Chapter 12: Hammer and Axe (2)
XinFeng asked curiously, “Uncle Feng, uncle Ying, how many Yin rings do you need to reach the ninth ring?”
Feng Ying smiled bitterly, “Maybe ten, maybe nine, it’s impossible to estimate, but……how will we even find so many Yin rings, it’s impossible.”
XinFeng spoke, “I have Yin Rings, but they’re ancient Yin Rings, en, I wonder if there still usable?”
Feng Ying and Shi Hu glanced at each other, they didn’t understand what XinFeng was saying. XinFeng took out an ancient Yin ring, which were the ‘gold rings’ he had collected.
Before unsealing them, the ancient Yin rings were like a weirdly shaped gold ring. Trying to cultivate with it, even Feng Ying was unsuccessful, he spoke, “Perhaps we need to unseal it, wu, to do that, we’ll have to find your master Guqi.”
XinFeng nodded, “En, perhaps we can trade some Ancient Yin Rings for usable Yin rings with him so that the two of you can become ninth ringed masters, I’ll be able to relax then.”
Feng Ying and Shi Hu both could feel XinFeng’s concern, and after a round of thanks and a small talk, they returned to their rooms.
After his guards left, XinFeng placed a few more charcoals in his fireplace and poked the fire a few times, allowing the temperature to rise before he went to sit on the beast skin to cultivate.
The moment he started, XinFeng could feel that something was different, this place was indeed unusual. The Lun Yin Li in his body started to circulate quickly, changing into Yin Li. Although the speed was incomparable to the speed he had in lightning storms, but it was almost double the speed of his usual training, it was no wonder that practitioners would come to this place despite the harsh conditions.
It was a happy night of cultivating for XinFeng, one must know that lightning storms were hard to find, XinFeng had assumed that it was easy but he rarely could find any, and when he did, it would be a pleasant surprise, but his cultivation also relied on his usual hard work.
On the second day, everyone had reaped great rewards, and when they ate breakfast the next morning, Miao Ling did not mention leaving anymore. A night of cultivation here was comparable to a few days of cultivation in the Secret Hidden Space, not even mentioning the normal world’s speed, this was a huge difference.
Xin Zhou Lun ate and hurriedly left, the others returned to their rooms to cultivate, none of them wanted to waste any time.
After a whole two days of cultivating, XinFeng did not continue cultivating, and at that point, Xin Zhou Lun had already returned, bringing a ninth ringed expert with him named Jin Daya, an extremely old looking fellow with eyes that seemingly will never open, his body was very small and thin and when he stood next to Chui Zi, he only reached his waist, the two of their figures were exact opposites.
However, Jin Daya treated everyone very politely, especially XinFeng and Miao Ling, there was even a hint of fawning, something XinFeng found strange, with Jin Daya’s strength, he did not need to curry favor with XinFeng.
But in the end, Feng Ying easily saw through XinFeng’s thoughts, he explained, “He curried favor from you…… it is just to get Yin rings, he knows that you are disciples of a secret sect, he would try his best to suck up to you for even a single Yin ring. ”
XinFeng spoke curiously, “Yin rings is only useful to reach the ninth ring rank, he’s already there, why does he need it?”
Before Feng Ying could reply, Shi Hu spoke in first, “It’s not used to cultivate, but to prolong his life……a Yin ring is enough to increase it by two to three years.”
XinFeng was shocked, “Yin rings can also be used like this?”
Feng Ying nodded, “That’s right, though Yin rings are good to use in the beginning, if you use it too many to prolong your life, the effects will diminish, even so, one could still increase their lifespan by months, of course these ninth ringed experts would want it, who wouldn’t want to live longer? Perhaps they could even become a monarch, though that would be significantly harder, almost impossible.”
Shi Hu nodded as well, “That’s right, True Monarchs can live at least two thousand years, but it’s just too hard to become one.”
XinFeng spoke, “My master has nine disciples, and at least half can become True Monarchs?”
Feng Ying laughed bitterly, “At least one…….would be impressive, hehe, if there’s two, it would be considered a miracle.”
XinFeng was rather shocked, he didn’t expect levelling from a ninth ringed master to a True Monarch would be so hard.
Xin Zhou Lun spoke, “Prepare yourselves, we will be entering the mountain.”
The heavily layered snow mountain was incomparably magnificent as they looked at it from the foot of the mountain.
