Chapter 12

The entire crowd collectively held their breaths, awaiting Zhu Hao’s demise. But the man himself defied everyone’s expectations.

Before the mighty shockwaves could demolish him, he lifted his arm and pointed toward Jian Niu with a single finger. When he opened his mouth to speak, the space around the arena seemed to warp in a perplexing way. The best way to describe it would be that the air inexplicably was awaiting a command from a ruler.

“Heaven’s Edict: Precepts of the Sovereign!”

Shivers ran down everyone’s spine. It felt as if those words could stop time itself. An elaborate tiger mask carved from ebony appeared floating above the throne’s seat. It had no holes for eyes or a mouth, instead the eyes were painted a vibrant yellow that made the mask look as if it were alive. A savage set of white teeth took the place of a mouth hole.

The mask abruptly turned downwards to face the Thunder God’s Clap that Jian Niu launched. Once its gaze firmly locked onto the approaching attack, Zhu Hao proclaimed, “Precept of Subjugation... Scatter.”

With a wave of his arm, an overbearing force descended from the Heavens and compelled the shock waves to disperse. A stunned silence filled the arena, not only because no one knew what to say, but also because Zhu Hao’s oppressive aura had grown to unimaginable levels.

His face immediately turned pale from exhaustion and his body almost fell to the ground, but refocusing on his opponent, Zhu Hao began slowly staggering over to the confused Jian Niu.

After a couple of seconds, Jian Niu regained his senses and tried to attack again with Thunder God’s Clap. But Zhu Hao was ready this time.

“Trying that again?” He scoffed, “Precept of Subjugation... Kneel.”

The same tyrannical force descended from the Heavens directly onto Jian Niu. He found himself unable to stand and was forced to kneel with both knees to the ground.

Some of the weaker audience members also uncontrollably fell to the ground, kneeling, even though they weren’t the targets of Zhu Hao’s ability. It was truly a peerless martial skill.

However, Zhu Hao looked even paler than before after using Precept of Subjugation. He felt blood filling his throat, but forced it down, continuing to slowly walk up to Jian Niu.

Again everyone held their breaths in anticipation, but this time they were awaiting Jian Niu’s inevitable loss rather than Zhu Hao’s. Once Zhu Hao arrived within arm’s length of Jian Niu, he looked at the ox-like man like he would a puny bug. Jian Niu stared back at him, but all that his eyes displayed was fear. He had already emptied his bladder in terror. He wanted to beg for mercy, but to his horror, he found that he could not even muster up the courage to move his mouth.

Zhu Hao’s right arm pulled back, along with his right leg to give him balance. Milky white qi condensed onto his fist, forming into the head of a tiger. Its shape was hazy, but one could make out the ferocious fangs bared at Jian Niu.

“Jian Niu, I heard you really like to hurt your opponents? What a coincidence. So do I.”

He put all of his power into a final brutal punch that smashed soundly into Jian Niu’s face. It immediately shattered his nose and propelled his body through the air at an incredibly high velocity. With a trail of his own blood following him through the air, he looked just like the cultivator that he had beaten up a few minutes ago.

Jian Niu’s body landed with a thud outside of the arena. Even the medical staff took a few seconds to stare in amazement at Zhu Hao’s use of profound martial skills. Regaining their senses, they then dutifully performed their job and brought the injured Jian Niu away.

The colossal, illusory throne and the tiger mask faded into nothingness as Zhu Hao stumbled off the stage and slowly made his way over to Li Jie. The crowd parted in front of him, partially out of respect and partially out of fear. A big smile was plastered on his face. He weakly struck a victory pose much to Li Jie’s astonishment and embarrassment.

“Pretty cool, huh?” He said, plopping his tired body down right next to Li Jie.

“Wow, the skills master gave you were far better than mine... What rank were they?”

Zhu Hao scratched his head and said with some hesitation, “Well they weren’t really labeled with any rank at all. And the scroll was written in mysterious runes that I couldn’t even read. As soon as I read the scrolls, they just disappeared into my body, and I felt like I understood the contents as if I had written them myself.”

“So what other skills did you receive? Don’t tell me you can go back in time or something?”

“Haha, no nothing like that... probably... Anyway let’s head back befor--”

Cutting him off was another man, similar to an ox, that had leapt onto the stage. He bore a significant resemblance to the defeated Jian Niu. His angry voice bellowed, “Who dared to harm my brother? I, Jian Kang, shall show you the true meaning of pain!”

He had rushed over to this arena from a nearby one after hearing the news that his little brother had been heavily injured.

Everyone present, some consciously and others unconsciously, turned their heads to look at the three infamous friends sitting near the edge of the crowd.

Jian Kang, noticing the direction in which they were looking, boldly jumped from the stage and landed with a heavy thud right in front of Li Jie. He immediately circulated his cultivation and used it to emit an oppressive aura.

‘Ugh, he’s at the 7th level,’ Li Jie thought after sensing the aura, ‘I really don’t want to bother with this guy.’

He racked his brain, searching for a way to get out of this situation. Ultimately, he decided to play his master’s favored “Shameless” card.

“Shameless! A 7th level cultivator picking on a little boy like me?” He asked with indignance.

Lily, who had been woken up by Jian Kang landing right in front of them, groggily shot up from Li Jie’s lap and mimicked him while yawning, “Yeah, shameless!”

She had absolutely no idea as to what was going on, but it didn’t look good to her. A wounded Zhu Hao and an angry looking cultivator of the 7th level--she sorely wished she could get back to her nice dreams of chasing yummy meat buns around an idyllic green pasture.

