Xue Qiuling's expression faltered for a fraction of a second when Yin Long rejected her invitation but it quickly restored to normal as she made him promise to set off a day for her after half a month had passed. She then followed Yin Long up to the lower section of the third floor and showed him around a bit, giving him a bit more advice before bidding him farewell so that he could get to his studying.
And once Xue Qiuling left, Yin Long descended down to the first floor again. He started walking along the bookshelves, taking down book after book and jade slip after jade slip, going through them one by one at a nearly blistering pace. He wasn't picky with what he read, spending three days going through everything the first floor had to offer.
Xue Qiuling visited him once during these three days, helping him clear up some questions he had after reading over everything on the first floor. She then engaged in a quick sparring match with him so that he could test out a few things, leaving him with a reminder to not forget about the day he put aside for her.
Once he finished the sparring match and spent a bit of time with Lan Yun and Jin Wang, he returned to the pagoda and started going through the second floor. The things on the second floor were a bit more comprehensive and detailed, as well as a bit more complex, so he guessed that it would probably take him twice as long to finish this floor.
He moved a bit faster than he originally guessed, only spending five days on voraciously devouring all the information that the second floor had to offer. Xue Qiuling visited him fairly often during these five days, dropping in once a day to give him pointers while sparring so that he could more easily absorb the information. She didn't give him the same reminder every day, allowing Yin Long to breathe a short sigh of relief that he didn't have to keep repeating his promise.
He also spent a bit more time with Jin Wang and Lan Yun, once again stepping into the third floor nine days after he was first introduced to the tower. This floor would take quite a bit of time to go through, especially since he had to defeat the guardians if he wanted to enter the middle and upper sections.
But for now, he had no intentions of challenging the guardian in charge of the middle section, instead focusing on going through the records on the lower section. He picked up a stack of books and then found a slightly secluded corner, bringing out a chair and a small table from his interspatial ring so that he could sit and read at his leisure.
But after he had only spent a little over an hour on the third floor, his instincts shot into full alert. His body didn't stop to think, springing up from its seated position and drawing a sword from his interspatial ring, spinning around and delivering a sweeping slash at the presence he had detected behind him. But a wooden cane collided with his sword and stopped it, a slightly familiar gravely and hoarse voice reaching him.
"Slow, slow. If you let an enemy get this close on the battlefield then your head would leave your shoulders before you even knew what hit you."
His gaze landed on the person that had effortlessly snuck up on him, the middle-aged man with somewhat dim green eyes and unruly brown hair, Old Instructor Meiyu. Meiyu gave a light flick of his wrist, the wooden cane he was holding following along with such force and speed that Yin Long's weapon was practically launched out of his hands, clanging as it crashed into the floor a few metres away.
Yin Long's gaze was narrowed and his body was poised, like a cheetah ready to pounce at a moment's notice. He knew that this Meiyu was far from a normal instructor, the bloodlust he had displayed when Yin Long first arrived made that fact very clear. But faced with Yin Long's sharp gaze, Meiyu simply gestured towards the distant weapon with a casual nod.
"Well, are you going to pick up your weapon or would you prefer to just get hit without it?"
Meiyu underlined his point by hitting Yin Long on the head with his wooden cane, the stick moving so fast that it barely registered in Yin Long's senses. He looked a bit suspiciously at Meiyu but still dashed over to his weapon and picked it up, holding it ready with the tip pointed at the middle-aged man, whose slightly dim eyes lit up somewhat as he laughed.
"Gehehe, my eyes might not be what they used to, but I can still see the truth about you, you really are a child born for the blade. As pure and sharp as a newly cast blade, only lacking a handle to properly guide all that sharpness. Gehehe, my life may be coming to an end, but let me pass on a handle for the future, a sharp blade to carve my existence into."
Meiyu's words served as the start of a training regime that Yin Long was all too familiar with, it was the same training regime that Bai Xiang had put him through. Meiyu would attack him relentlessly and point out every single flaw in Yin Long's position, his wooden cane mercilessly smashing into every opening he showed.
If he failed to hold his weapon properly or if he didn't put the proper amount of power into any part of his body then that area would also suffer an attack until he got it right. It was a type of training he was very familiar with, and he adapted to it practically straight away. But every inch of improvement he showed caused Meiyu to increase the intensity of the training.
