Chapter 65 – Ghost?
On the back of his horse, Ye Chen shook his head. He placed the Slaughtering Yuan Blood Palm manual back in the storage ring. ‘Training this martial skill is too dangerous. The situation a martial institution is the most afraid of is for their martial skills to be stolen and spread out. Even if it is not directly related to you, learning their martial skills in this way will put you in deep trouble. If I learn this and they find out about it, my cultivation might be completely crippled by them. My individual strength is too weak when compared to a massive martial institution like the Evil Blood Martial School.’
As the Slaughtering Yuan Bloody Palm was only a top rank Mortal Realm skill, Ye Chen felt that it was not worth risking his life.
Ye Chen injected his soul power into the storage ring again, and took out the next manual present on the book shelf.
When he held it in his hand, he found that it was a secret manual.
“Earth Explosion, top rank Mortal Realm martial skill: A warrior accumulates all his Zhen Qi at their feet. When the Zhen Qi is sent out in the form of a special wave, it triggers an explosion. This secret skill has three stages. The first stage of the skill allows the user to trigger an explosion using Zhen Qi. The second stage allows them to inject his Zhen Qi into the ground, and it can later be subtly detonated when needed. The third stage allows his Zhen Qi to be projected under the ground to a long distance, and then it can be made to explode remotely. But, the consumption of Zhen Qi is very high in order to do this.”
‘Great’. Ye Chen was surprised. After he went through the manual, Ye Chen understood that the Bloody Butcher had only trained the martial skill to its first stage. Even though this enhanced his attack power, if the opponent was fast and sensitive enough, he could easily avoid the attack. However, the second stage would be much harder to defend against, since the Zhen Qi would be hidden in the ground. If it was used to attack his enemy when he was at his most vulnerable state, it might even be possible to kill the opponent if his cultivation level was the same. The third stage could be said to be extremely powerful as one could hide their Zhen Qi underground for a long time, and could even send it a long distance away before detonating it remotely when needed.
Ye Chen was glad that the Bloody Butcher hadn’t trained it to the third stage. Otherwise, even if he managed to kill the Bloody Butcher, he himself would have been heavily injured. This thought terrified him. In fact, he felt that if it wasn’t for his extremely powerful soul power and high speed, he would not have been able to completely escape from the Bloody Butcher’s attack.
Of course, a secret martial skill would be a few times harder to train than the martial skills of the same rank. Training the Earth Explosion skill would not be any easier than training a low rank Earth Realm martial skill. A person with low comprehension would probably not be able to reach the third stage even if they trained for ten years.
As he now had a secret martial skill in his hands, Ye Chen didn’t want to waste this great opportunity. He decided to master it and make it one of his trump cards.
Finally there was the third and last manual.
“Hidden Qi Spell, low rank Earth Realm auxiliary skill, it has two stages. The first stage is useful at the Condensing Reality Realm level, it could be used to change the vibrations of the Zhen Qi freely, and hide one’s cultivation by one level. The second stage is useful for the Clasping Yuan Realm level, allowing one to hide another level of cultivation. But, once the cultivation level is above the Clasping Yuan Realm, the Hidden Qi Spell will no longer be effective.”
After he went through the manual, Ye Chen had a deeper understanding of it. ‘I shouldn’t underestimate the Hidden Qi Spell, just because it only has two stages. It is really common to meet opponents of the same cultivation level. If we are both at the first stage, then as long as my cultivation is slightly higher than my opponent’s, I will be fine as the opponent would not be able to see through my true cultivation level. However, on the contrary, if the opponent’s cultivation level is even slightly higher than mine, then my true cultivation level would be easily seen through.’
‘What a great martial art! I can use this until I reach the Clasping Yuan Realm!’ ! Ye Chen was really happy to find that skill. He felt that it’d increase his chances of survival, if he managed to master it.
As for those that trained the Qi Discernment skill, he decided to ignore them for now. He felt that the chances of him meeting someone that knows that particular skill were too small. Unless one of the martial institutions decided to pass the Qi Discernment skill as a common martial art, it probably won’t happen. But, to do that, they’d have to have the secret manual first.
