Desolate Era (Book 6 - Book 10)

Northson turned his head to look at Ning. Ning still sat there in the lotus position, but he had stopped absorbing liquefied elemental essence. “Senior apprentice-brother should have made his breakthrough.”


Right at this moment, suddenly, a large amount of natural elemental ki from the surrounding area began to wildly surge towards Ning at an incomparably shocking speed. Moments later, this elemental ki ripple came to a halt. Ning opened his eyes. Laughing loudly, he rose to his feet.

“Congratulations, senior apprentice-brother. You have stepped into the Wanxiang level,” Northson said in delight.

“I made some tests just now. Indeed, it is as you said, junior apprentice-brother; upon breaking through to the Wanxiang level, the stars within the Zifu in my body truly do resonate with the countless real stars of the outside world. Once I begin to absorb the elemental ki of the outside world, the rate at which that happens has increased by many tens of times.” Ning laughed, but at the same time, he sighed in his heart.

If one wanted to create liquefied elemental essence, it would be far more difficult. If one wanted to do that, then one would need to do what Immortal Firedragon had done; set down a grand formation, then spend a long period of time converting the elemental ki of the natural world and distill it into liquefied elemental essence!

Thus, liquefied elemental essence was naturally, incomparably precious. Wanxiang Adepts and Primal Daoists would rather spend a bit of extra time in training than use it; extremely few were able to wantonly use vast amounts of liquefied elemental essence to rise in power quickly.

“Senior apprentice-brother, you broke through to the Wanxiang level; you should be lacking in suitable Earth-ranked magic treasures.” Northson laughed. “Earlier, we acquired a set of flying swords from that Northriver Zhou. It should suit you very well. This set of flying swords shall be your junior apprentice-brother’s gift to you for making your breakthrough, senior apprentice-brother.”

Ning was startled. “No, I can’t!”

Northriver Zhou’s set of flying swords? Indeed, it really was a set of nine Earth-ranked flying swords, and they were quite good as well, most likely high-grade Earth-ranked swords. Although the current core of his [Lesser Thousand Swords Formation], the ‘Nine Yang Sword Formation’, was comprised of top-grade Mortal-ranked swords, for a Wanxiang Adept…they were still vastly inferior to a set of nine quality Earth-ranked flying swords. The comparative price of these items testified to this as well.

Top-grade Mortal-ranked flyinig swords would generally go for a hundred taels of liquefied elemental essence, which was to say, around five kilograms. This set of Earth-ranked flying swords of Northriver Zhou, however, would probably see each sword going for nearly fifty kilograms. Since the nine came in a set, most likely if sold as a set, a price of five hundred kilograms or so could be fetched.

“Senior apprentice-brother. These flying swords are useless to me.” Northson shook his head. “This is my congratulatory gift…can it be that you are going to refuse, senior apprentice-brother?”

Ning looked at Northson, then smiled. “Fine, then. I’ll accept this set of flying swords.” The two were fellow disciples, and they were engaged in a life-and-death adventure together. Ning wasn’t going to be wishy-washy about it; only, he firmly engraved this moment into his heart.

Time slowly passed. In the blink of an eye, it had been half a month.

The clouds drifted forward in the sky. A dragon-headed warship was leisurely advancing. Up ahead, a spatial distortion could be seen, as well as cracks and tears in space. Beyond those cracks was a gray, blurry void. Although Ning and Northson had seen these things many times now, they still felt their hearts beat in fear.

The dragon-headed warship naturally stayed far, far away from these things. If they were accidentally trapped within these spatial distortions…Ning understood that given their current level of power, they would definitely die.

“This set of flying swords truly is sharp and dominating. It has an extremely strong murderous intent about it.” Ning stood at the helm of the ship. He stretched his right hand out, and around his right hand were nine finger-sized flying swords. These nine flying swords swirled around Ning’s right hand, constantly spinning…and occasionally spitting out sword-light. Ning was still familiarizing himself with this set of nine Earth-ranked flying swords.

Because he didn’t know the name of these swords, Ning described them as the ‘Northriver Sword Formation’. Both because it had belonged to Northriver Zhou, and also to constantly remind himself to be warry of other Immortal cultivators.

“Senior apprentice-brother, look.” Northson pointed towards the distance. Ning took a careful look. In the foggy distance, a warship was currently flying towards them. Upon seeing the shape of the warship, Ning immediately said, “This is one of the hundred who took part in the Raindragon Guard trial. This is the ship of the peak Wanxiang Adept named ‘Formless’.”

“Formless?” Northson turned to look as well. “It’s not going to be like when we met Northriver Zhou and the others, is it? There aren’t other Wanxiang Adepts hiding on his ship, are there?”

“Let me take a look.” Ning willed his divine sense to sweep forward, thoroughly surrounding the distant warship. Ning thoroughly investigate all the activities going on inside that ship. After doing so, Ning relaxed. “It’s not bad. Including Adept Formless, there are only two individuals…eh?” Ning’s face suddenly changed.

In that distant warship. The white-robed ‘Daoist Eastdawn’ and the gray-robed ‘Daoist Formless’ were also staring towards Ning’s distant dragon-headed warship.

“That dragon-headed warship should belong to that disciple of the Black-White College, Mu Northson,” the gray-robed Daoist Formless said.

“Judging from how leisurely they are acting, and how slow they are flying…I imagine they must have acquired the corpse of a Wanxiang monster long ago,” Daoist Eastdawn said.

“They are members of the Black-White College, after all.” Daoist Formless frowned, then shook his head. “It’s unfortunate. When we first entered the wild marshes of the Gaol Mountains, our luck wasn’t bad. We even killed a Wanxiang monster! But afterwards, ever since we acted against that Azure Skysnake, our luck has taken a turn for the worse. We failed numerous times. Three days ago, we were played for idiots by that Azure Skysnake, and the two of us nearly died there.”

Adept Eastdawn gritted his teeth. “The first time, we let her escape. The second time, after she discovered us, she actually played us for fools and let us fall into a trap. If we run into her again, I’ll definitely kill her.”

“Azure Skysnake?” Ning had a sudden thought. In the past, shortly after he had left the protection of his parents, he had gone adventuring in a region within ten thousand kilometers of West Prefecture City. He had battled numerous times with an Azure Skysnake.

After Ning had killed Ironwood Zhan, he had been unable to discover the corpse of the Azure Skysnake. Back then, he had suspected that it must have suddenly comprehended the ‘Void Blink’ technique and fled.

“Azure Skysnakes are still quite rare. In addition, due to their innate gifts, they generally grow quite quickly,” Ning mused to himself. “I wonder if the Azure Skysnake they met…is the same one I met in the Swallow Mountain region.”

“Junior apprentice-brother, let’s move towards them,” Ning said.

“Move towards them?” Northson looked towards Ning, who nodded. Northson no longer asked anything, instead moving the dragon-headed warship closer.

Ning stared into the distance. He wanted to learn more information about this Azure Skysnake from these two men. Since he had nothing to do during the next two-plus months in the wild marshes, he might as well go investigate and see if this Azure Skysnake was the same one he knew.





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Book 8, Chapter 21 - Meeting Again After Many Years