by A P Gore
Then how did this brat know about it?
Was he lying? Just showing up?
“You! Li brat, wait. Come back and tell me, how did you know about the third power circle?”
“You are doing it with wrongly arm. Draw from the opposite side and draw it as two half circles. You should finish this easily.” The Li brat shouted before vanishing into the crowded street.
A light shone in Wu Xiodia’s dark eyes. Was he doing it all along wrong?
Why didn’t he think of this before? He was left-handed, so if he used the same direction as right-handers, he would definitely fail. It was fine for normal circles, but when he had to draw the complex third circle while maintaining the qi supply in first two circles it became impossible.
He’d also said to draw two half circles.
“Wait!” he shouted, wanting to stop that Li brat and ask him more about this. How did this brat know he was a left-handed array master? No one knew that. Even when he fought, he used his right hand to hold his weapons, yet that brat had guessed it through his array carvings.
When he turned to leave, he found a diagram carved on an old parchment and his body quivered. He had seen this diagram once but could not comprehend it. It was a Silver Grade array, Two Sword Formation Array.
Heavens, who was this kid? He could even leave a Silver Grade Array behind like it was nothing.
Who was this kid? “Kun Fu.”
“Yes master.” His attendant rushed over and lowered his head in respect.
“Find that expert guy’s whereabouts, and don’t disturb me for two days. I can’t be disturbed even if city lord comes.” He sneered. Although he suspected how the brat knew about his issues, he had given Wu Xiodia a hope of overcoming them, and as a cultivator of arrays, he was dying to try the new method and see if it worked.
That was his dao of arrays.
Chapter 40 Treasure Map
Pinching his nose with his left hand, Li Wei dipped a small wooden stick in the thick black blood he had bought from Wu Xiodia’s shop. It stank like a dead rotten animal, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It was White Wolf’s blood after all. It was a Ferocious Beast in the fifth layer of Refinement Realm, and its blood was used as common ink for carving arrays by Array Apprentices. It wasn’t the best, but it was okay.
The small stick turned a little black after a few seconds, and he pulled it out. The Azure Dragon Tree had an elastic property and didn’t absorb too much blood, so it worked well for him. Although a normal Array Apprentice would use a special brush made of the hair of a Ferocious Beast, he, an Array Master, didn’t need that. The brush was mainly used to control the blood flow. Why would he need that when he had divine sense and decades of practice? After a certain stage, no array cultivator used brushes. Instead, they used their qi and divine sense to carve arrays.
But he was far away from that stage.
After dipping the stick five times and letting it absorb enough blood, he started carving a small source circle at the center of the room. He was carving Lesser Isolation Array, a Bronze Grade array used for concealment and detection of threats. It was the best array for his current situation. First, he wanted to check the box he’d found on Tian Yun’s body, and then he had to mix a medicine to suppress the poison in Fei’er’s body. All those ingredients were quite rare and expensive. If someone from the Li clan saw him using them, they might raise some suspicions. Thanks to Du Xin and Tian Yun, he had gathered a hundred gold coins, and that let him buy the beast blood and the Poison Repelling Powder’s ingredients. His grandfather had only given him ten gold, not enough to buy what he’d needed.
Greed could be a bad thing, and he didn’t want to be in the spotlight right now.
As time passed, his hand sped up, drawing circle after circle and then a few symbols in the center. After five minutes, he stopped and wiped sweat from his forehead. It wasn’t normally difficult, but with his current condition it was hard. If he hadn’t reached layer five body Refinement Realm and obtained stable divine sense, he might not have tried it. While drawing an array, every stroke had to be perfect, and any wrong stroke could ruin it completely. On top of that, he hadn’t carved this array in decades, and he was doing it from memory.
Finally, he completed it and it looked perfect, only limited by the quality of blood. If Wu Xiodia saw this, he would be in shock for sure.
