Although there was a lingering odor in the air, the breeze brought over clouds of white mist. A mist filled with refreshing primal energy. This contrast confused Ye Wei, and he really couldn’t tell whether or not he disliked this strange environment.
As Ye Wei was cautiously scanning his surroundings, something growing on top of a jet black rock caught his attention, “Black cloud shaped leaves with a green stem!” He said to himself as he saw its black leaves gently flowing in the breeze.
“There is no mistake; this herb is a Black Billow!” Ye Wei’s eyes widened, and there was an undisguised excitement on his face, ‘This is an exquisite quenching herb and it’s a key ingredient of the Fiery Sun Quencher pills!”
Ye Wei raised his head and looked further. He saw that there were more Black Billows growing in the swamp!
Ye Wei had never imagined he would be lucky enough to see such a rarity in plain sight out in the world, but it seemed this was the case in this realm. He scanned around and spotted eight black billows. Who knew how many more there were shrouded by the mist.
“High-grade herbs are everywhere. What kind of place is this?!” Ye Wei exclaimed. He did not hesitate to run around and put all the herbs he saw in his bag.
‘What is this stone monument?’ As Ye Wei collected the last black billow he saw, a stone that was hidden behind some thick bush sparked his interest.
.
Half of the stone was buried under black mud. Three rusty weapons were scattered around it: a black stick, an ancient sword, and a long scarlet blade.
“Mystic arms!” Ye Wei eyes brightened. Although these weapons appeared beaten up and rusty, they were shining with an unmistakeable green glow, a glow that represented their value.
Medium-grade mystic arms could be bought, but their price reflected their rarity, not how much the material was actually worth. They often fetched prices over millions of silver at auctions.
Ye Wei was overjoyed, he literally just got himself three medium-grade arms from the repository, and now he was looking at three more. His body was trembling from excitement.
“Eh?” Ye Wei took a few quick step towards the weapons, but just as he was about to pull the black stick out of the mud, he noticed there was a little hole next to it and became wary.
“Someone was here before me?” Ye Wei’s face paled. He quickly put his hand into his bag and took out a scroll. While the hole was small, it did not look natural. It was entirely possible that it was left after another small mystic arm was dug up.
‘You have great awareness!’ Not far away on a bushy tree, Lu Chao watched Ye Wei’s every move between the thick branches. He resembled a python stalking its prey, waiting for the right moment to deliver the fatal strike.
‘Ha, you have a few medium-grade scrolls with you, so what? I don’t think Student scum like you can defend yourself against me now that I have these two-star medium-grade mystic arms in hand.’ He thought as he glanced at the three-inch dagger in his palm with a bloodthirsty sneer on his face.
All medium-grade mystic arms contain Myst stances, and they are further graded into a ten-star ranking system according to how strong the stances in them were. Although Lu Chao’s mystic arm was just at the two-star grade, the threat imposed by a Myst stance was not something a normal Student could deal with.
Not long ago when he was digging up the mystic arms next to the stone monument, he felt someone approaching and thought it was an army of cultivators arriving, so he quickly hid somewhere safe and inconspicuous while taking out his dagger.
Clenching the medium-grade mystic arm tightly, Lu Chao was more confident than he ever had been before. He knew very well that Ye Wei had two medium-grade scrolls in his possession, but he was no longer scared. ‘I don’t care about your mystic scrolls when I have something better!’
‘There were four repositories in total, and three of them were shared between Hong Xun, Xue Yao, and those Warriors, and this boy took a whole one for himself!’ Thinking about the large amount of treasures that were possibly in the repository, Lu Chao licked his dry lips while he narrowed his greedy eyes at Ye Wei.
‘Hong Xun and the rest did not follow him. Fate is on my side!’ Lu Chao chuckled wickedly. Under the impression that Ye Wei might not be alone, he was hesitant to attack immediately. If a few hundred Warriors were to fight him together, even having ten mystic arms with him wouldn’t make a difference.
‘You know I’m here, and you think you have time to defend yourself and collect mystic arms?!’ Lu Chao laughed and said as Ye Wei grabbed the end of the black stick. He took a heavy step on the branch and launched himself towards Ye Wei. Primal wings appeared on his back as he dived down ferociously like a falcon.
‘Ha, you can’t bear to wait any longer?’ Ye Wei intentionally exposed his back to Lu Chao, but never actually let his guard down. While one of his hands was on the black stick, his other hand held the low-grade scroll. He could sense an approaching presence, but he remained calm.
‘Now is the time!’ There was no way Lu Chao could hide when Ye Wei had such impeccable soul sensitivity, and Ye Wei knew exactly how far Lu Chao’s reach was and where he was attacking from. The ambush bore no element of surprise for Ye Wei and because of that, he was able to remain calm. When Lu Chao was just a few meters away, he heard the sound of fabric tearing.
“Buzz!”
This scroll was not one of the ones that were given to him by Lin Zi Yan; it was a low-grade offensive scroll he found in the repository!
The scroll held the forbidden high-level Spirit stance – Triple Sword Sky Splitter.
“Forbidden Spirit stance!” Lu Chao saw the three Qi swords as they penetrated the air at a fearsome velocity. He channeled his Qi to his wings and flew backwards, away from the course of Ye Wei’s Qi swords.
“Whiz!”
One of the Qi swords grazed Lu Chao’s cheek leaving a gash on his otherwise flawless skin.