And while Bai Xiang was mostly silent while training him, Meiyu gave very sharp advice at a frequent pace to fix all of Yin Long's flaws. And since he was also attacking every single one of Yin Long's flaws while pointing them out, it didn't take long for Yin Long's talent to patch up these flaws. As a result, the intensity of the training increased at a blistering pace, Yin Long's entire body sore and bruised when Meiyu left, Yin Long's first day on the third floor of the pagoda coming to an end.
His body was sore and aching, it was like he had returned to his time as a young child entering the misty territory where Bai Xiang lived. But rather than be annoyed or displeased, he was happy. Every bruise on his body was a flaw, every one of them a mark that he could improve further. And with both Xue Qiuling and Meiyu helping him, as well as all the records gathered around him, there was no way he wouldn't improve.
The presence of Meiyu did, however, cut heavily into Yin Long's plans to read through everything within the pagoda. He would come every day and spend several hours on training Yin Long, reducing his studying speed to a point where he hadn't even gone through a third of the lower section of the third floor when the day he promised Xue Qiuling that he'd join her for a meal rolled around.
He had given his word that he'd join her so just as he would when he spent time with Lan Yun or Jin Wang, he left the pagoda and returned to his room. He took a quick shower and changed into a fresh white robe, he left Jin Wang with the grumbling and pouting Lan Yun and then left to meet up with Xue Qiuling, the two leaving the dojo so that she could show him some of the better restaurants that she knew about.
And Xue Qiuling showed Yin Long exactly how much she could drag out the time they spent together, what should originally have been just a quick meal or two turning into a day-long affair. But Yin Long had to admit that Xue Qiuling was pleasant company, she had a fair bit of knowledge about Starfall city and was able to constantly provide new tidbits of information, ensuring that the conversation flowed without any pauses that could turn awkward.
But by the time the sun started to go down, Xue Qiuling ended the day, not dragging their time together out for so long that it could turn annoying. She bade him farewell and then headed for the building her family owned in this city, leaving Yin Long to return to the dojo on his own, having made sure that he remembered the way back.
Yin Long didn't head straight back to the dojo, moving through the city at a slow and leisure pace, taking in the slightly chilly evening air. He didn't follow the exact route back, using this opportunity to check out some of the back alleys and smaller streets, stretching his senses out to their max range all the while. And it was thanks to his stretched out senses that he discovered something strange, his steps stopping as his head unconsciously tilted.
"Huh?"
He turned to the left with some confusion and curiosity in his gaze, moving away from the open street he was on and making his way through several narrow side alleys. His gaze narrowed slightly as he got closer to the alley that was his target, his vigilance rising to the max, the thing he had discovered had vanished from his senses.
He swiftly reached his target, a four-metre wide and almost 100-metre long alley filled with bags and boxes of trash. His narrowed gaze wandered around the alley as he took a few steps into it, his finger already tracing his interspatial ring. And then his target entered his senses again, Yin Long quickly dipping into a bow while stepping forward.
He stomped the ground and spun around, pulling out his sword into a sweeping slash that collided with a small blade that was heading for his waist, aiming for the opening created when he dipped into a bow and move forward. The smaller blade, a pitch-black and misty dagger, bounced off of his sword, Yin Long straightening his body while taking a step back to put a bit more distance between himself and the person in front of him. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, the curiosity in his eyes growing stronger.
"That's quite the change there, Bai Mu. So is this who you really are or is there something else going on, hm?"
Yin Long recognized the person standing in front of him, he had recognized him the moment he entered his senses. But the Bai Mu in front of him was different from the Bai Mu he met in Four-Kings Valley. He had all the same scars and the same build, he also carried the exact same Qi, but his golden hair had turned pitch-black and the previously golden right eye had turned a lifeless white, his previously lifeless left eye turning as black as his hair. His demeanour was also colder and grimmer, reminding Yin Long of the slight coldness he had felt from Bai Mu when they first sized each other up during their short duel.
These changes had all registered in Yin Long's mind when Bai Mu entered his senses earlier, and the reason he had come over was to see if this change might have something to do with why his Netherworld energy had turned violent when he first met Bai Mu. And standing in front of him now, the Netherworld energy did indeed grow more violent, but it was far weaker than when they previously met. The two people sized each other up for a short moment, Bai Mu breaking the silence with a low grumble.
