Yin Long and his group didn't head directly for the wild area spreading out around the city after leaving the Jyushi clan's estate, there was still one other thing they had to check up on first. As such, they made their way to the nearest branch of the Heaven's Secrets Company, Yin Long straightforwardly placing his order.
"I want a report on all the movements made by the Lang clan, the Tao clan, and the Deshi clan, all of them reside within Sunsong Province, the Bluelord territory."
There was no point in asking if anyone had sent information to these three clans from here, that was information that not even the Heaven's Secrets Company would sell, otherwise, they would be tainting their own reputability. Such an amount of information obviously took a bit of time to gather up, they would have to contact their headquarters or other branches to filter through their archives.
But after six hours, three reports landed in Yin Long's hand, each one detailing the moves of the three clans. They, of course, didn't detail every single move, some of the hidden schemes would inevitably remain hidden. But from the information that was gathered, Yin Long could gain a degree of confidence that even if Xue Qiuling had learned about his past, she was unlikely to have told any of the three clans about his current state.
If a single person from the Tao or Deshi clan got their hands on this information, they would immediately use it to undermine Lang Huo, it was a perfect opportunity to weaken the Lang clan further. And as long as they weakened it further, the day they could remove the Lang clan and gain all their resources wouldn't be far off. But none of them had made any moves or proclamations, all three clans maintaining their facade of a peaceful cease-fire, so Yin Long could put down one of his worries.
And with one less worry, he could all the more confidently set out for Four-Kings Valley. Jin Wang's large and majestic frame still drew a lot of attention, Lan Yun's beautiful countenance drawing a different kind of attention, leaving Yin Long as the most over-looked member of the trio. But that suited him just fine, there was little benefit to standing in the spotlight and drawing the attention of everyone.
But while the two drew a lot of attention, Jin Wang's ferocious appearance prevented anyone from stepping closer to Lan Yun, and with how close he stuck to Yin Long, the guards had no reason to halt the trio. As a result, the group was able to leave the city without incident, using a different spatial array than normal so that they didn't arrive in the same location that they had visited in the past.
Yin Long hadn't hidden his trip out so he was certain that quite a few people in the dojo had already heard about it. Xue Shuiye was quite high up on the list of people he guessed had learned about already, and to prevent her from interrupting his cultivation, he took advantage of the time he spent in the Jyushi clan and the Heaven's Secrets Company.
He gave them ample time to prepare their ambush or forces, if they were actually planning on going after him that was. If they weren't then he would just consider his luck good, and it wasn't like he had just wasted his time pointlessly.
If they moved out to interrupt him, then they had probably left the dojo as quickly as possible and headed to Four-Kings Valley so that they could encounter him there. But they could just continue to wait there for as long as they wanted, he had no intention of heading to a place so filled with battles now that he was planning on seeing if he could take his cultivation one step further.
And if they by some coincidence had stalked him all the way to the Jyushi clan estate and to the Heaven's Secrets Company, waiting for him each time to make sure that they reached the same valley as him? Then he would just have to consider his luck to be rather poor, or consider Xue Shuiye to be quick-witted enough to realize that his words might just be misleading them.
The spatial array launched them into the air, the seven massive cracks that had formed seven large valleys around the city once again entering their eyes. Yin Long settled his gaze on a forest filled with dark brown trees, a forest located on the other side of the crack that was the valley located next to the area where the much smaller Four-Kings Valley was.
Four-Kings Valley was where most of the battles were taking place, everyone eagerly raising their strength as much as they could before the upcoming competition. Thanks to this, the other areas got to experience a much more peaceful time than normal, far fewer people heading there for training, tacitly agreeing to contain the bloodshed to Four-Kings Valley so that it didn't affect the other parts of the wilderness.
As a result, when Yin Long's group landed in the dark forest, where the trees almost seemed to be made from earth, the air was much cleaner than the air in Four-Kings Valley. It was also much quieter, lacking the constant sounds of battle and cries coming from both man and beast alike. Lan Yun immediately sucked in a deep breath, the earth-element tinged Qi floating in the air was much more comfortable to her than the air in the dojo.
"So, are we going to create an even quieter place and just start straight away? Or are you going to try some things first?"
Yin Long hadn't actually told her much about what they were going to do here, she really only knew that he was planning on taking his cultivation a step further. But she hadn't been too interested in asking either, he would tell her sooner or later anyway, so she might as well just wait until they reached their location. Yin Long shrugged his shoulders casually, running his hand through Jin Wang's mane while the lion stretched its body now that it had finally left the city again.
"Both. I'll be testing some things, but we can work on creating a small dwelling at the same time, the testing won't take too long."
Other people would have to look around for a quiet place they could cultivate in peace, but Lan Yun cultivated the law of earth so they could directly skip this step. But just to be safe, the group spent a little over an hour walking aimlessly, keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings to see if anyone was following them.
