The Six Immortals

After two hours of meditation, the four of them finally finished their respective practices; and then the Chimera started restoring its energy, while the four of them sat down to divide the loot.

Soon, they had made an inventory of the total loot, subdivided the items into categories, and then partitioned them into different Yin Yang pouches, based on these sub categories.

They had obtained a total on seventy-eight Yin Yang pouches, which were all filled with different kinds of articles, while most of them contained corpses of beasts; Sixty-three of them by count, were full of carcasses of beasts.

Lone Leaf’s eyes gleamed with excitement as he said: “I didn’t expect such a huge bounty from that bunch of thieves, but I’m glad I was wrong this time around.”

“That’s a lot! This would help us improve our strength much faster!” Blue Dragon was as excited as Lone Leaf.

The bodies of dead beasts could be sold at a decent price. And so many of them, were bound to fetch a lot of Spar in exchange.

These Spars could be exchanged to buy items that could supplement their practice; better quality and a higher quantity of resources, to supplement their practice, which would help them improve their strength a lot faster.

For a martial artist, there was nothing more important than strength improvement.

Wang Zhong reasoned: “If you think about, the robbers never saw the Chimera, hence they never accounted for its strength, when they assessed us before attacking us. On top of that, they weren’t able to assess Brother Bi Fan, or Brother Blue Dragon’s real strengths.”

He paused for moment, and then continued: “There are so many factors, conveniently inclined in our favor, which keep on baiting these fools to attack us, thinking that they will win.”

“Well, at least we don’t disappoint them. Now, let’s divide the resources, you guys pick first.” Bi Fan laughed.

Lone Leaf picked about ten Yin Yang pouches that were full of carcasses. Additionally, he also picked up some spars, some herbs, and some Dan pellets. However, he still didn’t pick any weapons.

Blue Dragon was a bit embarrassed to ask his desire: “Brother Bi Fan, Brother Wang Zhong, would it be okay if I took the armor, I won’t ask for much else.”

“Go ahead, take it!” Bi Fan nodded. He already had good quality armor, the soft one, which he had bought from Ting Feng valley, and then he also had the Wisteria armor that Ling Xin Ya had given him. So, he really didn’t need another one.

Wang Zhong, also, already had a low-grade armor, so he didn’t object either.

Blue Dragon happily picked up the armor, and immediately put it on.

Subsequently, Blue Dragon picked up five Yin Yang pouches, but didn’t ask for anything other than these items.

Bi Fan was left with a total of sixty-three Yin Yang pouches, most of which, were full of some kind of valuables or the other.

Since the two of them, Wang Zhong and Bi Fan, had played a major role in resolving the battle, Blue Dragon and Lone Leaf, didn’t ask for an equal share.

Blue Dragon and Lone Leaf looked extremely happy with their respective shares; especially Lone Leaf, the smile on his face, was stretched from one ear to the other.

Bi Fan collected his and Wang Zhong’s collective share and put it away.

“Brother Wang, we will sell the items, and share the profits fifty-fifty.”

“No problems at all, I’m good.” Wang Zhong’s face was as calm as ever.

Bi Fan had just earned a lot of Spar in a very short period of time, and he thought that he would start swooning soon. When happiness comes too quickly, people sometimes have a difficult time in controlling their emotions. Bi Fan, however, had a good control over his, which was probably why he hadn’t already fainted.

Since they were done with the task of dividing the resources, and the Chimera had also finished restoring its energy, their party set out again.

The present trip to the Devil’s Abyss had borne them excellent results, and the four of them had earned a lot money. Hence, they were in no hurry to kill beasts, as they didn’t feel the need to earn any more Spar, they now, wished to fight against the beasts, simply to practice and polish their skills.

Many strong men had passed by, while they were busy training, and most of them were quite confused with the way they were dealing the Devil’s Race beasts.

The four of them, would continue to fight the beasts for a very long time, much longer than was required, and simply wouldn’t kill the beasts. In fact, they wouldn’t even injure the beasts much.

“What a silly group! Look how long they have been at it now. They could have killed the beasts a long time ago, so why are they not doing it?” Many people had scoffed.

“I think these people are really stupid, whenever they come close to killing an enemy, they fumble and mess the opportunity up.”

Blue Dragon and the others had heard some of these dialogues, but they didn’t really mind them, and continued to practice their skills.

