Tainted Blood

by Tinalynge

“Don’t cause problems for me,” the director said to the manager as they conversed through a long distance communication bracelet.

  “He is a formation master, so his worth is more than the branches of the three great sects.

  If they want to put pressure on you, don’t hold back.”

  The manager was surprised. Usually, he would never be allowed to use the name of their establishment to pressure the other sects or factions, but the director allowed him to do it this time.

  Just how amazing was this budding formation master?

  Xue Wei was unsure what stance the Golden Chambers would take, but he knew that his reputation as Ye Xiao had been ruined in the Chengzi Kingdom.

  However, Xue Wei did not care. Ye Xiao was just a character he had created. What happened to it was completely unrelated to Xue Wei.

  Not to mention, his own reputation was already down the drain. He was known as a Primordial Beast and a mass-murderer. His two identities were not far from each other in terms of infamy.

  When he entered the hotel again, to his surprise, Xue Wei was met with a smiling manager who greeted him with renewed ardor.

  “I can understand that you are in a rough position right now, rumormongers spreading false information about you and all. I just want you to know that we, The Golden Chambers, value the friendship we have built with you. We will not cancel your rental, even if the three great sects threaten us!”

  Having been assured of this, Xue Wei smiled and cupped his hands to him. “Thank you, manager.”

  “No need to be so polite!” The manager beamed back at him while waving his hands.

  It was clear that he was immensely satisfied with the young man’s behavior.

  Xue Wei felt reassured that they would not run the risk of being evicted from their rooms. He went up the stairs to his suite and laid out all his pills, fruits, herbs, and essence stones.

  Considering that he had only recently broken through to the first layer of the Heavenly Warrior realm, Xue Wei picked a pill called the Flamethorn Pill.

  It was a pill that was refined by using the Flamethorn Herb as the base and ten other supplementary herbs as stabilizers. The Flamethorn Pill assisted in strengthening one’s foundations and solidifying the user’s cultivation base post-breakthrough, so it was a perfect choice for him.

  Chapter 4 - Medicinal Pill Workshop

  Xue Wei was quick to consume the Flamethorn Pill, and with it came a burst of energy that assaulted every sense in his body. This energy was exceptionally pure and bright as it spread from Xue Wei’s mouth to every cell in his body.

  It did not raise his strength. Instead, the wave of medicinal energy sought out impurities in his constitution and started seeping into the thousands of qi dragons that were within his body.

  A normal person had strands of qi circulating around in their bodies, but the ones in Xue Wei’s body had taken the shape of dragons. All of them glistened with an azure light.

  Although the number of dragons did not increase after he took the Flamethorn Pill, they started exuding a more brilliant light. The color of the azure light had also deepened, and the dragons moved in a much more frisky way than before.

  This was what the Flamethorn Pill did; it strengthened the current cultivation base and purified the Qi.

  Although it had not increased his strength directly, it had fortified his foundations ensuring that he was unlikely to suffer from qi deviation.

  After sensing that all the energy from the pill was gone, Xue Wei took a deep breath. He placed an essence stone in his hand, calmed himself down, and started cultivating without assistive items.

  He needed to get used to his body after the last pill before he could consume another pill or similar medicinal item.

  After dry cultivating for a full night, Xue Wei turned his attention towards the items in front of him again.

  This time, he picked a spiritual fruit. This was a very rare fruit, but Xue Wei had managed to get ahold of three of them at the auction in Golden Crow City.

  One could only consume one of them. Afterward, they were useless. He had bought one for himself, Hei Gou, and Wang Xiaoyun, but since she had left him, he was left with an extra.

  Unfortunately, it was useless to Bai Tianyi, so the only option was to sell it.

  Keeping it seemed useless. The name of the fruit was Silverbell Fruit, because it looked exactly like a small silver bell.

  This Silverbell Fruit raised the rank of a Heavenly Warrior by a full layer. However, there were certain risks with consuming it. If one’s foundation was not strong enough, it would backfire, incurring qi deviation.

  It was also possible for the increase in power to be below a full layer, thereby destabilizing the user’s foundations, but a perfectly solid foundation would permit a smooth increase of an entire layer for Heavenly Warriors.

  This was also why Xue Wei had taken the Flamethorn Pill. Although his cultivation base was steady, he would not risk it.

  The days slowly went by like this. Xue Wei was in closed door cultivation, and so were Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi.

  They would try to come out every now and then to get some sustenance in the form of food and liquids from the restaurant attached to the hotel, but they did this only once every week, and it was never at the same time.

  In the city, the news about Xue Wei, or rather Ye Xiao, started to die out little by little. Although the citizens had been agitated in the beginning, their resentment quickly died out as they went about their everyday lives.

  The three great sects noticed that the effects of their attempt to sway the common opinion was faltering. So they took matters into their own hands and started putting pressure on the Golden Chambers directly.

