Riluo City (Blue Phoenix Book 1) (11 page)

Both Hui Yue and Lan Feng were listening to everything with great interest.

‘I bet,’ Hui Yue began, ‘that the guy we are looking for is within Shenyuan.’ Lan Feng could not help but giggle. It would indeed make sense if their target hid himself within a country riddled with fear and murder.

The days went by one after another, and Rong Ming came to find Hui Yue every single day. It annoyed Hui Yue that he had lost almost a month’s worth of cultivating, however, he would much rather keep the young boy company than have to constantly be on guard against Rong Liang. The esteemed lord had not tried to get close to Hui Yue since his son started visiting the hills every day.

Finally, the day arrived where Lord Rong Liang broke up the camp and moved his entourage towards the magical forest.

“I promise that I will return for you,” Rong Ming said with a serious voice while holding Hui Yue’s hands within his own. Hui Yue had gotten used to the way Rong Ming looked at him, and he pitied the young lord. Hui Yue was convinced that Rong Ming was lonely and lacked friends, which was why he had become so friendly with the younger white haired boy.

Lan Feng was not able to stop laughing for hours; however, he refused to tell Hui Yue why he was laughing. He claimed that Hui Yue was incredibly dim-witted, but that even he would notice one day.

Chapter 5 – You are a boy?

The village returned to usual as soon as Lord Rong Liang let his entourage away, and although the villagers would proud themselves upon the noble visit, they were very well aware that their feelings would not fill their stomachs.

While most villagers missed the excitement of the visitors Hui Yue could not help but feel happy when things returned to normal. The last month had been the first break the pair had taken from cultivation but Hui Yue did not enjoy the forced break. He was filled with excitement upon remembering Lan Feng’s promise about a martial art skill, and this morning he hurried out to pick up the goats even earlier than usual.

Upon reaching a fairly close hillside, Hui Yue sat down impatiently and waited for Lan Feng to understand his hint. He wanted to be able to use the qi he had painstakingly gathered throughout the years.

‘Do you even know what a martial art skill is?’ Lan Feng asked slightly overbearing as he disliked it whenever anyone tried to rush him.

‘I expected you to explain it to me,’ Hui Yue said with the sweetest smile on his face and a naivety in his eyes that made Lan Feng snort with disdain.

‘I’ll explain. But only because I need you to be strong,’ Lan Feng said arrogantly, ‘don’t think I will fall for your stupid acting.’ Hui Yue had nothing to say in return, Lan Feng was as usually correct, and in the end he would gain the knowledge needed.

‘Martial Art skills are split into the same ranks as cultivator bases, that is student, disciple, practitioner and so on and so on. Each rank is split into low, medium and high level.’ Hui Yue nodded, it made sense.

‘The cultivation base of a martial art skill has nothing to do with what rank you are at, it is only to rank the potential strength of the skill. Martial art skills have no actual rank restrictions, it all depends on your amount of qi and it will grow together with your strength until they reach their own cultivation base. You understand that the cultivation base is the rank where you can max out their potential power right?’ Lan Feng explained, once again incredibly overbearing. Hui Yue was slightly annoyed by the tone of voice, but he had no intention to comment on it as he knew Lan Feng would start a discussion rather than continuing on with the martial arts explanation.

‘That being said there are quite a lot of the higher ranked skills that you can’t use before you reach a certain rank since you don’t have a sufficient qi to activate it.’ Hearing that made a lot of sense to Hui Yue and he nodded again with great interest.

‘Also although I told you that you can have ten ranks of martial art skills, it is not like you can find ten ranks just like that. To create a martial art skill, you need to have the same cultivation as the skill you are creating. When cultivators open up the middle and upper dantians they no longer need to spend a lot of time on martial art skills since they get spirit powers and Wu Wei.’ Hearing this made Hui Yue grumble slightly as he was getting quite a depressing premonition.

‘Therefore you will have a lot of student, disciple and practitioner level martial art skills. You will have a decent amount of master ranked as they are still trying to create spirit energy, but grand master and duke ranked martial skills start to get rare. King, Emperor and saint level martial art skills are extremely rare. At least they were back when I lived here. I have never even heard about god ranked martial art skills.’

‘Are you telling me this because you are going to give me some useless martial art skill?’ Hui Yue said worried, but he was met by indignation, ‘did I ever give you anything useless?’ Lan Feng asked insulted, and Hui Yue had to admit that Lan Feng was doing his utmost to ensure that Hui Yue would become strong.

‘I am going to give you a movement martial art skill,’ Lan Feng said with a determined satisfaction, however Hui Yue could not help but feel slightly disappointed.

‘A movement martial art?’ he asked downcast, ‘what use is that for me?’

‘You really are useless,’ Lan Feng answered impatiently, ‘Firstly you need a movement martial art skill to be able to run away. Even if you do know any fighting skills, your cultivation base is simply too low. It is better to teach you how to run away so that you can stay alive. I don’t care about honour or dignity. All we need is to stay alive until we reach our goals, and this skill is needed for you and me to stay alive.’ Although Hui Yue had been slightly depressed, he could not help but acknowledge what Lan Feng had said.

