Blue Phoenix

Noticing how much of a change just a short while within the moonlight made for him and his energy caused Hui Yue to spent the rest of the night within the declining moonlight. He cultivated until the morning arrived and the sun rays broke through the sky. Feeling satisfied, Hui Yue stood up and stretched his body. Usually, he would cultivate while sitting on a bed, but tonight he had been seated on the cold stone floor, making him slightly more sore than usual.

His blue eyes were filled with a calm which was not present previously. He knew that although he missed his friends in the capital, he had to fully focus on the things happening around him and not allowed himself to dwell the things he was missing, and leading a war was one of these things. Upon finishing the war, Hui Yue would return to his friends. Until then though he would do nothing but focus solely on winning this war for the beasts.

Grabbing the letters, all of them were sealed with Qi. This was done so that they were not opened before they reached the lords for whom they were intended. As he grabbed the letters, he instantly left the room. He went searching for a guard on whom he could impose and ask to deliver all the letters for him. He, himself, had something he needed to take care of.

“Hey, you there!” Hui Yue yelled out as he saw a guard in the distance. Running into a guard this quickly was pure luck, and the young man had a smile adorning his face. “I need you to take these letters and deliver them to the lords whose names are written on the top. You are by no means allowed to open these letters, they very important,” He continued, and although the guard wished to say no, he knew that doing so would bring him trouble. Taking the sixty-four letters, the guard heaved a heavy sigh as he asked himself why his luck was so terrible. Although he was unhappy with his task, he quickly turned around and went straight to the first lord whose name was mentioned, Wan Qiao.

Seeing this, Hui Yue went to the guard’s training grounds which was as empty as before. It was empty because the majority of the guards had moved outside the city gates. Sitting down, the young man decided to see if he could convince the blue cloud to solidify into a body in his dantian. Seated on the hard, rocky ground, Hui Yue entered his consciousness. As he appeared in the lower dantian, he instantly noticed the gem had shrunk even smaller than the size of a thumbnail. It was now as small as a grain of rice, but even so, it still emitted a pulse of energy, albeit the pulse was much weaker now than before.

Hui Yue was elated to know that the gem was constantly active because this meant that the memories would solidify quicker than most of the other phenomena. This was very unlike the green pearl which would take a long time for Hui Yue to merge with. However, although, the red gem was continually pulsating it was still far behind the blue cloud if one were to consider how long they had been used. Hui Yue moved his attention from the small grain-like gem to the massive blue cloud which was waiting patiently in its cave. With nothing but a thought, this blue cloud billowed forth and took over the entire meridian system. It flowed out and shrouded the young man in a large blue cloud.

“Ahh, how comfortable!” Hui Yue exclaimed with an excited voice as he felt warmth surround and nourish him. This also caused an increase in the density of the essence of the heavens and the earth in the surrounding area.

Seated still Hui Yue refined thread after thread of Qi, and doing so he also created one portion of black mist after another. This energy was divided from the essence of the heavens, and the earth and it quickly headed to the upper dantian where it floated around the golden orb. Watching it, Hui Yue knew what he was refining was Yang energy, and the energy he was obtaining was vastly superior to the energy that he had absorbed at night. Refining Yin energy, although it felt like it made a big difference, truly was just a drop of water in a raging sea. It was nowhere enough to refine all the Yang energies within Hui Yue’s body.

‘Stop cultivating,’ Lan Feng said with a grumpy voice, instantly bringing Hui Yue’s activities to a stop. The young man was greatly confused, but he dared not go against the phoenix. Although the beast was not incredibly strong, he was still aware of many things.

‘If you keep refining Yang energy your Wu Wei will become unbalanced. As soon as you have unbalanced energies it will be much harder to balance them again. That is why Xu Piao and Xie Lan never spent all their time cultivating, unlike you youngsters back in the Dungeons of the Divine. What you need is enlightenment and Yin energy. You can get Yin energy many ways. I already explained training in the cold and at midnight, through using medicinal pills and herbs. Another way is to take the virginity of a woman. A way I, personally, think is the best, but there is sadly a lack of beautiful birds around here. If it was Sha Yun on the other hand…’ The bird’s voice trailed off as he embarrassingly cleared his throat. ‘As I said, there are a lot of ways to gain Yin energy, so if you truly want to train hard, the only thing you are allowed to train is your external strength. Train your body and absorb all the Yin energy you possibly can.’

