Read Reincarnated as an Energy with a System Chapter 171 - A Changed Klavis online for free - AllNovelFull
Ning had stopped crying by now. Hijaka didn't stay anything and just stayed by Ning.
"How did you know who I was? It's been 165 years right?" Ning asked.
"Haha, your images are everywhere in the ancestral land. Every time I go there, grandfather makes me look at the statues and posters for hours on end," Hijaka said.
"What? Why would they have a poster of me?" Ning was a little surprised.
"To the Klavian people, you are what led to their growth and expansion of the land. You are also what led to the people's long life as well as let us see the rest of the world."
"Thus, to the Klavian people you are not just a benefactor, you are a god," Hijaka said.
Ning blushed a little. "Aish, here I even told them I was a nobody and that they didn't have to call me a god," he said.
"So, wait. You said you were his grandson; how many children does he have?" Ning asked.
"Grandfather only had 2 children, my uncle, and my mother. Haha, he even named my uncle Ning after you," Hijaka said.
"What? That's a little… " Ning didn't know what to say. "Sigh, I guess I can't really say anything. Instead, I should be happy he even named his son after me," he said.
Hijaka got silent for a bit and asked, "Why did you leave that day, Inikaka?"
"What?" Ning asked.
"Grandfather said that you fought the demon Fufuliki and won. But then you never returned. My uncle and the rest tried to convince him that you died but the older generation never believed us. We even thought they were stupid for putting so much faith in you," Hijaka said.
"Yet, here you are. I can't believe you really survived but, why didn't you return?" he asked.
Ning stayed silent for a while and asked, "They told you what I am right?"
"I… know that you are not human," he said.
"I currently am, technically. And I was one before too. However, after I changed, I became an undying entity that could live without a body," he said.
"Like a soul?" Hijaka asked.
"Kinda, but I'm more untraceable. Anyway, once I killed the snake, I… lost my consciousness and stayed in the deep dark sea for 164 years."
"I only just came back to consciousness a few years ago, and have been trying to get strong to leave this place," he said.
"Grandfather said you can teleport. Can't you do that now?" Hijaka asked.
"I… wouldn't know where to go. I only know that I want to leave. So, I was thinking of increasing my strength before I leave," Ning said.
"I will leave this place after this tournament. Maybe go up north, although I don't know where," Ning said.
"Hmm… I've heard of this place called Seven Lights City, up north to the east. I hear it's one of the most unique lands in all of the continent. Although, that is just hearsay. I've never been there myself," Hijaka said.
'Seven lights city, that's… around 20 thousand kilometers to the right,' Ning thought as he looked at the city's location on the map and its distance from where he was currently.
"Alright, I will think about it. By the way, what sect are you from?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm from the Young Jewels sect, but to better Klavia's relations with the rest of the continent, I was part of a transfer group and thus now, I'm in the Crimson Glory sect for a couple of more years," Hijaka said.
"I see. I guess that's enough dilly-dallying. Come on, we need to go get some more points," Ning said.
Both Ning and Hijaka went into the forest and started looking for beasts to fight. The beasts were no problem for the two of them.
Ning was obviously strong, but Hijaka's strength was no joke as well.
He was fighting against a jaguar beast right now. The beast was in the 8th Qi Condensation realm. The same as him, but he showed no fear.
"Are you sure you don't want my help?" Ning asked Hijaka with a face of concern. He was already looking at the boy from of status of an elder, even though physically, he was older than him.
"It's okay, Inikaka. As I said, this beast is nothing," Hijaka said and pounced at the jaguar. The jaguar was read for the attack and pounced on him too.
The jaguar's paw landed on Hijaka's shoulders, while Hijaka's attack landed on the beast's chest. The beast was sent flying, but Hijaka stayed right where he was.
Ning looked in surprise for a moment and immediately did an analysis on Hijaka. "No wonder he was so confident," Ning thought.
Even if Ning wasn't there, Hijaka would've perfectly been fine. After all, there was no way 2 people in the 8th Qi Condensation realm could win against a man who had both an 8th Qi Condensation realm cultivation base and a 9th level body cultivation.
The jaguar had its ribcage broken and couldn't move anymore. Hijaka dashed forward once more and landed a strong punch with the force of both the cultivation base and physical body behind it.
With a single smash, the jaguar's face was disfigured and it died.
"See Inikaka, it's easy," Hijaka said with a smile.
"Yeah, yeah, stop showing off. Come one let's go," Ning said. They walked around for another few hours. During this time, both of them fought many beasts and picked many different ingredients as well.
Ning helped Hijaka pick up rare ingredients that he didn't know were ingredients, or fight beasts in the Foundation Establishment realm when they did meet them 2 times.
Without a strong defense like the Cerulean Hornsnake, the Foundation Establishment realm monsters had no chance against Ning and died with ease.
Finally, night fell and both of them decided to stop fighting.. Hijaka however took Ning with him a little further until they were in another grassland and they finally settled down and started cultivating for the night.
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Ning felt some movement early morning. He got out of his cultivation and looked at what was happening.
Hijaka was up and at some point had started doing some dance-like maneuver. Ning looked at him and got a little nostalgic. Waking up before the sun rises, completing your morning routine of the body cultivation technique; it was very reminiscent of his time in Klavis.
He waited until Hijaka finished cultivating before asking, "You still follow that, huh?"
"Of course, it's one of the best body cultivation techniques out there," Hijaka said.
"Is it?" Ning asked. For him, the new technique he had right now was way better than anything he could expect from the Sun God's Morning Cleansing technique.
"Of course," Hijaka said. "It might not be the fastest and is location dependent, but if you manage to find the right spot where the sun never leaves, you can keep cultivating to great height for just 10 minutes a day. That is amazing when compared to how much time and suffering you have to put into the other techniques," Hijaka said.
"I see. That does make sense," Ning said. However, he still felt his new one was way better since it didn't slow down that much in terms of cultivation speed even at higher levels.
