing made Junior Leopard annoyed and speechless. He had intended to find a guide who came from Northern Yuan in the first place. Though the army of Great Jin had started the genocidal war towards Northern Yuan, the bloodline of Northern Yuan was far away from extinction. In fact, large numbers of people from Northern Yuan, both noble and ordinary people, had been enslaved by the Jin through buying and selling like livestock, leading to the flourishing of the long fallen slave trade business. At the same time, Jin who used to crack down such crime, showed indifference now. However, any slave traders knew in their hearts that no Central Plains people could ever be touched as slaves in such a dirty business. If someone had the balls to do so, he would not only lose his business channels, but be heavily punished by the court, even lose his entire family fortune. So, the slave-traffickers would never expand the business to the people from the Central Plains.
But from Junior Leopard’s point of view, it would happen sooner or later.
Everything had two sides. Junior Leopard didn’t care about it due to little conflict of interest. He only came to Northern Yuan to be a cosy ruler of his own.
Meanwhile, he did tell Zhu Ba to find a Northern Yuan tour guide before leaving. Back then, the Yunzhou slave market was open. It was easy to find a tour guide who knew the roads. Whereas Zhu Ba forgot this particular errand since he had too many things on his plate. When they were about to leave with the aid of a guide, the slave market had already been closed.
The fact was that there were lots of Northern Yuan slaves in Yunzhou after the war. Because Yunzhou was so close to Northern Yuan, the people of the two sides had accumulated tons of resentment and hatred. For example, slaves were cheap in Yunzhou, and they were often inevitably beaten to death by the buyer, which was not good for slave traders. In addition, the Great Jin imperial court was unwilling to see so many Northern Yuan stay in Yunzhou, which was close to Northern Yuan. Therefore, the slave market in Yunzhou was just a fire in the pan, which had been either transferred or closed before Junior Leopard could find one before leaving.
Yet, it didn’t mean there left no Northern Yuan slaves. The ones left were originally from the Seven Troops of Southern Yard, who knew little about the far north, where the fief of Junior Leopard was located. So, it was not very helpful.
Anyway, they had a map and Jiang Xiao had volunteered to be the tour guide. During the trip, there were just boundless grasslands with no tricky landform. Thus, they decided to embark on the road with no real guide. For two months, they went on smoothly. Northern Yuan had become history, leaving few people across the land. Occasionally, they happened to meet some other teams sharing the same destination as them, who were all rewarded with fiefs for contributing in the war. Northern Yuan was quite a vast place and plenty of families were rewarded. Therefore, different groups of people were just passing through and then went in their own directions. After four to five days of walking far north, there were fewer and fewer people, just packs of wolves. All in all, it was a smooth trip until they were blocked by such a wide river.
“At least, he heard of the place as we have no clues of what it is like on the other side of the river. Taking him with us is better than going blindly at all!” Junior Leopard said to himself and instantly roll up the man from the ground with a red airflow from his sleeves.
It was the Boundless Crane Sea, the Magic Crane Change of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds!
That man didn’t practise martial arts. Even if he once practised, it would leave him with nothing after being enslaved. Right now, he was just an ordinary person who could be easily lifted up into the air by Junior Leopard.
In the eyes of others, they only saw a sudden blow of wind. A red stripe of airflow coming out of nowhere lifted the guy up high in the sky and disappeared in a blink of the eye, leaving surprise and shock behind.
Junior Leopard carried the man directly to his carriage site and dropped him.
The Norther Yuan person had never experienced something like this. When they were flying in the sky, he looked as if he was seeing a ghost. He appeared more scared than that of Junior Leopard when Junior Leopard was carried through the air by Xue Wuya. Until landing on the ground, the Norther Yuan person was able to be back on his feet, but the smell out of his pants had sold out everything.
“Your Excellency, what is it?” asked Zhu Ba.
“A person from Northern Yuan, claiming that he knew about the river. So I brought him here!” said Junior Leopard, glaring at him.
Zhu Ba knew he was not justified to talk back or glare back, so he just shrank his head and stepped aside.
“You just said though you’ve never been here, but you do know about it, right? So, what is this place?”
