Chapter 137: A Deep Feeling of Master and Disciple
Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
Within the boundless darkness, the few burning bright jades were the only few light source. Under these lights, the dark skinned Black Poison Corpse General bewilderingly withdrew its bone whip and glared like a tiger watching its preys—the man and the dog.
The deadlock lasted for less than a moment, because with an angry bark, the stupid dog sprinted forward to attack.
Just now, in a moment of distraction, it was nearly cleaved in two by the bone whip, but was promptly thwarted by Wang Lu’s Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi… The exchange happened too fast that the stupid dog didn’t even have the time to think about it. It only knew that, at this time, the enemy was at the front, while its master was guarding at the back with his sword. Therefore, it would do the only thing that it could do.
Bite it to death.
A moment ago, the Black Poison Corpse General had melted its skin, however, it seemed like that flowing poison scene had already been thrown off its brain by that stupid dog. It once again pounced on the enemy’s body and fiercely bit that corpse’s arm. Its supposedly stronger-than-steel flesh and bones were actually torn by the dog’s sharp teeth, deepening its wound.
In just around ten to twenty seconds, its stout arm had been completely torn down in an incredibly smooth process.
This was, of course, not the intention of the corpse. In those several seconds, it had actually tried more than thirty methods to kill the mad dog that tried to bite it. However, they were all thwarted by the Non-Phase Sword Qi of the cultivator who stood a few meters away.
Whether it was a colorless and odorless poisonous gas, the powerful bone whip strike, or even the demonic method powered by the dead spirit’s Primal Chaos Force, all of them seemed to have hit a layer of invisible but solid wall; regardless of which method, none could hurt its opponent...
In this dark tide, this corpse general has killed countless living creatures. Although it was occasionally repulsed by a more formidable creature, it had nevertheless encountered this kind of strange situation. An idea to retreat was born out of its crafty nature. However, at this time, that stupid dog intuitively changed its attack target. It bit off its ankle to force it to fall on the ground.
When it looked down, the corpse general saw the pair of crimson eyes of a mad beast.
It seemed like the dog didn’t care about its own life anymore as it crazily tried to tear apart the corpse general’s body. Its two rows teeth had to withstand the repeated excessive frantic biting force; several of them had actually been chipped off, and the blood flowed freely out of its mouth. However, how could a mad beast care about all these?
Obviously all the injuries were isolated by its master, thus, it wanted to bite the corpse general to death. However, the animal instinct in the stupid dog’s brain crazily roared, urging it to finish the opponent as fast as possible and at all cost.
It was as if it was walking on a rope, with abyss under it, and the other side was a glorious heaven. If it could step correctly, it could safely go to the other side, but if it took the wrong step, it would be doomed.
The dumb dog didn’t understand why it would feel like this. However, compared to thinking, it trusted its instinct more. Therefore, under the protection from the Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi, it brazenly went crazy. Surrounded by firelights, it set off a hurricane of flesh and blood.
The Black Poison Corpse General would finally die.
As a dead spirit, it shouldn’t even have the concept of death. In this black tide, even if its physique was destroyed, it could re-form again in the dark tide… Unless it was killed by the living.
And whether it was Wang Lu or the stupid dog, both of them were undoubtedly the standard living creatures. When the stupid dog finally bit off the corpse general’s throat, it tore the head off of its body, and thus, this filled-with-infinite-hatred Black Poison Corpse General finally perished.
The stupid dog’s mouth had been dripping with blood; the excessiveness of the crazy had brought it great harm. However, at this time, all of a sudden, the redness in its eyes dissipated a little, and a moment later, it turned its head and looked.
Wang Lu, brandishing his Sword of Mount Kun, still has his smile on his face. However, from the lower lip to his throat and from the throat to his chest, blood flowed like a waterfall.
"Damn it, if it’s a little bit slower then it’s death for sure."
Wang Lu said. His legs seemed unstable as if he was about to stagger.
For a long time, Wang Lu always thought of himself as a professional adventurer. Even if he didn’t dare to declare himself as the possessor of the highest IQ in the world, he was confident that he could crush the majority of his peers with ease. Over the years, from his feat at the Immortal Gathering to founding the Wisdom Sect on the year-long experiential learning, all these feats were the proofs of that point.
However, in this nearly a year in the Savage Land, Wang Lu had to admit that he had made an extremely stupid mistake.
His Master duping him into the Savage Land was nothing more than in order to let him practice the Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi. For a year, in this Western Mountain, Wang Lu had industriously worked on his cultivation. Whether it was his Qi Cultivating Stage, Sword Bone, Heart Sutra or other methods, all of them had undergone an enormous progress. However, he was actually unable to successfully train that Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi.