"Alright, let's go. We only have 6 hours together to get points before we separate again," Ning said.
"Yes," Hijaka said and they both left. They walked into another forest. The entire secret realm was nothing but a patch of the forest followed by a patch of grassland, followed by another patch of forest. It was almost like the entire land was nothing but a loop.
Along the way, they found multiple beasts that they were able to take care of very easily. Let alone, Ning, even Hijaka had no problem fighting any beasts even at the 9th Qi Condensation realm.
Ning just focused on fighting his own share of beasts and finding ingredients for himself. He would only interfere in Hijaka's fight when he was outnumbered or if the beast was in the Foundation realm.
Ning stabbed a scorpion beast right through the inside of its head and pushed the spear outwards, yet the spear stopped at the skin. The scorpion was dead, but it wouldn't have been if Ning hadn't pierced it through a soft spot.
"God, why do some of the beasts have such incredible defense? This one is only at the 2nd realm and I can't even scratch its skin," Ning said.
"Are you okay, Inikaka?" Hijaka asked.
"Oh yeah, I'm fine. It's just that I need a better spear technique. The one I currently have is getting weaker the stronger I get," Ning said.
The two moved on and fought more monsters as well as got more ingredients. Ning also asked about the new Klavis a little more.
Apparently, after Hyesi reached the peak of the foundation realm, he started looking for better land to live in. He used the map Ning had given him to traverse the lands. He was gone for nearly a decade when he found the perfect land for the Klavian people.
It was a desert with no mountains anywhere. But it also was very close to the sea and close to a massive city with access to forests and other cities.
All in all, it was the perfect place. Hyesi made friends with the mayor of the city and was allowed to move his people nearby. Soon, they formed a small city, which grew to a larger city, which soon grew enough to have the people transfer to multiple cities.
In less than a hundred years, Klavis was very well known amongst the western part of the Northern Continent.
Ning nodded as he heard those things. He was quite happy and honestly surprised to see Klavis develop to what it was now. And it was all thanks to the little guy he tried to swindle to get himself some energy.
Ning smiled as he thought of that.
Soon the two of them were out of the forests and into another patch of the grasslands. Ning looked to the sky behind the forest on the other side of the grassland.
He could still see the slightly purple barrier standing there. He looked to the left and right and saw that the barrier was equidistant on both sides of him.
"Could it be?" he said softly and immediately ran forward to look behind him. Once he was far enough, he could see that he was at the very center of the secret realm.
"Inikaka," Hijaka said. "Over there," he pointed to the distance. Ning turned around to see that there were a bunch of people gathered around something.
He walked forward and saw that it was a lake that they were all looking at. "I wonder what's going on," he said and walked to the lake.
He could see that there were about 12 people around the lake, but all of them seemed to be terrified. Their faces showed great fear, but they also showed great greed.
"What are they looking at?" Ning wondered as he walked a little forward and saw a small land in the middle of the lake. The land was barely a meter wide, so it wasn't that great. But what was growing on that land was.
In the middle of the land was a small, 2-meter tall tree with a single fruit in the middle. The fruit was pure white with not a speck of another color and looked like it was slightly glowing even in the intense sun of noon.
Ning's eyes turned wide when he saw it. "The Angel's Touch," he couldn't believe what he was seeing. There was an Angel's Touch in front of him right in the center of the lake.
Yet nobody was doing anything to reach it. "What's up with— " Suddenly, Ning stopped. Something moved in the waters. Ning slowly turned his head towards the water but the sunlight was making it hard to see, and his divine sense didn't reach that far.
However, from the slight undulation of the Qi in the air, he could tell that whatever the monster was, it was strong.
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The Angel's Touch was an incredibly rare fruit using which one would simply have to eat the fruit at the peak of the Golden Core Realm, and they would automatically make a Nascent soul.
You didn't have to bother breaking through or be stuck in a long bottleneck. You just had to eat this fruit and you were done.
And that fruit was the one in front of him. If he got his hands on the fruit, he wouldn't have to worry about the Nascent Soul realm when the time came.
However, getting his hands on the fruit itself was a bit of a problem. There was a really strong creature inside the lake and everyone including Ning could feel it.
"Hijaka, I think you should leave this place immediately," Ning said.
"What's going on Inikaka? What is that fruit? And what is that monster?" he asked.
"I do not know what that monster is right now, but I do know that it is strong enough for you to not care about the fruit for now. Just leave this place. These other people are just waiting for their death."
Just as Ning said that one of the people had the stupid idea of flying to the fruit.
"Hey stop that," someone tried to stop him, but greed had overtaken his mind. He quietly flew past the beast, but just as he was about the reach the tree, a column of water shot up from the lake.
When the water fell down, the man was no longer there.
"Go!" Ning shouted.
Hijaka stayed no longer and started running immediately. Before the people were even thinking of running away, Hijaka has already run over hundreds of meters away from the lake.
Ning however decided to stay. With his cultivation base, he felt that he could run away whenever he wanted to. Besides, the fruit was too good to give up on.
The monster in the lake started moving suddenly. The people got terrified by the aura of the beast and started running away.
Ning knew it was too late for them to leave, so he thought, 'why don't I get the points instead of letting it go to waste.'
Suddenly, he brought out both the sword and the spear as he started slicing and stabbing with both his hands and Qi blasts started flying everywhere. Unfortunately, he could only attack the people on his side of the lake, so he could only get around half the people.
At the same time, blades of water suddenly appeared from the water, flying towards everyone in the vicinity of the lake.
Both his attacks and the blades of water landed on the running people around the same time and they disappeared from the secret realm.
Ning used his sword to block the attack and was thrown away from the lake.
"Arghh…" he said as he stood back up. 'Did I get the points?' he wondered. He couldn't tell whose attack landed first or whose attack did the killing blow, but he couldn't check it right now.
