Blue Phoenix

Hui Yue was once more seated within his chambers in the castle belonging to Wan Qiao. He spent all his extra time cultivating. He felt that for every day he spent cultivating, he got closer and closer to the King rank which was his current goal on his long journey of cultivation.

Unlike his previous experiences, the spiritual energy sea was not close to overflowing, nor were there any sensations of his cultivation pressuring the opening of the upper dantian; instead, The more energy drops he created, the more the sea swelled, but despite this the gate to the upper dantian was still locked. Frowning, Hui Yue understood that it was not enough to just cultivate. Although cultivation was important, insights were equally important, and Hui Yue came to the conclusion that he needed to reach a higher rank was enlightenment. He needed insight on his path of cultivation.

Sighing, he stood up from the bed and stretched his sore body. He had been cultivating for quite some time already, but just now he came to the conclusion that to breakthrough would require insight. Knowing this, he decided to go to the training grounds and train his physical body.

The training grounds were now completely empty. All the guards had moved outside of the city, causing Hui Yue to have plenty of space to himself. With a wild howl, Hui Yue felt his body starting to creak as he grew noticeably and fur sprung forth across his body. His face turned into the face of a wolf, and his blue eyes slowly turned red. His hands turned to paws, and his nails turned into razor sharp claws. Looking at the transformation, one could imagine just how much stronger the young man was afterwards.

Being in his wolf form was something Hui Yue had not done for quite awhile because he had needed to spar with anyone. He Started his training by running. Hui Yue once more started to feel the comfort of making his muscles work. Working his muscles, Hui Yue couldn’t help but smile. Anyone who saw this would be terrified because really instead of saying he was smiling it was more of a merciless and incredibly sinister grin.

Running for two hours straight, at first slow but slowly picking up his pace, Hui Yue felt ecstatic. This was what he liked having his strength balanced.

Suddenly, Hui Yue felt a sharp pain in his forehead, and he had to sit down as the world around him turned black. A dizzy spell appeared, and the world seemed to float. The ground was suddenly above him, and Hui Yue was nauseous about to vomit.

Having sat still for what felt like hours, but in reality was only around a few minutes, everything slowly returned to normal. Hui Yue opened his eyes with a sinister grin on his wolf-face.

Hui Yue wanted to gain insight into what it was that would allow for him to open the upper dantian, however who would have guessed that he had just been blocking himself this whole time. As soon as he started running and felt comforted from the balance of external and internal strength he understood that it was exactly this. That Wu Wei was a balance. One needed to balance himself with the world, one needed to become one with the world.

To become a real expert, to become a deity, one needed to turn into nothingness. One needed to become a perfect balance of energies.

‘Well done!’ Lan Feng’s excited voice was heard in the mind of Hui Yue, and the young man himself started smiling widely. Although he now knew how to unlock the upper dantian, he still had yet to unlocked it. Looking around, Hui Yue rushed back to his room and sat down on the chair allowing for his consciousness to enter his inner body. He appeared in the lower dantian from where he slowly made his way through the middle dantian towards the upper dantian.

Standing at the entrance to the upper dantian, there was a massive gate. A gate where nine different orbs of fire were carved into the door. As soon as Hui Yue touched it, the gate seemed to vanish, to turn into golden streaks of light. These golden streaks all entered the room behind the gate.

With a pounding heart, Hui Yue stepped inside only to feel a gentle warmth surround him. In front of him was a pedestal, a pedestal on top of which a golden sun was rotating. Rays of golden light were constantly being emitted warming anyone inside the dantian cave.

‘That is quite a significant amount of Wu Wei you have there,’ Lan Feng said with a satisfied nod, ‘You managed to refine some earlier not to mention the energy you absorbed from the Divine Flower the Deng Family gifted you.’

‘This is incredible,’ Hui Yue said. His eyes shining with excitement as he finally broke through the bottleneck into the King rank.

‘It is, but you will need to work harder from now on,’ Lan Feng warned. ‘To refine energies, you need the spiritual energy in your dantian; however, you also need one more thing. You need to merge that spiritual energy with both the Yin or Yang energies which can be found in the world around you.’

‘Did you ever wonder why you look so much like a girl that even Deng Wu was hitting on you back when you were a kid?’ Lan Feng asked. Hui Yue could feel the excitement within the phoenix, and he saw a happy smile on the lips. This was clearly something the phoenix had wanted to ask for a very long time, however it seemed it wasn’t the time to do so before now. He had held it in for eighteen years.