Hui Yue could not help but sigh the moment he heard the phoenix mentioning Sha Yun, but he was somewhat used to the bird’s strange personality. Instead of thinking about it, he started running around the training ground. At first, he was moving slowly to allow for his muscles to warm up; then he picked up the pace until he ran so swiftly that one could really focus on him. His speed was astonishing, and this was his speed without relying on any of the three types of energy Qi, Spiritual Energy, or Wu Wei.

Running with weights on his body, Hui Yue felt himself getting closer and closer to his limits. His teeth were gnashed hard together, and his eyes were determined as he kept saying ‘one more step, just one more step.’ to himself. Something which seemed to push him further and further. His speed which had previously been a steady fast pace was dropping but no matter how much it dropped his wobbly legs kept moving. He never once stopping until a rush of strength surged through his entire body. It felt as though a refreshing energy appeared from somewhere deep within. As soon as this thread of energy emerged, Hui Yue stopped running. His hands rested on his thighs as he was gasping for air.

Although he had just gained extra energy, this energy was from breaking his own limit, and if he was to continue what he had been doing and spend the hard earned energy, then it was likely to have a detrimental effect rather than a positive one.

Having finished the run, Hui Yue did not stop training. After training his legs, he moved on to the rest of his body as soon as he had managed to catch his breath. The young man started other exercises which trained every muscle from his fingers to his feet.

Every time Hui Yue trained a specific kind of muscle, he would continue until this foreign energy appeared proving that he had broken through yet another limit for that specific muscle. This limit training was taught to him by Wan Qiao, and it was something which had already given him immense strength alongside a much greater defense. Building his body had helped him immensely on his path of cultivation.

Finishing the training, Hui Yue took a towel and wiped away the sweat which was running from his forehead, before he noticed that his training session had gathered quite an audience. The ones observing him were a mixture of the Lords of the Forest alongside high ranked Emperors. Looking at all these experts, at first Hui Yue was surprised, but after observing them, he instantly noticed that all the lords in front of him were the ones he had selected to participate in the war. The Emperors were the experts they had chosen as having the most potential to become commanders of the lower ranked soldiers.

Seeing the sight in front of him, Hui Yue could not help but smile. He stood in front of the most exalted experts within Shenyuan, all of them were waiting for him; someone who had just broken into the King rank. Here he was sweating profusely after having trained for the majority of the day. He had been so absorbed in his training that he had not noticed the many experts appearing around him.

“Excuse me,” He said with a clear voice. “I’m sorry to have kept you all waiting,” He continued. He did not seem truly sorry, but the pleasantry still caught favor with many of the experts. Some of them had waited hours for Hui Yue to finish training. Truth be told, although all these experts knew about limit training, there were only a selected few who had the perseverance to truly train to their limits, and to see someone who could overcome one limit after another caused everyone present to have a new impression of this young man.

“I am sorry to ask, but could all of you form a line. Lords at the front followed by their Emperors. I don’t mind what order you stand in; I just need to view all of you.” He spoke out loud, and his voice carried a certain degree of authority. Although the men in front of him were all far stronger than him, not to mention that they were exalted figures within the forest, Hui Yue still stood his ground and gave some simple orders to everyone present.

At first, the Emperors expected that these lords would refuse to follow orders from a meager King. From someone whom all of them could trample, but all of them were shocked when they saw their lords nod their heads and instantly follow the orders given to them moments before.

Looking at the many experts in front of him, Hui Yue was not the least bit intimidated. He knew that he was needed, and he knew that the lords valued him for his ability to wage war. What was in front of him was the keystone of his army. Looking at the men who stood in one long line, Hui Yue finally understood that his job was to build an army. His eyes grew serious, and his fist tightened as he took a few steps backwards.

“Lord Pan, please step forward,” Hui Yue called out, and as soon as his voice had sounded, the man whom Hui Yue had the privilege of meeting quite a few times stepped forward with four experts behind him. He moved towards the white-haired young man with his head held high and a smile on his face. He did not show the slightest bit of emotion as everything he thought was being kept inside. Even Hui Yue felt a chill going down his spine, and as soon as he felt the strength of the man in front of him, Hui Yue closed his eyes for a few moments. When he opened them, no sign of him being intimidated remained. The only thing found in those deep, ice-blue eyes of his was determination and authority. Authority to decide what happened with the many experts in front of him. Hui Yue was building an army and the lords had to follow his every command.