"I dislike being spied upon, you people who love spying on others always pull the vilest shit for the pettiest reasons."
Yin Long's head tilted slightly as Bai Mu spoke, but his eyes shot up before Bai Mu even finished talking. He leaned back and kicked off the ground, jumping into a horizontal position just as the darkness above and below him extended and grew into two sharp daggers. The daggers cut through empty air thanks to his jump, Bai Mu dashing forward while Yin Long was still mid-jump.
The darkness beneath Yin Long rose up into several sharp spikes that stabbed towards his body, the darkness around Bai Mu gathering in his hands and forming two small daggers. But Yin Long was quick to react, spinning his body mid-air and slamming his sword into the side of one of the shadow spikes, the resulting force pushing him out of the way.
At the same time as he forced his body to the side, he also raised his left arm and grabbed onto the dark blade that had appeared above him. His parasitic soul rushed forth and surrounded the darkness, altering it into a pitch-black sword covered in the usual scaled-leaf pattern. Yin Long slashed straight at the ground with the sword, the weapon dissolving as he unleashed all the power in it as a large blast of dark energy.
The blast pushed the approaching Bai Mu back while scattering the surrounding trash throughout the air to blind Bai Mu. It also sent Yin Long higher into the air and gave him the time to twist his body around to face Bai Mu again. He stretched out his sword and slashed downward, using the trash to hide his sharp Qi as it cut through the air and headed for Bai Mu.
But strangely enough, despite the attack coming from an angle that should leave it out of Bai Mu's sight, he managed to quickly raise his right arm and block the attack with his own dagger. But the force in the attack still managed to push aside his right arm, giving Yin Long an opening to send a descending slash at him while he himself fell to the ground.
Bai Mu quickly slashed upwards to block the attack with the dagger in his left hand, but forceful frontal confrontations didn't seem to be his forte. His left arm was forced down at a rapid pace, allowing Yin Long's sword to freely reach his head. But just as the tip of his blade was about to cut Bai Mu's face, the darkness behind him exploded forth with several small tentacles that lashed at Yin Long's weapon, coiling around it and halting it before it could touch Bai Mu's skin.
But just as that attack was blocked, Yin Long's left fist smashed forward and embedded itself in Bai Mu's chest, sending him stumbling backwards. As Bai Mu stumbled backwards, Yin Long's feet touched the ground, his knees bending so much that he almost sat down on the ground. The darkness right above him exploded into several tens of sharp spikes that formed a crisscrossing net where his head would have been had he not ducked. Yin Long stepped back and stood up, his gaze slightly narrowed as he looked at Bai Mu, who was clutching his chest.
"Your attacks have gotten sharper and deadlier, but you've gotten slower Bai Mu. Why aren't you using your law of light? If you used your law of light with this ferocity then you'd be pretty damn scary."
Bai Mu exhaled a heavy breath and let go of his chest, lowering his arms as the dark tentacles behind him moved into his two daggers. But just as his fists clenched around the handles of his weapons, a soft golden light flashed in his lifeless left eye. His daggers instantly dissolved into the surrounding darkness, Bai Mu clutching at his left eye as if he was in pain, a barely audible and even somewhat desperate grunt escaping his lips.
"No, don't you dare deny me, don't erase me..."
Bai Mu immediately turned around and dashed away, Yin Long's gaze narrowing as he swung out his right arm. He threw his sword at Bai Mu's back, but the darkness within the alley stretched out and crushed the blade without Bai Mu even having to turn back. He left the alley and then sank into the darkness, vanishing from Yin Long's sight and senses, leaving him alone in the alley, curious and confused.
"Really, what even was that?"
Bai Mu originally caught his interest due to the fact that he caused his Netherworld energy to turn violent. He then aroused a bit more of Yin Long's interest thanks to his rare law and the unpolished skills he showed off, he would make for an excellent sparring partner if he got some more training. And now he once again further aroused Yin Long's interest thanks to the strangeness of what he had just witnessed.
Yin Long looked down the path that Bai Mu had vanished, standing still for a few seconds before he walked over and picked up the crushed sword. The corners of his lips curled up in interest, amusement, and a bit of excitement, a light chuckle escaping his lips as he left the alley and started to return to the dojo.
"Interesting, interesting, what an interesting fellow. He'll be one hell of a fun fight if he can use both his laws with that level of skill."
Taverius· Apr 25, 2020
