[Place: Sistine Continent, Dalmora Nation, Riverwood forest]

When Ling was fighting with Lui, on the other side Shun, Tianying and Meg were in a vigorous battle with Zi. Prince Tianying and Princess Meng were being protected by the ice barrier that Shun cast. Shun had told them to use all the recovery pills they had to heal themselves. As it took time for recovery pills to take action, Shun was busy fighting Zi all by himself.

Wham! 

Their fists collided as both of skidded for thirty meters before coming to a stop. Shun was gasping heavily and had light injuries on his body but on the other hand, Zi who should have the advantage had several bruises and cuts on his body as he was bleeding from his mouth . Although Shun was one stage lower than him and he was also using some of his power to maintain the ice barrier, he was still clearly at a slight advantage. 

This caused panic and fear to arouse in Zi's mind. He stared at Shun as he said grimly, “I didn't think a junior like you would have this much power! Not only have you cultivated Lighting arts, you also know Ice arts. You really shouldn't be kept alive anymore! ”. Then he brought out a two meter long spear from his storage spatial ring as he pointed its tip towards Shun.

Shun also lifted his right arm to summon his weapon but then his expression changed slightly as he noticed that the storage spatial necklace he was wearing was gone. 

‘Crap! When did it get lost? I won't be able to defeat him if the battle gets any longer? ’ Shun thought as he gritted his teeth slightly and covered both his arms in sapphire colored Heavenly energy. Though he was suppressing Zi till now, still his Heavenly energy was depleting at a quick pace as he had to fight as well as maintain an ice barrier to protect Prince And Princess Meng from the aftershocks of their battle.

Both their bodies flashed as they instantly closed the distance between them. Zi shoved his spear at Shun's abdomen but Shun quickly reacted and struck the side of the spear with his right hand causing it to deflect. Then his body flashed again like a lighting spark and he appeared right above Zi. 

The sapphire aura swiftly change into Bright silver colored frost energy and Shun shoved his left palm at Zi's head. It was about to hit Zi but suddenly Zi moved to his right at a fast speed causing Shun to hit his shadow. Then pointed his spear upwards as dark green Heavenly energy swirled around it and he thrusted it at Shun's left collarbone. 

Crack! 

Sprat!

With sounds of bone cracking it neatly pierced Shun's body.

“Argh! ” Shun groaned in pain. Then Zi instantly pulled the spear out and struck Shun's right shoulder as he spun his spear from left to right. 

Khang! 

Shun was shot away like a ball before he regained his balance. Then he did a spin in mid air and landed on the ground on his knees right in front of the ice barrier.

He pressed his right hand tightly against the wound as blood oozed down from the corner of his lips as his clothes got drenched in blood. His energy was thrown into disorder but slowly he stabilized them and stood up.

“Heh! You really are something! To think you will be able to stand up again after being injured like that! Well I had my fun….now it's time for me to end this! ” Zi said scornfully as he held his Spear straight and drew a circular arc in air. The dark green energy swiftly formed an energy ring as it started to spin rapidly and started growing bigger and denser.

‘Fuck! If I don't disable the barrier right now…that attack might just be enough to visciously injure me! But if I take away the barrier, they will die without a doubt. Tch! ’ Shun though as he looked at the Heavenly formation circle that was formed in the middle of the ring. The attack was relatively slow as it took whole two breaths for the Heavenly formation to form. But Shun was only able to use seventy percent of his full strength as he had to continuously put up the barrier and he had wounds as well. So if he had charged recklessly he would have definitely died.

But then Prince Tianying who was still absorbing the pill opened his eyes as he said, “Mr.Shun! You can undo the barrier now! It's done! ”. Princess Meng also opened her eyes and slowly stood up.

Hearing that a smirk appeared on Shun's face. 

“Die bastard! ” Zi shouted as he thrusted his spear through the Heavens formation and a jet green colored beam emerged from it and dashed forward towards Shun.

 Shun didn't try to dodge instead he pulled both his arms back as two types of energy swiftly covered his arms. Then he shoved his hands forward to receive the approaching attack as he shouted, “Combined arts: Frozen Thunder Strike.” 

Screee~

As the attacks clashed, the beam of green energy struggled to break free Shun's combined attack but within two breaths the green energy was engulfed by the strange lighting ice energy as the jet of energy crumbled into pieces with a burst.

Rumble! 

The surroundings shook as Shun tore apart the green energy into pieces with his bare hands. Seeing that Zi's face lost all its color and fresh red blood gushed out from his mouth due to the backlash of the attack. He limply fell on his knees vomiting mouthful of blood due to the backlash and the approaching fear of death.