But for Lily, if her friends were in trouble, she would not hesitate to fight for them, no matter who the opponents were.

Jian Kang looked at the girl who had literally been drooling in Li Jie’s lap dreaming about chasing meat buns. He had no clue if she was being serious or not. But either way, after he found out that the people he wanted to get revenge upon for injuring his brother were only 4th level cultivators, he began to hesitate.

If he were to challenge a cultivator a whole three levels below him and win, no one would give him any credit. Rather, people would consider him to be a pathetic bully who picked on those even weaker. And if in the small chance that he lost, his name would become the joke of the entire sect.

Murmurs spread throughout the crowd, many of them agreeing with what Li Jie had said. Zhu Hao had defeated Jian Niu fairly in a fight, and now this 7th level brother of his wanted to take revenge? They could only describe it as disgraceful.

Seeing the crowd quickly turn against him, Jian Kang spit to the side with contempt and said, “I’ll let you go today, consider yourselves lucky.”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Although Li Jie himself wasn’t exactly scared, he knew that even if he used all of his trump cards, it would still be a difficult fight for him.

Jian Kang stood still with hatred burning in his eyes, regretfully watching his targets walked away.

-----

As soon they got back to Li Jie’s room, they all slumped down to the floor, breathing a huge sigh of relief. Zhu Hao suddenly broke into unrestrained laughter.

“Hahaha, no matter where we go, we always cause some sort of trouble, don’t we?”

“That’s right!” Lily replied, giving a “V” sign with her fingers and grinning.

Li Jie just looked at them incredulously and shook his head at Lily, ‘Why are you doing a victory pose? You were sleeping the whole time!’

He thought that Jian Kang would have definitely attacked them on the way back if there hadn’t been so many witnesses around. The threat of a 7th level cultivator filled his mind, keeping him tense.

“Lily, can you tell your family to hire some bodyguards or something to take of that guy? I get the feeling that this incident won't just end like that.”

“Umm well, the sect has a policy against any outside interference from the disciple’s families. My clan is one of the few in this city strong enough to violate that rule, but I don’t think my mama would be very happy with that.”

She shuddered when she mentioned “mama”, as if she had been talking about a malevolent demon.

“I see. And we can’t contact master since he seems to be really busy recently... I guess our only option is to get stronger as quick as possible.”

Li Jie was already more than halfway to breaking through to the 5th level due to the red pearl of qi in his dantian. Lily had her own secret clan cultivation method that seemed to involve shaping the dantian into a sword itself. It was extremely profound and by far the fastest cultivation method Li Jie had ever seen before.

Furthermore, among the unique martial arts that Zhu Hao received, there had also been a technique that forced the world’s qi to assimilate into his body at a rapid pace, accelerating his cultivation. Just like every other skill that his master gave him, it gave the feeling of belonging to him from the very beginning. Thus he was able to master it instantly.

Being good friends now, all three of them shared most of the information on their special traits and abilities with each other. Li Jie, however, held back on mentioning the existence of his crest and ancestor’s soul fragment.

“You know,” Lily said, pulling out a still-warm pork bun from her spatial ring and munching on it, “I feeff ash if weef--”

Zhu Hao lightly chopped her head, “Finish your food before you speak dammit!”

“Thawee,” She said, gulping down her food, “Anyway what I was trying to say was that it kinda feels like we’re tied together by fate y’know? I mean, all three of us are pretty strong, actually like super strong. You guys may not know this, but I’m already considered to be a once in a decade talent!”

“Fate? What kind of silly idea is that?” Zhu Hao replied offhandedly and was about to continue criticizing the idea when he saw Li Jie, pondering something.

“Li Jie? Don’t tell me you believe her?”

“Well maybe? I don’t know. It’s just that I feel like there’s some real truth to what Lily said... It’s not something rational but rather something coming from deeper within me...”

By now, Lily had returned to contentedly eating her pork bun, ignoring the other two completely. Getting close to Li Jie, Zhu Hao quickly glanced at her before lowering his voice.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to take that,” pointing to a certain girl munching happily as if she didn’t have a care in the world, “seriously?”

Li Jie didn’t answer his question, instead a mischievous grin appeared on his face. He waved at Lily to get her attention.

“Hey Lily, guess what this guy just said?”

But before he could finish, a panicked Zhu Hao tackled Li Jie to the ground and tried to stop him from saying anything more.

Lily tilted her head at the two in confusion, before ignoring them again and going back to her nibbling.

Seeing her actions, both Li Jie and Zhu Hao had similar thoughts pop up in their heads:

‘Is she a rabbit?’

‘When did we get a rabbit as a pet...’

-----

After resting for a bit longer, the three separated to take advantage of the sect’s resources. Zhu Hao and Lily went to the towers to cultivate while Li Jie decided to take a look at the library. Like an ominous specter, his mother’s hopeless condition hovered in the back of his mind at all times. He wanted to study alchemy in the hopes of procuring some sort of cure, or at least finding some medicine that could stall for time.

But on his way to the library, a streak of light descended from the sky like a meteor, abruptly decelerating right in front of Li Jie. He saw outer court elder robes fluttering wildly in the burst of the wind the “meteor” had generated. A familiar scarred face gazed at Li Jie with a slight look of interest.

“The library, is it?” The elder asked as he wrapped his aura around Li Jie.

Li Jie didn’t even have time to respond or ask why the elder knew as he suddenly felt the ground disappear before him. Last time he thankfully passed out from over exhaustion, but now all he could do was pray that the elder didn’t drop him as they sped toward the library.