Tainted Blood

by Tinalynge

  A few days went by. Hei Gou did not leave Xue Wei’s side. Uncharacteristically, he remained seated on a chair by the bed with complete focus, watching over him.

  Bai Tianyi was not any less worried, but he was aware that the actions of that night had caused the Diviners to show interest in them. He was curious as to whether or not other experts had also noticed that there was an elite beast in Cloudsoar City.

  Unfortunately, no matter how much he searched for information, he could find nothing. There was no one who was willing to talk about what had happened that night.

  Eventually, Bai Tianyi grit his teeth and returned to their suite, unaware that his investigation had caused the two Diviners to be alert.

  A few more days passed by, but Xue Wei showed no sign of waking up. Bai Tianyi and Hei Gou were both worried sick as to why he was unconscious for so long, neither of them leaving his side. Then one day a knocking sound came from the door.

  Both frowned and looked at one another. Who could it possibly be? Still, Bai Tianyi stood up and opened the door. The moment he opened it, his eyes widened in shock and his jaw dropped.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in shock and disbelief. Hei Gou could hear that it was someone that Bai Tianyi knew, but when he looked, it was someone he had never seen before.

  “I heard that my cute disciple ran into some issues.” The melodious voice from outside came in with a hint of mischief.

  Hei Gou looked at the person. It was a tall man who seemed around twenty-five years old. He had long blue hair and blue eyes, and his clothes had embroideries of a snake with four wings - a mingshe.

  “Come in, you phony prophet,” Bai Tianyi grumbled and moved aside to let Lan enter the room.

  “Who would have thought that you were Wei’s teacher,” he muttered to himself. Lan just snickered in response.

  “Oh, it seems that his bloodline is what is causing the problems,” he said as soon as he laid eyes on Xue Wei. “Well, what can you expect, he has tainted blood after all.”

  “Tainted blood?” Bai Tianyi had heard what Lan had said, but he did not understand what exactly the prophet meant.

  “Anyhow—how did you know that Xue Wei was here and that he was unconscious?” Bai Tianyi shook his head. He knew that Lan was not one who would tell Bai Tianyi about the tainted blood issue, so instead he asked questions that Lan would definitely answer.

  “My subordinate told me that she heard a frightening roar that made her blood run cold and every beast submit. Later, they found Wei’s enemies dead without intact corpses. It is only obvious that the roar and the murders were linked together.”

  “But that roar is an innate ability called the Dragon Roar. It is not something he should have access to already, and thus I was worried about him.”

  “You hurried all the way from the center of the continent to Cloudsoar City just because you were worried about him?” Bai Tianyi snorted. “He must be very valuable.”

  “Oh he is,” Lan snickered and nodded his head. “He is the only one of his kind in the entire world.”

  Hearing this, Bai Tianyi’s eyes widened. This was not a question about being the only one in the continent, but the entire world. One has to know that there were many continents in this world, so to be alone meant he was very special.

  Even if he was a Sovereign Beast, he should not be the only one in the entire world, so what exactly was he? Did it have something to do with what Lan mentioned earlier? The tainted blood?

  Bai Tianyi sunk into contemplation, but this was something that Lan had expected. He knew that his words were giving away a lot of clues, but he did not mind. He just wanted Xue Wei to grow stronger and to join his collection.

  Lan went next to Xue Wei. Hei Gou observed him with scepticism, but because of the conversation between Bai Tianyi and Lan, he could sense that this man had no malice towards Xue Wei, so he took a step back.

  Reaching into his robes, Lan pulled out a small jade vial, a kind of jade that Hei Gou had never seen before. He could even sense the energy emanating from this vial, and the heaven-and-earth essence in the room became so dense that every breath felt as if he was breathing in pure Qi.

  “You are going this far? Just how valuable is he?!” Bai Tianyi was shocked when he saw the vial that Lan withdrew. He recognized it right away; it contained the heart blood essence of an Azure Dragon. It was one of the most absolute treasures on the entire continent.

  Lan just smiled and looked at Xue Wei. “This is an investment,” he said seriously. “Make sure to tell him that I have invested a lot in him. And if he wants to know more, he has to come find me at the center of the continent. I reside in the capital of the Tiansong Empire. If he makes it there, finding my mansion will be a breeze, so just hurry up.”

  After stating this, Lan placed the vial next to Xue Wei’s lips and let drop after drop of the heart blood essence of an Azure Dragon drop into his mouth.

  “He will be unconscious for two weeks,” Lan said before he vanished from sight. Indeed he simply vanished; he had not opened the door or the window, he had not taken a step or twisted the space as they’d witnessed before—he had just faded away.

  “Who was that?” Hei Gou asked with a quivering voice. It was like experiencing a hurricane that had just swept in and vanished right away.

  “That was Lan. He is the strongest man in the world,” Bai Tianyi did not conceal anything. “He is a complete mystery. No one knows where he comes from or what his aim is. He arrived many millennia ago, way before I was at my peak, but he never participated in a power struggle. The only time he actually did something was when there was a group of people who tried to destroy his house.”

