Once Upon A Time, There Was A Spirit Sword Mountain

At the Small Clear Sky Peak, the trio of Wang Lu, Little Ling’Er, and Wen Bao made a beeline towards Azure Dragon Gorge without stopping.

From their last experiential learning, nearly all the available challenge points had been taken by them. Thus, they couldn’t attempt them again because the quests for earning challenge couldn’t be taken twice by the same team. Even if they did the peerless mode, they could gain nothing significant from doing these quests all over again, not to mention they now had a superb foreign aid; it was already impossible for them to get challenge points.

Therefore, their objective for this trip was clear, and the first among these objectives was to acquire battle experience to stabilize his newly attained cultivation level. Wang Lu had completed the eighth layer of Non-Phase Sword Bone and has now entered the Qi Cultivating Stage. He was now standing on a completely new level, but before he could continue to take the next step, he needed to solidify his foundation. The best way to solidify his foundation was to participate in actual combat, and the best way to do this was to combat the best opponent. In addition, there was no better opponent than a large number of category three monsters at the Azure Dragon Gorge. Only by fighting against these series of opponents could Wang Lu effectively have his “experiential learning”.

The second objective was to harvest the precious rare medicinal plants at the Azure Dragon Gorge like the Red Refined Fruit, Golden Thread Grass, Wailing Ghost Rattan, Flesh Mushroom… If he could get his hands on them, Wang Lu wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity. Perhaps the herbs at the Small Clear Sky Peak didn’t seem too valuable to a peak Yuanying Stage Elder, but towards the pair of poor Master and disciple of the Non-Phase Peak, these herbs were a not-to-be-missed large sum of money.

There was neither surprise nor danger on their journey, and within a day, the Azure Dragon Gorge was already in their sight.

The Lady Boss was somewhat astonished. “Not bad, you two. No matter what, this Clear Sky Peak has always been hard for those disciples doing their experiential training, but you guys didn’t even break a sweat… Especially you, dead fatty. I never thought you could run.”

While gasping for breath, Wen Bao ruefully thought, “Of course I can run! At the previous experiential learning with Senior Brother, I’ve survived a week at the Azure Dragon Gorge, but I spent the last two days with nothing but running. Run. Run. Nonstop running! Although it didn’t reduce my weight, my physical fitness progressed by leaps and bounds.”

Wang Lu indifferently said, “This is the third time for us here, so there’s nothing strange if we walked a bit faster. However, at the Azure Dragon Gorge, the road is not that good, so we still need a lot of Sister Ling’s help.”

With that, he earnestly cupped his fist and bowed towards the Lady Boss.

Little Ling’Er wrinkled her nose in discomfort. “I always knew you had an evil intention from the start… Nevertheless, don’t expect too much from me. I am just a mortal world’s martial art master; I couldn’t be compared to your honorable Jindan Stage Master.”

“Sister Ling is too modest.”

“Humph, think whatever you like. But, when you encounter a real danger, don’t just point at me for help. Otherwise, at most, I could only burn incense for you.”

With that, the three people entered the Azure Dragon Gorge. Inside, the gloomy atmosphere enveloped all around them.

Little Ling’Er trembled. “Wow, what’s with this hostility? It’s like we’re the public enemy number one… Logically, the Monsters in the Azure Dragon Gorge are all territorial. As long as we don’t invade their territory, they won’t be too aggressive.”

Wang Lu laughed. “Perhaps they’re in heat [1], so they’re relatively hot-tempered.”

Inwardly, he said, “The truth is, more than a week ago, in order to earn challenge points, Wen Bao and I put a laxative in the upper reaches of a major water source in Azure Dragon Gorge. Thus, through trickery, we earned the achievement of sending many beasts to madly dash away, and got five hundred challenge points as a result for that. But this infuriated a lot of them…”

Little Ling’Er was unaware of all of that. “Never mind, I don’t expect this to be a smooth sailing in the first place… You lead the way, and I’ll guard the rear. Fatty, you’re in the middle, but don’t let your guard off; since Wang Lu has chosen to bring you with him, please make a contribution too.”

Wen Bao tightly held the heavy and rough black iron sword on his bosom and nodded.

Then, with Wang Lu as the lead, from the entrance, they went deeper along the slender canyon. But, halfway through, they detected an intense monster’s aura above the precipice.

“This aura… looks like it belongs to Little Thunder?”

