Pathway

As the sun emerged from the horizon in the glory of the early morning, serene gold petals pushed into the blue colour of the sky after being cast in different direction, creating a wonderful scenery. After the wondrous blackness of the night, an amazing rising sun was an indication of the beginning of another day as a deity in the Underworld.

Dressed in her low-grade Spire-Shield cloth armour, Chang Chang came out of her room with a determined look, holding her wooden glaive in her right hand while the left was clenched in a fist. Raising her head, she closed her eyes and basked herself in the wondrous early morning sunrise. Her Spire-Shield cloth armour brought out the uniqueness of her stature in the way she was standing there with her eyes closed. The sensational feeling she was having was some sort of inspiration for her soul as she held her wooden glaive, more tightly.

Since this past day, which was a day after her Xu Wu blood awakening rite, she had spent most of her time practising her martial arts while devoting at least equal amount of her time to her mystical arts. What was the essence of martial arts if she couldn't even infuse it with her mystical arts. Every blood cultivator would need mystical art to be at the top level, even when using blood essence, talk-less of harnessing it. The Shadow-blood technique was specifically meant for harnessing chaos blood energy.

With a greater cultivation technique, she would only be able to sense the higher blood energy. Harnessing it would practically be impossible. If she would try to harness the blood energy without honing her mystical arts. The perfevt blood energy was needed at the same time, for her not to permanently be destroying her life-force. These were the problems of her path of the Blood-Realms. The only possible solution were the energy-essence crystals. Therefore, she would be concentrating more on her martial arts. For now.

And she had been training relentlessly. Especially, to get more familiar with a glaive while using the wood replica of the glaive. She had to be ready before going to the valley of a-thousand-death. The reason being that, after she had conjured the weapon, their will be blood-energy elementals that would follow her weapon's manifestation. These elementals were the universe's way of testing the mettle of the young deities' worthiness of having a soul space that would open after a successful trial.

Hence, she would have to battle these elementals for her survival. Though, it was uncommon to find a young blood cultivator succumbing to these minor elementals, it had happened a number of times before. If she didn't want to be one of those, she would have to be prepared to her best possibilities. She would have preferred taking her time to train for a longer time, probably weeks, but tradition didn't leave any room for this.

According to the tradition of all the three worlds, a young blood must go to the place of a weapon conjuration within three days of the awakening rite. If any young deity made an attempt after three days, the deity might easily loose his or life when facing the elementals. The reason being that the conjured elementals wouldn't be the minor ones anymore, they would be the major ones with much higher powers.

This was not even an option Chang Chang wanted to consider. So, she was going to train harder and would be going to the valley tomorrow morning. Opening her eyes, her face was set in grim determination as she made her way to the training ground. Weapon ready, she checked the seals before activating the Ground-Gravers. These were the artificial underground beasts used for training all sort of deities. They were of different grades and levels according to the strength of the opposing deity.

Immediately activating the Ground-Gravers, the surface of the training ground changed as twisting tunnels were manifested. This was her second day of facing these artificial beasts after her awakening and acquiring her wooden glaive. Despite them being more or less of her level, she knew she would need more time to get acquainted with their ways. Her time with them the day before, was a disaster. Although, the strikes of the beasts wouldn't kill her, they would leave extremely painful marks behind.

Thus, today, she would try a different approach. With a nod of self assurance, she descended into the opened tunnel.

It was after several long minutes of intense fighting, that she returned back to the surface, breathing heavily. Not noticing the shadowy figure that was just outside the training ground, Chang Chang quickly checked her body for any form of injury. She had exchanged hundreds of strikes with the beasts. There were claw marks on her cloth armour but no serious damage of any kind to the armour or her own body. She shook her as she let out a deep breath. Despite her incredible strength, the beasts were much more stronger than her with their numbers. She could hold herself on a one-on-one battle but there were five of them which put her highly at a disadvantage.

It was at this stage that she quitted the day before, but today, she decided to carry on with a renewed determination despite her obvious cons.

Knowing that the beasts would be dashing out of the ground at anytime now, she hurriedly removed a commonly known strength replenishing pill, the Tide-Flow medicinal pill, from her dimensional space. She was about to put it in her mouth when an invisible force wrenched the pill from her hand. The pill shot towards the direction of the shadowy figure that she failed to notice. It was then that she saw the figure for the first time and realized her predicaments. The figure was completely covered in gleaming shadow energy.

Although, there was no danger alarm coming from the shadowy figure, there was still primal fear in Chang Chang, knowing this was an exceedingly powerful entity. She looked around uneasily while slowly moving backwards, away from the shadowy figure. She was still moving backwards when she remembered that the seals on the training ground were still active.

Knowing that the beasts would be dashing out of the ground at anytime now, she hurriedly removed a commonly known strength replenishing pill, the Tide-Flow medicinal pill, from her dimensional space. She was about to put it in her mouth when an invisible force wrenched the pill from her hand. The pill shot towards the direction of the shadowy figure that she failed to notice. It was then that she saw the figure for the first time and realized her predicaments. The figure was completely covered in gleaming shadow energy.

Although, there was no danger alarm coming from the shadowy figure, there was still primal fear in Chang Chang, knowing this was an exceedingly powerful entity. She looked around uneasily while slowly moving backwards, away from the shadowy figure. She was still moving backwards when she remembered that the seals on the training ground were still active.

The Ground-Gravers!

Like lightning, she swirled around with her glaive in an horizontal arc's slash. But the moment she turned around, her face was some feet away from the extended claws of the five beasts. The shocking effect of this scenario made Chang Chang dropped her glaive as she scrambled backward in fear. After recollecting their attacks wouldn't kill her, Chang Chang stopped her scrambling and slowly regained herself. Then, she realized that the beasts were all frozen in place with only their eyes that were moving.

Why were they frozen? Did she do anything wrong?

Chang Chang was still thinking about the extremely painful experience she could have had provided the beasts were not frozen, when she heard a deep voice behind her.

"In a true battle, you are already dead."

"Huh?"

Exclaimed Chang Chang, turning around to the sight of the shadowy figure, now a few feet away from her before scrambling backward again.

"Very dead."

The grave beasts had occupied her mind making her forgot totally about this entity. Staring at the figure, she could see primal traces with her young deity eyes. Despite no evil intent coming from the figure, the figure was even more fearful than she had thought. Now she was stuck between a powerful shadowy figure and some grave beasts.

How did this figure passed through their manor's defensive arrays? Most importantly, where was her parents? How could they not notice this entity? Probably, more powerful? She was still thinking about this when the figure's voice brought her back to reality.

"In a battle, a distracted deity, is a dead deity."

While Chang Chang cautiously watched the shadowy figure, the shadow covering it suddenly retracted and revealed a tall, muscular deity in a glowing signature black robe. His black pupil covered most of his eyes, matching his long flowing black air and beard. Recognition dawned on Chang Chang as she slowly asked.

"Second uncle?"

"Took you long enough. Now walk with me. Your parents are waiting."