The distance between the mountainous area and Hanya Castle was roughly a hundred kilometers, it was a flight that took about half an hour, but because of the harsh winds, they could only walk or fly close to the ground, the wind was truly powerful, even the sound of it was rather scary.
Xiu! Xiu! Xiu……
The sharp sound was accompanied by the wind blowing at their bodies like knives, everyone was dressed in thick clothing, but even so, they had to slightly activate their defenses, it was too cold.
XinFeng was more prepared, he wore a thick velvet shirt underneath some bullhorn armor, a special amour used to shield against the cold, and on top of that armor was a beast skin coat, on his head was a skin hat that covered his head, revealing only his eyes, covering even his nose.
Even so, XinFeng was still trembling from the cold as he took a step forward, complaining, “This wind……it’s too fucking cold!”
Chui Zi laughed, “You foreigners are too weak, to be unable to stand this bit of cold, hehe, if you met with the white fur winds, you all would probably freeze to death.”
These two fellows were envied by the others, they only wore a thick robe over a shirt, their arms and faces exposed, the hat on their heads only covering the back of their necks and ears.
XinFeng wore thick hide gloves, occasionally sending a few charges from his body, with electrical charges flickering on his hands with light crackling sounds, he was warming his hands, or they would’ve become stiff.
The snow on the ground was not very compact, but with the extreme cold and wind, the snow was as tough as steel, it was impossible to fall through.
A rope tied everyone together, leading them was Chui Zi and at the end was Kuang Fu, everyone else was sandwiched between the two of them.
Chui Zi spoke loudly, “There’s a cave in the mountain cliff in front, we’ll stop there today, we shouldn’t walk anymore.”
Xin Zhou Lun spoke, “Chui Zi, you decide it, no need to ask me!”
Chui Zi shouted, “Alright! Increase the speed, we need to reach that place before the sky darkens.”
XinFeng mumbled, “If we don’t reach it before then…..will we freeze to death?”
Feng Ying replied, “That’s right, after the sky darkens, no one would dare to walk around, even the natives.”
XinFeng asked, “Natives…..aren’t they unafraid of the cold?”
Feng Ying laughed, “To a certain extent, even natives can suffer.”
After two hours of walking, they came to an extremely tall cliff from which countless sparkling and translucent icicles hung.
Chui Zi shouted, “We’re almost there, just a bit more, hehe, when we arrive we’ll be able to eat!” He was completely a glutton, he can only think about eating every day, food was enough to seduce him.
The arrangement of the group was Chui Zi leading the way, followed by Jin Daya, Feng Ying, XinFeng, Shi Hu, Xin Zhou Lun, and Kuang Fu bringing up the rear. This arrangement was to ensure that when danger came Jin Daya could protect Chui Zi, Xin Zhou Lun protect Kuang Fu, Feng Ying and Shi Hu protect XinFeng, amongst the seven, four could fly, it was enough to protect the other three.
The sound of the wind increased as well as its speed. Chui Zi who was in front had to use the heavy hammer to stabilize his body while the others used spears to stab the ground as they walked.
Despite how the cliff seemed to be close, they had to walk about another hour.
Luckily, they were all practitioners with the exception of the two natives. They could endure this and in an hour before the sky darkened, they finally arrived.
Walking along the cliff, they suddenly heard Chui Zi cheer loudly, he had found the cave.
Chui Zi shouted, “We made it! Haha, finally we get to rest, I’m exhausted!” he couldn’t bear the travelling either.
Untying the rope that bound them together, they entered the cave.
A wall of ice and icicles hung from the entrance like a curtain, but there was an opening at the side, allowing them to enter.
Chui Zi spoke, “Our luck is not bad, there wasn’t any problems today, this route is usually the worst one, if there were any obstructions, we probably would’ve die.” even he feared travelling at night.
XinFeng entered the cave and a warm feeling suddenly came over him, grabbing his hat, he sighed, “Wa, I finally can catch my breath, fuck, the air outside feels like needles.”
Shi Hu spoke, “No one dares to stay too long in the wild here, we’re rather impressive already.”
Chui Zi laughed, “You guys are considered very impressive, some foreigners here don’t even dare to stray from the courtyards, fearing that they’ll freeze to death before the can even return, hehe.”
The cave extended downwards, it was a deep crevice. As wind could still enter from the opening, they had to enter deeper into the cave to avoid the cold, following the walls downwards, they turned once and Chui Zi had them stop.
XinFeng could immediately hear sounds coming from the deeper parts of the cave.
Chui Zi spoke softly, “There’s people!”