Riluo City (Blue Phoenix Book 1) (20 page)

Hui Yue did not have the chance to keep his focus on Deng Wu for long, as he suddenly felt an incredible pressure appear opposite him and gather at Wang Ju Long’s hand. At first a small breeze was moving towards him, but it quickly grew in strength until it had gathered into a huge tempest that was swirling around on top of Wang Ju Long’s open palm. The tempest was constantly growing in size, going far into the sky and the wind would pick up, trying to drag anything close by into the vortex.

Hui Yue narrowed his eyes as he noticed that within the tempest were flashes of light. The light was small lightning bolts that were created by qi, and he could not help but shutter involuntarily.  Although the qi was not as white as Hui Yue’s, it was definitely of a superior quality. Not only was the quality great, Wang Ju Long clearly had more refined qi than Hui Yue did.

“He is using the Qi Lightning skill from the start?” Rong Xing whispered with big eyes and slightly trembling voice, as she looked at the scene in front of her. It was obvious that the others were as worried as they were mumbling indistinctly to one another,

“Deng Wu, you have to stop it!” Rong Xing said with a scared voice as she looked towards the black-haired youth, however to her surprise he just smiled back at her,

“Don’t worry yet. Let’s trust younger brother Hui Yue and see if he can perform miracles.”

Deng Wu was not dumb, he knew exactly how dangerous Qi lightning was. It was a low duke ranked attack martial art, and the Wang family considered it one of their greatest treasures. The skill did not only have a high rank and fierce attack power, it also required the cultivator to have very pure qi to be able to utilize it, and Deng Wu himself was slightly surprised to see that Wang Ju Long had qualified to use it.

Deng Wu smiled as he returned his gaze towards the young white-haired boy in front of him. He understood why the others were worried. Clearly they had not noticed anything wrong with Hui Yue, nor would they be able to notice anything for a long time, however, he had seen it from the start.

Five years ago when he was about to enter the Royal Academy he had been gifted a family heirloom as a reward. This heirloom had many uses, one of them was to disguise his own cultivation. Another was to see through any disguise, and as soon as he had seen Hui Yue, he had noticed the saint ranked divine beast that was hiding within his qi cave. He was aware of how important this information was, but Deng Wu was more curious as to how a ten-year-old child had managed to capture such a strong beast, and for now he had no intention of telling anyone about this rarity and instead enjoy the show. His smile grew larger while looking at Hui Yue, and his eyes were glistening with a mysterious light that Rong Xing had never seen before.

Hui Yue grit his teeth and understood that he had underestimated Wang Ju Long. It was obvious that he was using a high ranked martial art skill, and that the rank was not that different from his own Velocity Flow and Qi Guard, however Hui Yue was betting that Wang Ju Long had not perfected his use of the skill yet, and he quickly activated his lower duke ranked, defensive martial art skill Qi Guard.

As soon as he called out the skill, he created a few hand seals and thin strands of qi quickly started to flow out from the qi cave and through specific patterns within the meridians before Hui Yue’s entire skin was glowing faintly with a pearl white lustre.

Together with Qi Guard, Hui Yue also activated Velocity Flow and focused on moving behind Wang Ju Long. Hui Yue left behind an afterimage and kept moving quickly while being behind Wang Ju Long, so that he would not materialize and make his current plan fail.

Hui Yue did not have to wait for long. Wang Ju Long’s wind tempest with qi lightning had grown to the largest size that he could control, and he looked at the boy in front of him with disdain. He could not help but think that the kid was too naïve to be standing there, waiting for one of his hits to land.

“Don’t blame me for any injury you will suffer!” Wang Ju Long roared as he launched three qi lightning bolts out of the vortex. They shot out much quicker than what Hui Yue had expected, even Velocity Flow would have some problems escaping every one of the bolts. This could turn into a bigger problem than he had first anticipated.

The three bolts of qi lightning all slammed into the small boy, and smoke started to rise from the area where the impact had happened. At first the side where Wang Jingshen and his thugs were standing had been full of cheers and laughter, but it quickly stilled and was replaced with disbelief. Everyone present was filled with shock, and even Deng Wu was narrowing his eyes as he had never seen any martial art skill like this before.

Rong Xing and Rong Ming were both completely stunned. They were aware of Hui Yue’s background and both knew that he had no way of gaining a high ranked martial art skill, however it was obvious that he was currently using one. They could not help but feel curious as to how he had gotten it.

Hui Yue was not planning on taking it easy on Wang Ju Long, and attacked as soon as the qi lightning slammed into his afterimage. He quickly activated his low practitioner ranked attack martial art skill, Raging Strike, that he had been given by Rong Ming and his fist was suddenly covered by a pure white lustre, the qi covering his fist was filled with an oppressive force.

Although Wang Ju Long was full of himself, he had been trained from a very young age, and his family had often made him spar against their family guards, giving him a certain amount of live combat practice, and he felt the overbearing feeling coming from Hui Yue’s perfect qi. He quickly turned around and his white qi gathered around his forearm as he blocked the strike.

Hui Yue had been relying on the Velocity Flow’s insane movement to increase the power of Raging Strike, however raging strike was after all a low tier skill, and it was not able to break through Wang Ju Long’s defence.

Without a second thought, Hui Yue activated his high disciple ranked attack, Shattering Kick, and swung his leg hard against Wang Ju Long’s waist.

Wang Ju Long had shown quite the skill by being able to block the previous blow with his qi, however the qi he was using was not a defensive martial art skill, and he was unable to cover his whole body at once, causing him to be flung away by the kick.

