Blue Phoenix

Looking at the change in the clerk, Hui Yue could not help but raise an eyebrow in question as to why the man suddenly changed his opinion.

He was however not dumb enough to ask that question in front of the clerk and instead stayed quiet. He saw the clerk give the memory stone key to Xu Piao. He then made a bow towards the clerk before they all left for the new house which would be theirs for the next year.

“Are you sure we should rest here for a full year?” Deng Wu asked with a frown. They were after all on a mission from Zhou Long, a mission to give some information to the Dragon Core, the final cave in the cave system.

“Don’t worry about the mission.” Hui Yue said while laughing, “It is highly likely that Zhou Long is going to arrive at the final cave before us. And even if we take it easy, he most likely have spies following us wherever we go.”

The thought of being spied upon caused Deng Wu, Wang Ju Long, and Sha Yun to shiver while they looked around them with nervous eyes. Seeing this, Hui Yue could not help but laugh out loud as he followed behind Xu Piao and gestured for the three suddenly paranoid friends to follow.

The courtyard they were given was located in the middle of a park along with three other courtyards. All of them had quite a distance between one another allowing for privacy, and right in front of their courtyard was a small serene lake where white swans swam around amongst the beautiful water lilies.

Their building was as white as newly fallen snow, even the walls around it were painted white and two guards were standing in front, ensuring that no one entered without permission.

Seeing Xu Piao and Hui Yue arrive with a somewhat large entourage the two guards straightened up and looked suspiciously at the men. They were not in any way disrespecful, however, their eyes were vigilant as they blocked the road.

“Excuse me sirs,” One of the guards said with a deep voice, “I will need to see your permit to stay within this compound.”

Hearing this, Xu Piao flashed the key stone he was given by the clerk and the two guards instantly bowed deeply as the gate opened up.

“We welcome you home, lord,” The guards said in unison as they bowed down. Hui Yue and the others were slightly taken aback but Xu Piao seemed somewhat used to it.

Walking past the still bowing guards, Hui Yue could not help but wonder whether or not they would behave like that every time they entered the courtyard, or if it was a one time thing. He did not have time to keep wondering for long, as Xu Piao was waiting inside the courtyard with a large smile on his face and his mercenary emblem hanging by his hands.

The mercenary emblem had a large ‘B’ marked upon it, the same symbol which Hui Yue had seen earlier that day and it finally made sense to him. The reason that the clerk behaved the way he had was because Hui Yue. As he and everyone else on the missions were considered B rankers.

“So a whole year huh?” Hui Yue asked as he looked around. The courtyard had three houses and a stable. One of the houses in the back was a few stories tall, and by the side of the tall house was two smaller houses. One was a bath house, and the other was a house to train in. When he entered the training house it had a large white pearl in the middle and the essence of the heavens and the earth was increased by double within the room..

Sitting down, the white-haired boy instantly entered meditation. He did not pay any attention to his friends nor was he bothered with what else the courtyard had to offer, the young man only paid attention to this room filled with energy.

Seating on the ground, Hui Yue’s brows furrowed and his cultivation techniques were working at their highest capacity. The energy was refined into Qi which was further refined into spiritual energy. The spiritual energy was increasing constantly within the spiritual energy sea, and as each drop of newly refined spiritual energy dropped into the sea it caused great waves to appeared. They crashed into the invisible barrier which made it impossible for further his cultivation.

Seated in meditation, no one who looked at him would be able to tell that he was currently at a bottleneck, however, they all knew that he highly valued cultivation and they quietly left the room, leaving him alone to cultivate.

Walking into the main house, the one with a few floors, the group was astonished to see that everything was made from white marble. The house was as white and beautiful as if it was one large pearl.

They quickly each chose a room, and after having looked through all of the rooms the group rushed back to the house which Hui Yue was seated within.

The reason the others joined quickly was because they understood how important it was for their strength to increase. Currently Hui Yue was the strongest, not counting Xie Lan and Xu Piao, and the friends refused to stay weak, none of them wanting to be a burden for Hui Yue.

Seated, Xu Piao smiled with a proud expression on his face as he saw how eager the youngsters were to start cultivating. Unlike them, Xu Piao was an upper dantian cultivator. What he needed was not constant refinement of Qi to spiritual energy, instead, he needed to gain understanding of the Wu Wei which he was relied upon.

While Qi was a force refined from the essence of the heavens and the earth, and spiritual energy was an energy refined from Qi, the energy of Wu Wei was much more complicated.

