"Aren't you going to tell me, what you intend to find in the Sacred Ruins?" Long Feng asked again, but Qingxuan remained silent for a while, and the responded with a counter question.
"Rather than hear my uninteresting reason, why don't you tell me what drives a man like you, with your companions to risk your lives to enter the Sacred Ruins?" He said calmly and turned his gaze to Long Feng.
"Sigh. Liu Chang, Lan Xue and I formed this team years ago, when we were members of the Purple Heaven Guild…" For the first time, Qingxuan saw melancholy on the man's face, as he pointed to the crest on his shoulder.
"One mission. That was all it took. Everything came crushing down after that. We were ambushed, lost the life of the one we were supposed to protect. The Raging Blade Dojo, who were on the receiving end of the mission didn't take our failure lightly…"
His face revealed a deep sense of sorrow.
"We were ostracised by the guild. Lan Xue's clan was pressured and threatened with war for her to be released into custody, but her clan branded her a rebel and ostracised her immediately.
Liu Chang lost his brother in an assassination attempt, and as for me, the leader, they gave me a fate worse than death. How do you punish a man who was not scared of death?" Long Feng's hand that was holding onto the porcelain glass cup shivered.
Qingxuan sighed. A fate worse than death.
"You take away what he loves most.. They took away my wife and my kid.." A tear dripped down his face.
"If I can get my hands on a valuable treasure within the Sacred Ruins, I can exchange for the lives of the my wife and kid." The thought and hope of seeing his family again brought a smile to the man's face.
"Liu Chang wants to grow stronger to avenge his brother, while Lan Xue just wants to be accepted back into her clan.. So we all have our reasons.." Long Feng had probably turned sober after narrating their backstory.
Qingxuan watched him from the corner of his eyes and exhaled gently.
"The Sacred Qi Dwelling." He mentioned it once and took a sip, never to speak about it again. That was the main reason why he was embarking on the quest. He needed it urgently to complete his soul symbol, to grow stronger to start a new life and to give Aunt Lin the life she never had. Those were his motives..
Long Feng raised a brow.. "I see. The Sacred Qi Dwelling should indeed be in the sacred ruins, but something as precious as that would be located in the depths of the ruins.."
He remembered a crucial piece of information.
"And the depths of the ruins will definitely be guarded by powerful demonic beasts.. It'll even be tougher than the beast horde we faced yesterday.." He added.
Qingxuan nodded slightly. The battle was just going to get tougher from this point on. He needed strength. Enough strength to make his dreams of building a wonderful new life for Aunt Lin a reality.
*
Three days later ..
In a small cave, a bare chested figure was seated on his knees, palms resting on his laps. His black and white hair was sprawled all over his handsome face, but the upper portion of his face, above his nose was blindfolded with a thick layer of black cloth.
By his side, what looked like a traditional saber, a katana like blade rested in a wooden scabbard. It's grey hilt was worn out and faded, and the rectangular cross shaped hilt was cracked on one end. It was a rather regular blade, nothing profound or special about it.
He sat there like the statue of Buddha until a ray of sunlight fell onto his visage. He rose up slowly from the ground, and grabbed his blade.
He walked into the open ground. Taking in a deep breath, his gaze turned sharp. His feet smashed into the ground heavily and then he moved. His body exploded forth with incredible force and the began to utilise his martial arts.
He shifted onto his toes, held up his fists and began to skip into the Bai Jong stance. His feet turned into blurs and kicked out with incredible speed. The air itself seemed torn apart, as multiple whoosh resounded. He executed multiple impossible combos at lightning speed, leaving no interval or space between his kicks for a counter.
He whipped into a corkscrew and then spun into a 360 degree kick that snapped a tree into two and sent splinters flying into the distance.
After about 5 minutes of constant kicking, he paused, standing still in the sunlight. He had achieved perfect mastery of the Shadow Severing Kicks. Qingxuan sighed. Was he strong? The answer was relative. Long Feng and the others saw him as a monster. Some rich young master from some big shot clan.
If only they knew that he was this strong to this point, all while only having broke through to the sixth layer of Body Tempering.
His cultivation was the weakest amongst them, but his divine eyes and mental energy seemed to be able to bridge the small gap between them, allowing him to fight on a higher level. But that was just him being modest.
To put it in fair terms, the half symbol seal alone, and the fact that he possessed mental energy provided him with an attack power that was half step into the Earthly Yuan Realm.
Taking his mental energy out of the situation, the derived techniques from the Dragon-Tiger Manual, his godlike archery skills and his enhanced perception provided by the Divine Eyes was enough to allow him to battle above his realm.
His only problem was stamina. His sixth level of Body Tempering could barely sustain him in a drawn out battle if he was going all out.
Example, if he was to go after Long Feng and his gang, in full confrontation, he would be able to take all three of them in battle, which was a heaven defying feat, but he'd not last long enough to take out all three of them, unless he resorted to tricks.