Cleaning his forehead, he stepped out of the room and inhaled a deep fresh breath. Stretching his hands, he checked to see if anyone was around using his divine sense. There was no one in a five-hundred-foot radius, so he pulled the low-quality Qi Stone from his pouch and tapped it in the middle of the array source. Dim white light entered the source point and spread across the connecting lines, and then the entire array lit up, and suddenly everything around the shabby room become tranquil.
If anyone saw from outside, they wouldn’t find anything changed. They would only see a small girl sleeping inside and a young man sitting in a corner with his eyes closed. There was another function to the array: detection. Although the concealment worked in a ten-foot radius, it would alert the array carver if anyone entered within a two-hundred-foot radius of the array source. It was quite good for recuperation in the forest and other dangerous places.
“Now even a Bone Baptizing Realm cultivator can’t barge in,” he whispered and checked the energy barrier with his divine sense.
There should be no Bone Baptizing Realm cultivator inside this small city. Even the city lord, the strongest person in the city, would be in the early layers of Bone Baptization Realm, and only a peak Bone Baptization Realm cultivator could see through this array. Only in big cities, like Fragrance Herb City, would he find peak Bone Baptization Realm cultivators, so he didn’t need to worry much.
Sitting next to Fei’er’s bed, he pulled two pouches from under the cloth wrapped around his stomach. Soon, he should get access to the storage ring. Carrying things wrapped around his stomach didn’t feel nice.
“Let’s check what rotten things these bastards carried with them.” He wasn’t optimistic about the kinds of things two Refinement Realm kids carried with them. In his previous life, he had seen cultivators carrying heavenly pills, artifacts, and whatnot. They had rings full of things. Compared to them, what would the two kids carry?
Other than gold, there were two boxes, two books, and an object wrapped in a purple cloth. He already had gold, so he wanted to find the map Du Xin had spoken of.
First, he checked the two books. They were Tiger Metal Palm and Three Metal Qi Art books. The Du clan practiced those, and they were of no use to him. If he wanted to practice metal qi like his previous life, he had much better qi arts in his memories. Throwing them aside, he opened the first box.
Cold wind slapped his face when he opened the box, and it was so strong that he had to close that box.
“What is this thing?” he pushed his disheveled hair down and tied it with a cloth band. That was a strong wind.
Cautiously, he opened the box once again, and as expected a strong wind assaulted his face from inside. But he endured a little and scanned the strange bubble inside the box. It floated inside the box like it had its own conscious, and when Wei tried to probe it, it blocked his divine sense.
That was strange. After thinking for a moment, he threw it aside. He had more important things to do. Then he peeled back the purple cloth, and his jaw dropped to the ground. Qi Initiation Fruit. This was the perfect thing for him right now.
Qi Initiation Fruit was a rare fruit used by qi cultivators to initiate cultivation. When one ate a small piece of this fruit, the pure qi from it invaded the body and nurtured it throughout, making it ready for cultivation. There was another method for initiation. One could ask an elder cultivator to send their qi into a kid’s body, doing same as Qi Initiation Fruit, but it left some impurities behind in the kid’s body, possibly even hampering the kid’s cultivation later in life.
But using Qi Initiation Fruit had no side effects. It was the pu
rest of nature’s qi, and it was gentle and delicate. It was the perfect fruit to get one on the path of cultivation, and now it was going to help him to do so.
Wei chuckled. His dantian was completely repaired, and it was time to cultivate, but he lacked a method to do that. It was easier when he’d cultivated the first layer of Blood Essence Body. All he had to do was bleed, bleed until fifty-one percent blood loss, and he could have stepped in the first layer. Of course, he’d gone beyond that and reached ninety-one percent blood loss. That was a wild method he had never thought of using.
Anyway, with this fruit his initiation in qi cultivation would be like drinking wine on a calm evening while hearing surreal music. It would be that easy and awesome.
But he had to find a good cultivation art first. If it wasn’t for Fei’er’s issue, he would have checked other Inheritance Chambers before leaving the tunnels.
Getting back to work, he opened the second box, and his mind went numb in shock.
Holy heavens. It was a treasure map.
