“Long Live Battalion Commander, Long Live the Peerless Battalion!” Upon hearing that there would be wine to drink, not much else could bring up their spirits as much as that.
Was there a soldier that didn’t love to drink? Sure, there was bound to be, but it was definitely a minority. Of course, amongst these ruffian soldiers, a large majority of them had been actually sentenced in the first place due to unruly behavior while drunk, thus ending up in the Ruffian Battalion.
Of course, the army rules actually banned drinking. As a result, this promise of Zhou Weiqing’s was even more attractive to these ruffian soldiers than giving them gold!
They all enjoyed the piping hot, delicious meal. Although the wolf meat was not exactly the best tasting, in their excited, happy mood, everything just tasted better.
There was no wastage; the meat they could not finished was cooked and packed up, along with a large amount of other rations and supplies, filling up more than five hundred horse carts, which Zhou Weiqing had requisitioned from the Seventh Legion a few days ago.
The titanium alloy arrows, arrow tips and javelins which had been shot out previously were all recollected; after all these were all extremely expensive and valuable. As long as they could be reused or re-purposed, they naturally would not waste such important resources, or extra gold right?
Just as Zhou Weiqing was about to give the order to move out, a familiar piping voice rang out in his ear. “Little Fatty, ask the others to head out first. You stay here first.”
Hearing the voice, Zhou Weiqing was overjoyed. Wasn’t that his new teacher, the Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor, Long Shiya?
He quickly asked Shangguan Fei’er to get Wei Feng and the others to lead the entire Peerless Battalion to the Seventh Legion, and he would join them later.
The mighty contingent of the Peerless Battalion, carts in tow, moved like a great flood in the direction of the northern army command base. When they had disappeared from Zhou Weiqing’s sight, there was a flash before his eyes, and two men appeared by his side.
One was the familiar rotund sight of the Large Fatty Long Shiya, and the other was another seemingly middle aged man of about the same age as Long Shiya.
The middle aged man was not exactly handsome, but he had a unique air about him, as if a well polished jade with an inner shine, giving a profound deep feel about him. He was also wearing a similar black clothing as Long Shiya, and his bearing and aura did not seem to lose out to Long Shiya.
“Master.” Zhou Weiqing bowed respectfully towards Long Shiya.
Long Shiya smiled faintly and nodded, saying: “Not bad, not bad at all. That fight earlier, you did very well. Very effective application of your Skills indeed. However, your victory was once again due to the surprise element of your unique Skill. Come, let your Teacher test you on your fruits of cultivation all this time. Six Ultimate Transform Skill, go.”
This Six Ultimate Heavenly Emperor was indeed a brusque and straightforward person. Having just met his disciple after all this time, he was teaching and testing him once more, not even introducing him to the middle aged man beside him first.
Zhou Weiqing agreed, lifting his right hand up. The Six Ultimate Transform Skill was the beginning level arts of Long Shiya’s Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts. The more Zhou Weiqing dwelved into the intricacies of the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts, the more miraculous he realised it was, and the more respect and awe he held for this teacher of his. After all, Long Shiya had come up with this technique all by himself after much research and training.
A ball green light appeared around Zhou Weiqing’s palm, a pure green that was not particularly intense. His fingers moved slightly, as if massaging the ball of green light energy, and in the next moment, it turned into a Wind Blade.
The Wind Blade was extremely small, much smaller than the ball of green light had previously been. The crescent shaped wind blade’s length was only three inches, but despite its minute size, it was extremely solid and well formed, glowing in green gold light. If not for the swirling movement of the light, any onlooker might think it was an actual knife in his hands.
A hint of surprise flashed in Long Shiya’s eyes, though Zhou Weiqing did not notice it as his full concentration was on the energy in his palm.
The reason why the green Wind Blade was so small was not because Zhou Weiqing did not use much Heavenly Energy, but because of the sheer amount of compression of energy upon it. With Zhou Weiqing’s current cultivation level, if he did not use the compact compression skill of the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts, he could not possibly have his Wind Blade so small and compact. He had not Stored this Wind Blade Skill, and he was making use of the Six Ultimate Skill Manipulation Arts to use his Wind Attribute Heavenly Energy to imitate the Wind Attribute Skill. If he made any slight error in his control, that Wind Blade would immediately dissipate into Heavenly Energy once more.
Zhou Weiqing’s five fingers continued moving in a strange rhythm, and the Wind Blade once again formed back into the ball of green light into his palm, and it slowly warped to a bluish purple colour. In the entire process, Zhou Weiqing did not dismiss the Heavenly Energy and re-release it, instead transforming it entirely from the green light, and it was still the original ball of Heavenly Energy.
When the green light had fully transformed into the bluish purple light, Zhou Weiqing’s face grew more serious. It was now Lightning Attribute Heavenly Energy, which was even more difficult to control than the Wind Attribute Heavenly Energy. As the bluish purple light flashed in Zhou Weiqing’s hands, his five fingers began to move with increased speed, slowly causing the ball of light to form into a bluish purple lightning pearl.