Once the first half-hour passed and they became confident that no one was following then, Yin Long started his experimentation. He stretched out his hand and unleashed his parasitic soul, condensing the surrounding space into a translucent sword. Once the sword formed, he crammed in as much of the surrounding space as he could and then threw the sword into his soul sea.
The translucent sword floated over to his rainbow-coloured sword, immediately unleashing a brilliant silver splendour that joined up with his soul. The silver section on his sword-shaped soul immediately lit up, just like the red section had when it absorbed the sword made using blood. But he already had the law of space, so the silver section lighting up didn't grant him a new law, for the moment it only seemed to enhance the degree at which he could sense the surrounding space.
And just like with the faintly crimson sword floating in his soulsea, this translucent sword started to slowly absorb the Netherworld Energy that filled the sky, slowly taking on a silver colour. His first experiment ending in success, a small smile couldn't help but appear on Yin Long's face. He immediately moved on to the next experiment, using his soul to create swords from the surrounding wind, the water from a small lake, the earth, and even one of the more normal-looking trees.
A cyan coloured, a blue coloured, a dark brown, and a light brown sword quickly appeared in his soulsea, hovering there quietly. But they didn't hover around his soul like the silver or the crimson sword, they hovered beneath it in a much more subdued manner. They also didn't light up any of the coloured sections of his soul so he didn't gain any new laws, but he wasn't left entirely disappointed.
The new swords also drew upon the Netherworld Energy and strengthened themselves slowly so even if they didn't grant him any new laws, they still provided him with strong weapons he could use in the future. Lan Yun could easily guess at the result of his experimentation when she saw the smile on Yin Long's face, but he still pulled out the various swords and gave her a more in-depth explanation.
Lan Yun was the person he was closest to, his dearest friend and probably the only person who knew about every facet of his powers. As such, he had no intention of hiding these things from her, she might even be able to help him learn some new things in the future, especially when it came to the wood and earth-element swords.
But the elements in the forest around them were after all rather limited, and Yin Long's main focus was still on his cultivation method, so he ended his experimentation after they finished their hour of aimless walking. Lan Yun pushed her hand down when they stopped, the earth beneath them giving way and quickly creating a large hole.
The three entered the hole, Lan Yun increasing its size somewhat after seeing how little space Jin Wang had. She then moved the loose earth that came about as she created the hole, putting it back in place to cover up their cavern. She made several air holes so that they could breathe properly, Yin Long placing a few luminescent stones throughout the area so that their temporary dwelling was properly lit. With things set up properly, Yin Long turned his gaze onto Jin Wang and Lan Yun.
"I'll be starting now, I'm entrusting my back to you two. And you, no biting this time, you wake me up straight away if anything happens. Just increasing my cultivation by a bit isn't worth risking your lives."
Jin Wang and Lan Yun nodded solemnly to his words, Lan Yun smiling faintly. He was entrusting his back to them, placing his safety in their hands, it was a sign of utmost trust. And above all, it was a trust belonging solely to them, not to anyone else. Yin Long didn't say anything else after he entrusted his safety to them, sitting down and crossing his legs.
He closed his eyes and sank his vision into his soulsea, the silvery-yellow ocean of Qi and the sky filled with yellowish-black Netherworld Energy appearing before his eyes. Yin Long only swept his soulsea with a quick glance before he let his gaze land on his rainbow-coloured soul, that black tint of Netherworld Energy at the tip of the blade giving the sword a slightly wicked appearance.
Yin Long knew the normal procedure needed to reach the realm of the Immortal Doors, you just had to gather up all the Qi that you could find within your body and drag it into your dantian. Once the Qi reached your dantian, you would have to continuously compress it until it formed a door, upon which you would officially step into the realm of the 1st Immortal Door.
But Yin Long couldn't store anything in his dantian, so this method was of course not something he could use. But since he could use his Soulsea as a replacement for his dantian, storing his Qi there instead of in his body, who was to say that he couldn't also create his doors here? Of course, if he could just create the doors as easily as that, he wouldn't have spent this much time thinking about the next step in his cultivation.
He had tried to condense his Qi here multiple times in the past, but every single attempt ended in failure, the Qi just splitting up into separate orbs again the moment he stopped focusing on it. But when that red section on his soul lit up and linked up with his blood-based sword, an idea flashed through his mind.
If his Qi wouldn't stay condensed once he stopped thinking about it, wouldn't he just have to find something to keep his Qi condensed for him? His soul had sucked dry all the energy in his blood-based sword earlier, and it had a parasitic nature, so it was definitely capable of gathering up and condensing large amounts of Qi, so the idea wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.
And since he had made up his mind, Yin Long didn't bother wasting a single second, connecting his mind with the nine orbs of Qi that floated around his soul. The nine orbs immediately moved over to the rainbow-coloured sword, sinking into it one by one as a very faint mark resembling a scaled leaf appeared on the hilt of the sword.
Taverius· Jul 15, 2020