Instead, he turned around to look at the monster of the sea.
"A snake?" he thought when he saw the long body of the beast that had arisen from the lake. This serpent-like beast wasn't as big as the Yin Demon Serpent he fought in Klavis.
However, when he looked closely, as more of the water dripped from the beast, he realized that it was not a serpent. Its body was long like a snake, it had scales like one, but its eyes looked a little different and it had some whisker on top of its mouth.
It also had two tiny horns, actual horns, protruding from its head.
If Ning wasn't feeling scared yet, he would now. "Th— This can't be. How is there something so rare in this secret realm? How is there a bloody Flood Dragon!!" Ning shouted.
The beast of the sea was not a mere serpent, but a flood dragon. A flood dragon was a lesser dragon that had the physical appearance of a True dragon, but not its power or ability.
Still, they had some blood of a True dragon mixed in them, so they weren't something everyone could fight.
Ning looked at its majesty and nearly faltered. The fear in him did not just grow because he knew the type of beast and how strong it could be.
He was also scared because he had just checked its cultivation base and body cultivation.
Fortunately, it only had a Level 3 body cultivation, so that didn't worry Ning very much. What did scare him was the cultivation base.
He looked at the cultivation base once again just to be sure.
5th Foundation Establishment realm.
That was way too strong for him. Suddenly, he saw the flood dragon move. It opened its mouth and shot out a blast of water. This was the same thing that had killed the first guy in the lake.
His sword would do him no good now, so he kept it away. He then immediately crossed his arms in front of his head and protected himself.
When the column of water disappeared, all that remained there was Ning with both of his arms mostly skinless. The water was so strong that it had managed to scrape away his body-cultivated skin.
'Ow, if I hadn't protected my head, I would've taken a lot of damage,' he thought. The Floor Dragon sucked in the air once more and blasted out a much-smaller column of water.
Ning tried to block, but the column was so strong that he was hit right in the chest. Fortunately for him, he didn't suffer fatal damage from that.
Unfortunately, that meant he would have to suffer through the attack now. His arms covering his body were blown away and the water landed on his chest. The spear he was holding was flung back into the forest.
His chest somehow didn't loose skin, but he could feel his ribs crack due to the pressure.
Suddenly, an yellow light appeared around him and he disappeared from the location once again.
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"Wh— What happened? Is he out?" Gion asked in a surprised voice. They had seen all that happened around the lake and were surprised to see Ning get taken out so easily.
"That monster— That was a Flood Dragon, wasn't it?" Yelca asked with a serious face. That was a level of danger that they hadn't expected for the competition.
"That's it, Elders. That's the monster that killed me. I couldn't even see what it was," A voice came from ahead of the group.
The one speaking was the first person that had exited the secret realm. The group finally understood why he was thrown out so soon.
"So… did he lose or not?" Gion asked still not seeing a sign of Ning being thrown out of the secret realm.
"He probably got transferred along with the date change. It is the afternoon after all," Yelca said. "If the attack had been fatal to Doctor Ning, he would've been thrown out of the realm much faster. The fact that he didn't mean that he is probably alright."
Ning wasn't alright. Pain coursed through his body as the broken bones in his ribs hurt beyond imagination. Even his arms burned from being exposed to the air due to his skin being ripped off of them.
He slowly got up from the long grasses he had appeared in. He saw that he was in another grassland somewhere. He looked around for the barriers and saw that it was really far away.
He looked back and saw that the other side was right inside the forest behind him. Up close, the barrier looked iridescent rather than purple.
He tried to walk but the ribs hurt a lot with movement. Even breathing was bad right now. So, he just got down and laid on the grass.
He sent his divine sense inside his body and checked the problems. 3 of his right ribs and 2 of his left ribs were cracked really bad. Thankfully, they didn't protrude inside of him and he had no danger of them accidentally stabbing his lungs or heart.
They just hurt a lot. Broken ribs weren't treatable in a day or two. It took more than a week and that was with a cultivator's natural healing.
His arms, however, he could treat just fine. He brought out some ingredients from his storage; Some he gathered here, and some he got from the outside world.
He quickly mixed them together with his hands and applied the resulting paste on his two arms. Soon, a cool feeling entered his arm from the place where he placed the paste.
"Ahh," he moaned in relief. The medicine would soon heal the arm, but it would still take overnight for him.
Next, he moved on to dealing with the ribs. While it wasn't possible for him to heal the ribs, he could deal with the pain. He quickly took out more ingredients.
This time, however, he didn't make any paste. Instead, he just crushed the ingredients all together and brought it on top of his face. He squeezed the mess real strong and juices started flowing that went directly into his mouth.
Soon, he could no longer feel any pain. Once that was done, he stood up and started walking. However, he made sure to not be hasty or make sudden movements as that may worsen the wounds.
Suddenly, a boar appeared quite close to him. When he noticed the boar, the board noticed him too. He quickly looked into his storage to bring out his spear, but he couldn't.
There was no spear. "What?" he was surprised. He thought if he left it behind at the place he came from but that wasn't possible. He had used his divine sense since then, so he would've noticed.
Finally, he remembered what happened. "Ah, the flood dragon," he said and got disappointed at the fact that he lost such a good spear.
"Sigh, at least I have this sword," he said as he pulled out the sword. The Boar was barely a 6th Qi condensation realm monster and thus couldn't survive a single attack of his.
Once he killed the beast, he took its corpse and moved forward. Along the way, he found a few beasts and found a few ingredients, but without question, he could say that the rate at which he was encountering both had significantly dropped since last time.
"Have we been killing so much that there just aren't that many anymore?" Ning wondered. If he couldn't find beasts or different ingredients, then he wouldn't get many points anymore.
"Wait, that's not right. There is a third source of points," Ning thought as he realized why the tournament holders had reduced the land by so much.
"They want us to fight each other and gather points," Ning thought.
