Riluo City (Blue Phoenix Book 1) (46 page)

“Ahem,” Lan Feng cleared his throat. “As you most likely have understood, this figurine used to be a divine beast much like myself, same saint rank as me too. He was even slightly stronger back then, but right now he surely is quite fragile.”

The satisfaction within Lan Feng’s voice was impossible to mask and the grin that had appeared on his face had Deng Wu wondering which kind of creature this beast was, and how Hui Yue could stand spending every waking hour of the day together with him.

“In the end, both of us have a secret that no one else is supposed to know about,” Lan Feng continued with a long sigh. “You keep quiet about Hui Yue and our secrets, and in turn we keep quiet about little Dragon and you.”

“Little Dragon?” Deng Wu looked confused, “this figurine is named little Dragon?”

The figurine gave a harrumph in reply, and Lan Feng let go of Hui Yue’s body, allowing him to take back control.

“He is named after his father Qing Long, but it was too confusing to use the same name for both, so we never called him anything else than little dragon.”

Hui Yue decided that it was time for him to go back to his own courtyard as Deng Wu now knew the truth about his item but also knew that both him and Hui Yue shared the same secret; if one was to be exposed, the other would likely follow.

After visiting Deng Wu, Hui Yue had returned to his own courtyard where he prepared for another visit to the Medicinal Pill Outlet, intent on purchasing an amount of medicinal pills worth three spirit coins this time.

Hui Yue was aware of how the more pills he took of one kind, the less effective they became. This had caused Hui Yue to mix a few different pills into his purchases to see how they were compared to the others.

The life within the academy was exactly like it had been since admission. The students were moving around from lectures to mountain tops. The arenas were filled with students who held grudges against each other or those who simply felt like they needed to spar in order to improve their skills.

However, unlike the royal academy, Riluo City was bustling with energy and new waves. The Ma family had decided to expand their business to no longer only focus on only their Black Market Auction House.

An immense amount of wealth had been used to advertise the new business idea of ‘insurance’. Both the Ma family and Hui Yue had expected that it required a long time for the insurance to be accepted amongst the common people and noble families within the city, but contrary to their beliefs, the interest proved overwhelming.

The insurance covering the houses was mainly bought by the noble families that had seen first-hand how the Shan family lost everything.

The life insurance, on the other hand, was incredibly popular amongst the various guards, soldiers and especially mercenaries.

Within the span of a few months, almost every family within the city had either a personal insurance or a family insurance, causing the Ma family’s reputation and importance to soar high into the sky.

According to the contract, Hui Yue got paid 3% of the profits each month, and although it was a very slim amount of money in the beginning, it was still enough money to change the fate of his home village.

Hui Yue had not been back home since he had left to attend the admission ceremony. He asked Gao Yan to help him find an errand boy whom he could trust, and just a few days later,a young man was ready to take on the task that Hui Yue had in mind.

This task was to, once a month, travel to Hui Yue’s village and deliver the money from the Ma family, and in return he would be heavily rewarded. The reason a heavy reward was plausible was based on the fact that this man was a cultivator at the practitioner rank, and secondly because Gao Yan had insisted on making a blood contract.

A blood contract was, as the name suggested, a contract signed in the partner's’ blood. Signing a contract in blood meant that it was implausible for the people who had signed it to break their promise and should they do so, then they would die in the process.

Chapter 30 – Dancing Qi Pillar

The Ma family was not the only family within Riluo City improving at a rapid speed. The Deng family had somehow gotten hold of an outstanding mechanism that no outsider to the family knew much about.

It was obvious that these mechanisms were hidden beneath stone and wooden sheds close
to the rivers outside Riluo City. They were currently constructing over seven
different buildings all at once.

The Deng family also sent out a message conveying that they would buy all the soil
available at a river with a strong current and that they would reward the
sellers handsomely.

The first of these buildings were finished half a year after they started the
construction, and the winter was now retreating. The snow was melting but the
cold winds and short days still had precedence in the season.

The news about the Deng family gaining these paintings from Li Fen, the esteemed expert,
had caused the Deng family to have the upper hand within Riluo City, and
currently they were the strongest family, not counting the Rong family.

During this half year Hui Yue had fought a brave battle against his cultivation and had
reached the peak level of the ninth-star Student rank, however, he felt as if
something was missing for him to be able to make a further breakthrough.

At least Hui Yue was in no hurry as he walked around the academy grounds. He was
satisfied with his current cultivation and as he was now, there was no longer
any use for his medicinal pills so he had gifted them to the Rong twins as a
token of gratitude.

At first the two of them had refused to accept the pills, only conceding when Hui Yue
said that he had bought them for money he had gained from the Black Market
Auction House and that he would feel much better if they would accept his
gratitude.