He suddenly remembered something and instantly brought out a sound transmission crystal to inform Lui. He never thought that he would be defeated by a junior like this. But as he tried to communicate with Lui, his face became even more ghastly pale and white as paper as an despairing thought came to his mind, ‘Someone…..got him. ’. That ‘someone ’ was none other than Ling. Then he sent an emergency sound transmission to his mercenary group.

Shun was breathing heavily as most of his energy was already depleted. He looked at Zi who was trying to contact someone but then he saw the sudden change in Zi's expression which caused him to think, ‘It seems his group abandoned him or something! Heh! It seems even luck is with us! ’.

He didn't give Zi another chance to recover as sapphire Heavenly energy enshrouded his body and he dashed at Zi like a bolt of lighting. Zi tried to resist by creating a barrier but as Shun struck his palm like a claw, the barrier shattered and his hand penetrated Zi's body thoroughly. 

“Ahh! ” Zi gave a miserable cry but then Shun used ice energy froze his internal organs and meridians in the blink of an eye. In normal condition, he couldn't have done this but right now Zi was nothing but a mere Cultivator who didn't have a shred of Heavenly energy left in him.

Crumble!

After Zi's internal organs froze, Shun pulled out his hand and snapped his finger and with that, the frozen organs and meridians turned to ice dust. With wide opened eyes and mouth, Zi lifelessly fell on the ground.

Phew!

Shun gave a long sigh of relief before turning to look at the duo who were stunned.

Prince Tianying said in a daze, “Mr. Shun…you have mastery over two…different elemental Heavenly energy?”

Shun replied politely, “Hmm…..yeah. Anyway are the two of you okay? ”

“Woah! You are a genius brother Shun! ” princess Meng exclaimed in shock as her respect towards him increased several fold.

“Sister, it's not polite to address someone as brother unless he has given permission to do so! And yes, our injuries are fully healed Mr. Shun.” Prince Tianying educated her sister but Shun said, “Oh no…it's fine. You can call me brother if you want to. ”

“As you wish brother Shun. Then I also hope you stop addressing us so formally.”

“As you wish, brother Tianying.” Shun replied. After that he ate a recovery pallet that prince Tianying had saved for him. After his wounds were somewhat fine, Shun said gently “Well then…I hope you two will have a safe journey! This is where we have to part ways I guess! The city is not to far from here so you should be able to reach it within fifteen minutes!”

“Wait…aren't you coming with us? You are our savior…if we don't do anything for you we would feel guilty. Please come with us to our sect. ” prince Tianying hurriedly said.

“I also really wish to go there but forgive me brother Tianying, my spatial storage necklace had gotten lost. I need to find it first…there are many important thing in that. ” Shun said as he started walking in the direction they had come from. 

But then prince Tianying said, “Then we will help you as well! It might be dangerous for you if more of those bandits come and we will also help you to find it as well! ”.

Shun pondered for a while before saying, “Okay then! Let's go! And you don't need to worry about the bandits! If they have brains, then they won't attack us instantly. They will definitely take action cautiously from now on! But still we shouldn't waste much time!  ”

Both of them nodded and started following Shun. Spatial storage necklaces and ring had specific auras that could be easily identified by the owner if the owner wished to find them. They were sprinting through the forest at a fast pace while Shun kept using his spiritual senses to search the surroundings.

“Brother Shun, are you from the ten great sects? ” Princess Meng asked curiously.

Shun replied with a laugh, “Haha! No no….I haven't joined a sect yet. I have been self cultivating under my grandfather's watch till I was fifteen. But I am planning on joining a sect now. ” 

“Then how about you join our sect? With your talent…you will definitely be an inner desciple. I will talk with my father who is the sect master.  ” Prince Tianying said hurriedly in an excited manner.

Shun kept quiet for a while before saying, “To be honest…I didn't really want to say this but I actually registered my name to enter your sect. I didn't want to tell you this because then you might think that I saved you to reap this benefit of you. And also I don't really like using backdoors like this. ”

Prince Tianying said, “We will definitely not think that! And we have already saw your power. So this is not backdoor. With your talent if you give the selection exam and become an outer desciple, it would be a waste. So you don't need to bother about that. Then after this, let's go back to our sect to meet with the sect master! ”

Shun hesitated to give a reply.

“You don't have to feel guilty or bad brother Shun. You have saved us…so this is the least we can do and in the end this will benefit our own sect to have someone as strong as you in the young generation. ” princess Meng said.