“This, this is Dragon-pressing River,” said the scared Northern Yuan person. He knew about martial arts, though he didn’t practise them, for he came from a small noble family too. He knew that people who could fly were experts who were able to do anything. He held nothing to fight back in front of such people.
“Dragon-pressing River? Such a good name. Do you know how to pass it?”
” pass.. passing? Boats, using boats!”
“Bullshit, I know it! The problem is i am not seeing any boats nearby!” Said Junior Leopard muttering, which shocked the man.
“Alright, don’t be afraid. I’m not your enemy. I just want you to be our guide like what they wanted you be!” said Junior Leopard, “You said we should take boats. It means we should find a ferry. So is there a ferry nearby?”
“Tiltingstone Beach” said the man quickly, “I’m from Mosang tribe, belonging to Blackwolf tribe. The most far-away Hengshan tribe is located beside the Small Stone River, 200 kilometer away from Dragon-pressing River. Going past the Small Stone River, the areas belong to the Hengshan tribe, who controls the Dragon-pressing River, too. There is only one ferry. It is Tiltingstone Beach!”
“Your Excellency, I found it on the map!” Said Jiang Xiao, who had been looking at the place on the map upon hearing the place.
“It seems far away from here!” Said Junior Leopard, looking at the map and frowning.
“At least 50km!” Said Jiang Xiao, hopelessly.
“Well, it’s too troublesome. It would be better if I just carry all of you to the other side of the river. Now, all of you get in the carriage!” Demanded Junior Leopard.
It was an exploratory trip with a limited number of people, including Jiang Xiao, Wang Cheng, Zhu Ba and several veterans whose services were up from the Navy of Jiang City. The total number was around ten. They had been following Junior Leopard since Jiang City. The total weight was just around 500kg, plus carrying the weight of half a carriage.
Junior Leopard could take all the people and goods along with horses and carriages to the other side within several trips.
“Your Excellency, you don’t have to. It is too much for you. Nothing compares with your health!”
“Shut up if you want to arrive at the destination as soon as possible!” Said Junior Leopard annoyingly. He rolled his sleeves and released a thick airflow to form a Qi blanket. Like what happened before, he lifted up three horses and jumped up in the sky flying straight to the other side. It made all the people there speechless. They stood standing, gazing at each other.
“F*ck you, Zhu Ba. You screwed all of us.” swore Jiang Xiao, jumping into the carriage. Wang Cheng glared at him too and jumped in it too. Zhu Ba felt a chill, but didn’t dare to say more anything, asking the veterans to get inside.
Junior Leopard couldn’t figure the width of the river standing on the land. While he didn’t take long to fly past it. It turned out it was only around 5 km wide.
He felt a little tired after putting down the horses who had already become limp.
He was in Level Seven, but he didn’t practise Gang Qi. Reining sword technique and Dragon Flying Technique enabled people to fly by themselves, but it was not specialized in weight flying. It was not impossible, but it was still a bit hard for Junior Leopard to fly with heavy loads.
Fortunately, during these days, he learned the movement of Boundless Crane Sea from Magic Crane Change of the Nine Changes of Heavenly Birds.
Boundless Crane Sea was a wind reigning technique of Magic Crane Change. When releasing it, it became fine airflows just like pieces of red cloths which could lift people or goods up to the sky. It was originally coordinated with Crane’s Crying of the Heaven of Magic Crane Change, but Junior Leopard didn’t take it seriously as he found the movement of Boundless Crane Sea itself quite useful in carrying things to fly. So, he kept practising it and the work paid off today. The whole process was so much convenient than carrying things with his hands.
Although the movement of Boundless Crane Sea was wonderful, it took him five trips to finish all things including that tour guide.
The group showed even more respect and admiration towards Junior Leopard after being carried past the river. While Junior Leopard was worn out.
He was almost exhausted.
“Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, from now on, you two are in charge here. I need to rest for some time. Zhu Ba, you listen to both of them. Don’t mess around anymore. Otherwise, I’ll throw you into the river!” Said Junior Leopard. Zhu Ba could say nothing before his mouth was sealed by Junior Leopard.
