Chapter 338: The Gift
The third prince was seated in a large chair leaning against the armrest as he fiddled with a small memory stone in his hands. This memory stone was the one he had been given earlier by Hui Yue. He had been completely confused about why he was given the memory stone and also curious about what it contained.
Seeing that Hui Yue had left it in his possession the young prince was quite confused. After checking its contents, he was even more confused. Once more he placed the memory stone to his head, and the same information as before flooded into his mind. A gentle voice, clearly belonging to Hui Yue, sounded out. ‘This is a gift to show my appreciation towards our friendship,’ What followed was a spiritual arts skill.
Usually, Shiu Ye would not bother with something as simple as a spiritual arts skill. He was a King ranked expert; an expert who was capable of using Wu Wei. Spiritual arts were something below his rank. Something he did not need to train but his eyes widened as he looked at this spiritual arts attack. It was a high ranked Emperor skill suitable for his Wood affinity
It was known by the name Thousand Golden Roots, and it created roots from spiritual energy which entangled themselves around the legs and feet of an opponent. This ability was without a doubt useful even for the prince.
“Why would he gift me this…” He mumbled as he fiddled with the stone in his palm. “He clearly does not trust me, nor does he value our friendship.” He continued to muse as his eyes sharply looked at the memory stone trying to discern the answer from the stone. “Could this be an attempt to bribe me?” He thought but then shook his head. Hui Yue was not someone who would do useless things. He would definitely have a reason for what he does, and this reason was what made the third prince apprehensive.
“Is he simply just trying to curry favor with me?” He questioned himself as he looked at the memory stone. “Is it so that I owe him in case it is needed later on?”
Pouting Shiu Ye was completely stunned and uncertain about what to do. Finally, he heaved a sigh. “Even if I owe him a favor, or if he is trying to butter me up, this skill is simply too amazing to not use. How has he obtained such a high ranked skill? Even our kingdom does not process many skills of this level, and all of them have far too many requirements. They are either the wrong element or they require a certain amount of merging with the elements, not to mention a specific grade of high quality Qi. It’s simply too troublesome yet this one seem perfect for me. How can he just happen to have something perfect for me?”
The third prince was all alone within his room where he was busy thinking to himself. It was rare for him to be this uncertain about something, but the gift he had been given truly shocked him.
As Shiu Ye finally decided to accept the gift and worry later about what Hui Yue would ask for in return, the young man in question had returned to his mansion. He was currently at a peaceful place in the garden training his martial and spiritual arts.
‘Why did you give him that attack?’ Lan Feng suddenly asked as Hui Yue was clearing his mind getting ready for his training. ‘It was our intention to trade it for information, but you already got the information from the king for free.’ Lan Feng continued as a smile played on Hui Yue’s lips.
‘Shiu Yue trusts us about as much as we trust him,’ Hui Yue stated. ‘We want to get rid of him but to do so, we need him to be less alert around us. I am not dumb enough to think that he will suddenly like us because of this, but it should lower his guard just a little. Since he will be unable to turn it down, he will owe me a favor. There is no way he will not use the skill. It is simply way too tempting. Even the royal family can’t have as many amazing abilities as you do. Even if they are a family that has lasted for a long time, you have lived for thousands of years while gathering one skill after another.’
Hearing the flattering words Lan Feng could not help but smile satisfied. ‘You are right,’ He said with bell-like laughter. ‘What does one Emperor ranked skill matter to me?’ He said with undisguised delight. ‘When you manage to perfect the Sacred Solarflare completely, I will personally teach you a high ranked Saint skill which I gained from a good friend of mine.’ He said smugly as Hui Yue’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Why did you never teach me something that great before?’ Hui Yue asked curiously taken aback by the fact that the bird had been holding back on him. Although he knew that the phoenix had various strong martial and spiritual arts, but a Saint ranked skill was something so insane that Hui Yue was completely stunned.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Lan Feng said smiling widely. ‘Your body was not capable of withstanding the might of a Saint ranked skill before. I have both martial and spiritual arts but will teach you the spiritual art first. It should be the hardest to perfect and thus take quite some time.’ Being quiet for a while, Hui Yue finally saw the energy and excitement within Lan Feng that he had seen when he was a child. These recent years Lan Feng had been focused solely on cultivating his own stockpile of Wu Wei. He knew that Hui Yue would definitely need his help later on in their travels. Using his Wu Wei even if they ran into someone very dangerous, they should be able to manage fine.
‘Before I teach you this new ability, I need you to prove to me that you have perfected the Sacred Solarflare. Also for the next half of the year, the six months before they enter the Grave of the Unknown, you and I will be focused on increasing your combat ability. We will increase your survivability and give you some strong skills.’ Lan Feng grinned as he looked at the young man in front of him. ‘We, after all, have a matter to settle with this third prince.’
