Rubbing his temples, Leon remembered he was knocked unconscious by the crazy old man.
"Shit. He didn't do anything weird to my body while I was unconscious, did he?" Leon was spooked. He patted various parts of his body and sighed in relief, when he found his clothes intact.
The darkness robbed his vision, but his other senses were unaffected.
"Still... this place is so weird..." Leon thought. The darkness was not like the darkness of the night, but that of a dark abyss, completely devoid of light. His own two hands could not be seen, and the temperature was eerily low.
Leon snapped his fingers like a lighter as a small ball of flame appeared on the tips of his finger.
The surroundings were illuminated like the sun bringing light into the dark world. The shadows receded to the far ends and rigid earthen walls filled with holes of various sizes entered his sights.
The smallest hole was the size of a watermelon, while the largest was only as big as that of a child.
Leon realized he was in some sort of large underground cave. There were multiple narrow passageways connected to the cave.
"Sss... Why does this underground cave look like some monster nest? The air is also filled with yin energy… it's giving me the bad vibes…" Leon gasped. A concentration of yin energy could prove harmful after extended periods of exposure.
Thump* He accidentally kicked something at his feet. Leon looked down and found a sword stabbed into the ground and a bag filled 3 days' worth of ration.
"Is this some sort of joke? Old bastard, I know you are here! I'm not going to play this game of yours!" Leon roared, believing the crazy old man was hiding somewhere nearby.
"Not going to play this game of yours... game of yours..." His voice echoed through every hole and passageway connected to the cave and drifted off...
Rumble.... Leon inadvertently stirred something terrible from deeper within the underground caves as thousands of creepy crawlers started rushing out from the holes.
"Not good! It IS a fucking nest!" Leon cried out as his hair stood on end. "Old bastard, how dare you dump me into a nest of giant spiders! Shit... what am I saying? This is no time to be caring about that!"
He didn't have time to be cursing others. He needs to find a way to get out of this sticky situation! These 8-legged creepy crawlers don't look like your typical friendly neighborhood spiders. They looked very menacing with their sturdy jet-black bodies, razor-sharp legs and overwhelming numbers.
They moved very quickly on their feet and closed in on Leon in a matter of seconds. Leon had no time to think. He grasped the sword hilt firmly, infused the sword with his flame essence, transformed it into a flaming sword and made 360 horizontal swing in one swift motion. A flame wave shot out from the tip of the sword and burned the incoming spiders.
His attack directly sliced through over a dozen spiders as his flame wave pushed everything away; severed limbs and other body parts alike. An empty space was created between them and gave Leon some temporary breathing room. But a heavy expression wore on Leon's face as his attack did not produce the desired effects. The spiders hit by his flames were unable to be scorched to death and was very much still alive and kicking.
"Resilient and tenacious pricks. How can my flames not be strong enough to exterminate these nasty buggers? Dammit… I can't waste my fire essence like this... But I also can't conserve my fire essences either. These pests aren't strong individually, but their numbers are overwhelming!"
Leon analyzed in a single bout. He didn't dare to look down of these night crawlers. Even a mighty lion can be felled by many ants!
"I don't have a choice! I can only do that!"
Fire erupted from his body and fused into his flaming sword in a continuous stream. The flaming sword did not grow but shrunk instead as Leon condensed the flame. A 2-meter long buster blade with a fiery crimson sheen took form and replaced the original meter-long broadsword.
"Die!"
Leon did not wait for the spiders to get back on their feet. Instead, he took the initiative and charged into the pack of giant spiders. With each swing of his fiery buster blade, dozens of spiders were seared in half and his movements were done effortlessly. The buster sword was not heavy as it retained its original weight.
"It's effective!" Leon was excited as his fiery buster blade cleaved through the pack like hot knife through butter. "This is good. I can conserve my fire essence this way. If I can maintain perfect form, the essence would be confined within and not seep out."
He continues to swing his fiery buster sword around indiscriminately and laid waste to the surrounding arachnids. It didn't matter where he swings the buster blade as it was bound to reap tens of lives.
His kill count soared! Tens became hundreds and hundreds became thousands, but no matter how many he kills, the creepy crawlers continues to pour into cave in an unending stream! Despair began to seep into his hearts. After hours of the swinging buster sword around, his mental energy was drained, and body ached with exhaustion.
"I must find another way quickly… I can't die here. I have yet to avenge my father…" Leon gritted his teeth and thought anxiously, but he did not stop hacking and slashing. The moment he stops, his life will be in danger.
KACHA* The fiery buster sword suddenly snapped due to insufficient mental energy control. He was exhausted in both mind and body. In that moment, Leon felt his heart dropped to depths of hell. He made a resolute decision in a split second and combusted the condensed fire essence in his sword.
BOOM* The crimson buster blade exploded into a thousand fragments with a violent firestorm, sweeping away all obstacles in its path.
Leon flew and landed some distance away. His body was wracked with pain and refused to move.
"Is this the end?" Leon wondered as he laid motionless.
Surprisingly, the spiders chose to ignore him.
"W-What's going on? Why aren't they going for me? What in Gaia is happening? They're actually attacking the still burning fragments…?" Leon felt somewhat inexplicable at the turn of events, before a lightbulb went up in his head.
If in the middle of your sleep, someone came your house screaming and lit it on fire, you would also be furiously trying to put it out.
The spiders made quick work of the burning fragments and the underground cave soon return to absolute darkness.
"These arachnids are sensitive to vibration and heat sources…" Leon smiled bitterly. He fought a hard battle that did not need to happen, but he was thankful for the new lease on life.
"God never close off all roads to life huh?" Leon mused. Thinking back, the spiders never did target him specifically. They were only aiming for the flame in hands...
Leon thought he had tide over the disaster when the he heard some nearby arachnids drawing closer to him.
"Is it the heat emanating from my body?" Leon thought bitterly. His body refused to move. He had yet to recover his breath. It was impossible slow down his heartbeat to lower his body temperature in his present condition.
As Leon was thinking hard of ways to lower his body temperature, some unknown ice essence was subconsciously drawn out from within himself and froze the surface of his skin.
The arachnids arrive by his body but did not find what they were looking for and left.
Leon froze.
"Since when did I have any refined ice essence?"
Ice element was something currently unique to Lynne.
"Is there any relation between Lynne and me being in possession of the ice element?"
Leon decided to investigate, while his frozen body slowly recover. He used his divine sense to enter the region of his soul core and found the orbiting fire seed that lost some of its crimson luster.
"Nothing seems to be out of the norm-"
Leon suddenly stopped in his tracks.
An ice seed came into view from behind the soul core. Like the fire seed, the Ice seed was orbiting his soul core.
"Oh? This is very interesting!"
Leon's divine sense took the form of his miniature self as he circled around the ice seed to inspect it.
"How did I get this? Is this a benefit of dual cultivation with Lynne?" Leon mused.
"No… that's not right."
They made ordinary love to each other. There were no dual cultivation techniques involved. If a person could have dual element from copulation so easily, the capital would have long been filled with such people, if that was the case. Leon wagered that the cause lied within his own body. What made his body different to others?
Leon murmured to himself before pausing at a conclusion.
"5-element body."
In the underground cave where Leon's cold body laid, his eyes suddenly shot open with an excited glint. It did not last for even a split second before his expression quickly turn to one of abject horror as he sensed another person's face directly opposite of his.
"AHHH!" "AHHH!" Two different voice exclaimed simultaneously. The figure shot backwards in shock.
"Good lad, you have given me a huge fright!"