At first, Wang Lu only thought that he just hadn’t reached the required level. After all, in theory, this Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi belonged to an advanced method, thus, it was understandable that it had a higher basic requirement. However, his cultivation speed could also be considered as fast. Now he had reached the middle-level Qi Cultivating Stage, yet he had only entered the Spirit Sword Sect for about five years...
However, a few days ago, when he argued about the merit of dog meat, he found out that things didn’t seem to be what he thought of. His inability to train the Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi was perhaps because he had been looking at the wrong method to train it...
For a professional adventurer, the method was always more important than the effort. One year of diligent training was not worth showing off because even someone as stupid as Wen Bao could easily accomplish it. What was difficult was to find the right method to achieve more with less effort. Yet this professional adventurer who always specialized in this field of endeavor had actually picked a foolish method this time.
Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi could not be practiced by ordinary methods… In fact, this fact could readily be discerned by its name alone. All of the methods on his set of Non-Phase Method had Non-Phase, two words at the front, however, why would this particular Non-Phase Sword Qi had additional Innate [1] word in front of it? Because it looked more mighty, more noble, more glamorous? With his Master’s extremely insufficient moral character, that name would be laughable instead.
When he thought about it, his Master had actually clued him about this as early as two years ago; what was the actual meaning of Innate? Why would a method for a mere Qi Cultivating Stage deserve to be paired with the word Innate?
Of course, it referred to the innate lifespan… When that woman taught himself the Heaven Burning Blood Technique three years ago, she had probably thought of this day. For a cultivator who hasn’t reached the high level Qi Cultivating Stage, exerting out the sword qi and also maintaining the formidable defense power of the Non-Phase Sword Art could only be achieved by burning the lifespan in a short period of time to produce a huge amount of magical power as the fuel to do all that. The strong points of the Non-Phase Method were its toughness and firmness, but it has practically zero ability to produce a burst of power. To offset these shortcomings, the only thing that could be done was by using the Heaven Burning Blood Technique. It was just that, in the past, Wang Lu always thought that this method was an especially sh*tty method, and he had never associated it with the noble and grandeur of the authentic Non-Phase Method.
Therefore, the so-called Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi was actually the precursor to the Non-Phase Sword Qi. With the prefix Innate, not only was it not stronger, but it was also weakened a lot, however, if a Qi Cultivating Stage Cultivator wanted to exert out the sword qi, this was the only road that one must follow.
After finally realizing this point, Wang Lu just needed three days to train to improve his Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi. Now, in his first practical use, it already achieved the desired result.
From the start, this was not a difficult-to-train method. If he had just realized the need to couple it with the Heaven Burning Blood Technique early on, Wang Lu would’ve succeeded in mastering it in about one month. From this point of view, it seemed like his year-long survival in this place was in vain. However, on the other hand, without this year’s experience, without encountering the stupid dog and hunting and killing many dead spirits in the black tide together with it, without this year’s progress, he wouldn’t have been able to exert his sword qi as far as four or five meters away-Thus, it would’ve been too late for him to save the stupid dog. Moreover, it would’ve been impossible for him to challenge and completely seal a corpse general the rank of low-level Xudan.
The stupid dog was able to brazenly go all out based on Wang Lu’s lifespan burning. Every time he sent out the Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi meant that he had burned three to five days of his innate lifespan. And in these few short of breaths moment, Wang Lu had actually wielded over a hundred times Innate Non-Phase Sword Qi, shortening his life for over a year.
For someone with over a hundred years of innate lifespan, one year seemed nothing. However, burning it in just a few breaths moment like this took a heavy toll on his body. If they finished the corpse general a few moments late, there was no need to mention the result anymore.
However, since that didn’t happen and they’ve basically won the fight, there was no need to dwell on what ifs anymore. Wang Lu walked over right next to the remainder of the corpse general. "Where is that good thing?"
The dumb dog barked and then began sniffing the body. It then ripped the chest off and fished out a scarlet, still beating "meat ball". It then lingered its gaze on that meat ball for a moment as if it was reluctant to part with it. It then held it with its mouth, jumped on Wang Lu’s shoulder and delivered that meat ball to Wang Lu.
Despite his vast knowledge as the Spirit Sword’s top student, he didn’t recognize the origin of this meat ball. However… wasn’t this time’s hunting party for the sake of this thing, the exceptional delicacy that caused the stupid dog to fall head over heels for?