“Then I will have to trouble you! ” Shun said with a smile although he still felt an unease..

After fifteen minutes, they again came back to the place where they first met. As soon as Shun got closer to this place, he started feeling the presence of his necklace.

He gave a sigh of relief as he said with a light smile, “It's here! I can fee…” but as they came into the open ground where they had fought, all of them became momentarily speechless.

There was a big cretor in the middle and several charred marks on the ground. Then there eyes fell on the blood trail that was fifty meters long, and they saw a corpse at the end of it.

“Just what happened here? ” prince Tianying said.

“Looks like a fight between two high level Cultivators! Thank god we left this place earlier! ” Shun said. Then he moved forward and found his necklace stuck in a bush. Tianying also followed behind Shun. But Meng was still standing as she was looking at the corpse with her right hand touching her chin as she cutely tilted her head towards right. Then she slowly started walking towards it with slanted eyebrows.

“What are you doing sister? ” Tianying said as he saw Meng walking in the direction of the corpse. But Meng didn't give any reply, she continued walking and came to a stop right before it as she turned her head instantly in  as if she was too afraid to look at the corpse.

Tianying and Shun also came and both of them looked at the lifeless body which had no head and there was a big hole on the chest as the entire ribcage was shattered into pieces as cracked bones came out of the skin. It was so viscious that no one would think this was the work of a human. But then their gaze fell on the tattered blood stained robes of the corpse. It was the same robe as Zi wore on which there was a symbol of a tiger.

“This guy…is from the ‘Wild Tiger’ mercenary group. ” prince Tianying said while being dumbfounded.

Shun finally realized who Zi was trying to contact before he was about to die. Then he said, “Looks like this poor guy met someone else and thought that was the who killed their men so he probably provoked that person. But it seems he just invited his own death with that decision. But still This kind of visciousness and ruthlessness….was the other party even human?!”

Princess Meng didn't look at the corpse as she had turned her back towards it and she stood silently with closed eyes. Tianying turned to look at her as he asked, “Why did you come here sister? ”

“….This energy…is strange. I....have never felt or seen this kind of aura…looks like the other cultivator used some strange Heavenly art . This corpse is radiating fire Elemental Heavenly energy which is a yang attribute aura. But this…. ” princess Meng said as if she was surprised and intrigued by this. It hadn't even been one hour since the battle between Lui and Ling happened. So the remnants of their energies were still lingering here.

“Strange? ” both Tianying and Shun said.

“Yes…this energy…it feels like it is Heavenly energy yet it is not. It's unusually pure and thick yet it's…actually low level. But the most unusual thing is that…this energy is devoid of any element at all. It's like empty..I can't even tell if it was yang or yin attribute art. I don't really get it. ” princess Meng said while being astonished and confused at the same time.

Seeing her like this, Tianying was quite surprised. Shun was the only one who didn't understand what was going on so he asked, “I don't really get it. How are you even able to feel that specific energy?”

Tianying answered instead of Meng, “She is an ‘Aura Observer’ so she is able to feel even the slightest bit of energy clearly and can easily tell them apart. ”

“Aura Observer?” Shun asked as he had never heard this name before.

“In other words, her divine senses are so unique that she has a keen sense when it comes to things related with aura and she can easily distinguish and sense different energies even if there is barely any change in them which is impossible for us, normal cultivators.. You can say her divine senses far surpasses the realm of mortality. It's a special type of constitution that only appears once in a ten thousand years and she was born with it”. 

Then prince Tianying looked at Meng who was still trying to figure out what type of energy this was and said with a smile, “And my sister really loves to research different types of energies and she knows a lot about them. Since she is this much shocked…it must mean this energy must be quite different and unique. ” prince Tianying explained.

Shun was bewildered when he heard that as he stared at princess Meng. 

After a few moments princess Meng said, “It's really interesting! I really wanna meet the person whose aura is this unique. I hope I will find that person one day. Oh! I better collect some of it! ”. After that she took out a white had bottle and some of the energy in the atmosphere swiftly entered it. Then she closed and said cheerfully with a smile like she had found a new toy, “Let's go brother and brother Shun. We should get moving now! ”. 

Shun was quite shocked as he never thought that the girl who was always silent would suddenly act like this.  They both nodded and after that they left.

——————

Note: Spatial storage rings and necklaces are different from Vanisha's ring. Spatial storages can only store non living objects within a limited capacity. But Vanisha's ring has a independent space in it in which even a living being can enter if it is allowed.