Hui Yue could not help but grin in return as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Opening his eyes he pushed his spiritual energy through a specific pattern in his meridians, and moments later, a massive Solarflare fireball which exploded forth. It destroyed everything around him for ten meters forming a crater.
Unlike the first time Hui Yue caused a massive boom to sound out, the servants, this time, did not appear; instead, they all smiled to one another. they shook their heads and grinned because they all knew it was due to their master who was training. After he had finished, a group of gardeners would head over to where the explosion occurred, and they would fill in and flatten the earth. They had long since stopped planting new plants in the surrounding area. They just left it bare making it the perfect place for the young man to train.
‘Another four Solarflares, and if you perfect them, then I will teach you the new skill.’ He said and soon after four more booms sounded out. The ground trembled once more, yet no one seemed bothered. Everyone had long since managed to go about their daily business in a landscape where tremors regularly ran through the ground. At first, they had feared that the mansion was going to collapse, but as the days flew by and turned into weeks their fear swiftly disappeared, and the tremors now caused smiles to appear on their lips.
‘You really did perfect it,’ Lan Feng grinned, and with a finger to his forehead, he extracted a silvery mist which he then let go. Moments after the information was stored within Hui Yue’s mind.
Earthly Tremor was the name, and it was Hui Yue’s first strong spiritual art for his Earth elemental affinity. Although he could merge with Earth and use it according to his wishes, it was not a spiritual art and therefore lacked the extra power of spiritual energy.
Earthly Tremor had four different levels of mastery. The first was called Earthly Tremor, Shaking the Earth. Shaking the Earth allowed for the cultivator to infuse their spiritual energy into the ground below and cause earthquakes to appear.
The second level of mastery was known as Earthly Tremor, Sharpen the Earth. This ability of his was very similar to the ability known as Earth Spike, yet it created an entire forest of three-meter tall syringe sharp spikes. When using this attack, many would undoubtedly be injured.
The third mastery was known as Earthly Tremor, Hand of the Earth. This ability allowed for the cultivator to create a hand composed of the ground itself, and this hand would move at one’s wishes. The hand could be as small as the size of the cultivator’s own hand or as large as a tree. The size of the hand depended on the mastery of the skill and the how much one could merge with their element. Of course one could always create a smaller hand after learning the skills even if they were not as in sync with their element.
The fourth and final ability of Earth Tremor was Earth Grasping the Heavens. This was an ability which truly lived up to the Saint rank. It was an ability which caused the world to twist and turn, creating a boxlike prison around the person it touched, sealing them inside causing them to be unable to move and incapable of resisting. This ability would, when trained to the peak of the Saint rank, be impossible for anyone to ignore. It would definitely stop anyone up for a period of time. Even if the person were stronger than Hui Yue, he would struggle to get released. This was the real danger of something as rare as a high Saint ranked spiritual art skill.
Unfortunately, it did not take long before Hui Yue realized that training to such a high ranked skill was far more difficult than anything he had ever done before. ‘I will let you do this for a couple of hours every day. The rest of the time you need to train your sword skills and your physical body. Although you have the ability to easily devour energy from other cultivators, the energy absorbed needed to be refined thoroughly, or it would greatly weaken his own cultivation base. This made it impossible for him to absorb energy just like that.
His other option was to take wolf form. He was incredibly strong whenever he was a wolf, but he wished to keep this his most hidden secret; something he would not use unless he was about to die. Just like Lan Feng, the beast shape was a secret he wished no one to know about.
The following days went by in a blur for Hui Yue. In the morning he would teach Lao how to cultivate alongside watching him practice his first few martial art skills. All of the skills were of lower quality, the highest skill was at the Grandmaster rank, something which was fairly simple to learn.
After teaching Lao, Hui Yue would then train Earth Tremor, and then he would train with the sword for a couple of hours. Lastly, he trained his physical body. As he finished his daily training, Hui Yue would eat with his friends before he went to the room and started absorbing the Yin energy through the moonlight.
Sitting on the floor, he felt content with his current life. Although his days were filled with extra work, he could feel how he was getting stronger and stronger. Although his cultivation base was not soaring to the sky as it had done before at times, he could feel strength inside him; a different kind of strength than the type one gains from increasing their cultivation base. This strength was a strength that had increased his combat ability, making him less likely to die.
A smile appeared on his face as he closed his eyes. He relaxed his body and felt how the energy entered him. His steady life within Muchuan City was calm, but underneath the calm surface, the city was boiling with excitement. One major family after another had received an invitation to join the royal family to explore an unknown grave which was assumed to be filled with treasures. This had turned from a concealed secret to something everyone knew, and mercenaries from all over the city started to appear eager to take part. They were waiting for the royal family to make their move.