Riluo City (Blue Phoenix Book 1) (10 page)

While Hui Yue was stunned Lan Feng was laughing his heart out, causing Hui Yue’s mind to explode with noise, however, he quickly regained his composure and looked at the flower. It was indeed beautiful. It was a white orchid with a warm yellow core. Its beauty was unrivalled amongst flowers in the forest, but it was also used to create a deadly poison.

‘Heh, this is great,’ Lan Feng said while trying to restrain his laughter, however it was not very successful, and he had a constant giggle.

“Ah this is beautiful Young Master,” Hui Yue said with shining eyes while looking at the very self-satisfied young boy, “I will definitely treasure it.” Inside, Hui Yue was impatient. He could not wait for this young master to leave so that he could return to cultivating, but on the other hand, he did not intent to let the young boy suspect that Hui Yue was abnormal, so his only option was to patiently wait for the other to leave.

The young master quickly sat down on the grass and found his own lunch before gesturing for Hui Yue to sit next to him. Hui Yue outwardly smiled, and looked so proud and slightly embarrassed by being allowed so close to nobility, while inwardly sighing and trying to figure out a way to chase the annoying boy away.

“Is it really okay for young master to spend your valuable time out here on the hills together with the goats?” Hui Yue asked fearfully. He hoped that the young master really did have some chores to attend back at camp, but the young boy did not seem as if he intended to leave anytime soon.

“Call me Rong Ming,” he said instead, while playing with the grass around him. Hui Yue was shocked. Why on earth did he have to become the playmate of some noble boy when he had more important things to deal with, however, as usual, he would not risk allowing the young master to have any suspicions that he could tell his father about. Instead, he said “Rong Ming” with a low voice and forced a blush to creep into his cheeks.

‘You are a great actor!” Lan Feng praised him, while laughing. Although Lan Feng did enjoy the feeling of Hui Yue getting stronger, he still enjoyed the current situation throughout. It was a lot less boring than staring at goats and grass and Qi threads all day long for the past five years.

Hui Yue did a mental sigh, as he knew there would be no help from his phoenix friend, and instead decided to give up on cultivating today and play along with this city boy. Hopefully, he could grasp some information about the city or outside world from him, as Lan Feng was useless when it came to current worldly knowledge.

“Why do you need to enter the Magical Forest?” Hui Yue asked Rong Ming with a frightened look on his face. He knew that his family feared the core area of the magical forest, as the beasts who lived there were very dangerous, and he was uncertain as to why anyone who lived a luxurious lifestyle would want to experience such dangers.

“Rong Xing, that’s my sister, and I need to see some of the martial skills we are practicing in real combat.” Rong Ming answered easily, while lying down on the grass and looking at the blue sky,

“Young master, can you tell me about life outside this village?” Hui Yue asked with a breathless voice, and his eyes gleamed with curiosity. This was one time where he did not need to actually act; this was something that he truly wished to know about.

Rong Ming smirked satisfactorily upon seeing the young child having such an expression and told him to lie down, as he would explain a little.

“Our father is the lord of Rilou City and the surrounding areas, and I am his heir,” was the first Rong Ming said with a very proud voice, “there is no cultivator around as strong as father.”

Hui Yue could not help but chuckle. Although Rong Ming was supposed to be a mature child, he was still a child, and all children loved bragging about their parents.

“Are you a cultivator?” Hui Yue asked curiously, while looking at the young boy that was lying next to him.

“mhm,” was the answer, “both Xing and I have reached the ninth star of the student level. We are definitely the best students in school, but we need to get much better. I need to make father proud,” he said with a determined voice, and it did cause Hui Yue to gain some respect for the young child. He himself had struggled for five years just to reach the second star.

“Why is your hair white?” Rong Ming suddenly asked. Hui Yue had been expecting the question to appear earlier so he was not surprised when it finally arrived.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, “one night it was black and the next morning it was white. I don’t remember anything, I was a baby.” Hui Yue said with a sigh, and Rong Ming got the impression that he was asked this question quite often,

“What is the city like?” Hui Yue quickly asked before Rong Ming had the chance to ask more questions, and the rest of the afternoon passed by with Rong Ming telling Hui Yue about the clothing stores, the restaurants, the harbour and the marketplaces. To Hui Yue it sounded very much like what a normal big city would have been like in his world, and it gave him a slight feeling of relief, that he could count on some of his previously acquired knowledge when he was to enter town for the first time.

Hui Yue stood up as dusk arrived and guided the goats and Rong Ming back to the village. He split up with the young master right as they reached the village pen and rushed home under the excuse of promising his mother always to hurry straight back.

Hui Yue couldn’t help but letting out a relieved sigh when he finally reached his home. Although he had gotten some good information, he had still wasted a whole day of cultivating.

‘They are ten years old and they are already at the ninth star. I really need to shape up,’ Hui Yue complained to Lan Feng.

‘Don’t stress it’ was the answer, ‘although they are at the ninth star it is obvious that their qi is not of as good a quality as yours. If they want to advance into the lower Zhong or middle Shang dantians they will need to use a great deal of Qi refining medicine, and it can’t guarantee success.’

Hui Yue could not help but feeling slightly good upon hearing that his hard work did have its benefits.