  “He is known as the prophet because he, somehow, knows everything—literally. And I don’t mean just our continent, I mean everything in the entire world.”

  “He is likely the mastermind behind the Intelligencer in every city. Li Chen is probably his direct subordinate.”

  “Even when I was at my peak, I don’t think that I would have been able to beat him, but he never wanted to fight. He ran from every challenge with a grin on his face.

  “The only thing that can move him is treasure. He is a complete treasure hoarder. Anything of value takes his interest, no matter how little, and he is also the richest man in the entire world.”

  “Other than that? I don’t know. But for him to have become Wei’s teacher, clearly something must have happened behind the scenes. Also, why is Wei a one of a kind in the entire world?

  Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi both lapsed into silence. Both were in deep thought.

  The tainted blood reference kept rotating within Bai Tianyi’s mind. What did ‘tainted blood’ mean?

  Everyone knew that it was impossible to be of mixed breed. If a beast became pregnant with a human or the other way around, the child would die. There had never been any instance where the child had survived, and thus he could not be of mixed breed, but what else could having tainted blood refer to?

  “Do you think he is mixed?” Bai Tianyi finally voiced out his concerns. No matter how he thought about it, that seemed to be the only fitting explanation for the term ‘tainted blood.’

  “He could also have some sort of disease,” Hei Gou said doubtfully. “I don’t really know what he meant by tainted blood, but when I got some of his blood, it made me mutate. If he was not a Sovereign Beast, I do not think that would be possible.”

  “Did you ever experience any side effects from the mutation?” Bai Tianyi asked curiously. Perhaps they could get some information this way around since Hei Gou had this tainted blood running through his veins, but Hei Gou shook his head.

  “I have never felt better than I did after getting his blood, and I constantly grow in levels much faster than ever before.”

  Eventually, the two spent the following two weeks discussing the tainted blood problem. They looked at it from every single angle and discussed all the facts they had, yet nothing made any sense. None of the options sounded
plausible, and eventually they had to put an end to their discussion.

  “We will know when we reach Tiansong Empire,” he said with a sigh. “That prophet Lan said that he would tell us what it meant then, so we better get ready to go there.”

  Bai Tianyi, who could not think of anything better, nodded his head. “I guess that is our only option,” he agreed. His head hurt from trying to interpret what Lan had said that day.

  In fact, this was Lan’s aim. Lan’s most interesting pastime was to tease and trouble others. He and Bai Tianyi went back a long way, and Bai Tianyi had chased him time and time again demanding a battle. Now he could finally bring Bai Tianyi trouble by making him think about the tainted blood all day long. Although it had been an unfathomable amount of time since then, Lan was the type to hold a grudge.

  During these two weeks, Bai Tianyi and Hei Gou were not the only ones who felt like pulling out all their hair. The two Diviners were in a similar situation. They had gone to the underground cage battles as planned, but their targets never showed up.

  Both times they waited the entire night to no avail. Eventually, both of them received a reminder from their headquarters about their original mission and they were forced to leave Cloudsoar City in pursuit of the genius who had escaped their temple.

  It had been exactly two weeks after Lan’s visit when Xue Wei opened his eyes. His eyes, which had previously been black, were now azure. They were like the vast expanse of the cloudless sky, so beautiful that it was hard to pull your eyes away from his.

  Chapter 23 - Alchemist

  “My head hurts,” was the first thing Xue Wei groaned out when he opened his eyes. The light was so blinding that he quickly closed them again and covered them with his hand. The light was so bright, even through his closed eyelids, that he felt like tearing up.

  “That’s odd,” he muttered. “Since when were my eyes this sensitive?” He had no idea that his eyes had mutated, nor did he know of any other changes that might have happened to his body, but he was able to sense things much better than before. The heaven-and-earth essence itself consisted of small particles in the air, particles that he could sense and even see when he opened his eyes.

  “Wei, are you okay?” Hei Gou asked worriedly. Xue Wei sat up and nodded his head. “Never been better,” he answered with a cheeky grin on his face.

  “I seem to have reached the seventh layer of the Ordinary Knight rank,” he muttered to himself, but it was not all that surprising considering that he had been given the heart blood essence of an Azure Dragon.

  “That is quite a jump in strength,” Bai Tianyi said praisingly from the side. Xue Wei nodded his head. “You better keep up, doggy, or you’ll fall behind,” Bai Tianyi continued, taking a jab at Hei Gou.

  “It will be fine. I can mutate his blood again if need be,” Xue Wei said with certainty. There was a certainty in his voice that had not been there before, and both Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi looked at him, eager to hear what he had to say.

  “My blood is many times richer than before. Who gave me some blood?” Xue Wei suddenly asked. Hei Gou and Bai Tianyi both widened their eyes. How did Xue Wei know that he had been specifically fed blood? He had been unconscious up till now!