Now that the land had been reduced by 4 times in size, he should be meeting more and more people soon. As he imagined, within the hour, he saw a man in a green robe walking out of the forest Ning was about to walk into.
He looked a bit frustrated from the lack of monsters and ingredients as well, so when he saw Ning and his 5th Qi Condensation aura, he immediately smiled and ran towards him to attack with not a single word.
"Well, I like this more. No talking and just fighting," he said to himself. Ning couldn't really run forward like the guy due to his ribs, so he waited for him to come instead.
The man took out a spear along the way and tried to stab Ning. However, there was no way that was going to work. The man was at the 8th Qi Condensation realm, and there was no way Ning was going to have problems dealing with the man.
Ning grabbed the spear by the body just after the blade and pulled it towards him. The man couldn't control his body and was pulled along with the spear.
Ning left the spear and made a fist with the same hand.. With just a punch to the chest, the man's talisman worked up and he disappeared from the spot.
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"Haha, Idiot. So weak, and you dare cultivate outside?" a woman spoke from behind Ning. Ning slowly opened his eyes and looked back at her.
The girl was riding an elephant beast which seemed to have bonded with her. Despite the night sky being cloudy and without light, Ning had no trouble seeing the reddish-brown color of the elephants.
'Sigh, that's just a normal Earth-Skinned Elephant. It's not even at a high cultivation base,' Ning thought.
He looked at the woman and said, "You do know that If I kill your elephant it will die for real right? Only you will get saved, not the elephant."
"Oh, big words for someone about die," the woman said as she laughed. "Let's hurry, Tiny. We need to go kill some more."
"T-Tiny? The Elephant?" the corner of Ning's lips twitched as he forced himself to not laugh. 'What sort of psycho names their elephant Tiny?' he thought.
Tiny walked forward and slammed its trunk on Ning. Ning didn't move however and simply stopped the Trunk with his left hand.
With his broken ribs, he couldn't afford to move very fast. He easily stopped the trunk and grabbed it with both his hands.
The woman was shocked at the scene. But before she could even do anything, Ning turned around and pulled the elephant by its trunk before slamming it on the other side of him.
The woman was still on top of the elephant, so when it was slammed on its back, she was the first that would hit the ground. Just before that, however, a yellow barrier appeared around both her and her elephant, and both of them were sent outside the barrier.
"Oh," Ning said in surprise. "So if I kill the Master, the beast follows them out, huh." He learned something new.
He got back on the rock below the night sky to cultivate once more but no more than half an hour later, another person appeared. This time, however, Ning was pissed. He needed to cultivate properly to heal his wounds. If he didn't, it would take a really long time for them to heal.
"F*ck," he cursed. He didn't want to have to do this, but it seemed he had to. With a flick of a hand, a golden light appeared in front of him.
The light soon turned into a massive 3 meters tall and 2 meters wide beetle with a golden back and a horn with a trident-like tip that extended a meter more in height.
The Golden Shelled Beetle appeared. "Go kill him," Ning said. Despite being a defensive creature, the beetle's offensive abilities were nothing to cough at.
The beetle dashed forward, without even opening its wings when its horn started lighting up with golden light. Like a golden arrow being let loose in the darkness, the beetle accurately hit the incoming man with its horn.
If it had been any other time, the man would've been pierced through the stomach and died, but with the talisman, he was excited to the outside world.
Ning checked his own talisman and nodded. He had expected it, but still, it was good to confirm that he didn't have to kill the participants himself to get the points. As long as the one doing the killing was refined, or bonded by him, he would get the points.
The Beetle flew back with a little confused face. It now had enough intelligence to know that what just happened was weird, but it wasn't sure why.
"I will cultivate, protect me," Ning said.
The beetle nodded. Ning was a little surprised to see that. "Woah, the system did say mental strength really started at the Foundation Establishment realm, but I didn't expect it to be so intelligent too," Ning thought.
He threw away any other thought and got back into cultivation. Throughout the night, he was brought out of his cultivation a few times, but every time the problem would be solved before he even had to say anything.
His points continuously increased throughout the night, but he mostly remained unaware. The Golden Shelled beetle was good enough to kill most of the intruders before Ning was even aware of their presence.
Finally, morning hit, and the daylight arrived. Ning slowly opened his eyes as well as his palm. The spirit stone he had been using throughout the night had run dry, so he just threw it away.
He had actually run dry a while before he got out of cultivation, but he never changed it because he had finally managed to hit a bottleneck.
His second level in the Sea of Qi had been filled to the brim and he only needed to breakthrough now. However, that would take a few days, so he was in no rush.
He called the beetle back to him and looked at it. "Damn, you really are tall," the height was still a shock to him. "I can't really walk yet, so you will have to carry me for a bit," Ning said.
The beetle understood him and nodded. It then tried to take him on a princess carry, but Ning immediately stopped it. He instead flew up to its head and sat down on its shoulders.
"Alright, either walk slowly or fly slowly; whichever you prefer," Ning said.
The beetle seemed to have misunderstood Ning and instead started to jump and fly a few seconds to hover and fall down to the ground before taking another leaf and hovering a bit, all while moving forward.
It was like the beetle was taking gigantic steps. "I guess this works too," he thought and accepted what was happening. The beetle carried him until a bit further where he found a few people and entered the forest.
Once inside the forest, the beetle had a hard time maneuvering dude to its huge body and many branches, so Ning decided to store it back and walk himself.
As he walked forward, he heard some noises up ahead. He cautiously walked there and noticed that a giant bird was fighting 2 cultivators to protect something.
Ning looked to see what it was and thought in surprise, "Eggs?"
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The bird had a really long yellow beak and a body full of red feathers. It was around 2 meters in length and was bleeding slightly from the head.
In front of it were many cultivators all wearing orange robes. They were all from the Dazzling sect.
The bird was around the 2nd Foundation Establishment realm. Most of the cultivators didn't have that high of a cultivation base here.