In truth, after Zhou Weiqing had transformed the Heavenly Energy ball to the Lightning Attribute, he had to resort to some trickery as well. After all, the Lightning Attribute was quite a lot more active than the Wind Attribute, and Zhou Weiqing was not able to control it to form anything else. However, it was a lot easier for him to form a Lightning Pearl, as it whirled around, it was easier to just forcefully compress the Lightning Attribute. More so, Zhou Weiqing had the Dark Demon God Lightning Skill, and that definitely helped him in forming that Lightning Pearl.
Seeing the Lightning Pearl form, not only did the surprise in Long Shiya’s eyes deepen, even the middle aged man beside him also showed some surprise. After all, the Lightning Attribute was a rare and powerful Attribute, considered one of the Attributes with the most explosive power. To be able to control the Lightning Attribute to such a degree was not easy indeed.
The middle aged man’s voice rang in Long Shiya’s ears: “This little fellow has only learned from you for less than half a year?! His talent for Heavenly Energy control is indeed impressive!”
Long Shiya did not reply, and on the surface his expression did not change as his gaze fixated upon Zhou Weiqing’s hands.
The bluish purple Lightning Pearl slowly grew larger before it slowly dissipated back into the ball of Heavenly Energy. Once again, the transformation process started. This time, sweat beaded on Zhou Weiqing’s forehead as his eyes widened. It was clear that he was fully focused on the transformation of energy in his hands.
In truth, Long Shiya had only asked him to show the Six Ultimate Transform Skill, which was to transform his Heavenly Energy freely among his Six Attributes. However, what Zhou Weiqing was doing was not just transforming his Heavenly Energy, but actually imitating one Skill for each Attribute before transforming to the next Attribute, and so on. That was a lot more difficult than Long Shiya’s original request.
The reason why Zhou Weiqing chose to do so was that he wanted to test himself, to see how far his control had progressed.The other reason was that he wanted to prove himself to his teacher, that he had not slackened off at all for the past six months and had been training with all his might. Of course, another factor was that Zhou Weiqing’s judgement of human nature was always accurate and pinpoint as usual. Perhaps if it was only Long Shiya alone here, he might not have gone this further step. However, now that Long Shiya had brought a friend along, with an outsider here, the stronger and more impressive Zhou Weiqing could display himself, it would bring even more face to Long Shiya. To bring face to his teacher, naturally Zhou Weiqing would not hesitate to go further.
This little cunning ploy of his, naturally Long Shiya could see through it. However, even if he saw through it, Long Shiya was still extremely delighted. Having his disciple work so hard to bring him face, how could he not be happy?
Silver light slowly consolidated. This time, it did not form into the shape of a ball of light. If we were to compare all of Zhou Weiqing’s Six Attributes, it would be undoubtedly the Spatial Attribute that he had the most control over. After all, not counting his status as a Consolidating Equipment Master, just amongst his Skills, his Blink Skill was the optimum for escaping, while his Spatial Rend Skill was also extremely powerful in offense and defense, one of his most commonly used ones. Towards these two Skills, he had spent the most time and effort in improving, and as a result his understanding and control towards the Spatial Attribute Heavenly Energy was the deepest. Even so, after transforming the Heavenly Energy from Lightning Attribute to Spatial Attribute and coalescing it into a Skill, it caused sweat to form all around his head.
A dim light flashed as the silver light fully consolidated, and sweat began to drip from the sides of Zhou Weiqing’s forehead. However, he had succeeded, and the thick silver light began to elongate, and if one were to look closely, right in the middle of the silver was a smatter of black. This was not just an ordinary compression of Heavenly Energy, clearly one of the Skills that Zhou Weiqing had Stored on his own… the Spatial Rend.
However, this time this Spatial Rend was clearly not unleashed from his own Stored Skill, but imitated out through control of his own Heavenly Energy. Of course, this was another minor trick, as he already had such a Skill and was much more familiar with it. Still, even if it was some trickery, being able to control Heavenly Energy to such a degree was truly a feat for his cultivation level.
At this point, the eyes of the middle aged man beside Long Shiya flashed with a brilliant light, as he grasped Long Shiya’s large shoulders hard, a fawning smile at his mouth.
Long Shiya glared at him. How could he not understand what his good friend meant? Before coming here, he had not revealed Zhou Weiqing’s Attributes to this best bro of his, exactly because he was afraid that he would constantly bug him about it. Long Shiya knew how important those Attributes that Zhou Weiqing had were for a Consolidating Equipment Master. The Spatial Attribute and Wind Attribute had already been shown, and since this middle aged man also knew that Zhou Weiqing was part of the Legacy of Strength, one could imagine how pleasing Zhou Weiqing was to the eye for him. His actions towards Long Shiya now were as clear as day indeed.
Having completed the Spatial Rend Skill, Zhou Weiqing did not continue further. Instead, he took a deep breath, and on his skin, the familiar tiger tattoos started to appear as his muscles bulged out. His clear eyes also started turning bloodshot. Indeed, he was entering his Demonic Change State.