Blue Phoenix

As the guards led Hui Yue back to his chamber, none of the three spoke. It was obvious that the two guards were curious as to why Hui Yue was summoned, but neither of them asked, and Hui Yue did not say anything.

As he returned to his chamber, a nod was given to the two guards and without a word, he stepped inside his room. Usually, he would have gone to his bed and started to cultivate, but instead, he moved towards the desk and sat down.

‘Don’t worry too much about this war,’ Lan Feng said with a concerned voice. He could feel the enormous pressure onto Hui Yue’s shoulders, and he wished to help the young man feel better.

‘Wan Qiao is strong, and she has so many experts within Shenyuan it was only a question of time before she jumped into this war headlessly. Now we can use it to strengthen our bodies, improve our cultivation, and also become slightly better at planning battles and surviving in the most dangerous environments.’

Hearing this, Hui Yue could not help but nod. The phoenix was telling the truth. It was indeed obvious that Wan Qiao was very decisive in wanting war. That the war happened sooner than she originally planned because Hui Yue appeared was something which neither of them could do anything about.

Being quiet for some time, Hui Yue took up the pen and with beautiful calligraphy he wrote down thirteen terms.

The Calculations or Laying Plans

The Challenge

The Plan of Attack

Position

Directing

Illusion and Reality

Engaging the Force

The Nine Variations

Moving the Force

Situational Positioning

The Nine Situations

The Fiery Attacks

The Use of Intelligence.

The Calculations had already been completed, and Hui Yue had rewritten it as ‘Laying Plans’. These were things one needed to know before one decided whether or not they were capable of partaking in a war against their opponents.

Hui Yue stayed awake all night. His eyes were focused, and his mind was busy remembering everything from the Art of War from long ago. He spent the time thinking and bringing it up in his memory, rewriting it here in a world so far away from the one Master Sun had lived in.

Hui Yue was secluded in his room for days, and he never once left the chair in which he sat while he wrote paper after paper on The Art of War. He was in a trance, his eyes fixed only on the paper in front of him, and his memories from his old life, memories about this book, flooded his mind.

Being in this trance, Hui Yue noticed nothing about how the day started and how it ended. He did not notice that he never moved from the chair. He had become a bridge between these two lives of his.

Having been focused completely on the writing, Hui Yue was not aware of how his body was absorbing the essence of the heavens and the earth, and only after laying down the pen, did he feel an increase in his strength. An increase so tremendous that even Hui Yue was greatly astonished and taken aback.

He had previously reached the ninth star or the Duke rank; however, this time, his cultivation base soared to the sky once more. It rose all the way to the peak of the ninth star, leaving him incredibly close to breaking through into the ranks of a King. His eyes gleamed in excitement, and his body was flooded with strong energies. His mood greatly improved compared to how it had been before.

Day in and day out Hui Yue had been busy building a bridge between the two worlds. This was not a natural remembering or reminiscing about the past. It was him returning to whom he had been back then, and to make a bridge like this evidently had significant benefits for the young man.

Although Hui Yue knew that the time from the ninth star Duke to the first star King rank was only one star, this one star required an incredible amount of hard work and countless days cultivating.

Standing up from the chair on which he had been seated for days, Hui Yue yawned deeply as he stretched his arms and tried to call his sore body to action. Seeing that he had still not been picked up, Hui Yue stood still within the room indecisive for some time. At one point he wished to go to the training ground and try out his new strength with the battles that were constantly ongoing.

Hui Yue, having reached the ninth star was now a late stage Duke. Now when Hui Yue transforms he should be a late stage King, something which filled him with excitement. Previously, he had been an early stage King, and even then he had been capable of beating any King he fought against. Was it then possible that Hui Yue, transformed, was capable of defeating an Emperor?

As soon as the thought appeared in Hui Yue’s mind, the young man laughed at himself with a mocking voice. What was an Emperor ranked expert? They were so close to the peak that only Saints and deities were above them. Although King ranked experts were strong, and it was rare for an early-stage King to defeat Kings of a higher rank, but it was far more probable than for a late stage king to defeat an Emperor. The difference was like day and night, as vast as the heavens and the earth. It was simply impossible for a King to defeat an Emperor.

Still, although Hui Yue was incapable of dealing with Emperors, his strength as a King was unrivaled, and Hui Yue, even in human form, was capable of defeating the majority of the King ranked beasts. Their mist energy was strong and able to rival Wu Wei; however, Hui Yue had mist energy of a King ranked expert, even if he was in his human body. For him, the beastly part of him was now as big as his human side.

Walking to the window Hui Yue looked out and saw that the training grounds were filled with people, every arena was occupied as guards from various places were fighting one another. Hui Yue shook his head a few times before he decided to leave the room because he too needed to train a little.

Previously Hui Yue had never truly trained his body before; however, since he entered the capital and met Wan Qiao, his focus had been on his physical training, and now that he no longer trained physically due to the many foreign guards around, Hui Yue could not help but become restless. His body was filled with energy which needed to be used, however, using it had not been possible since he had not been confident about his strength compared to these guards.

Now things were different, and Hui Yue left the room with decisive steps as he moved towards the training grounds. Today he was wearing a black set of training clothes, a short robe, and pants with small leather shoes on his feet.

Arriving at the training grounds, Hui Yue was astonished as he looked around. It looked like a sea of humans. All of them struggling to get anywhere, elbows were used to push their way through. Some of the beasts, the ones with wings, transformed into beasts and were flying in the sky. This made not only the ground but also the heavens above filled with beasts struggling to see the battles in the arenas, to participate in battles, or to just get out of the sea of human-beasts.

That was until Hui Yue appeared. The young man was not wearing the clothes of any of the guards, and his black clothes stood out like a sore thumb, but the young man didn’t show any attention towards the many cultivators. The cultivators around were all seemingly wary about this young man.

Looking around, Hui Yue went towards an arena where he noticed a king ranked expert had just been defeated, and as he made his way over there, the others slowly withdrew. They allowed for the white-haired young man to move as he pleased.

Hui Yue did nothing to mask his cultivation, and this caused great confusion amongst the other guards. His aura was that of a Duke ranked human, but his scent was clearly that of a magical beast. Not just one magical beast, but there were the auras of two of them.

Trying to guess what this young man truly was they all came to the conclusion that he was an expert hiding his strength, or just liked to confuse others about what he truly was. Seeing how they all paid attention to him a wry smile appeared on Hui Yue’s face as he moved towards the arena where he would always fight against the castle guards.

Within the arena was a tall man who was clearly a late stage King. A King, who knew how to battle against others. A large scar was present on his face. His eyes were narrowed, and his red pupils were anything but happy as they looked at Hui Yue.

“Kid, this is no place for you to play around,” He said with a harsh voice. “If you go into this arena, I will battle you with all my strength and looking at how frail you are pretty boy, you are likely to die within moments.”

Hearing the words, annoyance appeared on Hui Yue’s face. He knew that he used to have an effeminate face and that he now was quite androgynous. This was not something which truly annoyed Hui Yue, but hearing how this man used it as an argument to say that he could not battle, Hui Yue looked at him with serious eyes. While walking neither fast nor slow he make his way to the arena where he jumped up and landed on the stone surface.

“Thank you for your warning,” Hui Yue said slowly his every word heard by everyone who was looking forward to the battle in front of them. “Although you warned me, I cannot help but want to see just how skilled you are at fighting.”