However, the two that were fighting did. They were both in the 2nd Foundation Establishment realm.
Ning looked at the current scene of battle. A Bird protecting its eggs, against two assailers surrounded by many others in a field that looked like it was charred.
Ning looked at the bird and realized what it was. "A Blazing Toucan," he said with a bit of astonishment. They weren't very strong creatures, but that was according to Ning's standard.
To the normal people of the Shattered Isles, this bird would be worth a lot. "Those 3 eggs especially would sell for a lot," he thought.
He looked towards the 2 men and was even more surprised. One had a sword in his hand, while the other one held a spear.
'It's him,' Ning thought. The one holding the spear was the man from the auction house that had looked at him weirdly.
The toucan suddenly breathes fire out of its mouth like a flamethrower. The man with the spear suddenly spun it creating a barrier out of water in front of him.
The flames never passed through the water and were completely stopped. The other guy suddenly jumped up and slashed down at the bird with a very strong gust of wind.
The poor bird couldn't move away due to its eggs being behind it.
A 2nd Foundation Establishment realm bird and 2 other men with similar strength, as well as a crowd of other men at various lower strength— Ning didn't like that.
'Sh*t, I need to get out of here,' he thought and slowly tried to move back, however, unfortunately, and nearly comically, he stepped on a branch that made a rather loud sound.
Most of the people didn't really hear it over the sounds of the fight in front of them, but the two people that were surrounding the fight closest to him did and turned around.
Ning didn't even wait and started running, but as he did, his ribs started hurting once more. Due to the sudden movements, the mild pain relief from yesterday that was starting to end suddenly couldn't stop that much pain at once.
"Arghh," he screamed as he held his chest and stumbled to the ground.
"Someone's here," the guy closest who had seen Ning shouted, letting the others in the crowd know. The two fighting the bird didn't bother with a random nobody showing up and kept on fighting the bird.
The others, however, immediately ran to Ning to see who would get the points first. Before they even reached Ning, they already had their weapons out.
Some were even shooting arrows at Ning. However, that wouldn't do much damage to Ning right now.
"F*ck, I can't move properly right now. It hurts," he thought. He took out the sword and started blocking the arrows that were coming for him.
Then, he called out the beetle once more. The Great Shelled Beetle immediately deterred a lot of threats, but with the crowd, there was always confidence.
Even when something seemed stupid or impossible, when people got together, they would always choose to do that. It was the same here.
Despite seeing and feeling how strong the beetle was, the crowd rushed toward the beetle to attack it. "Protect me," Ning gave the order.
That was all the Beetle needed to know what to do. Immediately, the beetle spread its wings and flew to the nearest man. Its horn was glowing yellow, which the man tried to stop with his armor, but that didn't work.
A 7th Qi Condensation realm cultivator could not survive the attack of a 1st Foundation Establishment realm beetle at all. He immediately turned to yellow lights and disappeared.
If the beetle itself wasn't a great deterring factor, the current event was. Seeing a beetle kill one of their sect members scared them a bit.
"H-Hey, he was weak. We are much stronger than him. Don't be afraid," A man said immediately lifting the other's spirit.
"F*ck off," Ning shouted and swung his sword at one of the men. The man tried to block with his sword, but he was instead blown away and quickly disappeared in bright yellow light.
"Sh*t. He is strong too. Everyone, split in half; half of you attack the beetle, the rest attack that guy," another person shouted.
There were about 10 of them remaining aside from the 2 fighting the bird, so 5 of them started surrounding Ning and the beetle each.
Ning looked around. He wasn't very worried about them wounding him or his beetle. He was more afraid that the movements would lead to his wounds getting worse and him having to leave the secret realm early even.
Also, the 2 cultivators away right now weren't nobodies either.
The beetle immediately flew back and stood near him. Its orders were to protect him, so it would prioritize that. Ning slowly got up with his left arm on his chest and his right hand holding the sword.
"Come."
The people immediately released nearly a dozen attacks on Ning. The Beetle got in front of him and protected him. Ning then immediately sent out another attack with his sword. This time it was a black slash.
He targeted the weakest one of the group he could find. The last remaining 7th Qi Condensation realm cultivator. Two men came up to him and swung their swords, but the beetle got in front of them.
They were surprised at how agile the beetle surprisingly was. "Move," Ning ordered and the beetle flew up.. With the two attackers exposed, Ning immediately swung at them, defeating them in an instant.
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The beetle suddenly started moving its wings really fast and created a gust of wind. However, these weren't normal gusts of wind.
Ning had taught the beetle one of the only two beast skills it knew, the Blinding Gusts technique. The gusts of winds suddenly blinded 3 people that the beetle had targetted.
The beetle then slammed onto two of them at the same time before piercing the other one with its trident-like horn. The one that got pierced was sent out of the secret realm, but the two that were slammed on still remained.
Apparently, the damage wasn't fatal. The beetle simply flew up and slammed back down on them with its hard back. This time, the two were sent out of the secret realm before they could be hurt.
Now there were only 4 of the people remaining.
Ning slashed at one of the men with his sword, sending out an energy slash towards them. However, just as it was about to land, a sword flew at the slash and destroyed it.
"What's going on here?" A voice came from a little further back. Ning looked behind the man and frowned. He was getting into more trouble now.
"Where are the rest of the guys," the man with the sword that was fighting the bird asked as he walked up to his fellow sect member.
"Brother Jan, why are you here? Is the bird dead?" the man asked.
"No, we left it because of the sounds here. The bird's not going anywhere with its eggs being there," the man with the spear also walked forward. "Where are the others?" he asked as he looked around.
"That man and his damn beetle defeated the rest of us. They already left the secret arena," the guy answered.
"What?" the 2 of them were a little surprised and looked towards Ning and the Golden Shelled Beetle who had jumped close to him to protect him.