Wang Lu looked up, and, sure enough, between the two canyon wall above them, a two-meter golden-colored beast was baring its teeth at them.

More than a month ago, this Little Thunder was living a leisure life in the Azure Dragon Gorge when a pair of vicious and cruel Master and Disciple broke through his lair and took away some of the spirit grass that decorated its cave. Moreover, they even broke two of its legs! Two weeks ago, that damn disciple, with the help of the fatty, once again rudely barged into its cave and took the remaining spirit grass; they even put it into a serious coma! Fortunately, a few days ago, there was a thunderstorm, which helped it heal its injuries. Now, as soon as it smelled its enemy, it immediately rushed to the canyon to take revenge!

The villain’s strength wasn’t strong. Although the Little Thunder was severely wounded at that time, it was still able to severely bite the villain’s hand. However, the villain was full of tricks; he actually applied a never-before-seen venom on his body! Although Little Thunder failed the last time, but now, it wouldn’t give the villain a chance to display his trickery; it would immediately use lighting to roast him to death!

Little Thunder opened its mouth, and a spear-like ray of light directly charged towards Wang Lu’s throat. It was much faster than anyone’s reaction time!

However, it seemed like Wang Lu had predicted such a move. Upon seeing the Little Thunder, he immediately held his hand up in front of him a split second before the Little Thunder opened its mouth! The next moment, Wang Lu was able to completely block that lightning strike. The lightning spattered in all directions, and innumerable tiny electric sparks wormed for a moment before completely dissipating in the air. Only a little scorch mark in Wang Lu’s palm was left… but before long, even that scorch mark had also disappeared.

Upon seeing this, the Little Thunder was immediately startled. Although this was just a “probing” attack, just the lightning alone was enough to kill category two middle-rank monsters. Even a monster with a strong defense like the Stone Wood Ape wouldn’t take such a lightning strike lightly. However, after more than a week, how could this villain change so much?

Unfortunately, although Little Thunder was quite cunning, it was not good at thinking. The doubt in its mind was soon drowned by anger. It opened its mouth again and began to charge even more energy; its innate ability quickly helped it gather countless electric sparks from the surrounding. If someone stood tens of meters away from it, that someone could still feel the tingling on their skin.

Its destructive power wasn’t proportional to its size. This was one of Little Thunder’s two trump cards.

And the other card was… Just as the Little Thunder had enough energy and was about to blast out an unprecedentedly intense lightning, with its powerful hind legs, it jumped upward, and then it dropped from the sky along with that powerful lightning towards Wang Lu like the lightning strike of a divine tribulation.

This was its second trump card: changing its attack direction. Although it was simply a combination of the amazing explosive power of its hind legs and its lightning attack, its effect in practical combat was very effective. Many monsters and cultivators doing experiential learning have been caught unprepared with this combined strike and thus suffered injury.

“Senior Brother, watch out!”

The fatty’s alarmed voice came a bit late. When he tried to warn his Senior Brother of the danger, the Little Thunder had already pounced down on Wang Lu as gravel and dust flew everywhere! The fatty clearly saw that Wang Lu was at the center of it all, and had been directly hit!

“Senior Brother!?”

The fatty was petrified. That lightning strike was not inferior to the thunder strike from a few lower level Foundation Establishment Inner Court’s Senior Brothers. However, his Senior Brother Wang Lu has just entered the Qi Cultivating Stage; no matter how strong his body was, it still has its limit! Moreover, he was caught off guard. How could he survive this strike?

“Senior Brother, oh Senior Brother, you’re too full of yourself. Even if your cultivation has just entered a new level, in the end, you’re still at the beginning of the Qi Cultivating Stage, and still needs to be careful in the Azure Dragon Gorge. You had reminded other people countless times, so how could you be so careless? And this Lady Boss is just standing there indifferently; what good is she as your bodyguard then? What’s more, when you’re in distress, there’s still a smile hanging on her face! What’s so funny about that!?”

At this time, after Little Thunder had shown its two trump cards, it was catching its breath. However, seeing the dust from the spot where it attacked rose up to the sky, it proudly wagged its tail… Let alone a Qi Cultivating Stage cultivator, even a lower level Foundation Establishment cultivator could have a serious injury if not careful! By now, the opponent might’ve already been smashed to pieces.

However, when the dust settled again, in Little Thunder horror-stricken eyes, it saw Wang Lu lifted his right hand. His right palm had been horribly mangled and blackened by that thunder strike, but at the same time, the broken tissue started to heal itself with such a terrifying speed that it was visible to the naked eyes. In a few moments, the blackened skin and rotten meat fell off by themselves, and new tissue grew back to replace them.