‘Why did I look like a girl?’ Hui Yue asked, startled. He asked partly out of curiosity and partly because he wanted to play along with the bird within him.

‘When you and I merged our souls, some of my energy entered your body.’ The phoenix started, his voice was low as he spoke slowly; the grin on his face grew. ‘I was a Saint, so I had plenty of both Yin and Yang energy,’ He continued, ‘Yin energy is easier to cultivate by women. As a man you need to cultivate in a specific way to be capable of refining Yin energy, however Yang energy is easiest to refine as a man; you can easily refine it.’

‘However although it is easier to refine you need to make sure that you always have a balance of yin and yang within you. These energies need to be balanced, and the more balanced they are, the more one can merge with the world. When you become one with the world, your body will be changed. You will no longer have the body of a mortal, but you will have the body of a deity; a body created purely from Ancestral Worldpower.’

‘When we merged our souls, some of my power entered you, and the power which entered you was all the Yin energy I had within me. As you might have noticed, although I am a Saint, I am weak compared to many of the others. This is because all my Yin energy is now within you.’

‘Giving up this energy caused my own energy to become unbalanced, however you are more important than my strength. While working together like this, you will be able to return me to my original body. At that time, I can start cultivating once more. The most important thing is to defeat An He, I will have no more regrets in life only after he has been defeated.’

Hearing this, Hui Yue was greatly shocked. That this phoenix was actually willing to give up his own strength for Hui Yue sake caused him to be greatly moved.

‘But just because you have my Yin energy, it is not enough for you to reach the Saint rank,’ Lan Feng warned, ‘The Yin energy will at most be sufficient to raise you to the peak of the King rank, and even then it might now be that much. What you should do is slowly refine Yin energies at the same time as you refine yang energies. Eventually, you will be able to break through into the ranks of a God.’

Hui Yue nodded his head solemnly as he understood what Lan Feng was saying. ‘Which way is the easiest to refine Yin energy?’ Hui Yue asked curiously, and the phoenix instantly shook its feathers in a pleased way. He always loved it when he could prove that he was indeed a beast who had lived for a very long time already.

‘The easiest way is to sit outside in the moonlight and refine the essence of the heavens and the earth. Now that your upper dantian has been opened, you will be able to subtract Yin and Yang energy from the essence. Another way to get Yin energy is to rely on medicinal pills. There are some which contain Yin energy. That is the most used way as it is far swifter than refining it yourself. You can also find an incredibly cold area; the colder the area, the stronger the yin energy will be.’

‘Hmm, I see.’ Hui Yue mumbled. He would have loved to have some medicinal pills, but, sadly, he had none with him, nor did he have any way to obtain some currently. As far as he understood, the beasts rarely bothered with pills. They considered it cheating, which was also one of the reasons that the beasts usually were stronger than humans of the same rank.

Sighing deeply, Hui Yue stretched his back as he accepted that once more he needed to work hard. Having just broken through, Hui Yue knew it was time for him to examine his body thoroughly. Spreading out his hand a small ball of golden energy appeared within, less than a second after having called forth the energy.

Unlike spiritual energy and Qi, Wu Wei did not travel through his meridians. It would instantly vanish within the upper dantian and reappear wherever it had been summoned to. It could be the ball in his hand, or could be a palm above his head, or perhaps the golden Wu Wei wings which were currently resting in his lower dantian.

No matter what Hui Yue tried, the Wu Wei was so swift that the young man’s eyes were filled with admiration and happiness rose in his heart. He was finally a King ranked expert. He had finally stepped into the world of strong cultivators!

Just as he was about to train a bit further he heard knocking on the door, and he instantly stopped what he was doing. He steadied his breathing before he opened the door. Outside was the smiling face of Wan Qiao, and in her arms was sheet after sheet of paper, all of which had information on both the front and the back.

“Here you go,” She said proudly as she stuffed all the papers into Hui Yue’s arms, “It took me forever to do this, but now I’m done, so you better prepare to read a lot. If you skip as much as one paper, then I will not be happy!” She said before she turned around and lazily waved at him, “Time to get some sleep,” She mumbled as she rushed back to her chambers.

Standing in the doorway, Hui Yue felt a headache coming. Within his arms was document after document filled with information, but now that they had been stuffed into his arms it was obvious that they no longer laid in the order they were supposed to be. The young man had to fix this before he could start reading the documents and learn about the Saints. Then he could decide who would join him during the war and who would stay behind.