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RM 58: Next Level (II)
🕑 Added 2025-05-19 03:33:01 +0000 UTCA/N: I thought I had these chapters scheduled for release over the last week. Guess I need to pay more attention next time. I had a bit of a rough week with medication and puking, so I couldn't catch this sooner. My Aplogies.
There will be chapters tomorrow and the day after tomorrow too. I've scheduled them now, and double checked.
I'll do what I can for the subsequent releases. If nothing worsened, you should have four chapters this week.
Thank you for your patience.
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In the outskirts of Heaven Rending Valley’s outer area, a short boy with dark brown hair ran away from a herd of red-eyed buffalo. These muscular, four-legged creatures charged after him, salivating.
Haomu grunted, feeling the hot breath of the foundation building level beast on his neck. The buffalo herd numbered about a hundred and fifty, a good chunk in the foundation establishment realm. These beasts had settled around a small oasis in this arid land, their numbers and thick hide putting them high in the food chain.
Haomu thought he should find some treasures in their home.
Since he proposed the idea…
“Why did I have to draw the short stick!!” Haomu stumbled behind a giant boulder, rolling once before sprinting off.
A narrow valley of crumbling rocks welcomed him with open arms. It had a short horizontal length, but a steep vertical face on three sides. A rope dangled barely in his reach at the end of the valley—another cruel joke made by the tall, annoying guy at the valley’s ledge.
“Grab onto it fast, unless you wanna get skewered.” Xu Qiang said.
“You damn ape!” Fearing the two-meter-long horns of the merciless beasts rushing in, Haomu grabbed the rope and ran up the steep wall.
“I was about to pull you up. Why ruin the fun?” Xu Qiang asked.
“If I waited for you, I’d be their side dish by now.” Haomu snarled.
“You two…” Huajun sighed, finished a complex set of hand seals. “I have sealed up the valley’s mouth with a wall, but it can only last about 30 minutes.”
Since the number of the beasts exceeded what they could handle, the group devised a plan to trap them in the nearby valley. With Haomu picked to draw the beasts in, Huajun used his earth element spiritual root to close the valley’s entrance with a 3-meter-thick stone wall.
The buffaloes couldn’t run up the valley walls. The decaying rocks couldn’t support their weight and sent them rolling down into their fellow beasts, so they turned their horns towards the wall, grinding against it.
“Let’s keep them busy.” Xu Qiang said, his eyes meeting with their timidest member.
“O-Ok.” Yesu took a deep breath and extended his hand forward. “Illusory Bow.”
Upon his words, a long bow made of dark green wood materialized. A single vine with lush leaves wrapped around the perfect, curved bow acted as a string. Yesu pulled on the string, and a green arrow formed.
With longer arms, Yesu could pull the bow a lot more than an average person. The arrow made from his qi flew like a hawk towards the distracted buffaloes.
Even people with poor aim would struggle to miss a shot with a packed crowd like that, but Yesu had another move.
“S-Scatter!” The qi arrow split into eight smaller arrows and struck six buffaloes.
Although it did minimal damage to the thick hide of these creatures, the tiny punctures that drew lines of blood gathered their attention. And, after two more arrows, the buffaloes had forgotten about the wall that kept them in the valley. Their sole purpose now was to reach the annoying archer up above.
“Your spiritual root is awesome, dude.” Xu Qiang said, his eyes gleaming at the green bow. “A special weapon only you can use. Ain’t that just perfect?”
“I-It’s nothing.” Yesu scratched his head. This bow got him a special pass to start as an inner disciple right away, a special spiritual root.
“Why are you like that? If I had a spiritual root like that, I’d keep it out all the time.” Xu Qiang said.
“This damned muscle brain. Did you forget how draining it is for Yesu to do that?” Haomu said.
“I-It’s ok,” Yesu said. He could only maintain the bow for about an hour a day. “I think Brother Xu was eating at the time I told about it.”
“It’s not ok,” Haomu grunted.
“…Tell you what, I know a few people that can hook you up with a nice spare bow.” Xu Qiang hadn’t seen the guy use another weapon either.
But Yesu only showed a wry smile at the suggestion.
“I can’t use any other weapon,” Yesu said. “I-It’s a common restriction for spiritual roots of my type, but it is stronger in my case. I can’t even hold a training bow because of it.”
“Oh…” Xu Qinag thought he could’ve given Yesu an excellent weapon as a gift to make up for his lack of attention, but he didn’t expect the restriction to be that heavy.
“It’s not a big problem, though. My bow is special,” Yesu smiled. His green long bow turned into a white war bow, changing the range and power of the weapon.
“That seems helpful.” Huajun marveled, wondering what other bows Yesu could conjure up. “You can quickly switch between different types of bows, like ones with different elements?”
