Astral Dragon Monarch

Xin swiftly expelled her invading sāi from Shen body as they left the cave and prepared to go their separate ways.

They had both achieved a lot today.

Shen had gotten a hundred mundane tier sāi shards for free without doing any work, and Xin had made a new hobby of stalking Kai.

Seeing the mysterious boy advance just like that was sort of exciting for her.

She even secretly planned to come here tomorrow so she could watch him some more.

Shen, meanwhile, stared at the sunset in the distance. The sky was painted in a reddish orange hue, and the scene was breathtakingly beautiful. On earth, he had never seen a sunset in his life. The giant skyscrapers and light smog always blocked his view, so this was literally his first time seeing the sun set.

'I thought it was supposed to be as beautiful as in the movies.'

The sunset was honestly a disappointment for him. Soon enough, the sun disappeared over the horizon, and an eerie darkness covered the land. Come to think of it, he had nowhere to sleep.

"Damn it all..."

"If you don't have anywhere to go, then you can stay at the Blazing Valor sect."

Xin interrupted his train of thought with a cute smile on her face.

***

Sheb ended up following Xin Chun to the tall hill the Blazing Valor sect was located atop.

It was high enough for him to properly view the entire province. On the eastern side of the province, everything was in absolute ruins. That must have been where the horrid creature had rampaged through before coming to the southern middle belt areas and dying by Xin's hand.

Xin secretly stole a glance at him, and opened the sect gates.

It was late at night, and the gatekeepers would be busy in their cultivation.

"Welcome to the Valor Palace."

"Mmn."

Shen nodded his head in silence as he took in the sight around him.

Tall pagodas were standing here and there like slumbering giant sentinels, and beautifully crafted statues were placed in strategic locations.

The ordinary houses were breathtakingly well crafted and nothing in the entire enclosment was short of beautiful.

Xin was inwardly proud, as she stole a glance at the jaw dropped Shen.

"It's impressive, right?"

Eventually, they arrived at a small building crafted out of a mysterious lusterless obsidian black material.

It was so smoothly cut, that Shen could have sworn that it had been cut with a lazer beam. The material had a strange feeling to it too, almost like it was pulling him towards it.

Curiously, Shen reached out to graze the surface of the wood with his finger.

The wood was calling him touch it.

To graze the surface.

To hold it's lusterless, black edge.

One little poke wouldn't hurt, right?

"Don't!"

Xin's voice rang in his ears, breaking him out of his pseudo trance.

"That is from the branch of the ancient sāi devouring tree. Just being close to it sucks someone's Qi reserves almost dry."

Sheb raised a brow in confusion.

"And you guys used it to build a house?..."

If something sac that dangerous, why would they use it to build a house?

"Why..."

Before he could voice out his question, Xin interrupted him.

"I'm sure you want to ask why we used it to construct a building right? Well, its because it sucks the sāi out of someone. When you cultivate in a place within the influence of the sāi Devourer, you would have to work four times as hard as a person cultivating under ordinary circumstances. Now, if someone is already used to working four tines harder than an ordinary person under the sāi Devourer's influence, how quick do you think they would advance their tiers, were they to cultivate under normal circumstances?"

Kai silently nodded in agreement as her explanation actually made a lot of sense.

With their sect members forced to cultivate while their energy was being drained by the sāi Devouring tree's branch, then their cultivation speed would skyrocket once they cultivated outside of its influence, as they were already used to cultivating extra hard.

''It's genius ...''

***

Shen and Xin soon arrived in front of a majestic pagoda made entirely of the black branch of the sāi Devouring tree. Its various floors of different sizes all had their roofs made of gold, and the dragon statues by its side made the whole thing have a reverend, even almost holy, mystical look.

Xin glanced at the floors of the building, letting her eyes linger on the first floor for a bit, before she sighed softly and turned to face Shen.

"This..."

She eyed the top floor once again, as if checking to see if someone was there watching her.

"This is the Throne of Valor."

***

To be honest, Shen was speechless about the whole thing.

It was the kind of feeling one would get if they were invited to the Emperor's palace or went to visit the prime minister.

Xin touched the surface of the door with her palm and channeled her sāi to it's surface, making it creak open and reveal a long passageway. The spiraling staircase above their heads must have been at least a hundred feet in height, because Shen could not see its end no matter how hard he peered into the long tunnel like entrance.

Heck, merely looking at it alone gave his skin break out in goosebumps.

However, it seemed like Xin felt no such thing,... or at least she was already used to it and it no longer affected her, as she nonchalantly strolled into the dark passage like she was walking into her house.

Well, she WAS walking into her house, technically speaking.

"Come in, let me introduce you to my father..."

She added as a throwback.

Shen meanwhile, stood rooted to the floor.

"I'll have to meet her father so soon?!"

In all honesty, he would prefer to fight beasts, instead of meeting Xin's dad and dealing with whatever they would inevitably have to discuss.

'The dad of the jade beauty should be very powerful and damn scary...'