Wu Wei was refined from spiritual energy, however, you could only refine a certain amount of spiritual energy depending on your understanding of the essence of the heavens and the earth. One needed to go back to basics and fully understand what the energies within the world consisted of. Only when one understand more, could one’s’ powers increase.

As Xu Piao watched the four youngsters while smiling, the smile grew in size as he looked at Hui Yue. On the outside everything seemed to be normal, but for someone like the Guild Master who had profound knowledge and heightened senses towards the essence of the heavens of the earth he felt astonished as he sensed how endless amounts of the energy within the room was pooling into the young body at a speed which should not be possible to to refine at.

Hui Yue gritted his teeth as he was forcing his body to its very limits. So far, he had not succeeded in overcoming the bottleneck which was suppressing him, but instead of giving up and expecting that he would eventually overcome it, Hui Yue forced his body to suck in even more essence refining it at a speed never seen before. Now the spiritual energy in his sea was no longer dripping one drop at a time but instead became a steady stream of silvery liquid which pooled into the roiling spiritual sea.

Although this was already quite fast, it would have been possible for Hui Yue refine even quicker if he had been ready to give up on his high quality Qi, however, the young white-haired boy remembered the warning he had been given by Lan Feng before and his determination was steeled. Even if he refined less Qi he would not go down on quality.

The stream of spiritual energy that was pouring into his body causing more and more waves to clash against the barrier.

At first it was an unmoving barrier and one or two waves were unable to make it shake even in the slightest, however, now one wave after another crashed into the barrier and it trembled with each hit. The more it trembled, the more Hui Yue pushed his cultivation technique. Sweat appeared on his face, his eyebrows furrowed, and his teeth clenched. Every muscle within his body was taut and his hands gripping so tight that a small stream of blood trickling down from his palms.

Wave after wave crashed, sweat streaming down his face and the young man was barely breathing as his entire focus was on the waves that were crashing against the barrier.

Finally, after what seemed to have been a whole year, cracks started to appear in the barrier. Feeling how it was giving, excitement grew in Hui Yue’s heart. The diminishing energy was suddenly reinvigorated forcing his body to continue the fight against the barrier. One wave after another and finally the spiritual energy waves flooded through the barrier, allowing for it to crumble completely. His spiritual energy quickly settling in a way that showed that it no longer stuck against the barrier.

His body had changed and so did the sea. Seeing the waves that had constantly clashed against the barrier, the waves that had been fighting at the edges of his spiritual energy sea that now finally relaxed, it was obvious that the borders of the lake were far taller than they had been previously. The sea which now extended past its previous borders suddenly looked like a lake in a drought due to how spread out the sea was.

The spiritual energy sea was not the only thing which had changed in size, the five elemental flames which were floating above the sea had grown to double their previous size. Also the cave, itself, seemed larger as well.

His body was filled with sweat and grime. The impurities which had been inhaled while cultivating were pressed out through the pores of his body, and as Hui Yue opened his eyes a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

Although it seemed as if his spiritual energy sea had thinned out, it was many times stronger than it had been before, up to ten times as strong as previously. This was how qualitative the difference between a Master and a Grandmaster ranked cultivator was.

Standing up, Hui Yue could hear his bones cracking, and looking at his body it was obvious to see that he had grown somewhat.

Hui Yue decided to go to the main house and found a random room. Looking around he was astonished as he saw that each of the rooms had access to a hot steam bath and with excitement he jumped straight into the bath, not caring whether or not the room he had picked belonged to anyone of his teammates. If they saw him naked, then so be it; however, he did not wish to run around with grime covering his body for longer than absolutely necessary.

Lying in the water, a long sigh escaped Hui Yue’s lips and as he saw his reflection. A brow was risen as he noticed how he was looking less and less effeminate. Although he still had the features of a very effeminate man, it was now easy to see that he truly was a man and not a woman as many had previously assumed.

A satisfied expression on his face he closed his eyes and leaned back in the warm water. He felt many times stronger than before and although he still did not feel like he was ready to take on Scarface, he was certain that he was on the right path. One more breakthrough and he should be capable of dealing with upper dantian ranked experts as well. Unfortunately, breaking into the Duke rank was not as easy as he had expected.

Hui Yue slowly fell asleep in the water, his body exhausted and he was mentally tired as well, and after having slept for an hour Hui Yue opened his eyes and felt that something was wrong. Without waiting for long, he found a robe which he clad around his body and just as he was about to leave the hot steam bath, he paused for a moment as he heard voices on the other side of the door.

“How long do you plan on pretending to be friends with these people?” Xie Lan asked Xu Piao with a sigh, her voice impatient, shocking Hui Yue deeply.