Chapter – 163 Lessons from the Elders
Long Yu ultimately accepted the reward of Purple glass Dan.
He could clearly feel that Bu Xing had bestowed upon him such a valuable reward not only to benefit him but to benefit the whole Zhentian sect!
Each seven sect competition had been important to all the seven major sects of the Tang kingdom, but the one which was to commence now was the most important of them all.
Rumour has it that the Prince of the Tang kingdom, Chu Chao Sheng and the sovereign of the Qiansi Sect, Yu Ruan had formed an alliance and had all the six sects in agreement.
If any disciple of the Qiansi Sect won the seven sects competition, all the other sects would have to surrender their core laws to Prince Chu Chao Sheng!
Such being the case, all the six major sects apart from the Qiansi sect had formed a secret alliance and were training their disciples to make them reach at least Zhenling 4th layer. They were also training them with the mysterious jade level Imperial ‘Spring and autumn’ core law to be at par with Yu Qianning.
In all the six sects, perhaps there was no one who could fight and defeat Yu Qianning!
In such a situation, all the six allied sects were now training their young disciples fiercely and were spending all their training resources on their best powerhouses.
If these sects failed at the seven sects competition, they would have to hand over their core laws to Chu Chao Sheng and this would cause all the six sects to decline.
Standing beside Bu Xing, Old White chuckled.
“Long Yu, your growth has surprised us all. In the upcoming seven sects’ competition, only you and Bu Xing stand a chance to defeat Yu Qianning.”
Old White rubbed his beard and said with a kind smile: “My cultivation level is just Zhenling 4th layer, so I wouldn’t be able to help you with martial skills. But if you have any questions regarding any immortality pill, feel free to come to me. This old man knows all about immortality pills and will be happy to help you.”
“Thank you so much, Old White.”
Long Yu held his fist in the other hand to pay respect to Old White and then said: “Old White, I have some corpses of monster beasts. Please have a look at them; perhaps you can concoct some immortality pills with them.”
With these words, Long Yu took out the one corpse of goblin snake and two corpses of dragon monster beast which he had hidden inside his nine hidden dragon mark and threw them in the combat field of the bamboo grove.
Goblin snake!
Several Elders flashed their eyes. They immediately recognised the corpse of the goblin snake and were quite startled with it.
Earlier through the pigeon messengers of Yan Huanmo, they had only known that Long Yu had killed two Zhenling 4th layer powerhouses, including the absconding powerhouse of the Zhentian sect, Wen Ze.
However they did not know that Long Yu had ventured into the Demon valley and had also killed a goblin snake there!
All these Elders, at some point in their youth, had desperately wanted to enhance their cultivation level and hence were fully aware of the dangers one had to face in the Demon valley.
Since Long Yu had managed to kill a goblin snake, it was obvious that his strength was far more than any ordinary Zhenling 4th layer expert.
If Long Yu enhanced his cultivation level to Zhenling 3rd layer, then he stood a fair chance of defeating Yu Qianning!
“The only part of the goblin snake that can be used to concoct immortality pills is its bladder. However, its skin, its fangs etc can be used to manufacture battle weapons.”
Old White explained further: “As for the corpses of the dragon monster beasts, well, they do not hold any significant value since it’s only with their skin one can manufacture battle weapons, but the battle weapons so manufactured would not be too powerful.”
“So that’s how it is.”
Long Yu nodded and continued to inquire: “If I wish to sell the skin and fangs of the goblin snake, the skin of the dragon monster beasts along with the frontal horn of a rock rhino beast, how many crystal coins would these things fetch me?”
He had a big treasure with him. By selling these items, he could get a considerable amount of money which he could later use to buy immortality pills or neidans.
Because of this, he wanted to get an idea of the actual value of these things before he went out to sell them.
Old White would concoct immortality pills day and night and he also used to travel to the Imperial city to buy battle weapons in exchange of the immortality pills that he concocted. His knowledge about these immortality pills and corpses of beasts could be relied upon.
“The bladder of the goblin snake can fetch you a thousand crystal coins. One can concoct a top grade spiritual level immortality pill from it.”
Old White, rubbing his beard, continued to explain further: “The other parts of the goblin snake, like its fangs, can fetch you about five hundred crystal coins. The skin of the dragon monster beasts aren’t of much value – they can fetch you two hundred to three hundred crystal coins each. As for the frontal horn of a rock rhino beast that you just mentioned, well, that can fetch you the highest price of at least two thousand crystal coins!”
Long Yu made his calculations. The body parts of these beasts could fetch him around three thousand crystal coins!
“Old White, please keep this bladder of the goblin snake and concoct immortality pills out of it for me. When I will visit the Imperial city, I will sell them there.”
Long Yu took out the bladder and placed the rest of the corpses inside his nine hidden dragon mark.
Baiyun Zhong, who was watching Long Yu place the corpses inside his nine hidden dragon mark, at once came to know that Long Yu had some storage type battle weapon with him.
While the other Elders couldn’t figure out how Long Yu got one, Baiyun Zhong wondered whether it was a legacy of Long Zaitian that his son was carrying now.
He did not know the whereabouts of Long Zaitian, all he knew was that Long Yu was growing just like him…..
“I can concoct immortality pills from this bladder of goblin snake within three days time. I will give you the pills before you leave for the Imperial city.”