‘A movement martial art skill also has other uses,’ Lan Feng continued, he did after all want to prove his extensive knowledge to the younger Hui Yue, ‘You can use a movement martial art skill to quicker attack or quicker defend. Also when you manage to perfect it you will be able to leave behind a mirage while moving or even create some optical illusion causing the opponent to waste some skills on nothing.’ Lan Feng sounded fairly smug and Hui Yue understood why. The movement skill was definitely much better than what he had expected at first.

‘What rank is it?’ Hui Yue asked curiously. It would be quite good if it was a master ranked skill.

‘It is a high king rank,’ Lan Feng said indifferently, causing Hui Yue to doubt his hearing,

‘High king rank?! Didn’t you just say that they were incredibly rare?’ he said shocked, and his reaction clearly pleased Lan Feng.

‘I would not be this confident in myself if I did not at least have a vast amount of high ranked skills,’ Lan Feng said with his self-satisfied voice, and Hui Yue was quite relieved knowing that he had a library of skills for when he should need it.

‘However,’ Lan Feng continued, as he understood what Hui Yue was thinking, ‘I have no intention of giving you any more skills no matter how easy they are, before you have perfected this one.’ Lan Feng was as stern with the martial art skills as he had been with the quality of qi refining, and although Hui Yue were tempted to ask for more he managed to hold back as he fully understood Lan Feng’s decision.

Lan Feng ordered Hui Yue to sit down in a meditation stance and slowly guide his consciousness into the dantian cave where the phoenix was waiting for him.

Lan Feng instantly ordered the adult consciousness of Hui Yue into yet another meditation stance with his hands once again placed in the bird hand seal and closing his eyes.

Lan Feng moved slowly, lifting his finger towards his own forehead and pressed it between his eyes where his upper dantian was located. A sharp ice blue light instantly lit up the entire dantian cave. Lan Feng extended his index finger and a small pearl appeared at the tip, which quickly sucked in the shining blue light. Lan Feng quietly observed the pearl sucking in the light, and gave a satisfied nod as the final speck of light had disappeared. He looked at the pearl in his hand which had gone from transparent to a lustrous ice blue.

Lan Feng moved towards the meditating Hui Yue and pressed the blue pearl against the former’s forehead. The pearl unexpectedly slipped into Hui Yue’s head and illuminated the consciousness from within.

The unnatural light that was breaking out from within Hui Yue was the only thing that indicated that something different was happening from the usual qi refining.

Lan Feng was exhausted upon retracting the martial art from within and slumped down against the cave wall while observing his focused friend.

The blue Phoenix could not help but feel a slight bit of relief upon looking at his hard working student. Hui Yue did not have any incredible talent when it came to cultivating, nor did he have any pills or elixirs to help speed up the process, but he had been continuing his refinement for year after year to ensure that the quality of his qi was as good as possible.

Lan Feng would never admit it, but even he himself would have given up the painstakingly slow cultivating that they were doing now, so he could not help but have a strange feeling of gratefulness towards Hui Yue.

While Lan Feng was exhaustedly inspecting his feelings, Hui Yue was swallowed by a sea of information. As soon as the pearl had entered his head it dissolved into rays of light that spread throughout the body, teaching Hui Yue the martial art skill known as Velocity Flow.

To use a martial art skill, the cultivator would have to practice it. The information he was given was which routes he would have to direct his qi to flow through his meridians to allow certain actions including two seals he would need to create within his Qi cave.

The rays of light were shooting through the meridians and giving Hui Yue examples of where and how to apply his qi, and he quickly remembered the paths, the combinations and the different seals needed to practice the martial art skill. Although it was only one skill it had multiple ways of being used, and each usage had its own qi flow combination, to be able to perform the individual abilities, each and every one of them needed practice.

Slowly the light disappeared and Hui Yue opened his blue eyes which were glistening with excitement upon gaining this new knowledge. He could not wait to try it out, and he returned to controlling his body rather than his consciousness.

Hui Yue remembered every combination, and quickly lead his qi towards his legs, allowing it to flow in the combination that he had learned, but his brows quickly furrowed as he felt that something was wrong.

Although he felt as if he had gained a slight speed, it was definitely far inferior to what it should have been, not only that, the speed was very uneven and impossible to control.

Hui Yue frowned at first, but the frown quickly turned into a brilliant smile as he knew what the skill would be capable of doing upon perfection. All he needed to do was training, and training was definitely something that Hui Yue did not fear.

After learning the martial art skill Hui Yue had to change his schedule slightly. Prior to this he would have spent his whole day cultivating, however now it was obvious that he needed time to practice his martial art skill, so he ended up spending the morning and early noon at practicing and then the afternoon and evening on cultivating.

Another year passed while Hui Yue followed this schedule, working harder than before but also felt a great sense of happiness every time he gained more qi or could feel that his control over the Velocity Flow skill improved.

It was a day like any other when Hui Yue was guarding the goats on the hillside and training in Velocity Flow.

Lan Feng had allowed his consciousness to leave the safety of Hui Yue’s body as there was no danger around and a smile suddenly appeared on his face as he looked towards the village,

‘Hui Yue,’ he called with an excited voice, ‘there is a pleasant surprise waiting for you when we return home tonight!’

Although Lan Feng had allowed his consciousness to roam around on the grassy fields, their conversation was still held within their minds. Hui Yue looked at Lan Feng with a quizzical expression on his face, but he did not ask any questions. Even something as simple as a new dish created by his mother was enough to excite Lan Feng.