  Never had they expected that the Golden Chambers would respond with a few words, and these words were an undisguised threat. Cause problems and the Golden Chambers would never again invite them to their shops or help them get what they need.

  This threat was enough to make both the Cerulean Starlight Sect and the Argent Moon Sect step back instantly, leaving only the Crimson Sunshine Sect alone in refusing to give up on messing with Xue Wei.

  Still, they were waiting for the right time to act as they did not dare to antagonize the Golden Chambers.

  One month turned into two, and two turned into three. After three months, Xue Wei went downstairs and paid for another two months of rent for the three suites.

  Xue Wei had at this point broken into the third layer of the Heavenly Warrior realm, but he was not satisfied.

  Though he was eager to improve with his eyes set on becoming an Ordinary Knight as fast as possible, he knew that cultivation could not be forced so he always followed every breakthrough up with a period of time spent solidifying his foundations until he was ready to gorge on his cultivation resources again.

  It had been four months since the time he had rented the rooms by the time Xue Wei finally emerged.

  Having reached the third layer of the Heavenly Warrior realm in four months was already an excellent feat. His rate of improvement could rival the geniuses from the center of the continent.

  But he had been consuming pills like candy, making sure to take many different kinds of pills to ensure that he could continue to benefit from them.

  He had also used a stack of essences stones to speed the process up.

  Nine days after Xue Wei came out of his closed door cultivation, Bai Tianyi stepped out of his room with a smile plastered on his face.

  Of the three, Bai Tianyi had taken the least resources with him, but he was the second to emerge. He had consumed the Rainbow Pill, which had propelled his strength all to the way to the first layer of the Ordinary Knight realm. From this, it was clear that the Rainbow Pill was anything but ordinary.

  Two days after Bai Tianyi’s emergence, Hei Gou came out of his room. He had reached the second layer of the Heavenly Warrior realm in Qi-level while his physical strength was at the eighth layer of the Heavenly Warrior realm now.

 
Hei Gou’s body was bursting with energy, and his foundation was so stable that nothing could shake it.

  He was smiling, and he had a hard time containing the excitement in his eyes. His accomplishments during the closed door cultivation were not shabby. His Qi-level had reached the Heavenly Warrior stage, and his physical strength was almost reaching the peak of that very same stage.

  They each noticed the silly smiles on their faces, and chuckled. Their group had undergone a qualitative transformation, all three seeming to be overflowing with power.

  “We are still quite far away from having the strength to threaten the three great sects on our own,” Xue Wei noted after assessing their overall strength. Though they had improved, it was not enough.

  “That is correct.” Bai Tianyi nodded his head, but a competitive gleam was evident within his eyes.

  “There was a trade fair not long ago here in Cloudsoar City,” Bai Tianyi continued with a low voice. “There were seven One color Rainbow Pills up for sale at that fair. The Golden Chambers bought some of them as leverage for another transaction. They did not do it for gold or essence stones, but for a deal with someone who has something of equal value.

  “I suggest we see if we can trade something for the One Color Rainbow Pills, because they will be of great help to us. They are truly magnificent and wondrous. No one knows exactly what the pills will do, but they will always strengthen one’s body or soul.

  “The other Rainbow Pills were purchased by the three great sects. We don’t currently have the strength to take those from their hands.

  “Rainbow Pills will be able to help our cultivation quite a bit, but that doesn’t mean they’ll make us invincible. Our only option is to try a few things I have in mind,” Bai Tianyi said mysteriously with a wicked smile.

  Xue Wei could not help but feel a chill go down his spine when he saw the mysterious and excited expression on Bai Tianyi’s face.

  Hei Gou also seemed to feel that something was amiss and he glanced at Bai Tianyi with undisguised worry in his eyes.

  “What do you have in mind?” Xue Wei asked tentatively. Bai Tianyi smiled at them and kept quiet.

  “We’ll focus on the Rainbow Pills first.” Bai Tianyi had made a decision, and the others agreed.

  “Since they want to trade the Rainbow Pills for something of equal value, our only option is formations,” Xue Wei said. Formations were rare, but since Xue Wei had learned how to make them rather quickly, the novelty had quickly worn off for him.

  “The Golden Chambers has been fighting the other three sects for our sake,” Xue Wei muttered while considering what to do. “I think it’s justified to give them a stronger formation.”

  “Since my breakthrough to the third layer, my spiritual energy has also risen to the Middle Heavenly Warrior level. I should be able to inscribe the Flameward Formation.”

  The Flameward Formation summoned a wall of flame that could harm even Heavenly Warriors while killing almost any below that level.

  This Flameward Formation was rather uncommon, even amongst the circle of formation masters, because it was not very useful. While true that it creates a wall, it was at most a nuisance and was quite easily bypassable. One should have multiple formations to trap their enemies within, but that was quite wasteful.