"That's… I've never seen such a beetle, what is it?" the guy with the sword asked.
"Me neither. But it should be strong to be in the 1st Foundation Establishment realm," the guy with the spear said as he turned to look at Ning.
Within a second, his eyes went from disinterest to confusion, to anger, and to finally happiness.
"It's you, bastard," he shouted.
'Sh*t, he recognizes me,' Ning thought.
"You are the one with the spear, yes, I recognize you. Give it back to me you bastard," he shouted.
"You recognize him, brother Gai?" the man named Jan asked.
"Remember what I told you about the auction where I lost that amazing spear? It was to this guy. Hey, bring the spear out, I want it," he said.
Ning said nothing and just stood there with the sword pointed in front of him.
"I said give it to me," Gai shouted and immediately dashed forward to stab Ning with his spear, but the beetle got in between them.
CLANG
The spear was stopped without a single damage to the beetle. "What the?" the man was surprised. He tried to tab the beetle once again, but it didn't work.
Slashing, Stabbing, or even just pushing, nothing worked.
"Brother Gai, why are you taking so long?" Jan asked.
"This damn beetle is—" Ning suddenly attacked with his sword from the side. Gai blocked the sword with his spear and parried it sideways.
'F*ck, it hurts,' Ning said as he held his chest. The sudden movement had agitated his ribs once more. While he wasn't in any danger, the pain was too much.
Gai thought he had an opportunity and stabbed at Ning, but the beetle arrived once more to block his attack.
"Tsk. Brother Jan, I need your help. Can you handle the beetle?" he asked.
"Sure," the Jan guy said and he too dashed up to beetle to attack it. When his advancements were stopped as well, he was shocked.
"Damn, how is a beast a realm below us so strong?" Jan asked.
"How should I know? I have never even seen a beetle-like this before today," Gai Said. "Keep it busy."
"Sure," Jan said and started furiously attacked the beetle. None of the attacks were making a single scratch on the beetle's back, but it was enough to keep it busy and stop it from going back to Ning.
Now that Ning was without protection, Gai immediately tried to stab his shoulders. He didn't want to give him a fatal wound and risk him leaving the realm before handing over the spear.
Ning parried spear attack with his sword and slashed back. A water barrier appeared out of nowhere blocking most of the damage, while a bit more went and landed on Gai. However, that wasn't strong enough to even ruffle his robes.
Gai was a little surprised. 'This barrier can blocks attacks from other 2nd Foundation Establishment realm cultivators. Just how strong is he? And why is he fighting so stiffly?' he wondered.
Ning was only using one arm to fight to avoid moving his entire body. That was the same reason why he wasn't using any movement techniques either.
Gai started attacking him with barrages of spear attacks, while all Ning could do was block them and maybe throw in an attack or two.
'Sh*t, I won't be able to keep up much longer,' he thought.
Off to the side, the beetle was also suffering from a ton of attacks. The remaining 4 people had joined the man named Jan and started attacking the beetle.
All that the beetle could do was get onto the ground and take the attacks. The only way for it to get out of it now was to either call it back to the beast space or help defeat its attackers.
'F*ck, it's not time yet,' Ning thought. He really didn't want to do this since the timing wasn't right, but he was about to die and this was his last resort.
Suddenly, he slashed at Gai horizontally and sent him flying a few meters back. Then, he took a deep breath and shouted.
"Come out, Night."
The crowd didn't understand why Ning had suddenly shouted, but at the next second, they did.
Space itself twisted as a black figure appeared in front of Ning. It was a black-feathered blob about half of Ning's height. Light started dimming in the surroundings as if clouds were blocking the sun in the sky, yet nothing was there.
"What is that thing?" someone asked.
Jan who was beating the Beetle stopped and looked at the feathered blob, unable to figure out what exactly it was. However, he didn't worry much for his friend as it was only at the 1st realm of the Foundation Establishment.
Suddenly, the blob of feathers started moving. Wings unfurled a bit followed by a head poking out, and finally, the talons standing up on the ground.
When it finally stood on its legs, the blob which turned out to be a bird was half a meter taller than Ning.. It was none other than Night.
"So big," Ning couldn't help but admire. The beetle was taller than Night right now, but it was a fully evolved beast. White Night's evolution was only halfway through and he was called out during his sleep.
Night's eyes were still closed, but now he slowly opened them. Night was unfortunately disrupted out of its hibernation.
Like darkness itself, his eyes were now fully black. The same was true for his talons as well.
In fact, there was not a single part of his body that wasn't black in color. As if lights were sucked in through those eyes, when Nights opened them, the light around them dimmed a step further.
"What the F*ck is this?" Gai said in exclamation.
"Do. You. Need. Help?" a bunch of broken but fully coherent set of words appeared out of Night. Ning was surprised at the level of intelligence he had gotten.
'And he's not even fully evolved yet. I wonder how much better he would get once he is fully evolved,' Ning thought.
"Yes, Help the beetle," Ning said. The words hadn't finished leaving his mouth when suddenly Night disappeared. Gai was surprised too to see the bird disappeared from in front of him.
"Where did it go?" he asked. He looked around, but couldn't find any signs of Night anywhere. However, he did see something weird.
"Hey, where are the other 2?" he asked Jan.
"What two?" Jan looked back to see that 2 of the 4 sect members of theirs had suddenly disappeared. He turned to the remaining two and asked, "Where did the tw— " before he could even finish his words, the two people suddenly turned to yellow lights and disappeared.
Jan neither heard nor saw anything. And yet, all 4 of his sect members were gone. "What is going on he— " before he could finish the sentence, he saw a flash of black before his eyes, and similar to the rest of them, he too vanished in yellow light.
Seeing his sect members disappear, Gai knew he was in trouble. Without a second's delay, he took out a talisman and threw it on the ground immediately.
The talisman spilled out blue energy that engulfed him in less than a second and he vanished. In the same second, the vanishing energy was moved a little, but it didn't affect much at all.