“I am not sure yet,” Yesu said, his face brightening a little.
However, Xu Qiang could only scratch his face while Haomu glared from the side.
“…What’s with the atmosphere here?” Wang Yang asked upon his sudden arrival.
“W-Wait! Why are you already back?” Haomu asked, his eyes going over the dry clothes of his teammate. “Did you even dive in the lake?”
The division of tasks was simple. Haomu lured the buffaloes into the valley, Huajun sealed them in, Yesu kept the beasts occupied with his bow, and Xu Qiang would become the second bait if the buffaloes breached the rock wall.
That left Wang Yang with the job to hunt for the treasures.
Their initial hypothesis was that if someone wanted to make the treasure hunt hard, they’d hide the thing in the depths of the lake. Even if small, it should’ve taken a good thirty minutes for Wang Yang to search the lake floor loosely once. However, he came back in two minutes, bone dry at that.
An awkward laugh escaped Wang Yang’s lips. “I found the treasure under a rock near the lake.”
He showed the Earth Grade Low Rank dagger to them. Wang Yang recounted the process of how he discovered the thing and it left the team wide eyed.
“Let me get this straight. You didn’t want to get your uniform wet, so you took it off and were planning to hide it under a nearby rock. And you found the dagger under a concealed formation there?” Huajun pinched his nose bridge. “Am I hearing this right?”
“Yeah.” Wang Yang nodded.
“Why would you hide your uniform under a rock?” Haomu asked.
“When I was playing in the river this one time, a monkey took off with my clothes…” Wang Yang’s face turned red remembering the walk back home that day.
“W-Why didn’t you store it in your storage ring, Brother Wang?” Yesu said.
“That’s not the point here…” Haomu grabbed his head. “Brother Wang, your uniform is from the Silk Pagoda. It’s an artifact. It won’t get wet and cleans itself. You didn’t even have to take it off.”
“But that led Brother Wang to the treasure.” Huajun tried to wrap his head around the situation, too. However, he could only shake his head.
This ice blue dagger with a straight blade would count as the second Earth Grade treasure. The previous one took Xu Qiang and Yesu two days of sifting through dunes of burning sand while others cleared off the scorpions. Now, Wang Yang came back before ten minutes had passed, and the guy had previously found a handful of Mortal Grade treasures on his own.
“So, I have been washing it for no reason?” Wang Yang’s eyes had a look of betrayal.
“…”
No one knew what to say at that point.
“…Well, we have our treasure. Let’s make a run for the base.” Xu Qiang said, wrapping up the incident.
The group agreed after noticing how aggressive the herd of buffaloes became. They reached the entrance of Heaven Rending valley in three hours. The closer they got to the gate, the more chaotic the surroundings became.
Their fellow disciples, covered in sand and blood, came back in droves as the trial came to a close.
“Healer! We have a stage two emergency!”
“The injured who can walk head east. Do not crowd the emergency tent!”
“Hey, you! Don’t slee—!”
Many had scratches, while some were missing limbs. The majority of the disciples had bloody bandages wrapped around their torn uniforms, but only a few looked down. The excitement only grew among the disciples who came back without a single injury, their hands with all sorts of trinkets and cold weapons.
Wang Yang saw many severely injured disciples hurried into the green tents with the Osmanthus crest. The senior disciples worked overtime to save them. He could hear their passionate efforts from outside. Everyone who entered came out without injuries. They hugged their crying allies and laughed like nothing happened.
Wang Yang noticed Lie Feng near one of these tents, bandages wrapped around his right hand and bare chest, his eyes closed shut. But he didn’t go forward to inquire. The boy trembled; his jaw squeezed tight.
With a wide announcement, the senior disciples gathered the top thirty disciples of the trial at Sky Garden. Wang Yang said goodbye to his team and took a floating platform to a wide, hovering mass in the sky.
Surrounded by a variety of flora nine hundred meters high in the sky, the disciples waited in front of an opulent stage erected near the white pagoda, their hearts pounding at the mountain of gifts.
Wang Yang saw a few distinguished old men standing at the right corner of the stage, their sharp eyes washing over the crowd. However, he spotted a few familiar faces on the left side, sparking excitement in his heart.
“Greetings, young ones. My name is Elder Ling. And I will now begin the prize distribution for this trial.” The seemingly jovial old man said, drawing everyone’s attention.
He first cleared out the ones that ranked from 30th place to 10th in about 10 minutes. Most of them were female disciples who accepted the prizes from Muchen with teary eyes. A simple congratulation was followed by another elder in a black uniform handing the prize to the happy disciples. Xu Qiang’s group also got the small prizes after ranking from 27th to 24th.
