Chapter 107: Evolve, Spiritual Stove! (I)
News of people from the Assassin Temple injuring a talented youth from the Knight Temple during the Demon Hunt Selection could not possibly be covered up. In fact, the nature of the act was so extremely vile that it would affect the very roots of the Six Great Temples.
However, against all expectations, the Knight Temple stayed silent on this matter. They didn’t file a complaint to the Temple Alliance and the Assassin Temple also stayed low key, both parties acting as if nothing happened. When the committee members from the other Great Temples asked them about this, the Knight Temple and the Assassin Temple gave exactly the same answer, saying that it was a misunderstanding.
These two Great Temples came to a mutual understanding, so naturally, the other Temples didn’t dig deeper into the matter. After all, there wasn’t any loss, so as long as everything was settled, they wouldn’t insist any longer.
The qualifiers of the Demon Hunt Selection of this year were about to come to an end; the overwhelming majority of the matches were already over, and most of the results were already out. Long Hao Chen lost and Yang Wenzhao ended up seriously wounded, so they both lost the possibility of continuing to compete in these preliminaries. Because of Long Hao Chen’s especially outstanding performances in his match against Yang Wenzhao, he was ranked sixth for the preliminaries of the competition. After entering the top 5, Yang Wenzhao was unable to keep competing and had to drop out, forced to end up fifth.
Exerting force to stretch his hand, Long Hao Chen awoke from dreamland. Some of the pain from last night was remaining, but he felt a lot better as he woke up.
Rubbing his eyes, Long Hao Chen got into a sitting position. It was a long time since the last time he slept so deeply.
Cai’er. As soon as he recovered his consciousness, the first thing that came into his mind was that beautiful face. Despite his very feeble mental state on the previous night, the little moment he had to watch her face was deeply engraved in his memory.
Was I dreaming last night? Long Hao Chen wasn’t sure that what happened last night was for real, especially since he felt so weak at that moment.
“Eh?” As something brought up his attention on the side of the bed, he used his finger to touch it carefully; there seemed to be some handwriting here.
Hurriedly straightening his posture, he looked at this handwriting. Indeed, some little words where engraved on the side of the bed.
“Recover well, and do not bother about me. When the next stage of the competition resumes for you, we will meet again. Cai’er.”
It wasn’t a dream, haha, it wasn’t a dream. Long Hao Chen was immediately in high spirits after discovering this message. He clearly remembered that last night, Cai’er had told him that she didn’t blame him.
We will only see each other during the competition? What does this mean? Last night, last night, it seemed that Cai’er used her spiritual energy to help me recover. Can it be that she’s also from one of the Six Great Temples? But she’s blind! To which Temple could she belong?
He unceasingly asked this question to himself but how could he possibly find the answer?
A short while later, Ye Hua and Li Xin came to visit him. As brother and sister who lost their matches, they could rest for the five incoming days, until the start of the real competition.
Ye Hua had come to inspect his situation, especially his meridians and his internal organs, but he discovered that [Sacrifice] didn’t leave any permanent injuries to his body. This was a source of great rejoicing.
“You are really an idiot.” After his inspection, Ye Hua immediately cursed in rage, some tears starting to appear on his face. Beside him, Li Xin stuck out her tongue, but didn’t dare say anything.
Long Hao Chen lowered his head and said, “Teacher, I only wished to test my capabilities through actual combat, and to arouse my potential this way. Using the skill [Sacrifice] is just something I did on a whim. Don’t be angry, I won’t be so impetuous again in the future.”
Ye Hua was furious, “Bullshit. Do you think I am angry because you have challenged Yang Wenzhao? You are wrong. It is because of your foolishness. Let me ask you, who’s the stronger between you and Yang Wenzhao?”
Long Hao Chen started and gave him a puzzled look, “It’s naturally him. ”
Ye Hua coldly snorted, “So you know that he’s the powerful one, right? Then why did you still choose to clash with him head-on? Were these fighting tactics I taught you these two last years some dog food? It was delightful to clash with him head-on right? But have you thought about what would have happened if this was a fight against the demon race? What if your opponents were demons? And what if you had comrades by your side, waiting for your assistance? Would you have fought the same way?”
These series of questions left Long Hao Chen speechless.
Ye Hua coldly continued, “How many fighting abilities have I taught you? That’s right, an all-out battle will arouse your potential more efficiently, especially against an opponent that is more powerful than you. But if you really want to increase your fighting experience, then you cannot consider this as a match, but a life-and-death battle. And how do battles to the death take place? Don’t tell me I’ve never taught you this before?”
Long Hao Chen further lowered his head, “Rely on your skills and techniques to cope with your opponent, and do the utmost to preserve yourself.”
Ya Hue strongly clenched his fist. “Luckily, you still remember. Tell me now, are you a Guardian Knight or a Retribution Knight in the end?”
Long Hao Chen fell silent. He didn’t know how to reply to this question of Ye Hua’s.
