Blue Phoenix

Clasping his hands in greeting, Hui Yue gave a slight bow to the two cloaked beasts which were following behind Sha Yun, as he slowly made his way towards them.

“I am glad to see that the two of you were willing to lend me your strength. I promise to make this trip worth your while.” Hui Yue was speaking with a smile on his face as he led the three beast sisters into the mansion itself.

“As long as you are within my mansion I can guarantee that no one will treat you disrespectfully,” Hui Yue continued, as he showed the mansion and the surrounding areas to the two guests. “I would suggest that you stay around the mansion the majority of the time. It will be risky for you to enter the city alone, however if you truly need to enter the city then make sure to wear your cloaks. They will grant you a margin of safety.”

Having said so much, Hui Yue went to the second floor where there were three rooms next to each other which all shone with a warm light emitting from within. The middle room belonged to Sha Yun, yet the snake-woman rarely used her own room, as she liked to sneak into Hui Yue’s.

As long as the sisters were living in the mansion, Hui Yue granted the three of them full access to the second floor, while he himself resided on the first floor. The sisters were allowed to move anywhere within the mansion and every servant had been ordered to tend to their every need.

Shui Wu and Bing Niao were both deeply shocked by the care which they were being shown, as they used to only experience the sort of humans who tried to hunt them down or try to hurt them. To these two beasts humans were all but toys and food.

“I imagine that Sha Yun already explained the plan to the two of you?” Hui Yue asked, as he showed the two sisters around the entire compound and both sisters nodded their heads, eyes wide as they focused on observing their surroundings rather than listening to Hui Yue’s words.

Although they did not pay much attention to Hui Yue, they still nodded at his question. A sly grin appeared on his face, as he started to whistle and moved back to the stone garden where he once again sat down and entered meditation. This caused his body to rise a few centimetres above ground, allowing for the silvery hue to shine from his soon to be sweat soaked skin.

….

“How come you have not hired any assassins lately?” A voice rang through the frozen mansion and Zhong Fai turned his head only to see a handsome youth walking out from behind one of the ice pillars, which his ice castle was built upon. The handsome man was wearing only a pair of trousers and shoes, his upper body being completely bare showcasing his ripped chest, as well as his white hair, skin, and eyes..

Looking closely one would be able to see that this man was truly not white skinned, nor was his hair white, but everything was covered by a layer of frost. His eyes were not white, but they had long since become the colour of a dead man’s. Looking at this youth who at first glance seemed handsome would scare anyone upon closer inspection.

Looking at the frozen young man an annoyed sigh escaped Zhong Fai’s lips, and he shook his head slightly.

“There is no need to send any more for now,” He said dismissively, but the young man showed no interest in settling with such an answer.

“Why not?” He asked curiously as he c*cked his head slightly, “Did you not say you wanted to temper him? You can’t be soft on him just because you like him more.” A pout appeared on the frost covered face as he continued, “Look at me. This is how all your attempts at tempering youngsters go.”

A slight laughter escaped from Zhong Fai as he nodded his head in agreement. “To be honest, I did actually go over the line,” The living man said, “I sent a Silent Raven after him.”

“Seriously?” The frozen man asked as his jaw dropped down, agape. “So he will be joining us soon?” He asked hesitantly. At first he had been joking about the new kid dying, but it seemed as though Zhong Fai never learned from his previous mistakes.

“The reason I don’t dare send any more assassins is because he killed the Raven.” The man seated on the ice throne finally sighed, causing the handsome youth’s jaw to drop even further than it had done previously. To kill a Raven was no easy task.

“I see,” He grumbled for a while. “When do you plan on picking him up?” He finally asked.

“I won’t make him a part of my Frozen Brigade,” Zhong Fai said with a great smile on his face, “I want this one alive, so for now I will watch him grow. In a few years I will go and pick him up.”

Shaking his head, the frozen man looked at Zhong Fai as though he was looking at a dumb child, pity and disbelief filling his eyes. Although it seemed as though he wished to say other things no words escaped his lips, and he instead turned around leaving the main hall of the ice castle, constantly shaking his head and murmuring something to himself.

….

Back in Riluo City, the tension had reached an all-time high as the City Lord finally started to move against the Wang and Deng families. All the main families were barring their teeth at each other, each faction spending their savings on hiring extra guards from the commoner families and also they used their wealth and fame to recruit the noble families who had yet to decide upon which faction they wished to ally with.

