Blue Phoenix

“Lord, I wish to receive that attack of yours!” A voice boomed throughout the grounds, and both the cat and Hui Yue looked at the speaker. The speaker was a tall One-Horned Eagle, clearly a beast from Wan Qiao’s army. He seemed to have the same rank as Hui Yue and the previous opponent.

Seeing this, Hui Yue was calm. With a gentle nod and a curious look, he allowed for the next expert to ascend to the stage. This expert was not certain whether or not the cat lost on purpose, but to him, it did not matter. What mattered was to feel new extreme attacks, to understanding how others fought and learn from their understanding. This was a highly skilled expert, one amongst many in this group of guards.

As the One-Horned Eagle headed towards the arena, everyone was watching intently hoping to see the net attack once again. Hoping to try and understand what it was.

Hui Yue knew that the threads of Qi alone would not be enough to fully block a beast core. While the eagle was making his way to the stage, Hui Yue called forth one strand of Qi after another merging them with the blue cloud. As it left his fingers, he skillfully knitted it all together until he once more stood with a blue net in his hands.

The eagle stood in front of him with a look of respect. He bowed deeply to the Grand Marshall. Looking at the eagle, Hui Yue instantly understood that this guard was not someone here to prove that he was better than either the cat or Hui Yue; he was here because he wished to experience the attack Hui Yue had shown.He most likely had never seen anything like it before and wanted to use this opportunity to experience it for himself. Hui Yue, having merged with the monk, was incredibly calm. Seeing an expert with such an eagerness for extreme attacks such as this one made Hui Yue feel pride in the men who were under him.

“Please attack me,” The eagle said as he stood straight in front of Hui Yue. “I will not move. I wish to experience the attack myself.”

Having said that, Hui Yue nodded his head, and two moments later a bright blue light appeared in an instant and vanished just as quickly. Right after a thud could be heard as the eagle collapsed to the ground. His eyes were filled with astonishment, his mouth quivering.

“It truly is magnificent!” He said with astonishment in his voice. His eyes were filled with disbelief, and he quickly accepted Hui Yue’s hand as the white-haired young man withdrew the threads of blue Qi from within his beast core.

Once again, the Emperors were incapable of understanding what just happened, but they could see that this eagle was clearly astonished, that the attack was completely unexplainable. Looking at both the cat and the eagle neither of the two seemed wounded, yet both of them instantly admitted defeat the moment the bright blue light appeared. Both seemed to have been without power as they collapsed on the ground. Just what kind of amazing attack was this? None of them seemed to understand.

“Thank you for allowing me to experience this attack,” The eagle said with a bow as he slowly made his way down the arena with Hui Yue following behind him. He no longer needed to experience his other attacks, he had already tried out the one attack he was most curious about, the others he could experience later on.

As he stepped off, he nodded towards the Emperors and slowly made his way back to the city gate. He returned to his room to prepare for the following day.

Having left behind the sparring arena, the guards slowly returned to their tents. Some started cultivating their inner energies while others went to the arena to spar and hone their techniques.

Soon the news spread about how Hui Yue won two sparring matches with only one attack and both matches had the same result. This Grand Marshall was someone no one really understood. His real strength became a topic of much conversation. His attacks became the stuff that legends were made from. Although no one, apart from the ones who had experienced the blue cloud’s power, really knew what the attack did, everyone assumed that it was an attack which could defeat anyone he used it against. Only Hui Yue knew that it was only it was efficient towards opponents of his strength or lower. Just as he knew it was only efficient in this manner, he also knew that it was hard to actually successfully use the attack.

The cat was surprised by the speed of the transformed Hui Yue, which allowed for the younger man to use the blue net successfully The second man was standing still, allowing for Hui Yue to directly attacking him.

As the guards were motivated to train, Hui Yue was busy in his room preparing the training the guards would undertake the following day. After hours of work, his eyes roamed across the paper in front of him, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

Moving to the floor, Hui Yue sat in front of his window. It had taken him the rest of the day to prepare for the following day’s exercise, and as he sat in the light of the window the sun was soon replaced by the moon. Hui Yue once more started absorbing the essence of the heavens and the earth. He sifted the Yin energy from the essence allowing it to enter his upper dantian and merge with the Yang energy that was already there.

Feeling all the energies enter his body, Hui Yue had a sly smile on his face. His eyes were closed as he enjoyed how the energy flowed through his meridians and refined itself before it slowly entered the lower dantian. Hui Yue decided that he wished to speed up the refinement process, and not just wait for the cultivation technique to do all the work. So he forced large portions of the essence of the heavens and the earth through his meridians constantly rotating it through his body. After entering every meridian, the color of his Qi turned very white. This action continued until the Qi was pearly white with a lustrous shine to it.