Ye Hua said indifferently, “In terms of genius, even if ten of me cannot match you, in terms of experiences, neither can ten of you match me. Let me help you to answer this question. When you need to attack, just be a Retribution Knight, and when you need to protect, be a Guardian Knight. But you have to be careful when you are using your abilities as Retribution Knight; you should never forget your second status. Your innate talent is so high that you can bear both roles, but since that’s the case, you should just combine them to fully exploit your capabilities. Don’t let me see such silly acts again, or else, you don’t deserve to be the disciple of this Ye Hua.”
“Yes.” Long Hao Chen hurried to respectfully reply. Ye Hua was scolding him, but more importantly, he was full of concerns. He knew that his teacher was afraid that he would take the wrong path!
After washing his face, Long Hao Chen started to cultivate. Even if this morning, his body already felt a lot better, he still had to let his external spiritual energy and the wounds on his body recover. However, as before, there wasn’t a drop left of his internal spiritual energy; only, the Saint Spiritual Stove seemed to have recovered its original radiance.
There were already not many left of the cultivation pills Lin Xin gave him. This time, Long Hao Chen didn’t take one, and simply sat cross-legged, calmly, entering a meditative state, paying careful attention to the fluctuation in his Saint Spiritual Stove.
Soft, deep, vast. After his consciousness entered his Saint Spiritual Stove, he immediately felt these three sensations.
Previously, he could not feel any spiritual energy circulating in his Saint Spiritual Stove, but now, he could see drops of a gold-colored liquid.
These bright droplets were small, but were extremely striking, in the middle of this milky-white Saint Spiritual Stove. These golden droplets had the size of grains of rice, but what surprised Long Hao Chen indescribably was that these golden droplets were actually in a completely liquid state.
Liquid spiritual energy?
Could it be that after using the skill [Sacrifice], I accidentally reached the state of having my spiritual energy liquefy?
Unconsciously, Long Hao Chen started to cultivate accordingly to his previous training methods.
Because there was no internal spiritual energy left in his body, his speed to feel the fluctuations of the external light essence was a lot slower. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that he had his Scion of Light physique, so his light element affinity was far beyond comparison to ordinary people’s.
The gentle external light essence started to enter Long Hao Chen’s body, as he immediately noticed that he didn’t need to urge them at all. This light essence seemed as though it had found a sort of source, as it quietly headed towards the Saint Spiritual Stove before directly merging with it.
The Saint Spiritual Stove’s reaction was serene, simply emitting a bright shine from its milky-white body.
Inspecting the interior of his spiritual stove once again, as expected, Long Hao Chen discovered that the light essence, which had been absorbed and converted into a drop of gold-colored liquid, had turned into a part of the spiritual stove.
Because the light essence absorbed from the air was extremely thin, it could hardly compare with a true drop of liquified spiritual energy, and as a result, this rice grain-sized drop of liquified spiritual energy didn’t show any reaction at all.
However, this didn’t affect Long Hao Chen’s excitement at all. Without the slightest hesitation, now that he had really managed to refine liquid spiritual energy, the next question was how he was going to strengthen it, as well as how he was going to make it come out from his Saint Spiritual Stove.
Thinking up to this point, Long Hao Chen took out a Spiritual Gathering Pill, used for cultivation; it was the name he gave it personally.
As soon as he took the Spiritual Gathering Pill, Long Hao Chen’s blood was aroused, and suddenly, his body’s reaction to the external light essence in the air was greatly increased.
The Spiritual Gathering Pill was a pill of the Fourth Tier, and as such, one needed to have reached the fourth step to take it. Although Long Hao Chen had lost his internal spiritual energy, his body was still that of a Grand Knight of the fourth step. His meridians absorbed the energy of this pill without any rejection.
Naturally, after taking the Spiritual Gathering Pill, his absorption speed of the external light essence was greatly accelerated. This light essence in the air was absorbed from all directions, directly passing through his pores and entering his body to be immediately absorbed by his Saint Spiritual Stove.
The current Saint Spiritual Stove was like a bottomless abyss. Regardless of how much light essence Long Hao Chen absorbed, it swallowed everything. The only change that appeared was that the golden color emitted by the Saint Spiritual Stove’s body started to gradually strengthen. The liquid spiritual energy also started to show signs of amplification.
Just like that, Long Hao Chen was completely immersed in his moment of cultivation. This cultivation moment was dull and uninteresting, but it brought him an intense sense of satisfaction to be able to stack these droplets one after another. This aspect was something common to all vocations.
In a flash, three days had already passed. During these three days, aside from eating, Long Hao Chen was completely immersed in his cultivation state. He told everything about his present cultivation to Ye Hua, who seemed to not understand completely in what kind of state he was.
Then, he silently waited for Ye Hua’s instructions. To Ye Hua, what happened was certainly a good thing, and although he didn’t know what kind of subtle mysteries surrounded the Saint Spiritual Stove, Ye Hua wished to see Long Hao Chen in this kind of state. Yes! In addition, how could the growth of the Scion of Light be controlled by others?