Chapter 278: The Youth in the Cold Palace
Translator: Cynthia Editor: KLKL
The towering palace looked solemn and majestic.
Emotionless god guards stood at each side of the palace gates like sculptures. They looked tiny compared to the tall and grand gates. Looking into the palace through the vermeil palace gates that were open wide, one could see no end, only gates after gates.
The palace was empty. There were no guards on patrol or maidservants coming in or out.
The floor of the palace was made of burnished blackish gold slates. Under the sunshine, the glittering surface added to its luxuriousness. In comparison, the stone carvings along the road were unadorned and simple. The lifelike images on the stone carvings depicted devils in the haunted night. The devils all looked ferocious, vicious, gloomy or cunning.
The whole palace was extremely silent. No sound could be heard, but anyone in it could sense an unspeakable pressure.
Even the blood fiends didn’t dare to utter a sound, but were only crouching at the top of the wall quietly.
Deep in the spacious palace and under the dome, a youth with long hair trailing over his shoulders was sitting at the high throne silently. The dense patterns of blood spread from every corner of the hall to the high throne located at the center of the hall.
The youth looked gentle and frail. His eyes were closed, and his face was pale. The most arresting part was his long hair that flowed to his waist, the ends of which were as white as snow.
He was Bei Shuisheng, the well-known Sick Tiger of tje Blood Nation.
No sound could be heard inside the palace. Only incenses were burning.
The youth slowly opened his eyes. His dark pupils were placid and deep.
Suddenly something black flew inside the palace. It turned out to be a vigorous goshawk with dark red eyes. The goshawk landed on the long desk in the palace and spitted out a red blood ball.
The young man forced a smile. His pale face made him look even frailer. He left his seat and walked to the table. His loose black robe that dragged on the floor was spotlessly clean.
"It’s so inconvenient without message trees," the youth murmered.
The Blood of God had been trying to create their own message trees, but achieved no success so far.
There were huge differences between blood spiritual force and elemental energy. Therefore, the message tree couldn’t be used in God Nation. Previously, someone proposed to make use of elementalist captures to re-enable the functioning of message trees, but taking confidentiality into consideration, the proposal was denied. Now in Blood of God, letters were usually passed by blood birds, which was a very primitive method compared with the message tree.
The Avalon of Five Elements had a history of more than one thousand years. In this aspect, the Blood of God was still weak in its foundation. Even though in terms of fighting capacity, it was not inferior to the Avalon of Five Elements at all, there were still gaps in other aspects.
Bei Shuisheng had ordered to increase manpower on this, but so far the progress was still slow. He himself was clearly aware that it was useless to push them anyway. The message tree was the result of many years of study and another few hundred years of improvement.
If there was anything in the Avalon of Five Elements that could compete with the Cultivation Era, the message tree must be one of them.
The Blood of God even tried the paper crane that was utilized in Cultivation Era, but compared with message trees, its efficiency of message delivery was still slower. Although the paper crane was not a perfect choice yet, it was still usable in the context that the creation of message trees in the Blood of God was slow. After all, blood spiritual force was also spiritual force, and could power the paper cranes without limitation. The key problem was materials.
However, at the moment, blood birds were a safer choice.
Bei Shuisheng raised his hand and touched the blood ball with his pale and thin finger, and the blood ball immediately transformed into a bloody light and merged into his body.
Bei Shuisheng closed his eyes and read it carefully. After a while, he opened his eyes and laughed out gently, "Lesser Avalon of Five Elements? How did they think of it? But it’s a good idea anyway. Interesting."
He began to write something fast at the table. Before long, he finished writing and folded the letter carefully. The goshawk flew in front of him and swallowed the folded letter before it spread its wings and flew away.
The goshawk was like a signal indicating the start of a day. Afterwards, blood birds kept flying in and out, bringing various matters to his table.
He stretched himself first before devoting himself to work. His reading and writing speed was fast, and the instructions and comments he wrote were short and concise. The whole process was as smooth as flowing water.
After about two hours, he stopped and rubbed his temples, looking tired and exhausted. Then he stood up and walked down from the high throne to stretch him limbs.
The work for today was done. He could take a rest.
The sunshine was cast on the ground from outside the gate, drawing a clear-cut boundary between light and shadow behind the gate.
Bei Shuisheng stopped and sat down in the shadow absent-minded. This was his favorite daily activity. He only spent two hours dealing with his work every day, and for the rest of the day, he would look outside the palace like this.
He had ordered to open all the gates so that he could look out.
Gates after gates. He could see no end of the long blackish gold slate pavement and the stone carvings. The outmost gate in his eyes was only the size of a sesame seed.
The outside world was the same size as a sesame seed to him too.
He rested his chin in his hand, and looked at the outside world fascinatedly. Sometimes he smiled with some expectation, as if something interesting occurred to him.
The high dome roof behind him was cold and lonely.
…...
At Swordsman Training Hall in Peace City.
Fu Yonghao was impatient. Why did they have to watch two kids fighting against each other? He couldn’t bear to stay here, even for one more minute.
The war lasted for three years, and many things were different from before. The cruelty of the war was pressing on everyone’s heart like a mountain. Under such pressure, the pace of life had become much faster. Whether it was training or life, it was no longer what it was like in those years.