To Qingxuan and to any experienced fighter, that was a glaring weakness that could be exploited to put him in disadvantageous situations in battle.
But Qingxuan wasn't complaining. Not when he knew that without his divine eyes being so effective with Yuan power, all the mind blowing techniques he could use would've been useless because of his low cultivation
Of course, he'd fix that glaring weakness in time.
To Qingxuan himself, his strength was still not enough, no matter his perfect his combat abilities looked. Perfection was the cancer of growth. He needed more strength. Mu Jiang Rong and the other clansmen he was going to face in the warrior's selection weren't weak.
Mu Jiang Rong himself was already half step into the Earthly Yuan Realm, yet he was not the strongest. Qingxuan sighed. He'd need more than good movement techniques and kicks to take these guys down.
First on the list was to acquire the sacred Qi dwelling and become a 1st Seal Symbol Master. That way, he'd be actually equivalent to battle a bonafide Earthly Yuan Realm expert with just his mental energy alone.
His Dragon Tiger Manual also needed polishing. After all, he wasn't going to fight against everyone present with only mental energy.
He held the saber at the guard in a reverse grip with his left hand and crouched into a low stance. His muscles stretched taut, like a divine tiger ready to pounce on prey.
His left hand holding the sword stretched towards his back and then he held up his right hand in a sword like seal.
"Crouching Tiger Stance…" Qingxuan remained in that pose for several minutes, embodying the essence of the Divine Crouching Tiger.
The moment he moved, his body was like an
arrow that had been released from the bowstring.
In the Dragon Tiger Divine battle, the crouching tiger after entering into this stance could move with an explosive force that could shatter space itself.
But Qingxuan was barely on that level yet. His 1st step shattered the ground beneath his feet as he moved.
His body spun like a whirlwind, as the saber slowly unsheathed from the scabbard.
SLASH!
SLASH!
The blade seemed to cut through the air itself as it soared with incredible lethality. Qingxuan incorporated the essence of the Wind like Foot and the Sky Trace Phantom
Steps to create a saber technique that was fast, precise and lethal.
The foundations of his technique were simply speed, precision, lethality and unpredictability.
He danced through the air, combining acrobatic movements with slashes that mimicked the attacking ferocity of the Divine Black and White Tiger. Purple black streaks of pure Yuan power and wind accompanied his every move.
The blade spun in his palm certain times, and he seemed to shift from reverse grip into normal grip to be able to execute lethal strikes.
The last thing he had comprehended from the Divine Tiger, was the Crouching Tiger's Divine Will. The Divine Tiger's will was a technique that combined the Divine Tiger's Aura and Yuan power into a slash that could rip a hole into reality.
Qingxuan had seen the Divine Tiger use it as its last move, hence he had tried gaining insights into it.
He grabbed the scabbard and sheathed the blade at his back, the he focused. He had only learnt one thing from the Divine Dragon.
From the manual, as the Divine Dragon soared from the Heavens to meet the Tiger, it executed seven godlike steps that seemed to shatter reality itself. Space and time compressed itself to allow the Divine Dragon to simply appear where it wanted to. The essence of the technique was far more difficult to comprehend compared to the will of the Tiger..
But Qingxuan bore the eyes of Heaven itself, hence he managed to do what no one had done before, comprehend the essence of the Dragon's movement into a technique known as Azure Dragon's Seven Divine Steps. This wasn't just an ordinary movement technique.
It was both a battle technique, and a movement technique. But up to the point, he had yet to even crack initial mastery into the first step.
"Dragon Stirs within the skies- Azure Wake.." This was a short explosive step that could allow him to traverse distances in the blink of an eye. Qingxuan obviously had yet to reach there, but even at this stage, the level of speed and agility to could use from this technique was more than ten times greater than the Wind Like Foot and Sky Trace Phantom Steps combined.
Purple black streaks of Yuan power ripped past his skin and then he moved.
An afterimage nearly formed behind him, as he nearly disappeared to the naked eye. He was so fast, his body was like a blur of purple and black, running, flipping, vaulting through the forest at insane speeds.
He returned back after a while and stood there quietly with his eyes closed.
KA-CHA!
"I've broken through again." Qingxuan resisted the urge to smile. He was now at the seventh layer of Body Tempering. He sat down on the ground, looked into the skies for a while as his lips curled up into a small smile.
And then he turned his gaze to the side. Long Feng and Lan Xue were busily cultivating just like he was. The only reason why he was here and they weren't was because of privacy. After here he planned on joining up with them.
Qingxuan watched them carefully, until he spotted a rather tall figure whose torso was wrapped in bandages and cloth walk out of the tents like a zombie.
A/N: This is going to be quite the lengthy novel, so you guys are gonna have to be patient with me.