Having said that much, the Rong twins could no longer decline and took the pills, happiness
evident upon their faces as they quickly excused themselves, heading straight
to their individual courtyards.

During this past half year the relationship between Deng Wu and Hui Yue had grown
increasingly friendly. The two of them shared a big secret which they would
never be able to tell anyone else about, and at the same time they also wished
to find a way to use these esteemed experts’ knowledges in the best way.

Qing had given Hui Yue a list of certain plants he should eat at specific times every
day and they would help him in increasing the amount of essence he could gather
at a time, in turn increasing the amount of Qi that he could refine at any
given time.

Hui Yue in turn informed Qing how Lan Feng had broken the seal, but unfortunately stabbing
someone’s heart was not a very useful attempt for Qing.

Firstly, if he were to stab someone in the heart, the two of them would die. Unlike Lan
Feng, Qing had not gathered up all his energy within the past four thousand
years, instead he had been sharing it with Deng Wu in allowing him to advance
by leaps and bounds.

Secondly, even if little dragon had been capable of stabbing someone in the heart and
successfully create a reincarnation, they would once again be at least ten
years behind.

Hui Yue knew that little dragon currently was mainly used as a talisman which could
disguise Deng Wu’s true cultivation and at the same time see through all
disguises and provide good advice. However, Qing could not transfer any of
his martial art skills, and eventually Hui Yue gifted one to Deng Wu.

The skill Hui Yue gifted to Deng Wu was not as highly ranked as the ones he himself used.
It was a skill known as Dancing Qi Pillar and it was a High Duke Ranked Martial
Art Attack Skill.

This skill solidified Qi into a pillar of light which would move around based on the
owner’s will and intentions. Those who got struck by the pillar would suffer
tremendous damage. Although Hui Yue liked the name and the skill, he was aware
that his Transforming Weapons was far superior in strength and he could not
spend time on learning all these skills just yet.

For those around Hui Yue and Deng Wu, it was interesting to see how the two of them
interacted; no one felt as if it was their place to comment on it and instead
they enjoyed how Deng Wu had calmed down and became an almost normal youngster.

Hui Yue was sitting inside the classroom, looking outside at the frozen ground and wondered
how long it would take before summer returned. He had long since decided to
quit searching for more information about the Great Sin and the Dark Age as
nothing seemed to be available to him and instead he prioritized growing
stronger.

Everyone within the academy kept telling him that one day he would get to know about the
Dark Age. One day when he was old enough. So for now, gathering strength was
what mattered.

In the other end of the classroom was Wang Ju Long, present like always, however, this
day he was not meditating as he usually did, instead he was staring at teacher
Li Yuan with great interest.

“Students,” he said with a tired voice and shocked expression as he noticed that both of
his star students were actually paying attention to him this day. “As you most
likely know already, the Riluo City’s Royal Academy tournament is going to take
place next month. I need to sign you up for this. Everyone is required to
attend, and everyone will gain a prize.”

Hui Yue and Wang Ju Long looked at each other, both pairs of eyes were filled with a
stubbornness and an urge to fight, which caused their teacher to sigh deeply.

Hui Yue rushed down and signed up on the papers teacher Li Yuan had brought, and Wang
Ju Long followed right behind before doing the same.

After signing up, the teacher ended the lesson and gave the youngsters a paper with
the general information about the tournament.

The tournament had eight groups of a thousand in each group. The groups were split
up into which year they were from. The fights were then split into lower
brackets and it was an instant knock out tournament.

Eventually, after winning in one of the eight groups, they would fight another group before
they would qualify to the semi-finals and from there to the final itself.

The prizes were extravagant. Everyone were to get at least a medicinal pill; however, what
really interested Hui Yue was the prizes given to the top eight.

First prize was a set of leather armour inscribed with lower ranked spiritual inscriptions.
These inscriptions were capable of deflecting the majority of attacks from foes
of equal strength or below.

The second prize was twenty Qi Congregating Pills which would make any cultivator salivate
just by thinking about it.

The third prize was a set of leather gloves which had been inscribed with a specific
attack inscription, allowing a single fireball to be shot out every half hour.

The rest of the top eight were to get ten Qi Congregating Pills each.

Another prize, which did not matter much to Hui Yue, was that the top two in each of
the eight groups were allowed to move into one of the courtyards located at the
various mountain tops, and those courtyards were enough to make most of the
commoner students gasp in surprise.

This was the Riluo City’s Royal Academy Tournament, thus it was held for an audience
consisting of the entire Riluo City, however, compared to the Royal Academy
Tournament which took place three months from now in the capital, this was
nothing but a small gathering.