This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder

At a certain location several kilometers away from Luoyang, the ground was littered with the bodies of ten groaning men. Each one of them was holding their injuries in agony, and standing at the center of them was a humanoid figure wreathed in flames.

“Speak, why are you following after that carriage?” The voice was surprisingly soft but warped, hiding the gender and pitch of the flame-covered figure.

“We weren’t following that carriage!” One of the men said, groaning immediately after. He agitated his injuries on his chest by speaking up.

“Oh?” The flaming figure said. “So you just so happened to keep at a certain distance from that carriage for over five kilometers? How believable. If I happened to accidentally stomp and pop your head, would you believe me if I said it was an accident?”

The man who spoke paled.

The group had been following the carriage Leng Junfeng had taken. They thought that no one had noticed until a flaming man had landed in the center of the group and taken them all out. There was no doubt that the man was a grandmaster who used strange and unblockable spiritual attacks. How else would he have dispatched the two martial masters of the group in an instant?

“Wait, wait, wait!” Someone started to plead, causing the flaming figure to look towards him.

“I apologize. We were indeed following that carriage.”

“Leader!”

“Shut up! Do you not realize our situation? Even the master can’t defeat him.” The man turned away from his subordinate and rose to his feet with great difficulty. “We don’t harbor any malicious intent. Please believe me!”

“Then why were you sneakily following that carriage?” The flaming figure asked once more.

The leader of the ten men stayed silent before speaking. “We were tasked with the master to follow our young lady and protect her in secret. She ran away from home because she did not want to marry her fiance. The master tasked us with following her and then bringing her to the capital after the young lady was done with her tantrum.”

The flaming figure became silent. “…you weren’t tasked with assassinating someone?”

The leader and the remaining ten men looked horrified. “What? No! We are proud martial artists. We wouldn’t stoop so low as to assassinate someone. If we wanted to kill someone, we would have openly challenged them.”

The flaming figure stayed silent as its body began to grow blurrier and blurrier until it vanished like a fire that ran out of fuel, leaving the men to their own devices.

After a few minutes, the men began to get up and looked at their surroundings warily. “Leader, who was that?”

The leader contemplated for a moment before revealing his guess. “If my conjecture is correct, that should have been Flamefist Han.”

“Flamefist Han, that Flamefist Han?” One of the men asked with a shiver.

Flamefist Han was a martial grandmaster of great renown in the Li and Gu Dynasties. His claim to fame was his fist techniques that shrouded his hands and arms in fire whenever he punched, but what made him infamous was his notorious love for his descendants.

In the Gu Dynasty, there was once a genius with astounding fist arts. Should he survive, there was no doubt he would have become a martial grandmaster, but tragedy struck as that genius offended a noble family within the Gu Dynasty. As a result, the noble family sought revenge and killed that budding genius.

The protagonist of that tragic story was Flamefist Han’s grandson. Seeking revenge, Flamefist Han killed every member of that noble family, becoming an internationally wanted criminal. From then on, even after Flamefist Han went into hiding, no one dared to openly attack his clan, fearing the martial grandmaster’s revenge.

“Y-you don’t think that one of the passengers is Flamefist Han’s descendant, do you?” One of the men asked, fearing the answer.

“Should be,” The leader said. “Among the passengers, there is a young man that seems to be bursting with vitality.”

“Leader, you sure you aren’t mistaking him for someone else?” Another of the men asked.

“I’m not sure. Among all the grandmasters I know of, only he is able to cover his fist with flames. If he is indeed Flamefist Han, then his powers surpass the rumors. Not only is he able to cover his arms in flames, but his whole body too. And he knows some insidious spiritual attacks as well. No wonder that noble family fell.”

“Heh, at least we aren’t as unlucky as that noble family.” One of the men snickered but quickly paled as his wounds ached from his actions.

The relationships between martial artists and those of courts were never harmonious. The countries fielded a large army and, if they were willing, were able to defeat any lone cultivators. Granted, this was on the condition that it wasn’t a martial grandmaster capable of flight. In contrast, the cultivators had powerful individualistic strengths and posed large threats to rulers. It was a delicate balance where the dynasty wanted to regulate and control the cultivators, while the cultivators wanted to break free of those regulations.