‘Oh yeah,’ he said while eating some steamed buns that was left for him in the kitchen, ‘I really need to learn some martial art skills. Without them I will have some serious problems,’ Hui Yue complained, and Lan Feng could only agree.

‘There is one issue though,’ Lan Feng said, ‘when I started cultivating my father directly opened up my middle Dantian so most of my skills require spirit power or elemental affinity.’

Hui Yue was one big question mark upon hearing those words. Elemental affinity? What was that?

‘Right. I didn’t explain it earlier since it was simply too much information, but I’ll explain it now.’ Lan Feng said slowly.

‘The Qi you gather right now is pure white qi. You can use normal qi with martial arts. It has no affinity but that is why it is restricted to martial arts alone. Right now you alone have no affinity because you still have not accessed your middle Dantian and released it.’

‘I thought that the middle dantian was spirit power?’ Hui Yue said questioningly, he did understand the affinity, but what did it have to do with spirit power?

‘Right. Qi is used for martial arts. Spirit power is used for Spiritual arts. I guess you would call it magic back in your old world. Your spirit power, or as you know it magic, will be affected by your affinity. Let’s say you have affinity for fire, then you can use your spirit power to learn fire-related spirit attacks. Together with this, there are certain spirit attacks that are not determined by affinity, but they are incredibly rare. One of them was the illusion you saw Rong Liang use on the qilins.’

Hui Yue nodded, it made sense.

‘So do you know any martial arts?’ he asked quickly, as he understood that martial arts were the way he had to learn.

‘I know some,’ Lan Feng said hesitantly, ‘but they are all quite high levelled. I am not sure if they will be of any use to you right now,’

‘It is worth a try,’ Hui Yue said determined, and Lan Feng had to agree. It was definitely better than being completely unguarded.

‘Oh right,’ he said quickly, ‘I am not sure which affinity you have, but since we share a soul you will definitely be able to use my affinities as well.’

Hui Yue’s eyes grew with excitement, ‘which affinity do you have?’ Lan Feng snorted at the obvious question, ‘It is obviously fire. But not the normal fire, it is Blue Fire.’

‘Does it have any awesome properties apart from the looks?’ Hui Yue could not help but ask. He had after all received a new look thanks to this phoenix; however, he had not gained any super powers in the process.

‘I don’t know,’ Lan Feng said carelessly, ‘I never bothered comparing it to normal fire, so I’ll let you deal with that.’

Hui Yue could not help but chuckle slightly, as it was very typical for Lan Feng not to care. Deep inside he was curious to see which affinity he himself had.

‘I’ll teach you a martial art skill when the cultivating party disappears.’ Lan Feng promised before the two of them slipped into a deep sleep.

The following morning Hui Yue once again sat out towards the hillsides with the goats, and this time he hoped he would be able to catch up with the lost cultivation from the day before. After having heard about the affinity and the magic abilities, Hui Yue could not wait until he could unlock his middle dantian. The word magic made him as giddy as the little child he was supposed to be.

However, his great mood was quickly killed as he saw a person moving towards him in the early morning mist.

“Hui Yue!” Rong Ming called out excitedly, and while Hui Yue sighed inwardly, he once again laughed and returned the greeting with utmost excitement.

This day Rong Ming told Hui Yue about his cultivating training. Every large city within the empire was expected to have a royal academy for cultivators. The royal academy was split into the inner circle and the outer circle. The outer circle was students who relied solely on Qi and the lower dantian while the inner circle only allowed those who had broken through to the ranks of Master or above.

The inner circle was located within the kingdom’s capital while the outer circle was located within every large city.

The academy enrolled students from the age of ten and they needed to have Five Stars Student level, or some very rich noble parents who would pay an insane tuition fee. Cultivating speed would be increased upon reaching the disciple levels and the academy helped with both medicinal pills and martial art skills.

Each year every academy would send five students to the capital where there were the outer rank tournament for disciple-level cultivators and the inner rank tournament for those beyond.

Rong Ming and Rong Xing were both considered the two geniuses from this year’s new students, and Rong Ming was very proud while telling Hui Yue about these things.

‘School does not sound like such a bad idea,’ Hui Yue could not help but think, but he quickly scrapped the thought as he remembered how easily he would be noticed.

‘At school you have no reason to hide your cultivation base and when you reach disciple I should be able to mask myself,’ Lan Feng said calmly. ‘Well I will be able to mask myself against human cultivators, but if there are any strong beasts around they will definitely notice our aura.’

Hui Yue nodded solemnly. It would be a great risk, but right now, it was not a decision he needed to make. He was after all only five years old and a lot of things could happen within those five years.

The following day Hui Yue was not surprised when he saw Rong Ming locating him at yet another hillside, and this time he was taught about the different countries. Currently they were living within the Taiyang Kingdom, which was ruled by the Taiyang family. There were seven big cities within this Kingdom, but Taiyang City was the capital and obviously the biggest of them all.

The continent had another three kingdoms apart from the Taiyang kingdom, and they were the Siban Empire, the Yueliang province and Shenyuan.

Three of these kingdoms worked together in a union, however Shenyuan had been closed for the outside world for thousands of years and any who dared enter would never return.