Blue Dragon and Lone Leaf were, both, almost at the verge of making a breakthrough to the bottleneck, and hence, the two of them were putting in a lot of effort.

Wang Zhong had been trying to make the breakthrough from the ‘fetus’ layer to the ‘emerging from the womb’ layer for a long time now, but it was a very big leap. So much so, that almost ninety percent people never succeeded in crossing that bridge.

Wang Zhong had been trying very hard; he had been very persistent, and he was definitely very talented; now all he needed, to make the breakthrough, was a bit of luck.

It was only a matter of time till he would get his chance.

‘Fetus’ to ‘Emerging from the womb’, was a huge leap in terms of quality. If Wang Zhong succeeded in breaking through the bottleneck, then he would easily be able to defeat Bi Fan in a fight, even though Bi Fan was as strong as an ‘emerging from the womb’ layer fighter.

Since, once a practitioner enter the ‘emerging from the womb’ layer, the inner energy begins to transform into aura, which flows through the body’s channels, and drastically improves the strength of the body.

This Aura, changes several aspects of the martial artist’s body, and even extends the life expectancy.

‘Emerging from the womb’ layer martial artists often lived up to almost two-hundred and eighty years, without show much signs of aging, before dying a natural death.

As a martial artist progresses though the layer, it is even possible to live up to the age of three hundred years, which meant the martial artist would get even more time to practice, and upgrade strength.

Power, longer life expectancy, these were some of the very common factors which most practitioners followed the path of martial arts for, so much so, that it often led to an obsession with the same.

As for Bi Fan, he had just made a breakthrough, which meant that he would now need to stabilize it as much as possible, before he could hope to progress further.

In the process of killing Zi Chuan, Bi Fan had learnt a lot of new techniques to support his own practice, such as the ‘Glorious Heavens’ technique. In addition to that, he had also procured several new books, which talked about various topics such as knives, swords, hammers, energy etc.

Although these methods and techniques were only intermediate level skills, and weren’t as advanced as the ones that Bi Fan already knew, he still wanted to make a mental copy of them for the sake of his knowledge and understanding.

The more he learnt about different kind of techniques, the better it would be for his progress. One of the most fruitful things in martial arts, was to create custom techniques; but this innovation, wasn’t easy, and needed a great amount of knowledge.

Creation of customized, and personalized, techniques was very fruitful, as these techniques were designed especially for the practitioner who invented them.

Bi Fan, in alignment with his ambitions, had already started creating his own techniques, and these innovations were greatly supported by the techniques that he had picked up along the way.

At this time, Bi Fan’s mind was pondering over the various new techniques that he had just learnt, trying to separate out the ones that were useful for him, from the ones that weren’t; and then, well, he had a bunch of wild beasts to test his theories on.

As a result of this, his entered into the ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer very strongly, and was making excellent progress, while learning several new things at the same time.

“ARGHH!!!” Bi Fan made a sudden burst of charge, and cast out the ‘fufeng double-edged sword’ with all his might; the force of his attack had almost doubled up since the breakthrough.

One wave of the ‘fufeng double-edge sword’, and Bi Fan managed to clear out the dozen or so beasts that surrounded him, in an instant.

“Brother Bi Fan, congratulations! You’re strength is progressing really quickly, it’s something worth celebrating.” Wang Zhong smiled.

Bi Fan smiled back: “We have all improved a lot, so let’s continue to go deeper into the Abyss, as we still need to find and test ourselves against the Layer’s King.”

“Yes, and this time, I will seize the opportunity, and fight as hard as I can. And hopefully, I too will breakthrough to the next layer soon.” Blue Dragon’s firm eyes clearly demonstrated his resolve.

Lone Leaf was quite excited too: “If we do bump into the Layer’s King, then I too would be able to gain a huge amount of experience, which could help me make the breakthrough as well.”

“You guys are doing really well. But I’m going to need a lot of luck, if I hope to break into the next layer in this trip.” Wang Zhong seemed a little depressed.

Blue Dragon smiled: “Brother Wang, don’t be so disheartened, we all know that you’re going to make it.”

“Exactly! You will…” Lone Leaf echoed in agreement.

Bi Fan didn’t say anything, as he continued to gaze at the three of them, with smile on his face.

This was his greatest treasure; the friends he had made; and now, they were beginning to gel with each other as well.