Although they found two Earth-grade treasures. They had to split the merit as a team. However, they had performed better than they expected.
“The ones in the top 10 are all people who went hunting alone,” Haomu muttered.
Elder Ling passed through the ranks with a genial smile. After Zhang Jun walked off stage with a smirk, Lie Feng walked up the stairs under thunderous applause, his eyes, however, didn’t look up from the ground. The elders and disciples from Sky Peak seemed overjoyed at the treasure the young disciple found. However, Lie Feng had no change in his expression; he received his prize and walked away without a word.
Useless kid. How can you lose to a simpleton after everything I’ve done to guide you to that treasure? Elder Ling clenched his hand, hidden in the sleeve, but didn’t let it show on his face.
When he heard that Li Muchen’s disciples would take part in the sect trial, he prepared to bury them all under the weight of their incompetence. He set up the clash at Jade Pavilion, imprinted the idea of discord in Lie Feng’s mind, and even subconsciously guided him to get Zhang Jun’s treasure in the trial. However, the kid still lost and came in third place.
I thought he might stand a chance against Sun Lingling in a luck-based trial. Elder Ling handed the prize to the indifferent Lingling, who vanished off the stage as quickly as her arrival, not even waiting for him to say another word.
Alas… an average kid outclassed him. He clicked his tongue while facing Wang Yang. Still, he got the sect master’s sword… An insignificant punk is once again getting in my way. Only Elder Ling knew his facial muscles worked overtime to stop the scowl from appearing on his face.
“Here you go, Disciple Wang.” Elder Ling smiled, handing over a small spatial ring that had all the prizes. Even if he had lost, he had an image to maintain. “Your performance pleasantly surprised me, even more so than others. No one expected someone of humble start-”
However, before he could finish, Wang Yang spoke up. “Thank you for your praise, elder. I have something urgent to do, so excuse me.” The young man bowed to show respect and rushed off stage even faster than Sun Lingling.
“…” In the frigid air of the stage, Elder Ling ground his teeth, fighting to maintain that smile.
The disciples and elders present had a lot to say, but they held their breaths. They could feel a storm approaching.
Before rushing off a few days ago, Muchen had left some words for Elder Ling.
I haven’t decided what to ask of you since your assets are so vast. Don’t worry, though, I won’t ask you to do anything that’ll put you in trouble. Wouldn’t want to ruin your retirement. Muchen passed the message along through an elder and didn’t bother to show himself afterwards.
To everyone, Elder Ling, who had originally mocked both Muchen and Wang Yang subtly, now faced the same. However, none of them could say it out loud, unlike Liu Zhi. Her drunken outbursts of laughter reached the stage from the main pavilion of Sky Garden.
Good. Very good. Elder Ling crushed the sound artifact, made of meteorite iron, into dust. Both Disciple and the Master, you better not forget this!
However, unlike his conclusion of this being an intentional disrespect, Wang Yang ran away for a simple reason. He spotted his favorite senior. The one he missed the most during Hua Mei’s grueling training.
On the right side of the stage, two women in purple silk robes stayed hidden away from the disciples’ curious eyes. They didn’t look far apart in age and had very similar, humble clothing, yet they had a distinct air about them.
“Senior Gu, you didn’t leave for your sect?” Wang Yang approached the young woman with a gentle smile, Gu Yingyue.
“I left for some tasks. However, Senior Li was gracious enough to invite me so I could watch your performance. I have to say, you have grown tremendously.” Yingyue smiled and glanced at the woman with a frigid air around her. “Our esteemed Senior Qian also thought so.”
“Uh… Ah!” It took Wang Yang a moment to notice the women glaring daggers at him over Yingyue’s shoulder. “Senior Qian Yun, it is an honor.” He cupped his hand in respect and fear.
“This brat finally noticed me, huh?” Qian Yun scoffed. “You performed better than I expected.”
“I’ll do better next time.” Wang Yang laughed with enthusiasm.
“Whatever…” Qian Yun said.
She observed Gu Yingyue and Wang Yang exchanging joyful words along the way. Her frown only deepened as they laughed and conversed, went through topics like cultivation and swordplay to food and mundane tasks.
She wasn’t angry at the pair of enthusiastic kids in front of her, but on words that kept ringing in her head.
If you are thinking of using my sect as bait, I won’t forgive you. She had said those words to Muchen when they agreed to strike the Demonic Sects during her last visit.
Worry not. The bait’s prepared, and it’s not your sect. After this answer, he told her to wait a month for further information.
Three days ago, Muchen contacted her. The message he sent had soured her mood to no end.
The bait is me.
Qian Yun pinched her nose bridge with an unpleasant taste in her mouth.
What is that bastard up to this time?
Comments
андрей ткач
Thanks for the chapter!