While all the older generations of the factions were busy recruiting, Hui Yue was busy laying plans within his home. He would frequently have guests visiting him, some came with information while other came to get information. Everyone soon knew that Hui Yue was housing three high ranked humanoid magical beasts, yet no one dared to mess with them as they were guests of Hui Yue. Even though two of them were yet to be bound by a beast contract, no one wished to make yet another enemy during this time of war, instead they were left alone as they refused to choose a side.

Wang Ju Long and Deng Wu were the two guests whom Hui Yue saw most often. As they came to visit and chat with the beasts, they acted as though the whole situation in Riluo City was none existent.

Hui Yue enjoyed getting those visits, and he could not help but feel excitement grow within him, as he looked forward to the battle which was to come.

Officially Hui Yue had not allied with either of the sites, yet Hui Yue already knew exactly what he would do during the battle, and he had been spending a lot of time to thoroughly consider how to accomplish this task.

Hui Yue had always loved the ancient history of his old world, and the plan which he was going to implement whenever the battle broke out was one which he had created with inspiration from the ancient greek myths.

Ruminating over thoughts like these, a sigh escaped Hui Yue’s lips as he felt a few drops of water land gently on his skin, signalling a huge downpour, which started momentarily after. Looking at the downpour, Hui Yue managed to clad himself in flames, evaporating the raindrops before they managed to land on him, yet while doing so it was impossible for him to continue training his Metal affinity within the stone garden. Because all his attention was focused on managing his Fire affinity instead.

Looking at the cloudy sky, Hui Yue allowed for a sigh to escape his lips as he made his way into the mansion. what he was met with made him stare with his jaw fallen.

In the middle of the mansion was a courtyard and this courtyard had an open ceiling allowing for both sunshine and rain to enter. Upon entering this courtyard, Hui Yue expected that it would be deserted as it had started to pour down.

Looking at the courtyard, not even a slight drop of water had hit the floor. Seated on some bamboo chairs were the three beast sisters and a wide array of the servants were waiting for them and complementing their amazing powers.

Above these three beast sisters was a giant blue orb filled with water, and by looking at it Hui Yue noticed that it was the same type of orb which Shui Wu used to entrap unwanted guests within in her clearing.

This blue orb was absorbing every single drop of rain, allowing none to slip past it, keeping the courtyard and people within dry.

Having the beasts within the house, Hui Yue felt how the servants at first had been slightly nervous, and at the same time very curious. Eventually the curiosity won out against their fear and the servants quickly found that these magical beasts were not only intelligent, they were also very human-like when one got to know them.

The three beast sisters had been provided with medicinal pills from Hui Yue, as payment for their willingness to help with his current endeavour.

Although Hui Yue was providing medicinal pills to his friends and now also these magical beasts one has to remember that the price for these pills was astonishing. One of the Qi Congregating Pills alone was enough to pay the salary for a teacher at the Royal Academy. Medicinal pills of lower quantities were more widespread, but their usage was also far below that of the higher grade pills.

Although Rong Liang was a City Lord even he had problems purchasing high grade medicinal pills. All the alchemists within Riluo City were of the lower ranks and even they set an extravagant price for their lower grade pills.

The reason why the Royal Academy had such a large quantity of these pills was because they belonged to the Royal Family. The Royal Family employed all higher ranked alchemists. For the City Lord to purchase the pills he would need to pay an even higher price than the students at the academy did.

For Hui Yue to purchase pills in these quantity was because he did not have to worry about his income too much. His entire income was for the sake of providing himself and his friends with pills.

Doing this was a thing which made all his friends stare at him with wide eyes and beating hearts. The few high grade medicinal pills which their families owned were all used on their family leader or the elders as none of them had reached the Saint rank just yet.

These magical beasts did not know the true value of the pills when considering the money spent to buy them, what they did understand, however, was that these pills were many times more effective than the raw medicinal herbs they would eat inside the forest.

Having bought that many medicinal pills throughout the years, along with buying a big mansion made Hui Yue’s wealth plummet. He went from being as rich as the Deng family to now only be as rich as the average noble family within Riluo City.

This, however, was still a great amount of money for anyone, especially someone who only spent money on his servants’ salary and medicinal pills.

“Milord! Milord!” A servant rushed through from the front gate his breath ragged and his clothes soaked from running through the rain. Hui Yue instantly turned towards the young man who had run in, and within his hand was a black memory stone with a few signs of mist floating around.

This servant was one of Gao Yan’s most trusted men, and Hui Yue quickly accepted the stone before he placed it to his forehead.

‘Tomorrow is the day of new beginnings,’ Said a voice within Hui Yue’s mind. A voice which Hui Yue recognized instantly as Deng Tsang Ying.