Chapter 71 - External Mission (1/2)

Six months passed from that particular day when the secrets of the sect were revealed. There was still some time before the date of the Secret Dimension opening. Yet, at the same time, there wasn't much left. As a result, there was little time left for future participants to improve as much as possible.

Hei, who had turned 14, and Lian, who would also be 14 shortly, had moved from the fourth stage to the fifth stage, approaching the fifth-stage bottleneck. Thanks to the Explosive Blood Pills, they had managed to speed up their cultivation times significantly. And since they still had the Metal Fortification Pill set aside, they were confident in reaching the sixth stage once they had accumulated enough spirit power.

Hei had finally mastered every move in the snake and spider styles. The last three techniques for the fifth stage were - Snake Whip, Snake Run, Snake Coiling.

Snake Whip was a medium / short-range technique. It consisted of displacing the bones of the shoulders and arms to increase the range of one's blows, waving their arms as if they were whips.

Snake Run was a movement technique. It consisted mainly of a vertical zig-zag movement. The continuous swaying of the legs together with the rest of the body would make it difficult for the enemy to pinpoint precisely how the user would attack. Unlike Spider Run, Snake Run was more about attacking than avoiding attacks.

Finally, Snake Coiling was a defense technique that consisted of dislocating the bones and joints of one's body with one's spirit power to increase the flexibility of the body. In case of need, the user could roll up to reduce the damage. At the same time, it could be used as an attack move, making it easier to wrap one's limbs around the enemy, leading to the facilitation of strangulation moves.

Training to master these techniques was very extreme. This time, Hei had to get his mother's poison injected into his body. Although it had been significantly diluted, his bones melted easily and then quickly regenerated thanks to special mixtures.

It was a harrowing cycle that forced Hei to bed for weeks, unable to move. Fortunately, he was somehow able to cultivate while lying down even though the performance wasn't as good as when performing the meditation lotus position.

Eventually, he reached an adequate level of flexibility to be able to use these techniques in training. With practice, he also came to know how to use them in combat, although he hadn't tried them against an opponent.

In addition to the spider and snake style techniques, he and Lian also managed to master their weapons intent. Even though they still had to reach the sixth stage, they were now able to infuse their spirit power into their weapons. They had also learned techniques to send aura attacks with their weapons.

Moreover, the sect leader had removed all kinds of prohibitions in the library for the seven younger generation members. With such high stakes, she and the elders decided to bet every available resource on the seven young martial artists who would go to the Secret Dimension.

Hei and Lian, therefore, spent much time at the library, learning various techniques. However, the totality of these wasn't comparable in effectiveness with their styles taught by Bao Bei. But they still learned them to vary their repertoire of moves. In particular, Hei even made some changes to his techniques, creating variants of the moves taught by his mother.

But it wasn't just their fighting skills that were improved. Their expertise as an alchemist and formation maker also made great strides. Hei was able to produce his pills, and with each new batch, his ability increased dramatically. The same was valid with Lian, who learned to create increasingly complex formations and helped Hei in his work of creating pills. The two, therefore, earned many contribution points that they invested each time in buying rare materials to create even more precious pills.

Yet, despite things going well, the two weren't completely satisfied. Given the importance of the Secret Dimension, they had to become stronger. But how would they become stronger without opponents to fight with? If they wanted to improve, they had to fight against martial artists who aimed at their lives. However, it wasn't possible to find that kind of opponent within the sect. Even if they had fought against the elders' personal disciples, it would have been just a sparring session and not a mortal fight.

Therefore, not seeing any other solution within the sect territories, Hei decided to try with the external missions. Some time ago, during the inner sect structures presentation, the functioning of the external missions had been briefly explained to him. But considering he was still in the second stage at that time, he had left that notion in the corner of his mind. The sect leader herself had told him to wait at least to get to the fourth stage.

So, now that he had reached the fifth stage and was approaching the sixth, he was more than ready to undertake an external mission on behalf of the sect.

*

In the building containing the bulletin board where the various missions were posted, two youths were browsing every single task on display. They were Hei and Lian. They were reading the contents of each sheet so that they could choose the most suited to them, and that could help them solve their problem.

And while they were reading, one of the sheets ended up attracting Hei's attention. It was a mission to investigate a series of incidents that had even seen the death of various inner disciples of the sect, including a fifth stage. But it wasn't the death of a fifth stage spirit apprentice or that there were members of the sect between the victim to attract Hei's attention. It was instead the part where the culprit was said to be very powerful spirit beasts.

The mission was, therefore, concerned with ascertaining whether the rumors were true and stopping the culprit, whether it was a person or spirit beast.

Hei didn't find any disgust in reading that some spirit beasts could be responsible for a series of killings of martial artists and civilians. Considering that humans hunted animals and spirit beasts without giving themselves too much trouble, it wasn't strange if they responded equally wildly.

However, even if he understood it, he couldn't allow that some spirit beasts were killing innocent human beings. As long as they were provoked, it was okay, but attacking unarmed civilian settlements wasn't right. It wasn't a moral matter, but only because it would have given a bad image of the spirit beasts. Instead of intelligent beings at the same level as humans or demons, they would be depicted as bloodthirsty beasts.