142 Chapter 142 (1/2)

”Hold still...”

A female voice could be heard accompanied by some groaning.

”Ugh...t-that feels strange”

The man groaned out while panting.

”Quite the cute sound there, for such a strong senior brother~”

The woman chuckled while some rustling could be heard.

”Hey, stop teasing... I'm trying my best here...”

The man replied in a shaky voice.

”Don't worry senior brother, I'll be as gentle as I can... just stay still for a moment...but you sure are quite large down here...”

The cute female voice proclaimed while more rustling was heard.

These two people were Zhang Xue and Huo Kong. The girl in question had her hands outstretched and a sphere of water was surrounding the man's abdomen. The youth had a sword wound on the side of his stomach that was slowly getting closed down thanks to Zhang Xue's healing arts. She couldn't use the holy element as her master, so she had to use the water arts from her clan. They weren't bad either, they just worked in a different fashion.

”Yes, those are quite the nice abdominal muscles there, you must have worked on them diligently.”

The girl was apparently impressed by the man's physique. The girl was around muscular men, in the form of her own master and her big brother, that due to his body refining was turning into quite the beefcake himself. So she was now quite fond of the wider types, finding the manly ones superior to the more feminine dandy looking ones.

”I'm just glad that we got away from that group, we were lucky that those things started chasing after them instead of us.”

The two ran into each other a day after the trial started, they formed a team but soon were discovered by a large troop that was gunning for their tokens. They were lucky enough to run through an area with a hidden treasure. It looked to be a sword surrounded by circular rocks, but when the people that were chasing after them tried touching it the rocks started shaking about.

They turned out to be humanoid looking golems, at least three meters tall and with heavy hammer-like fists. While the large band of monsters was trying to protect the weapon, Zhang Xue and Huo Kong made a run for it. Some of the enemies were indisposed so they decided to force their way through one side, the young man taking some hits as he pushed through the other participants that were blocking their way. He ended up injuring himself, getting a couple of cuts here and there but nothing that Zhang Xue couldn't heal.

”I'm feeling a lot better now, my thanks junior sister Xue.”

The young man smiled awkwardly while looking at the white-haired beauty. He was quite enamored by the young girl's beauty and even more after he continued interacting with her. She wasn't haughty like some women with this type of beauty, she didn't seem too impressed in him being from a powerful clan either. She felt genuine and just all-around friendly, he didn't feel like she had an ulterior motive like some of the women that were after the prestige that his clan had going for it.

”No problem senior brother Kong, the elders told us to work together and I think they were right in doing so. There are really a lot of enemies in this trial.”

Zhang Xue stood up after healing the red-haired man. She thought he was quite funny as he was always trying to evade her gaze and was blushing furiously whenever she touched him. He felt like a little puppy for some reason, she was used to getting stared at by the opposite gender. The gazes were quite different, mostly ones of attraction or possession.

It made her feel like the men saw her as some kind of trophy and not like a real person. This man, on the other hand, seemed too pure to even put her in that bracket. Which was quite funny from her point of view, the man's demeanor didn't fit his fiery appearance. He was quite the beast while fighting, she already saw that but the moment the two were alone he looked like a scared kitten.

”Senior brother, I don't think we should remain in this spot for too long. I bet those other people will try catching us again, we have to find out clan members there are too many of them for us to handle on our own.”

Zhang Xue proclaimed while looking to the corridor that they came from, there were two other paths they could take. Xue could use her Master's detection technique, so she could somewhat spot people at the distance. But it wasn't as if this place was laced with traps and high levels of danger, like in the secret ground they were in. So she couldn't pick the right path, as well as the elder members, did back then.

”Um... think we should go with the left one...”

Zhang Xue said while focusing her senses on the two paths, the right one looked to be more dangerous.

”Yes junior sister, we should move... but don't worry, I'll protect you with my life if anything bad happens!”

The man proclaimed while smacking his chest with his palm. Xue just chuckled into her robe sleeve and nodded.

”Well, that's quite reassuring, senior brother Kong.”

The man just smiled awkwardly at the girl and moved in front of her, he would be the vanguard as he was better in close range combat than the girl. The two had spent some time together, and this junior sister was quite the talented spear user. She even had some powerful range spear attack that could wreak havoc from the backlines.

The two both already had two tokens each as they had battled some other participants here and there. Most of their time was spent on running away though, the two knew that they couldn't really battle twenty cultivators at once. While the two moved through the similar-looking corridors they started chatting, not really having anything better to do.

”So, you are the son of that Huo Qiang... did he ever mention anything about a senior called Zhang Dong?”

The man had introduced himself as a young master from the Huo clan while shouting at the attackers so this much she knew. She knew that name as he was a close friend of her Master, he even made a pair of beautiful ruby gauntlets for the man.

”Did you s-say Z-Zhang Dong?”