“So, what do we do now?” A man asked. “Should we try to catch up the carriage? If we’re lucky, we might be able to track them again. After all, the carriage is traveling on the main road.”

The leader of the men took a moment to deliberate before nodding. “One of you should return and report to Master Wang. The rest of us should attempt to catch up. Make sure not to injure any of the passengers, understand?”

Unknown to the men, Fenghua was closely listening in on them with her spiritual sense. Flamefist Han, huh? Well, Junfeng has an identity he can impersonate now.

The flame-wreathed humanoid that had attacked the ten men was a construct formed from Fenghua’s qi. Her mastery of the true qi of burning will as a result of cultivating the Primogenitor Flame Scripture and her superior spiritual sense allowed her to dispatch the ten men quickly.

Having discovered the stalking men’s true purpose, Fenghua ignored them and caught up to Leng Junfeng. Following a carriage is so dull. Mmm, no more carriages, only training for Leng Junfeng from now on.

Leng Junfeng remained unaware of the horrors he would experience after leaving the capital.

Nothing of note happened until the journey of Leng Junfeng’s fourth carriage. After watching Leng Junfeng and his former fiancee team up, Fenghua quietly snuck after the fleeing bandits until they reached their base.

Once she discovered the base, Fenghua directly attacked. Amidst the screams of the martial warriors—the martial masters of the bandit brigade having already been burnt to a crisp by Fenghua—a three-tailed, red-furred fox walked leisurely through the cave the bandits made their base.

“Tsk, tsk. How poor.” Fenghua commented as she raided the bandit’s treasure stash. The piles of gold did not appeal to Fenghua at all. She’d rather have low-tier spiritual stones, a resource that major powers such as dynasties and great clans guarded and covet with utmost jealousy. Wars had started over spirit stone mines and low-rank ones at that.

“Hmmm?” Fenghua paused in her movement of storing all the gold into her spatial ring. Hey, currency was currency; being richer never hurt.

Hidden within the pile of gold was a red leafy weed that had melted the surrounding gold. Using her spiritual sense, Fenghua brought the red leafy weed in front of her and sensed the immense spiritual qi within. Hmm, from the records I read, the closest description that matched the attributes of the weed is a leaf of the legendary parasol tree that is tied with phoenixes. Perhaps it’s something mutated?

Fenghua continued to think deeper. If it was really mutated, then there has to be a reason. Something in the Allfist Realm was able to mutate a weed into having the properties of a leaf of a parasol tree.

The fox’s first thought wasn’t how to find it, but, As expected of the realm a protagonist-like person is born inside of. Perhaps Junfeng will discover the source at a later time and use it to make a breakthrough. Or maybe the source is an immortal treasure that will follow him into a higher realm!

Her second thought was, Ah. This wouldn’t happen to be his lucky encounter, would it? If he chased after the bandits, he would have discovered the weed and maybe used it for his cultivation. Did I just steal his lucky encounter?

Meh, finders keepers. The Wood Book of the Five Element Method is worth way more than this. He could give me half of all the treasures in the realm, and he would still owe me. So, I’ll accept this mutated weed as part of your filial duty to me, Junfeng.

Fenghua discovered some more junk aside from gold. Well, they were junk to her, but some of the things she discovered could be worths millions of tales of gold if properly appraised and put on an auction. The only thing that caught her eyes was still the mutated weed.

After raiding the bandit’s base, Fenghua left, but before she left, she set the surrounding area ablaze.

Watching the land being burned by her flames, Fenghua had a thought. If this were Earth, I’d definitely be called an eco-terrorist and major contributor to global warming.

The figure of the fox quietly slunk away with no one aware. When the officials investigated the matter, they did not find a hint of who committed the act, only the burnt corpses of the bandit brigade. In conclusion, they could only attribute it to the work of a grandmaster who was skilled in the usage of fire because there has never been a wildfire in the area.