  “It was Lan the Prophet,” Bai Tianyi answered honestly. He was very curious, but he knew that Xue Wei would tell them if he deemed it necessary.

  “I see, so it was that troublesome man.” Xue Wei nodded his head and sighed deeply.

  “Well, first let me tell you about my situation,” he said after considering his words for a moment, and then leaned against the wall, sitting in a comfortable position.

  “I am an Azure Dragon, but still not,” he said with a serious expression on his face. “In this world, it is supposed to be impossible to be a mixture of a human and a beast. In fact, all mixed breeds are impossible, but that is exactly what I am.”

  “When I was unconscious, I inherited the memories of the Azure Dragons, their innate abilities and their heritage.”

  “But at the same time, I also knew that I was lacking something. I did not have a high enough purity of Azure Dragon blood in my body to fully unlock this heritage, which is why I couldn’t wake up. That extra heart blood essence was just enough to unlock it, but I am still not a full Azure Dragon.”

  “I am something different. Thing is, Sovereign Beasts are not as fortunate as we might think; they are bound by several rules and regulations that are cast on their souls, but I am not bound by these as I am only half an Azure Dragon.”

  “Also another thing is that my body can use both normal abilities that I can train and the innate abilities of Azure Dragons. I have the best from both sides, and it has mutated into me. As for the downsides, I do not know about them yet.”

  “I have two original shapes, both the Azure Dragon body and this, my human body, are my original shapes—and it is impossible for a Diviner to capture me.”

  “Although I am not a pureblood Azure Dragon, I still have the blood in my veins, and it has activated, so being fed my blood now is no different from being fed the blood of a true Azure Dragon.”

  “There is a lot of boring history in my memory now, alongside rules, regulations and other boring things, but most of all, I have all my innate abilities now.”

  “I understand a few things about myself better now,” Xue Wei continued, “and we have to be very careful with the Primordial Beast race’s Council of Elders. They are likely to want to destroy me and use me as a blood sacrifice so that they can mutate a large number of elite beasts and take over the continent once more.”

  “This is also why they have helped me so far. The stronger I am, the greater the results of the ritual will be.”

  “So what do you plan on doing now?” Bai Tianyi asked worriedly. It sounded as if they were in a tight spot.

  “Well, for now, we will continue to the center of the continent. We will meet up with Lan. I have some things I need to clarify, and I also need to pay him back for what he did for me.”

  “After that, I suggest we leave the continent for some time. We can travel to the other continents and gain strength. No need to return here before we are strong enough to take on the Council of Elders.”

  “You plan on taking on the Council of Elders?” Hei Gou was shocked, but Xue Wei nodded his head. “We will be fine. We won’t return before we are strong enough.”

  “Before leaving this continent, after talking with Lan, I have to take a bit of a revenge on the Heping Kingdom,” Xue Wei said with a smirk. “They killed my brother, so I am going to wash their streets with blood. Last time, I had to flee for my life, but it will not be the same when I go now.”

  “Oh, let us not forget about the Flowing Blood Prairie,” Hei Gou added. “We still have a bit of a grudge with that old tribe in there. They tried to force you into marriage!”

  Xue Wei chuckled. “That’s fine,” he said casually. “We managed to escape after all so it does not matter too much.”

  “Well, at least we have a plan for the future now,” Bai Tianyi said with a smirk. “Let us move towards a new world! But first, let us go to the center of the continent and get our hands on that phony prophet, Lan. He should have quite some answers for you.”

  Xue Wei nodded his head and smiled. His body felt much lighter than before. He rose from the bed and started checking it. His Qi level was at the seventh layer of the Ordinary Knight rank while his physical strength had already reached the first layer of the Earth Knight rank.

  When Xue Wei clenched his fist, a popping sound could be heard as the air in his palm exploded from how fast he had closed it. He could feel his body bursting with energy. There was also a new energy that had not been there before; the Azure Dragon Spirit in his dantian had grown in size, and the many strands of Dragon Qi in his meridians had also grown in size and quantity, and the color of their scales had deepened. In fact, they had changed drastically from how they used to be.

  “My biggest issue right now is my Spiritual Energ
y,” Xue Wei muttered to himself as he felt the Golden Dragon Spirit within his mind. This Golden Dragon Spirit was only at the fifth layer of the Ordinary Knight rank, so he would be at a great disadvantage if he encountered someone at his own level with proper spiritual energy training.

  Bai Tianyi seemed to understand his problem. “I have a way to solve this problem,” he said hesitatingly, “but the price I have to pay is quite substantial.”

  “What is it?” Xue Wei also hesitated, and he had a frown on his face.

  “I can transfer my energy to others,” he explained. “We have a soul contract, so for me to hand Spiritual Energy over to you is no big deal, but for each layer of Spiritual Energy I give you, I will go one and a half layer down in strength.”

  “I am currently a ninth layer Ordinary Knight, so for me to get you to the seventh layer of the Ordinary Knight rank with your spiritual energy will end with me falling to the sixth layer.”