Chapter 41 Murder
Li Wei squinted hard, his heart beating faster than an Iron Marrow Horse. His shabby room swirled in front of his eyes when he glanced at the language of the map.
This was a legit treasure map marked in the language of the Ancient Gods. That meant it was quite old.
Pulling it open, he checked the elasticity of the paper and determined he couldn’t tear it. It was strong and flexible at the same time. It even exuded a pungent smell. The same smell that his master’s books had exuded.
To confirm it, he put it over a fire torch. Even fire couldn’t burn it. It just washed over it like water moving over a flat marble surface.
Holy heavens. It was millions of years old. It had to be. No one in the Mortal Realm would know about this language. Only a few knew about this language in the Martial Realm. If it wasn’t for his previous master finding a sacred book on arrays and dedicating his whole life to studying this language, Wei wouldn’t have learned it.
Millions of years before, gods ruled these lands, but then they’d vanished, leaving no trace other than a few ancient sites and books scattered here. Otherwise, no proof exited of their existence.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. This was huge. If any big shot from the Martial Realm knew that there was a treasure map present in the Mortal Realm, a blood bath would happen. They would hunt Wei until the end of his life.
This was a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. No one could know about it. But how did this map end up in the mortal world?
This was inconceivable.
With quivering fingers, Wei opened the map again and scanned it. It displayed a complex structure of tunnels, tunnels that looked familiar. They were the same tunnels he had traversed beneath the Ancient Ruins. When he compared it with his own memories of the safe tunnel paths, he found they nearly matched. There were a couple of small differences, but it made sense. This map was drawn heaven knows when, and the safe route he’d found was just a few months back.
Another thing matched perfectly. The tunnel he and Fei’er had traversed was marked in yellow, while the tunnel he’d heard the strange beast howl was marked in red. It connected with a purple room that had a word written in it. Houtian?
Did it mean he had to be in Houtian Realm to go there?
His gaze traversed to the Inheritance Chamber he had broken into, and it was marked in purple too. There was no word written in it.
This made sense. The Inheritance Chamber he’d stepped into was for initial inheritance, and it only had the cultivation art that reached Houtian Realm. So, once he reached Houtian Realm, he had to go back and obtain the next part of Five Elemental Way Qi Cultivation Art.
Now it made sense why no one had found these chambers. First, these paths were dangerous, and second, these Inheritance Chambers required special tokens. Who could beat a Houtian Realm monster in the Mortal Realm?
Unconsciously, he tapped his chest, feeling the metallic token hanging from a thread wrapped around his neck.
Yes, no Houtian Realm cultivator would come to this remote city. They had better things to do than check a ruined town. Although Houtian Realm cultivators could still live in the Mortal World, they would choose to go to the Martial World before they stepped in Houtian Realm, as the Martial Realm had abundant natural essence, and it was easier to break through.
His eyes traced through the remaining part of the map. There was no other purple Inheritance Chamber, but there were a couple of gold-colored rooms shown and marked as treasure.
In fact, there was another gold room he had seen when he’d walked out along the path Tian Yun and Du Xin had entered through. It was the first treasure room, but that made sense. Didn’t Tian Yun say their patriarch went there and broke through Foundation Realm in one go?
Holy heavens. This was indeed a treasure map.
But if this was a treasure map marked in the language of the Ancient Gods, Tian clan must die. Otherwise, they would attract calamity to this land. Not that they could connect with forces in the Martial Realm and expose this thing, but he couldn’t take any chances. And this map showed the positions of the Inheritance Chambers for Five Elemental Way Qi Cultivation Art. So, they had to die.
That was it. He would cultivate Five Elemental Way Qi Cultivation Art. Now, he even had Qi Initiation Fruit. With that fruit, his first step would be flawless.
But before that, he had to prepare the Poison Repelling Powder for Fei’er.
***
Du Lufang scanned Du Fang’s body lying on the small bed with tearful eyes. Next to him, his wife, Du Pian, slammed her chest and cried loudly, annoying him.