After another second, Night appeared next to Alex and looked at him with his dark eyes.
"Did. I. Do. Good.?" he asked.
"Yes," Ning said as he put away his sword. "You did very well. You must be tired right now. I'm sorry I called you out while you were hibernating, but I needed you."
"Night. Like. To. Help. Master."
"I see. Thank you. You can go back and rest now," Ning said sending Night back to the Beast Space to continue evolving. He probably couldn't call him next time until he evolved.
Interrupting his hibernation more than once for the sake of a tournament was not worth it.
"Come here," Ning called the beetle. The beetle flew up to him and landed.
"Sigh, with how much you helped, I guess I can't just keep calling you a beetle right? You need a name," Ning said.
"What name should I give you?" Ning thought for a second. "Hmm… Oh, I know. How about, Aegis? That was the name of a shield or something in my world. I remember reading about it once."
"Yeah, Aegis is a great name. You like it?" he asked.
Aegis cocked his head in confusion and for the first time spoke, "Name?"
"Holy Sh*t, you can speak?" Ning said in surprise. He had tried talking to the beetle the first few days he had got him, but it couldn't at the time.
"What changed? Did your evolution bring it? Or your increase in cultivation base? Hmm… since your mental strength increases with cultivation base, then it's probably your cultivation base," Ning said.
The beetle didn't speak any further. "Sigh, alright you too can go back too," Ning said and sent Aegis back to his beast space.
"Aii. The pain is getting stronger," he said as he clutched his chest once more. "Damn, just how strong is that Flood Dragon to crack my chest like that. Its strength definitely doesn't match its cultivation base," Ning thought.
He brought various ingredients out once again and started mixing them in his hands before dripping the juices directly into his mouth.
The sweet juices entered his body and brought out a cool feeling that took away all the pain. His chest stopped hurting and he laid back down on the ground.
He laid there for a few minutes before standing up and walking towards the Blazing Toucan.
The bird was tending to its wound while constantly being on the lookout for the 2 men returning. When it saw Ning, it immediately got in front of Ning and protected its eggs.
Parents were a soft spot for Ning. He couldn't possibly think of hurting someone or something that was fighting for their lives to protect their children.
Seeing the situation, Ning just shook his head and walked away.
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Ning slowly trekked through the jungle. He was walking very slowly to not agitate his wound, so it took him forever to come out of the jungle.
However, just as he did, yellow light surrounded him and he disappeared for the third time.
When he reappeared, he was inside another jungle. "F*ck, I just got out of one," he said in anger. However, there was nothing that could be done, so he just sighed and moved on.
Now that 3 days had gone by, finding a single ingredient or beast worth killing was hard to come by. He kept on walking forward to get out of the jungle. Unfortunately, after an hour or so, he couldn't walk anymore.
In front of him was an iridescent barrier that shifted to purple the further up it went.
.
"Did I… walk all this way only to get to the edge?" Ning was in disbelief. He couldn't even fault anyone for this. He looked back and thought, "I have to walk all that way and more again, don't I?"
He didn't want to, but the forest was too narrow and obstructive to let Aegis carry him. "Sigh, whatever, let's go."
"I'm sorry sect leaders, I wasn't able to last through the entire tournament," a bald, buff guy said to Gion and Yelca.
"Sigh, I guess it's hard. There are so many strong participants this time around. It's not surprising you were thrown out," Gion said.
"By the way, how exactly did you lose?" Yelca asked.
"It was a guy in Orange cloth. He had a really high cultivation base and kept attacking everyone in sight. I actually tried to team up with three other guys, but none of us was his match," the disciple said.
"I see. You did well either way. Take a rest," Yelca said.
"So, that's all but Doctor Ning right?" Gion asked.
"I'm afraid so. How many participants are still left? 300? The top 128 should be revealed soon," Yelca said.
They all were now looking for Ning through the many screens hovering in the air. Now that the ground was shrunken down, there weren't as many screens like the initial times.
Still, the center of the secret realm was where most of the fun stuff took place, so the tournament holders had made sure for there to be enough screens to see all the important places, some from multiple directions.
Still, after all of this, they still couldn't find Ning at all.
"Ah finally," Ning said as he left the forest and reached a long stretch of grassland. The sun was coming down and the evening was approaching.
"I guess this is as far as I get today," he thought and started searching for a rock or similar place to cultivate throughout the night.
Just as he was searching, he saw a group of people walk towards him. 'Sigh, I'm not in the mood to fight right now,' he thought.
Still, he took out his sword and got ready.
"Oh, there is someone there," a voice said.
"Hmm, he has a sword," another voice said.
As the group approached closer, Ning could see a group of unfamiliar faces consisting of 3 girls and 2 boys. They all had different robes so they couldn't be from the same sect.
Ning got a little curious about this. The strongest one of the group was a girl with a 9th Qi Condensation realm cultivation base. That wouldn't really be a problem to Ning.
"Brother, please put your sword down. We aren't here to fight you," the girl said.
"Oh, then you wouldn't mind taking a different route away from here right?" Ning asked.
"Actually, we are looking for people to add to our group and we're hoping that you would join us," the girl said.
Ning looked at the group carefully and acted like he was cautious about it. "What is your motive? To kill people to make their points? Or steal their corpses and materials?"
"No, our motive is to… survive," the girl said.
"…. Sorry what?" Ning asked.
"To survive. We hope to gather enough people so that people get scared of us enough to not mess with us. Like that, we can all survive for the rest of the competition, and we can definitely use someone with an 8th realm cultivation like you" the girl said.
"Hmm…" Ning thought. He was quite surprised by their motive. 'It does make sense though,' he thought and looked at the group. They had 2 7th Qi Condensation realms and 2 8th Qi Condensation realm cultivators along with this girl.
If they were together, the only ones who could fight them were Foundation Establishment realm cultivators, and those were few and far in between.
