Tales of Demons and Gods : The Legend of Xiao Ning'Er

"Hey Linjian!" she greeted him, pretending she had not just been secretly watching him.

Her heart clenched in muted happiness as she saw his eyes light up in genuine appreciation when he turned and saw her walking into the room. She pulled up a chair next to his bed and sat down. "How are you doing today?" she asked.

"Well, you only saw me this morning so it's pretty much the same..." His voice trailed off as his nose scrunched up. "Man...something smells like sweaty rags."

Her face changed into an expression of complete horror, blushing a deep red, as she realised how she must smell after her training session with Ye Shuo. She had not even thought about going back to bathe first because in the past, her group were always on the move and adventuring, and didn't bother about these things. What a horrifying blunder!

"Oh no!!! I'm so, so sorry! I should have gone back to wash up first. I came straight from trai..." she babbled out, stopping only when she saw the twinkle in his eyes and the laughter he was trying to hide from her.

"YOUuuu...." she complained as she grabbed a pillow, swinging it behind her head and threatening to hit him with it.

"Hahahaha...you should have seen your face! And besides, I'm not the one who stomped into this room smelling like a dead fish..." he teased.

"Gggrrrr..." This was all she could come up with when she thought of an intellectual comeback to his infuriating provocations.

He suddenly looked at her seriously, straight in her eyes and sincerely said, "But Ning'Er...on a serious note. Thanks for coming and cheering me up. It means a lot to me. Even if you smell."

She didn't know whether to be angry or touched. "It's...ok...we've faced a potentially life and death situation together after all. It's right for comrades to support each other." she replied him. "Even those that smell bad."

They shared a light laugh together as they continued talking for the next couple of hours, from unimportant information to the events of the day, and at times, even some of their future aspirations in the role they'd play for Glory City.

After awhile, she took out the unused soul crystal and asked him to inject his soul force into it. Although his injured body could not handle physical training or even heavy cultivation practice, he could still operate his cultivation technique on a superficial level.

He watched her in curiosity as she took out some paper and a pen, and began writing down the high-tier cultivation technique. He found that he enjoyed the look on her face when she was serious and thoughtful, and was content with just looking at her while she worked.

Finally, she was done and she methodically briefed him about how to use the technique and its special features before letting him read through the manual she had prepared. When he was ready, he began circulating the technique and was amazed at its power and effectiveness as the energy churned through his soul realm like a storm in the sea. It was many times more powerful than the technique he currently used, which was the best one in his Divine Family!

Seeing his predictable surprise, she proceeded to tell him the same story that she had told the rest about her ancestor finding the manual in an ancient ruin. He believed her straightforwardly without any hesitation, making her feel slightly guilty, but it was easier to tell him this story at this point of time than the truth of her 'rebirth'.

Feeling the purity of soul force that this technique could generate, Linjian realised that even his recovery process would be faster if he operated this cultivation technique within safe limits. He couldn't wait to see his growth in the future with this! He had thought that he had severely disrupted his progression because of the injuries inflicted by Yun Hua but Ning'Er had just shone a ray of light into the discouragement he had felt. As the direct descendant of one of the major families, he felt great pressure to carry the hopes and dreams of his family.

As he looked at her in gratitude, he remembered something. "Oh yeah, would you and Ziyun be interested in holding a special auction for the things that we found in the Ancient Orchid City ruins?" he asked her.

"Didn't it all get taken by the Dark Guild? Ziyun and I can give you our portions because we don't really need the funds that much..." she started.

He gave her an embarrassed look. "Don't you remember, we split it into seven parts? The other three parts were taken away but...I swallowed my ring with two of the parts."

"Oh yea!!! So with mine and Ziyun's portion, we still have more than half of the treasure!! Of course we'd be open to auctioning it. Maybe it will add a bit of positivity to the tragedy we faced..." she said sorrowfully.

"Yes...I was thinking if we could allocate a portion of the profits to the families of the three who...didn't make it." he whispered with deep feeling.

"Linjian, it wasn't any of your fault...we all made our decision to go and no one could have foreseen the troubles we encountered..." she said as she tried to comfort him.

"Thanks, Ning'Er," he resignedly responded but the light didn't come back into his eyes as he thought about those who would never share a warm meal with their families again.

.....

The next few days were filled with training and cultivation in the City Lord's Mansion. Xiao Ning'Er could tell that Ziyun and Nie Li had grown much closer, as she saw the beautiful pendant hanging on her friend's neck. They threw themselves into their training, their urgency reinforced by the prospect of the Dark Guild waiting in the shadows. Xiao Ning'Er would then spend the evenings with Linjian as he continued his recovery.

At the end of the week, there was a massive auction event that was carried out containing the biggest find of treasures from the Ancient Orchid City Ruins anyone had ever heard of. Influential and rich people from all over Glory City came from far and wide to view and bid on the precious items, especially collectors who were obsessed with artifacts from the Age of Darkness.

The profit raised from this one auction event was an astounding 400 million demon spirit coins! Despite Xiao Ning'Er's objections, he insisted that her and Ziyun take half of this amount since half of the treasures belonged to them anyway. As Ziyun didn't need any funds as the daughter of the City Lord, she asked Xiao Ning'Er to take all of it, seeing as her friend would use it to benefit the cultivation and growth of their group anyway.

In the blink of an eye, Xiao Ning'Er's interspatial ring had an extra 200 million demon spirit coins in addition to the 10 million she had from selling her stock of Purple Haze Grass. She had all the funds she would need for her group's cultivation resources for a very long time and she hadn't even started selling inscriptions yet!

She received word that the weapon-smith guild had completed the weapon she had commissioned and headed over to appraise the quality of their work. She was ushered into a special room and saw two exquisite throwing knives the colour of dark green. The knives almost felt alive as she handled them in her hands, feeling their perfect balance and razor-sharp edges.

They were magnificent.

She couldn't wait to enact the next step, stopping only to buy some vials of the blood of a gold-ranked demon beast of the wind attribute, before heading back to her room. Today, she would use the same inscription that was on her dagger, Black Death. As she was already at silver rank, her soul force purity would allow her to create gold-rank weapons, especially when taking into account the high-tier material of the horns of the Draconic Jade Serpent.

These throwing knives would be different from her dagger in that they were specially made for throwing and not for combat. Their shape and functionality would allow for significantly faster and more undetectable sneak attacks to surprise the enemy with deadly intention.

She sat down and circulated her cultivation technique until her soul realm brimmed with energy. Then when she reached her optimum state, she set about inscribing the delicate knives with intricate runes filled with power. It required a lot more soul force to carve the inscriptions onto solid objects like the jade horns and she had to take a few hours break to rest after finishing one inscription, before she could move on to the other one.

As she carved the finishing touch onto the second knife, the dark green jade glowed with an eerie flash before slowly getting dimmer and finally reverting back to normal. Success! The other blade had glowed in the same way a few hours ago.

She picked them up excitedly and couldn't wait to test them out, walking out to her private courtyard. She experimented with different throwing techniques that she had picked up in the past and found that at closer distances, she didn't even need to use any motion in her arms at all. She merely needed to flick her wrist and fingers, and she watched as the knife buried itself, all the way to the hilt, into the tree in the yard.

Opponents would not even be able to see any motion out of the corner of their eyes to react because the arms would not move, and just as treacherous was the activated wind force, which surrounded the knife, obscuring it from any visual perception.

She decided to follow Black Death's naming convention and named these menacing throwing knives, The Black Shadows.