A lightning strike that was enough to turn a category two monster into dust actually only caused an insignificant damage to this guy! It couldn’t even penetrate his bone! Even more terrifying thing was, this guy’s reaction speed was too fast; he actually could keep up with its second trump card: changing its attack direction!

Actually, Wang Lu obviously couldn’t keep up with the attack change, but he didn’t need to… Since he had successfully broken through the eighth layer of the Non-Phase Sword Bone and fused the Jade Pillars with the Spirit Root’s external barrier, he became very sensitive to the subtle change in the surrounding spiritual energy. Little Thunder’s attempt to make a number of confusing actions like baring its teeth, staring at him, and shaking its legs to disrupt the opponent’s judgment and concentration before its last attack was all fruitless. Regardless of how its performance was, the whirl of the spiritual energy caused by the monster’s power did not lie. In Wang Lu’s eyes, the Little Thunder was like a child being invited to the stage by a magician; while the magician entertained the child, the child didn’t know that its underwear was already seen by everyone.

Thus, no matter how it tried to cover its attack, Wang Lu would always be able to see through it, and thus easily block it.

As for the lightning strike injury… It truly was terrifying; it deserved its title of category three lower rank monster. If he were just a common cultivator, that previous direct lighting strike would’ve burnt half of his body, and even lower rank Foundation Establishment cultivators would find it hard to resist such an attack.

However, the pain from that injury only made him slightly frown, and it didn’t hurt his bone at all; this was the other interesting part of the Non-Phase Sword Bone.

In addition to the improvement in his conventional defense like “copper skin and iron bone”, Wang Lu clearly felt that his body now had a strong resistance towards lightning, fire, ice… or any elemental damage. In the terms of a professional adventurer, he now had a high resistance!

In addition to the boost in defense and recovery speed, the Non-Phase Sword Bone had given him amazing resistance. Although a direct bite from Little Thunder could still seriously hurt him, Wang Lu could actually resist its strongest attack, the lightning strike. However, after experiencing that super spicy mustard sauce, the fear of biting Wang Lu had perhaps gone deep into its bone, so it would never dare to try that again.

Therefore, after hesitating for a moment, this monster decided to retreat. It didn’t want to fight with this humanoid monster.

At the same time, Wang Lu realized that his opponent was about to turn tail, so he immediately dashed forward and tried to pursue. Unfortunately, the Non-Phase Sword Bone was good in anything but speed. Just as Wang Lu tread a few steps, the Little Thunder had already turned around and ran tens of meters away. It climbed the canyon wall and was about to disappear between the jagged rocks. Neither Wang Lu nor Wen Bao had the ability to chase it.

However, although Wang Lu couldn’t stop the Little Thunder, someone else could.

“Heh, want to run?”

The girl, who was silent all this time, suddenly sneered. She flicked her hand and shot a piece of gravel, which flew like a meteor towards the monster! Like a flying sword, it was both fast and accurate; it hit the Little Thunder right between its legs on its very delicate part. After uttering a short high-pitched wail, that lightning monster fell down the cliff without even so much a whimper.

It happened in a blink of an eye! Although the Little Thunder wasn’t known for its physical strength, as a category three monster, it has, at the very least, “copper skin and iron bone”, so no ordinary Xiantian Stage martial artist could cause it serious injuries, even with their weapons… However, the Lady Boss just needed a piece of stone and did the “one-hit-kill”!

Upon seeing this instant “one-hit-kill” skill, the other two people’s countenances turned pale, especially Wen Bao, who even tried to hide behind Wang Lu.

Wang Lu inwardly cursed, “What are you hiding for? Although she’s a ball-breaking female demon, she’s not going to do it on you! Just don’t cross her, okay!”

“But, anyhow, I wonder if the Non-Phase Sword Bone’s later level has a method to train me to have iron balls… Although Master is a female, she should take care of her own sensitive parts, right?”

However, the culprit, the Lady Boss, didn’t seem to realize the gravity of the evil thing that she just did; she looked back towards Wang Lu and Wen Bao and said, “What are you two staring at? Come on, let’s go!”

Looking at the gentle and pretty face of the Lady Boss, Wang Lu suddenly felt his so-called diamond body was actually still insignificant!

…

[1] Oestrus Period