“It is f*cking exhausting. I probably would not do it again!”
Junior Leopard leaned on the little couch right away upon jumping in the carriage. Luckily, his External Elixir of Fiery Eye helped him replenish his Internal Qi, or he wouldn’t have been able to manage.
“Two months, there’re still two months to go. F*ck, who the hell is it that would give me such a fief, not only is it far away, but it’s facing a wide river? It’s bad for future development. We should find a way to claim the place near the river and set up a ferry beside the river with full control!” Junior Leopard thought to himself, bursting into laughter suddenly, “A not very far-sighted man like me will think of conquering other places before setting foot on one’s own fief. A total number of over 2000 fiefs equaled to over 2000 vassals. Assuming one-third of them would think this way, Northern Yuan would become a miserable war zone in less than 10 years. Then, Jin could get all the benefits without losing one single battle. How vicious is that!”
It was not urgent for Junior Leopard to plan on taking others’ fiefs. He closed his eyes and started to replenish his Internal Qi with the help of External Elixir and inner Mysterious Fire. No more than five hours later, he had regained all his energy.
Then, he attached his divine thoughts to the thought of Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion. ” It seems good to practice Poisonous Hitching Post. It is better than transforming Green-scaled Poisonous Scorpion into a small monster!”
He recalled his divine thoughts and waved his hand in a flash of green, pulling out the Dragonslayer he looted from the Cool Breeze Gang.
“Mysterious Level celestial device? It can’t help me much. What a pity! It would be much better if it was a Pure Yang Celestial Device!”
Back in the Cool Breeze Gang, Junior Leopard paid attention to Cui Hailong when he said Mysterious Level celestial device. After that, he tried every way to collect related information about it. However, Mysterious Level celestial device was no rare knowledge to Immortal Palace. Junior Leopard didn’t bother to ask in the past.
So many mysterious things existed in the world. Those so-called Mysterious Object could be forged into magic weapons when tempered with Evil Qi or pneuma and other things.
Magic weapon was just yet a general term.
An old saying goes as magic weapon existed in antiquity times while celestial device in the medieval period.
The fact was that magic weapons in antiquity time were also called as fairy weapons!
In the medieval period, some people also called celestial devices like Flying Sword, magic weapons.
However, the authentic division should be going up as a spiritual weapon, celestial device and fairy weapon!
Spiritual weapon was the most inferior one, which were just weapons with intelligence and special properties. They could barely connect to people’s minds. They did have extra defensive and aggressive power. Yet they were restricted in multiplying the strength and not good enough to enhance the combat capability of their owners to fight against the rival of a higher level.
Celestial devices were different. They were truly intelligent and more functional than Spiritual Weapons. Even the celestial device of the lowest level could support the owner to challenge someone of a higher level.
For example, Demon Devil Needles was so powerful, but it only ranked amongst the lowest of celestial devices, which was a psychic celestial device.
Dragonslayer was one level higher than Demon Devil Needles, belonging to Mysterious Level. The greatest difference between the two was that inside the Mysterious Level celestial device was a soul of evil beast. A soul of Flood Dragon was sealed in the Dragonslayer. Other powerful and spiritual things could serve the same the function as the souls of evil beasts. Take Junior Leopard’s Blue Sword for instance, it contained 10,000 years old spiritual peachwood, making the weapon a Mysterious Level celestial device.
If the material used for psychic celestial device was high-level and later it successfully sealed evil beasts or the souls of spiritual creatures, then such weapons would be ranked as Mysterious Level celestial devices.
As for Pure Yang Celestial Devices and fairy weapons, they were just legends.
Pure Yang Celestial Devices were the most precious treasure of big families and schools even in medieval period when a lot of extraordinary miraculous sword experts were around. The most used swords of sword practitioners were just in Psychic Level. Among four levels of Flying Sword, Mysterious Level and Yellow Level both belonged to Psychic Level celestial device. While the other two levels, Earth Rank and Heavenly Rank were in Mysterious Level. As for Pure Yang Celestial Device, the kind just existed in the legendary stories of big families and it had never been seen by anyone throughout the sword practicing period.