He took a bite of that meat ball and a boiling liquid suddenly flushed his throat. Wang Lu didn’t even have the time to taste whether it was bitter or sweet since the unusually high-temperature liquid had scalded his entire esophagus.
What the! Is this lava?
After years of practicing Non-Phase Sword Bone, Wang Lu’s flesh had long been tempered into such a high degree of toughness. Moreover, it was an inside and outside tempering that even after drinking a scalding hot oil, he could still take a sip of herbal tea. However, at this time, the hot liquid had scalded his esophagus in just seconds. The pain then quickly spread to his stomach, and then spread throughout his body.
But then, in the throes of pain, a surging life force burst out from his stomach… Wang Lu froze for a moment—he finally understood the content of this meat ball.
It was the pure essence of the energy source of the living—it was the life force, better yet, it was the innate lifespan.
In the Nine Regions, spirit object that could prolong life was not uncommon. However, one that could increase the innate lifespan was actually priceless.
Wang Lu didn’t have the time to analyze why would this savage dead spirit’s body have such a pure essence of innate lifespan because currently, all that he could feel was the influx of energy into his body like a gushing of Yellow River. Ten years, twenty years… before long, his lifespan had been increased for over a century.
Wang Lu’s original lifespan was about one hundred years. However, at this time, it was actually doubled. As he was now just a seventeen years old teenager, he didn’t actually care much about his lifespan. Even as a human, he didn’t even reach his peak yet, thus, it was completely unnecessary to consider the question of longevity. However, doubling his innate lifespan actually meant his life had ascended to another level.
A lifespan of around two hundred years was a privilege of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator, but now, Wang Lu’s life had actually elevated to the level of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator in advance.
As the Spirit Sword’s top student, he knew very well that, at the very least, there would be no bottleneck in reaching the Foundation Establishment in the future. The other cultivators, even if they were blessed with the similar level Heavenly Spirit Root, would need to accumulate cultivation in order to break through the barrier to the Foundation Establishment if they didn’t have external assistance. However, in the future, Wang Lu would just need to cultivate as usual to reach the Foundation Establishment Stage; even unconsciously reaching the Foundation Establishment was possible.
Besides doubling his lifespan, there were also countless other benefits. This Black Poison Corpse General was indeed worthy to be called as his jackpot in this Savage Land. In accordance with the Primal Chaos Rule in this place, under a normal circumstance, no one knew how many dead spirits that he has to hunt and kill in order for them to drop this best quality meat ball that contained a hundred years of lifespan. The value of this drop wasn’t that much different compared to that of the Sword Nucleus that Zhu Shiyao obtained after slaying a Corpse King; it was a genuinely best quality loot… Luckily, this stupid dog’s sense of smell was sensitive enough to actually track this Black Poison Corpse General in the boundless darkness of the black tide.
A moment later, Wang Lu opened his eyes and saw the stupid dog swallowing the meatball skin and its remaining juice.
After a fierce battle, the man and the dog divided the loot around seventy and thirty percent. As the master and the head of the hunting party, Wang Lu took the big chunk of it, and the rest was gently swallowed by the stupid dog. Both feeling boundlessly satisfied.
However, at this time, the dumb dog finally became somewhat astute. After eating the tasty food, it immediately looked around in vigilant, muttering some questions.
No doubt it was gratifying to hunt and finally kill the corpse general, but then what? The two of them were still surrounded by the black tide and the countless dead spirits were still sieging them at the periphery. No doubt their anger was doubled because of the Black Poison Corpse General’s death. There was still at least a day before the black tide receded. However, the several bright jades had almost burnt out. If this was in the cave, these flames could be maintained for several hours. However, here, under the direct pressure from the black tide, there were only about tens of minutes before they would be extinguished. This team of one man and one dog had tried their best to finish their target as quick as possible, but now the time was running out.
Moreover, those several bright jades were the last batch that Wang Lu had. It seemed like they had no hope to break through this encirclement.
"Woof?" Realizing that the bright jade flames were rapidly weakening, the dumb mutt began to get nervous.
"No need to panic. As long as we promptly seek outside help, we will be fine."
Wang Lu said and then took out the last card on this Savage Land journey from his mustard seed bag—Spirit Sword Sect’s Summoning Heaven Talisman.
As long as the user fired this talisman, no matter where the user was, even in the abyss of the devil realm, they could be summoned back to the mountain. Three years ago before the Sect’s year long experiential learning, he had redeemed this with the sect credits. It just so happened that he needed to use it at this time.
"Master, I have done my training, come pick me up."
A moment later, his Master’s voice rang in his ears: "No time right now, wait two more days."
"…"