Fenghua checked up on Leng Junfeng one final time before arriving in a mountain in the vicinity of the capital. She wanted to absorb the essence of the mutated herb as it was imbued with regenerative properties. If she did, her recovery would progress much faster.

Why didn’t Main Body learn pill concoction? Fenghua grumbled as she stared at the mutated red weed. Just like how cooking food made it easier to bring out the nutrients, so too did processing materials like the red weed increase their effects. Now I have to absorb the properties carefully. Who knows how long it will take?

Fenghua could attempt alchemy and extract the pure essence of the mutated weed, but the time it would take would be longer than absorbing the essence. Not to mention the danger of screwing up and wasting the mutated weed’s effect.

Fenghua retreated into a deep cave and set up some formations to keep outsiders out and protect herself before starting the absorption process. She directly swallowed the weed into her stomach.

Blegh!” Fenghua gagged at the bitter aftertaste even though she didn’t crush the plant at all.

Another reason for processing the materials is because most humans are unable to withstand the unprocessed essence of the material. Luckily, Fenghua’s body was originally that of an immortal level fox, and she cultivated the Primogenitor Flame Scripture.

It wasn’t apparent at first, but as time passed, a faint film of red began to encapsulate Fenghua’s fox form. Inside her stomach, the edges of the mutated weed were in rags as if caterpillars had gone and eaten the perimeter.

Slowly, the weed began to grow smaller and smaller until everything disappeared. And outside, Fenghua was no longer covered in a red film, but her fiery red fur became even glossier and as fine as silk. It was as if she had taken a shower and used shampoo and conditioner on her fur.

The human kind, and not dog kind. This point was very important to Fenghua.

Fenghua opened her ruby red eyes and stretched her limbs. She had stayed in the same position for six months now.

“Junfeng should have long arrived by now, right?” Fenghua wondered aloud.

Taking down the formations she had set, Fenghua stepped out into the midday sun. “Okay, let’s go find Junfeng…what if he isn’t in Chang’an?”

At the sudden thought, Fenghua felt a bit of panic before she calmed down. If he managed to get himself killed in these short six months, then that is all he amounts to. Although… I did spend a lot of time grooming him, so if he did die, all my efforts would have been wasted. Well, if that’s the case, I’ll kill your killers and clan’s enemies and burn their corpses as incense for you in the Nether Realm… and to relieve my anger at wasting my efforts~!

Fenghua didn’t directly go to Chang’an. She first found a lake and took a nice cold bath. She hadn’t taken a bath in over six months, so she felt dirty, even if she was actually cleaner than before due to regaining some of her strength. Heh, if I were in human form, some lucky dog would have discovered me and set off a chain of flags.

She left the lake but didn’t shake off the excess water off of her body. Instead, the temperature around her became incredibly warm and caused her damp fur to dry in an instant, but she still wasn’t ready to descend the mountain.

Even in her fox form, her apparent joy could not be hidden.

Suddenly, a fire tornado engulfed Fenghua’s fox form, and moments later, when the fire tornado dispersed, a humanoid figure stood in the fox’s place.

The figure was of a girl about ten to twelve years of age. She had hair that seemed to have been woven from flickering flames, two foxy that were the same color as her hair, pearly white skin, large, innocent eyes tinged allurement unbefitting of her outward age, and the same ruby-red eyes as the fox. Oh, and she was naked.

Butt naked.

“Well, it’s younger than I’d like, but it’s better than being stuck as a fox,” Fenghua commented aloud as she observed her body.

Fenghua rubbed her spatial ring and out popped out her lifebound artifact, the Heavenly Flame Garment. It was seemingly woven out of red brocade, but it was actually refined from immortal rank materials. The only issue was that it had numerous tatters in it, but as the master of the artifact, Fenghua used her control to shrink it until all the holes disappeared and became a perfect size for her current body.

It wasn’t fixed, only the appearance was much more pleasing to the eye.

“Now I’m ready. Wonder if he’ll be surprised.” Fenghua said as she made her way towards Chang’an, all the while planning her and Leng Junfeng’s touching reunion.