While Hui Yue focused on refining Qi, his cultivation techniques were also working overtime. Both the one in the lower and the middle dantian. Surprisingly enough, a copy of Hui Yue had not appeared within his upper dantian. It seemed that refining the Yin and Yang energies was something which had to be done manually.

The copy of Hui Yue that existed within his lower dantian was constantly absorbing the essence of the heavens and the earth and sending it through the meridians to refine it. At the same time, the copy within his middle dantian was constantly absorbing one thread of Qi after another refining it further into liquid drops of silver energy which fell into his spiritual energy sea. His spiritual energy sea was ever so slowly rising.

While these two dantians were under constant refinement, Hui Yue’s inner energies had swelled after he reached the ranks of a King, but his Wu Wei was a completely different matter. Wu Wei could only be refined from combining Yin energy with Yang energy. Sifting the Yin and Yang energy from the essence of the heavens and the earth was something Hui Yue had to do manually. As he did his cultivation base rose; however, when he was not paying attention to those energies his upper dantian would not refine any energy on it’s own.

Manually sifting the energies, Hui Yue noticed a tranquil feeling envelop him. With his newfound control over the blue cloud, the cloud once more billowed outwards. The cloud surrounding him increased the density of the essence of the heavens and the earth around the white-haired young man by a few times making it possible for him to sift through more Yin energy as he soaked in the moon’s gentle light.

This night went by as many other nights had. The young man was completely absorbed in his training, and as he was not paying attention to anything two shadows suddenly appeared behind him. Both patrolled the room before they once more disappeared into the shadows not leaving a trace of having been present.

Hui Yue woke up the following day feeling incredibly refreshed. However, he was slightly disappointed with how much he energy he cultivated during the night. It felt like such a minuscule amount and that it would take forever for him to break through once more. Although he had skyrocketed from the first star to the eighth star, Hui Yue was now finally getting to know exactly how much Yin and Yang energy was needed for him to advance a star. Not only did he need an astonishing amount of Yin and Yang energy, but he also needed to have a basic understanding of how to balance all the energies in his body. This was something he had never attempted before, and balancing energies was no easy task.

A King ranked expert would constantly increase his Qi and spiritual energy. Although his main energy now consisted of Wu Wei, he still refined both Qi and spiritual energy while refining Wu Wei. These energies were also important to keep balanced.

Balancing one’s energy meant that one had to keep the Qi the exact same consistency as it was previously, just because one reaches a higher rank did not mean they could take it easy and refine the Qi any slower or less pure than they had before. The was the same for spiritual energy as he knew that both energies would easily become unbalanced if he were to slack even the least bit. If even the slightest bit of the energy was not refined as purely as the previous energy, it was likely that an imbalance would occur. If this happened, then it would be even harder to advance.

Maintaining a balance of the different energies in their body was a reason why it was hard for Kings to advance to the Emperor rank Although Kings were rare, they were far more numerous that Emperors. To become an Emperor one needed to maintain a perfect balance of energies. At the same time, they needed to have the patience to refine all the Yin and Yang energies, and merge them slowly making their way through the bottleneck.

As Hui Yue woke up, he was disappointed that he was incapable of refining more Wu Wei during the day. But at the same time he was disappointed, he was also acutely aware that he had already been given all the assistance he could wish for from his previous life. Although Hui Yue felt that his cultivation speed was not fast, it was without a doubt faster than any other cultivator currently. If anyone experienced his pace, they would be filled with a joyous expression and not the discouraging expression which was currently on Hui Yue’s face. The young man was far too spoiled by the monk’s abilities.

With a sigh, Hui Yue stood up and decided not to spend anymore time thinking about the balancing of his inner energies. Instead, he went to his desk where he picked up various papers. After looking through them all with a frown, Hui Yue nodded his head. All the documents were present and after storing them, Hui Yue left his room. He headed outwards towards the city gates.

It was too early in the morning for the city to be bustling with life; instead, it was filled with bakers, messenger boys, and other people who were working in the early morning. Striding through the empty streets, Hui Yue was filled with excitement thinking about how the army would react to his training. He hoped that the guards could be trained into soldiers, but everything rode on the training he created for them. With a smile on his face, the young man rushed through the city towards the outside where all the guards and the commanders were waiting for him.