Lu Chao’s plan was to approach undetected and finish Ye Wei before he could react; he could not believe that not only did his plan fail, but that he was so close to being gravely injured by a counter attack to his head.
Forbidden high-level Spirit stances posed a threat to even ten-star Warriors! The seven-star Warrior, Lu Chao had no way to defend himself against it, especially when he did not even expect Ye Wei to react at all.
“Damn it!”
Lu Chao narrowly dodged the attack. His face turned ashen, feeling cheated as he thought Ye Wei only had defensive scrolls on him.
“Ha, dodge this!” Ye Wei looked at the Lu Chao’s clumsy figure knowing that Lu Chao barely got away from the first wave of Qi swords. Ye Wei channeled his Qi to speed up the swords and then swung them towards Lu Chao again.
“Zoom!”
The Qi swords accelerated, and despite Lu Chao’s efforts, he only dodged two of the three swords. The last one flew straight to his face.
Lu Chao’s pupil dilated as he looked at the approaching Qi sword. The veins on his face bulged as he filled his body with Qi. He managed to move his head just an inch to the left a second before the sword connected.
“I will kill you!”
The sharp edge of the sword left a shockingly long wound on Lu Chao’s neck. Blood was gushing out as he was overwhelmed by pain. His facial expression turned from surprised to hateful. He stared at Ye Wei with the intention to kill him, and then aggressively injected his Qi into the dagger in his hand.
“Die!”
Lu Chao’s Qi activated the stance within his two-star medium-grade mystic arm. The three-inch dagger immediately shone bright, and a small hurricane of Qi started brewing around it.
The Qi dagger flew towards Ye Wei in a flash. They were quick, hardly visible, and wrapped with dangerous Qi. They flew very low over the ground, so low that all the grass, mud, and rubble under its path were flung up into the air.
The three-inch dagger was advancing on Ye Wei like a bloodthirsty predator.
This was bad for Ye Wei. He expected Lu Chao’s ambush, but he did not anticipate that he would have a medium-grade mystic arm. His pupils dilated as he figured out why, ‘The shape of this dagger matches the hole by the stone monument!’
“Cut!” Ye Wei redirected the three Qi swords to Lu Chao’s dagger, and at the same time, he took another scroll out of his bag.
“Bang! Bang!”
The Qi sword was rendered into loose strands of energy and vanished before it could get close to the dagger as it was dissipated by the hurricane of Qi around it. Unmoved by the Qi sword, the dagger kept approaching Ye Wei with unstoppable momentum.
“Just a Spirit stance, there is no way you can guard my Myst stance with that sh*t! Say goodbye to your pathetic life!” Behind the hurricane, Lu Chao was recklessly laughing. He could already see Ye Wei’s head falling from his body sliced by his vicious attack.
“Forbidden high-level Spirit stance – Cyan Windguard!” Ye Wei slowly exhaled as he refocused his mind back to a calm state and tore one of his scrolls.
‘It’s just a medium-grade mystic arm; I have plenty of scrolls to deal with it; no need to panic.’
“Zoom! Zoom!”
More than a hundred glittering runes appeared and spread out forming a screen which then transformed into a curved green wind wall in front of Ye Wei.
“Bang!”
Moments after the wind wall appeared, it was struck by the dagger together with the Qi hurricane, mud, and rubble. The wind wall shook vigorously as every point of impact rippled; it was starting to show signs of fracturing.
“Scrolls? Ha, I would like to see how many scrolls you have!” Lu Chao was levitating and watching Ye Wei from midair with an evil grin on his face.
“Crack! Crack!”
Under the pressure of the Qi hurricane, the green wind wall was started to crack and bend. A spider web like fracture started to appear and grow on Ye Wei’s defensive stance.
“Scrolls? I have plenty of them!” Standing behind the wind wall, Ye Wei put his hand into his bag and calmly took out another scroll.
After a loud bang, the wind wall shattered, but at the same moment, Ye Wei tore the second scroll releasing another forbidden Spirit stance.
A Qi screen with a metallic glow appeared where the wind wall just dissipated!
Low-grade scrolls were much cheaper than medium-grade ones as they were pretty much mass produced. The supply of low-grade scrolls never ran low. If a person had enough money, he would never run out of them, and because of that, Ye Wei was more than willing to use those scrolls. He would much rather spend more time using them before actually deciding to use a medium-grade scroll as the latter were rare to come by.
“Boom!”
The dagger and the Qi hurricane broke through Ye Wei’s defense again and again. Ye Wei took a few steps back and tore one scroll after another activating shield after shield in front of him.
Although the dagger was breaking the shields consistently, it was also weakened by a fraction every time it broke through a defensive stance.
The Myst stance was impressive, but it just couldn’t connect to Ye Wei because he was protected by so many defensive stances. By this time Ye Wei had torn the eighth scroll calmly, the Qi hurricane around the dagger died down, and Lu Chao was completely shocked.
“How… How many scrolls do you have!?” Lu Chao could feel and see how the dagger was getting weaker and weaker as he shouted at Ye Wei.
Ye Wei had already torn eight scrolls, and he was calm as usual. One of his hands was in his bag ready to take out another scroll if needed.
“You want to know how many scrolls I have? Just keep wasting your Qi on activating the stance in your dagger, I am as curious about how long your dantian will last if you keep pumping Qi into your cute little toy!” Ye Wei said while staring at Lu Chao with a cold glare.