Old White received the bladder of the goblin snake and turned around to stand aside.
The usually uncommunicative Old Black stepped forward.
“Martial skill, peaceful soul!”
After uttering these four words, Old Black shot a punch towards Long Yu!
Long Yu was anticipating that Old Black might attack him, but when he saw the fist approaching him, his complexion changed.
Although this punch was not a profound martial skill and was only a low grade fist skill of Zhentian sect, but when released by Old Black, it contained immense power!
Old Black had released the punch with all the might a Zhenling 2nd layer expert could put in his punch, still the force of the fist made Long Yu withdraw a few steps in order to dodge the attack.
“The grade of a martial skill, no doubt, is important. But it is the amount of practice for that skill that imparts the actual power to it.”
Old White explained to Long Yu: “This move of Old Black, the crane dance fist, although is an ordinary low grade boxing technique, but Old Black has practised it to the perfection level!”
Comprehending a martial skill to the perfection level, be it an ordinary fist technique, imparted an abominable strength to the skill which made Long Yu to retreat and changed his complexion.
He considered himself to be quite strong as he had comprehended a variety of martial skills.
However, now he realised that promoting the comprehension level of a martial skill was of no less importance than enhancing one’s cultivation level.
The perfection level of an ordinary martial skill had forced Long Yu to retreat, then it could be easily imagined how formidable someone’s strength could be if he comprehended the top grade martial skills to the perfection level!
Long Yu was immediately reminded of Elder Yu Shuiyun’s disciple, Lu Guanming.
Lu Guanming had practised the Imperial rock martial skill to the perfection level. This dark faced boy had practised only two martial skills at that time – one was the Imperial rock and the other was the same as Long Yu – the demon tyrant form.
At that time, in spite of having a cultivation level of Wudao eighth layer, Lu Guanming could easily compete with a martial expert of Wudao ninth layer. Even in the Teng snake abyss, he had been able to successfully resist the law enforcement elder of Zhenling realm for some time without much difficulty!
This could only happen when a martial expert had comprehended a martial skill to the perfection level. Unfortunately, comprehending a martial skill to the perfection level was no easy feat; it needed much more effort and time.
Even Long Yu had wanted to comprehend his martial skills to the perfection level, but he never got enough time to achieve that.
Certainly, if someone wanted to promote his comprehension level of a skill, apart from isolating himself and practising, one could also contend with others to achieve it.
In fact, a martial expert’s cultivation as well as comprehension level enhanced manifold during a life threatening situation. But who would prefer to endanger his life constantly just for the sake of enhancing his cultivation and comprehension levels?
Old Black, who usually didn’t speak much, was one of the most powerful Elders of Zhentian sect. His strength was much more than that of a Zhenling 4th layer powerhouse like Old White.
But just like Long Yu, even Old White couldn’t determine the exact cultivation level of Old Black.
They could sense that Old Black had cultivation level of Zhenling 6th layer or higher and that he could successfully congeal a Zhenling entity!
Old Black, undoubtedly, was the strongest Elder of Zhentian sect!
At this moment, Old Black continued to attack Long Yu without any pause.
Although he was displaying the strength of an ordinary Zhenling 2nd layer expert at the moment, since he had comprehended the martial skill to the perfection level, his incessant attacks spared no opportunity for Long Yu to counter the attacks.
He was a genuine master!
Long Yu realised that he would have to focus on enhancing his comprehension level during his future practice.
Old Black’s initiative benefitted Long Yu greatly. It seemed as if he had opened the doors of some different world!
But just then, the Elder who had earlier been fighting Yan Huanmo, Elder Yu Shengshi, came forward.
Yu Shengshi was a middle aged man and was wearing a white robe. He grabbed his sword as he was a skilled swordsman.
“In this seven sects competition, the main competitor of Zhentian sect would be Yu Qianning. But we should not neglect the fact that there would be other disciples as well, hailing from the other five sects.”
Yu Shengshi said with a kind smile: “Among the seven sects of the Tang kingdom, one is the ‘Raining Sword’ Sect. The strength of the Raining Sword sect is very high and we have to be canny of the disciples of this sect apart from focusing on Yu Qianning. When the time comes, they may not help us in defeating Yu Qianning…..”
As he stopped talking, he aimed his sword at Long Yu and launched an attack!
Long Yu immediately grabbed his Qian dragon spear in order to resist the blow.
He observed Yu Shengshi and tried to learn from him. He had perhaps attacked Long Yu in order to familiarize him with the sword type martial skills.
When a person practises a sword type martial skill, he has to be highly agile and quick. Moreover, the sword type martial skills’ power is usually far more than any other martial skill of the same level.
Yu Shengshi was followed by another disciple of Baiyun Zhong, Li Bufan.
……………..
One after another, all the Elders attacked Long Yu and after teaching him some lesson, rewarded him some immortality pills or neidans. Long Yu was quite flattered with such a treatment.
No disciple in the history of Zhentian sect had received such type of special treatment!
Even Bu Xing had never been sought after by so many Elders.
However, that evening, Long Yu got to learn so much from all the Elders and discussed so much with them that it deepened his insight on the martial arts.
He had not broken through the bottleneck for quite some time and was now ready to breakthrough.
This breakthrough would take him to the next layer of Zhenling realm!