Ning didn't want to believe her, but she looked so innocent saying that. He almost wanted to believe what she was saying. It was like his brain kept telling him that she wasn't a liar at all and that he should follow her.
'Interesting. Is this hypnosis? Or charm? Either way, she must have the incredible mental fortitude to make me even have these feelings,' Ning thought.
Whatever was coming up, he thought it was going to be fun.
"Sure," Ning said and joined the group.
The group didn't rush through the grassland and Ning was thankful about that. 'Well, at least the bones seem to have set properly. I should properly treat myself once I go out,' Ning thought as he checked his ribs.
They were much better now, but he still didn't want to do anything to worsen it.
The 4 people conversed like normal people, asking each other about their lives and how their day was going, and they surprisingly answered very easily.
One person asked for the points they earned and the other person even answered very simply. 'Is their mind influenced to just accept suggestions and be truthful? Does she not really control them' he wondered.
Whatever the girl was doing, however devious she was, Ning couldn't help but secretly applaud her for being so amazing at it.
He couldn't wait to see where she was taking the sheep to be slaughtered.
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"Brother Ning, what sect are you from?" a person in the group asked.
"Oh, I am from the Blue Dragon sect of Deepskull island," he answered truthfully. Just in case someone from the group knew his clothing or had seen him before, he didn't want the girl to be tipped off about him not being truthful.
"Are you one of their strongest?" another person asked.
"Uhh… I'm in the top 5 for sure," Ning answered.
"Brother Ning, why do you walk so slowly?" someone else asked.
"Ah, I was injured when fighting a monster two days ago. My ribs were nearly broken and it hurts when I make sudden movements or move too fast," Ning said.
"Oh, what monster was this?" a person asked in surprise..
"A serpent monster. It only attacked me once and I was thrown far away with broken ribs," he said.
They kept conversing as they asked Ning various questions. Ning answered them as truthfully as he could while also asking questions of his own. During this whole time, the girl never participated in any of these. She was even constantly looking for new people to add.
Ning noticed 2 people far away, a man and a woman. However, they were away from the path Ning's group was walking to. However, the girl suddenly changed her direction towards them. It was only sudden to Ning. Everyone else took this as natural and followed her.
The girl kept on walking and even when she saw the 2 people, she didn't speak.
"Oh, there are people there," one of the other girls in the group said. Only then did the girl act as she noticed them.
"Where? Oh, yes there are two. Good job Fren," she complimented the girl.
Ning was really surprised. 'No wonder these people aren't the least bit curious. They think these encounters are random and they are the ones finding the people,' Ning thought.
The two cultivators were vigilant at first, but once the girl spoke to them, they were lulled into accepting her request and joined the group.
'This easily?' Ning was truly surprised. He knew the charming / Hypnosis skill of hers was strong, but this was way too fast.
The two joined their group and now they were eight. They walked under the moonlight for another couple of hours and collected 5 more people.
There were now a total of 11 people lulled into following the girl.
BANG
A firework exploded in the sky. 'Firework inside the secret realm?' Ning was surprised.
"Oh look, something interesting must be going on there. Let's go check it out okay?" the girl finally spoke for the first time in a while. The group accepted without question.
The fireworks had come from a very close location that would take them around half an hour at most to reach. So the group walked there as fast as they could.
Soon they reached the location from where the firework had been set off, yet no one was there. The group tried to find a hint of someone, yet they couldn't.
Ning was stunned too. 'Nobody?' he thought. But after a more careful check and use of his divine sense, he found that there was something right in front of them. He just couldn't tell what.
"Huh, there is nothing here. You guys check what's forward," the girl said.
The 11 people slowly walked forward, and Ning followed behind them. But the girl wasn't moving at all. 'What's going on?' he wondered.
He couldn't tell what was wrong with the situation but he stopped moving.
"What's wrong? Go ahead," the girl said.
"I'm sorry, my chest suddenly started hurting. I can't move," Ning said as he tried to fake his chest hurting.
"Oh, just move forward then. It will be okay," the girl said with added influence on her voice.
"Is that so?" Ning asked.
"Yes," the girl said.
"Very well then. Why don't you come with me then?" Ning suddenly grabbed her by the neck and dragged her forward. As soon as he walked forward, the girl started screaming.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I'm inside. Don't shoot!"
"Who are you screaming to? Your friends who are waiting to kill us?" Ning asked.
The girl was surprised. She couldn't believe he had so much mental freedom right now. "N-No," she tried to lie. She struggled to get his hands off of her, but no matter what she did, she couldn't open his arms at all.
"Stop lying, you dumb B*t*h. Your charm never worked on me. Now tell me, why did you bring us here?" Ning asked. The rest of them were still blissfully unaware of what was happening.
"Oh, Ria. It seems you caught a big fish huh. Tsk, you messed with someone big and now it came to bite you back," A voice appeared from somewhere.
Ning looked up to see a man with a bow and a bunch of arrows.
"Haha, she actually failed and got herself locked inside the formation. This is too funny," Another voice came from the side.
Ning soon realized there was more than just a single person. There were actually 5 people surrounding them. Each one at the precipice of entering the Foundation Establishment Realm.
'Formation?' Ning sent out his divine sense and realized that there were foundation flags stuck on trees around a 10-meter radius.
"Hey, help me. Let me out you dipsh*ts," the girl named Ria shouted.
"We would, but it's a shame. The formation only releases automatically after 6 hours of activation. So just wait there," the first man said.
"Actually, never mind. I will just take your points too," the man said as an evil grin appeared on his face.
"You Bastard. You think yo— " the girl suddenly turned into yellow light and disappeared.
"Yeah, I liked you more when you spoke less."
Ning lifted his sword and propped it on his shoulders before looking at the surprised faces of the 5 people.
"You weren't wrong about her baiting a big fish. Only you failed you realize that I'm big enough for the lot of you as well."
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