  Still, this formation was highly sought after, primarily because of its rarity. The formation masters would want to buy the formation at an astronomical price because they wanted to pick it apart and figure out how its insides ticked for themselves.

  “Well then, time to make some Flameward Formations,” Xue Wei decided, and to his big surprise, Bai Tianyi offered to help. “My spiritual energy is at the Ordinary Knight level,” Bai Tianyi said, “I have dabbled in formations before, and I should be able to inscribe a few Flameward Formations as well.”

  Having decided their course of action, the two of them went into one of the rooms together and started inscribing the Flameward Formations on a few stones.

  The formations had to be inscribed on stones because ordinary paper could not withstand the heat upon activation. Engraving on a rock was harder than writing on paper. It required more finesse to handle the strokes of each rune when engraving on a rock, while the formation paper just needed a steady hand with pen and ink.

  The carving part of the stone-based engraving also required more spiritual energy. Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi both focused on engraving the runes. Bai Tianyi had a higher success rate than Xue Wei, which was not surprising given the fact that his spiritual energy was of a higher level than Xue Wei’s.

  It took a few hours for Xue Wei to finish engraving the Flameward Formation fully, and soon he was sitting with thirty-three stones. Although it was quite a lot, they could always use them themselves, so making too many formations was not a bad thing.

  Having created the formations, Xue Wei, Bai Tianyi, and Hei Gou all went towards the Medicinal Pill Workshop, a shop belonging to the Golden Chambers.

  This was the workshop that contained the Rainbow Pills. For some reason, a long stream of people seeking to exchange their most prized possessions for the Rainbow Pills kept entering and leaving the workshop. Leaving in vain, that is, because the Golden Chambers was incredibly picky with what they wanted to trade them for.

  Xue Wei and the other two went into the workshop and looked around. Multiple glass cases displayed pills and herbs of various kinds. There were also all kinds of jade bottles on display, and the medicinal aroma of the pills suffused the entire place.

  “Sirs, are you here to buy something?” a female servant appeared and queried. She did not recognize any of them.

  “We would like to trade for the Rainbow Pills,” Xue Wei said with a smile.

  She was stumped, but then she nodded her head and led them towards the upper floors. This place was guarded by Ordinary Knights, and even an Earth Knight was present to guard the Rainbow Pills.

  Chapter 5 - Ouyang Yan

  It was clear that the Golden Chambers took the matter regarding the Rainbow Pills very seriously. They had even deployed one of their few Earth Knights, a person of great stature within the Chengzi Kingdom.

  Xue Wei was surprised, but he had never had any malicious thoughts involving stealing the Rainbow Pills so it did not matter that there were such strong experts present.

  “You have to be careful,” Bai Tianyi transmitted through voice-compression with an alert gleam in his eyes. “Although the Golden Chambers has been friendly and positive towards us, who knows what greed might do to them. If things go wrong and with an Earth Knight present, we will be incapable of escaping.”

  “Reward and danger go hand in hand,” Xue Wei answered seriously. “We could retreat now, but then we will not get our hands on the Rainbow Pills we so much need. As we are, we are just not strong enough to continue on our journey.”

  “I have to admit that there is reason in what you say,” Bai Tianyi sighed, but he remained tense, keeping an eye on everything around them. If he felt too much danger, they would be leaving at any moment.

  Hei Gou, on the other hand, was calm and relaxed. “The Golden Chambers is aware of us having a Formation Master in our midst. If they truly coveted only our formations, they would’ve made a move on us a long time ago. The fact that we are still safe and sound means that they can hold back their greed,” he reasoned seriously.

  Both Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi made sense, but their opinions were diametrical opposites. In the end, Xue Wei decided to continue the endeavor while exercising greater caution.

  As they reached the second floor, the atmosphere in the hall changed drastically. It was much heavier and silence covered the entire floor.

  The girl guided them towards the opposite end of the stairs, where a middle-aged man was standing. There were stern-looking cultivators throughout the entire floor. The moment that Xue Wei, Bai Tianyi, and Hei Gou went up the stairs, all these eyes turned towards them.

  The oppressive air was overwhelming and made the hairs on Xue Wei’s ar
ms stand on end.

  Bai Tianyi had seen many things in his life. He did not believe that one place would be completely impartial. In fact, he was absolutely sure that everyone worked on the principle of self-gain, so he never trusted anyone completely, especially not an establishment like the Golden Chambers that made a profit from exploiting others.

  Hei Gou was much more inexperienced, and his inexperience is what let him remain naively calm. Although he understood the underlying dangers, he also knew that they had been treated well until now—so why would things suddenly change?

  This was also Hei Gou’s personality. He was a positive and rather carefree person.

  As they reached the middle-aged man, he lifted his head and looked straight at them with narrowed eyes.