Hui Yue felt a certain amount of satisfaction when he felt how his kick went through and a few ribs were broken in the process, however he did not have time to celebrate the slight victory as another four qi lightning bolts shot towards him with incredible speed.

Cursing, Hui Yue tried to gain momentum by using the Velocity Flow skill, but he was unable to avoid all the lightning bolts, and had to take one of them head-on.

Wang Ju Long had landed on the ground and a sinister expression was visible on his face as he saw how one of the bolts struck Hui Yue at the shoulder. He knew how devastating the damage was from even one lightning bolt, and a smirk was appearing on his face, together with loud cheers and insults that erupted from Wang Jingshen’s thugs.

Differently from Wang Jingshen’s side, Rong Xing and Rong Ming were incredibly worried. Although Hui Yue had shocked them once with Velocity Flow, they had never expected the small child to have other secrets, but they were surprised yet again as they completely focused their eyes upon Hui Yue.

As soon as the qi lightning bolt hit Hui Yue’s shoulder, the faint white glow that had been covering his body all fight suddenly condensed and became much thicker, much like an armour made from white pearl. It managed to defend against the lightning bolt, before it returned into the faint glow from before.

Although the Qi Guard had managed to protect Hui Yue from serious injury he was still sent flying and his shoulder turned numb. Hui Yue let out a relieved sigh, however he quickly noticed that the Qi Guard had needed an incredible amount of qi to block that attack. With his current amount of qi he would only be able to block about two more at most.

Wang Ju Long was unaware of this fact. All he saw was that his most potent attack had no effect on Hui Yue, and his insides were turning with rage. He quickly stood up and once again focused on the vortex in his hand before he shot another four qi lightning bolts towards Hui Yue.

The distance between the two was far greater this time as both had been knocked away, and Hui Yue could utilize Velocity Flow enough to narrowly escape and close the gap between them. He decided to go all out, and invested more of his sparse qi into creating a copy that attacked together with him, while activating the shattering kick once again.

Wang Ju Long used yet another set of qi lightning bolts, to attack the two bodies that were rapidly gaining on him, and as soon as one hit the copy it vanished, giving him enough time to block the shattering kick.

Hui Yue on the other hand, used the opportunity to retreat, ensuring that he would not get hit by yet another qi lightning bolt, as he realised that his qi would be running out quickly if he did.

After the exchange both boys were standing in the arena with a certain distance between. Wang Ju Long’s tempest had been reduced by half, and the amount of qi lightning strikes left had also halved from the original number, while Hui Yue could feel that he had spent a little more than half of his qi. The Qi Guard alone had used a third of his total qi to defend against that one qi lightning bolt, which showed just how damaging it was.

Wang Ju Long was filled with hate. There was nothing he wanted more than killing this unknown child in front of him, however so far, his Qi Lightning technique had not had any real effect, instead he had been exhausting his qi pool with repeated attacks.

Hui Yue on the other hand was on the defensive. He had a smaller qi pool than Wang Ju Long and the previous attack had shown him just how dangerous it would be if he relaxed only a little. Both were standing still, staring at each other and none of them felt like giving in when suddenly they heard clapping.

“Well done!” Deng Wu said with a big smile upon his face, eyes playing mischievously, “you both did incredibly well at this exchange of pointers. Although you both got slight injuries you managed to hold back and not seriously injure the other. That is not seen often!” Deng Wu was praising the both, and made it sound as if this outcome had been intended. Although the comment caused Wang Ju Long to grind his teeth hard against each other and his eyes to flash violently with anger, he was unable to say anything else, as it was against the rules to intentionally injure other students.

Hui Yue somewhat shared those feelings, as he was incredibly disappointed with himself. He was aware that Wang Ju Long was a higher cultivation rank than he himself, however it was only three stars and Hui Yue had to use more martial art skills than Wang Ju Long. Although he had the skills to escape from much stronger opponents it was still very dissatisfying that he could not defeat his opponent.

“Young Lord Wang Ju Long, thank you so much for this exchange of pointers. It has really taught me a lot,” Hui Yue said with a gentle smile upon his face and a grateful expression in his eyes, however inside he swore to train endlessly to increase his rank and to perfect the Qi Guard so that Lan Feng would teach him an attack style martial art skill.

‘Let’s see how the next fight will go,’ he thought determined and coldness once again flashed within his sky blue eyes, causing the smile on Deng Wu’s face to increase slightly.

Chapter 11 – You tricked me?

Every person present was able to see that although the results were recorded as a draw, Hui Yue had been having the upper hand as they had ended. Not only was he able to both avoid and block Wang Ju Long’s most potent attack, he had also managed to break two ribs of the opponent, while he himself only had received a numb shoulder.

Even though no unrelated students had been present at the arena for the fight, it was quickly known throughout the whole academy that the two geniuses from the new year had fought each other, and although it had ended in a draw, Hui Yue would be mentioned as the actual winner.

This was definitely due to Gao Yan and his commoners spreading the word and causing the duel to be well known. Although he was unable to directly take revenge upon the Wang family, he did not shy away from abusing his friends to get vengeance in another way. Nobles cared too much about face, so making them lose face was strangely satisfying.

The first couple of days were free from classes as the students were supposed to get used to their new surroundings, and Hui Yue spent the time to sit down with the group of people he now belonged to. Hui Yue decided that it was now time for him to behave a bit more mature. Although he had been hiding his real personality for quite some time, he could not keep hiding forever.