In the past, an elementalist who had attained elemental externalization could be counted as a master-hand. Nowadays, however, the number of such elementalists had more than tripled compared with three years ago. Everyone was practicing desperately and spared no efforts to find shortcuts to a higher base level. Blood crystals, elemental food…anything that might be helpful to training had already been studied so many times by numerous people.
In troubled times, your strength was the only thing you could depend on to survive. Those who fell behind would only be eliminated.
To be eliminated meant death.
But since Big Sister didn’t say anything, no matter how impatient Fu Yonghao was, he dared not make any trouble, as he always regarded her with reverence and fear.
The confrontation ended up in a draw. Su Qingye and Zhou Wen first used up their elemental energy, and then their physical energy. Neither of them could accept such a result, but the only thing they could do now was sitting in the sandpit weak and limp and glaring at each other in fury.
Having announced the result, Lou Lan looked towards the group of people and said, "Nice to meet you. Welcome to Swordsman Training Hall. Anything I can help you with?"
Fu Renxuan, who was relatively older in age, asked, "Is Mr. Wang Han here? We heard that this training hall was opened by him and we are here to visit him."
"I’m sorry. He is having a rest, and may not be able to meet you." Lou Lan expressed his regret.
Fu Yonghao had been bored to death for too long. Hearing what Lou Lan said, he immediately became angry, "What does that guy want to do? How dare he send a sand puppet to…"
"Shut up!" The lady stopped him harshly.
Fu Yonghao ducked his head at once and dared not say anything else, although his face was still filled with anger.
The lady bowed slightly to Lou Lan and said, "I sincerely apologize for my brother’s rudeness."
"It’s alright" Lou Lan shook his head, "But my master cannot meet you indeed. Would you please come again next time?"
"If that’s the case, we will pay a visit some other day."
The lady was very polite. Then the rest of the crowd left after her.
As soon as they stepped out of the training hall, Fu Yonghao couldn’t help murmuring, "Big Sister, do we have to do this? It’s simply a shabby training hall…"
The lady’s face looked dark, "Yonghao, if you continue like this, you will get into trouble sooner or later!"
"Same old story." Fu Yonghao whispered disapprovingly.
Then the lady turned to Fu Renxuan, "What do you think, Renxuan?"
Fu Renxuan was a modest person. He thought for a while and said, "Although the two students were not skillful enough, their swordsmanship is rather exquisite."
A streak of disappointment flashed across the lady’s eyes. Although Fu Renxuan was sober and modest, his ability was only mediocre and could hardly take over the family business. Meanwhile, Fu Yonghao was too irritable and flippant. If he could not change his character through hardship, he could hardly achieve any success.
It was a pity that she herself was a female.
"One of them is an earth elementalist, and the other a metal elementalist. The earth elementalist had no sand puppet with him, but could utilize the sand in the sandpit to motivate his sword moves. The metal elementalist was using a soft sword, but if you took a closer look, you would see that his sword movement was drastic and he apparently used it as a heavy sword. The sword was a soft sword, but his moves were heavy."
Having heard Big Sister’s analysis, the impatience on their faces was gone.
"Whether it was sand sword and soft sword, the sword gleams were very clear. But did you notice that there was hardly any fluctuation of their elemental energy. Besides, taking their elemental energy level into consideration, I have to say that the duration of their confrontation was too long."
Fu Renxuan’s face became solemn, "After Bis Sister pointed it out, we do realize so."
Fu Yonghao was unwilling to admit so he said, "They are just two kids. Do you have to treat them so seriously?"
Big Sister replied, "The tiny elemental energy fluctuation and long confrontation duration indicated their high efficiency in the usage of elemental energy. What kind of person cares about the usage efficiency of elemental energy? Only those who have been in actual combats many times. Therefore, it seems that their teacher, Wang Han, must be a person of superb swordsmanship and has abundant real combat experience. Besides, this person is also good at fishing artifact remnants, but chooses to dwell in such a remote and unknown city. He is not simple at all."
"You are right," Fu Renxuan agreed, "we have never heard of this name either."
The lady suddenly said, "Yonghao, you also practice swordsmanship."
Fu Yonghao was a bit confused at first, then he was a bit excited and asked. "Why? Do you want me to test his ability?"
"No." she shook her head and said, "You will bring money and gifts to the training hall and learn swordsmanship from Wang Han, starting from tomorrow."
These words shocked everyone present.
Fu Yonghao almost couldn’t believe his ears and stammered, "I, I go to the training hall…"
"Yes." The lady nodded and said indubitably, "This Wang Han’s swordsmanship is excellent. You must study hard from him."
Fu Yonghao was vexed, "Big Sister…"
"I have already decided."
The lady said without looking back at him.
In the Swordsman Training Hall, Ai Hui woke up with a start.
Face looking pale, he stood up, walked to the mirror and took off his clothes.
The blood plum flower on his chest became hot and more beautiful.
"Ai Hui, it’s transforming." Lou Lan was standing at the gate, and his eyes were glittering. Then he passed a leaf to Ai Hui and said, "News from the message tree."
Ai Hui put on his clothes and took the leaf. Danger flickered in his narrowed eyes.
With the Dragonspine in his hand, he strode over to his azure wings.
"Lou Lan, I’ll be going out for a while."
"Okay, Ai Hui."