“I want revenge.” Her eyes emitted rage and destruction, and he couldn’t deny that sent chills down his legs. “I want Wu Xiodia’s head on my table before I eat lunch tomorrow,” Du Pian threatened.
“Pian’er. Calm down. It’s Master Wu we are talking about. He is an Array Apprentice. We can’t touch him, and I doubt he would do this.” Had she gone mad? Implicating an Array Apprentice. How naïve. “And he is only poisoned. I’ve asked Doctor Mu to rush here. He will save him. Don’t worry.”
“No. Our son visited him, and now he is returned like a shriveled, poisoned corpse. It has to be Wu Xiodia.” She gritted her teeth. “Wu Xiodia, I’ll slice your throat with my hands.” Du Pian continued to lash out at her husband.
Du Lufang trembled in anger, but he couldn’t show it in front of her. The great family of Wang from Herb Fragrance City supported her, and their Blood Baptization Realm elder doted on her obnoxiously. How could he raise his voice or scold her? If he rebuked her, Wang clan might even destroy the whole Du clan in one go.
This was the tragedy of his life. Why had he accepted this marriage offer?
“My dear, please calm down.” He rubbed her back, but she dislodged his hand with a flick of her shoulder. “Wait until I meet with Master Wu. There must be an explanation for this, and don’t forget, even your family can’t touch an Array Apprentice.”
Wu Xiodia was an Array Apprentice, and he had the Array Society behind him. If someone dared to touch him, they would only bring calamity on their clan.
“Master Du . . . Master Du.” Steward Chin rushed into the room without even knocking.
Du Lufang frowned. This steward was being insolent lately. He could put up with his wife, because she was family and had her clan behind her, but steward Chin was just a follower from Wang clan. He was a lowly bastard who dared to barge into his bedroom.
Insolent.
Pulling his whip out, Du Lufang lashed it at steward Chin. “Impudent whelp! Don’t you know what has happened? And you dared to barge in.”
“Master Du, please forgive this steward, but there is bad news.”
Du Lufang’s forehead wrinkled in black lines. “What could be worse than death of my third son?”
“Young master Xin—” Steward Chin gasped. “—he is dead. Someone murdered him.”
Chapter 42 Du Lufan
g's Rage
Du Lufang lunged forward and grabbed steward Chin’s collar, and before steward Chin could react, he shoved him against the wall.
“What did you say?”
“My lady Wang. Please save me!” Steward Chin cried, and Du Pian stepped forward and pulled Du Lufang’s hand back.
This motherfucker. He dared to call his wife by her maiden name. How daring.
“Husband, listen to him first.” She seemed unphased by the news.
Hearing her careless tone, he felt like someone had poured a pot of hot oil on his head. Fuck! Why would she remain unphased? Du Fang was his and Du Pian’s son, and Du Xin was from his first wife, Du Sisoda, who had died just before he married Du Pian. Long since, he’d wondered if Du Sisoda had died of natural causes or was killed by Du Pian.
“Steward Chin. If you dare to spread false news, no one can save you. Not even your Wang clan.” He pulled his hand back but kept his gaze firm on that motherfucker.
“My lord. The Tian clan found Du Xin’s body along with Tian Yun. Tian Yun had stolen a precious treasure from the Tian clan and was running away, and someone killed them both and stole the treasure. Tian clan has issued a warrant against the killer, and they are telling everyone that they will absolutely wipe out the thief.”
“Tian Fu.” Du Lufang squeezed his fist. “Is he saying Du Xin stole their treasure and killed Tian Yun, that bastard?” This was serious. There seemed to be a need to teach this Tian clan a lesson. Only a few years back they’d licked the Du clan’s shoes, and now they dared to slander the Du clan?
How impudent.
Steward Chin shook his head. “No. They came to us with the news first. But nothing is clear for now.”
“Insolent. Aren’t they indirectly saying that my Du Xin stole their treasure with the bastard from their clan?” He slammed his fist on a nearby table and shattered it. “I guess I have to take a trip to their clan. Someone has to pay for the death of both of my sons, and they can’t run away anymore.”