Then again, even if Ye Chen was to meet someone like that in the future, he was confident that he’d have mastered the Hidden Qi Spell to the peak of second stage by then. Even if the opponent had trained the Qi Discernment skill to its peak, he would only have a fifty percent chance to see through Ye Chen’s cultivation.
The dark brown horse ran at an extreme pace. In the blink of an eye, it had already covered a distance of ten meters. The scenery on both sides of the road rapidly changed continuously, leaving only a blur.
It was a starless night. There was only a half-moon present. The thick clouds that covered half of the sky moved slowly.
“It looks like it’s about to rain, I should find a place to rest for the night.” Ye Chen who was on top of the horse thought to himself. On the dark street, the clatters of a horse’s hoofs were heard from far away as they closed in.
He planned to travel all night, so that he could arrive at the Sky Cloud Martial School by the evening of the next day. But, it seemed impossible now.
He rode for a while longer, until he saw a few dots of light visible in the distance.
It was a village!
The village was not big. In the dim moonlight, Ye Chen accumulated Zhen Qi in his eyes, this allowed him to easily see the houses that had their lights on, and also identify which of the houses was large. Shortly after, he arrived at the gates of the village.
Ye Chen got off the horse and started walking in, while holding its reins.
The clatters of the horse’s hoofs had already woken up a couple of people. A lot of houses had their lights lit. The chattering among them got louder and louder, as they tried to find out who it was, that had arrived.
The doors of the houses right next to Ye Chen were opened, and a group of people burst out of them.
“Who are you! What are you doing in the Yellow Stone Village!”
“Don’t you dare do anything funny, we are not afraid of you.”
Ye Chen forced a smile. Suddenly, he punched the ground, leaving a massive hole in it, “I am only here for the night, for a place to sleep. I will leave tomorrow. With my strength, I could do anything to you if I wanted to.”
“Are you really here only for accommodation?” The head of the group who was topless, while holding a pickaxe in his hand, looked at the hole in the ground and asked carefully.
Ye Chen nodded, “Do I look like a robber?”
“Not really!” The man studied Ye Chen. He saw that Ye Chen was wearing a white robe, which was made from high quality materials, of which even a small piece would allow him to live for a month. He also noticed the great sword hanging at Ye Chen’s waist, and how young he was. With his clean cut appearance and innocent looks, the head didn’t believe that Ye Chen would be a robber.
As he let out a breath of air, the man yelled to the crowd: “Okay, everyone, you can all go home now. This young man is not a robber!”
Hearing him, most of the people turned and started to head back, only a small amount of people stayed to witness the drama.
The man didn’t care for it, he said to Ye Chen: “I have a spare room at my house that you could stay for the night. As for the fee…”
Ye Chen took out a piece of silver and threw it in the man’s hand, “Is it enough?”
“Enough, enough. Chunhua! Hurry! Clean up the guest room for the young warrior!” The man’s face was full of smiles, as he yelled at his wife who was inside the house.
Ye Chen took a look around, and realized that none of the houses had a front yard, he said, “Where should I leave my horse?”
“Horse! Right, there is a big broken tree at the back of my house, you could leave it there!” The man glanced at the dark brown horse, and then pointed at the back.
“Okay.”
Ye Chen held his horse and went there. Just like the man said, there was indeed a huge tree, that needed at least two people to wrap around it. But it was snapped in half, so Ye Chen was unable to see it when he was in front of the house.
Tying the reins, Ye Chen took out a huge pile of grasses from his storage ring, as he said to the dark brown horse: “Rest well tonight, we will have to travel more tomorrow.”
The horse made a noise, which sounded like it agreed.
The dark brown horse let out two pillars of air out of his nose, and then started eating the grass.
Ye Chen was about to leave when he unconsciously noticed that something was different in the sky far away. Then he couldn’t help but gasp.
“Is it a ghost, or…?”