The Third-Year Senior had fallen to Yan Mo's final attack, he has stolen his 4 tokens and brought his total to an immense 13! And he had not lost a fight yet
With this Jade Treasure, that can absorb other's Qi to then amplify his own, and Yan Mo's rapid growth, he feels as though he'll maybe even leave a year earlier than he had first planned.
Yan Mo shook his head and focused himself on the task at head. Being respectful to his seniors, he leaned his unconscious opponent up on a tree and decided to head to the middle of the forest. Not only to search for the treasure, but also to see if Guo Yanzhi would be there!
It was only a thirty minutes travel and the sun hasn't even reached the highest position. Mo arrived to crowds of disciples, tens and tens of them. If each year of Black Robes only has a handful, then chances are 90% of them were right there.
All the disciples were forming a circle around something that made it hard to see what it exactly was. And while trying to see, Mo made eye contact with Mu Qianying, the same girl who uses hidden daggers.
She gave Mo a weird glare, as if surprised to see he was still alive, "And here I thought you'd go and fight some other idiot and get yourself killed."
"Yada yada, anyways, what's going on here, what treasure is here?" Mo didn't care for chitchat, he hadn't heard good news of his brother Zhi yet and needed to know if he was still alive.
Mu Qianying conceded to the berating quickly, "It's a Spirit Beast Egg."
'Oh?' It was only 5 words, yet these 5 words changed Yan Mo's perception completely. If Qi beasts are wild animals that gathered a bit of Qi, then spirit beasts are intelligent monsters that have learned to cultivate on their own! They are by leaps and bounds more powerful than the average warrior.
Mo forced his way through and past the crowd, seeing two tigers, very similar to the ones he had fought just days earlier. They had red streaks running across their fur, but these ones also had a singular, dark horn centered on their forehead.
Using their horn, they would send out balls of fire toward any disciple attempting to come close. The ball of fire was powerful enough to even make 5 students charging at the same time be forced backwards.
The egg was a bit farther behind the two tiger, which had a third, female tiger defending it.
"Everybody rush in now!" A fourth year disciple yelled out, and after half the crowd moved, the other half decided they should as well.
The three tigers were overwhelmed, and suddenly the egg was bumped and slowly started rolling across the woods.
Nearly every disciple that weren't in an active battle rushed towards the egg, Yan Mo included of course, if one could obtain a spirit beast as a pet, wouldn't they have a future brighter than any rogue martial artist roaming China?
Yet, right before Yan Mo could get the very edge of his fingertips of the egg, he was forced to hesitate. A mysterious figure dropped from the branches above him and captured the egg inside a cloth net, afterwards they quickly hid the egg inside a makeshift backpack made of sticks, mud, and leaves.
A ray of sun shone on the figure's face, revealing it to be Guo Yanzhi.
"Ah" Yan Mo and Guo Yanzhi yelled out at the exact same time, "Brother!"
The rest of the disciples stopped dead in their tracks, they were silent but their eyes told everything, they were willing to go on an all out rampage at a chance for the egg. In fact, some of the most ambitious within the group had their minds wander on the possibility of murder to obtain this treasure.
But luckily, the outraged tigers distracted the rest of the crowd, and Mo gripped the shoulder of Guo Yanzhi and yelled at him to run.
They were over 12 meters away before Mo saw a few green-liquid coated daggers fly just a few inches from his eyes, he turned to take a quick Look at who would do this! And to not his surprise, it was Mu Qianying.
'Really?! I get the egg is valuable but poison daggers?! One can't retract them once they leave one's hands. Any one hit could be deadly!' Mo lashed out inside his own head.
Seeing the danger, Mo pushed Guo Yanzhi further and turned around quickly, unsheathing his sword.
"Yeowang Oyeonmu, Hwahwa-ui Wije!"
He swung his blade and a wall of fire was formed between him and Mu Qianying. Any incoming daggers were forced back towards her!
She was forced backwards, which gave a slight window of opportunity for Yan Mo to catch up with his brother and keep running. But it wasn't for long, other disciples had freed themselves from the tigers and chased the two. They were on their right, left, and even on the branches above them.
"Hey!! Brother! Jump into my arms!" Mo yelled out towards Yanzhi, he had a plan that could leave these fools in the dust, but he couldn't leave his brother behind.
"Ha?! Brother, I don't care about who you like but I am not the person and this is not the time!" Yanzhi looked a bit flustered, yelling over his shoulder as he ran, his stuffed makeshift backpack barely holding itself together.
Mo was appropriately pissed off, throwing a rock straight at Yanzhi's head, "Just do it damn it!" He roared at him, and Yanzhi leaped lightly backwards. Yan Mo caught him easily and quickly manifested four tendrils of Qi, to which the Jade decided to add two of its own.
A blur of light blue and a light yellow went past all the disciples' eyes, who stopped running because their targets moved threefold their own speed and essentially vanished.
Mo ran until his Qi reserves were at around a quarter full, which was a decently far distance. The two ended up miles away from the center of the forest. Yan Mo breathed hardly as he harshly dropped his brother and collapsed on the ground, sitting up against a nearby tree.
Guo Yanzhi still seemed shocked at his brother's display of speed, his eyes wide open and clutching onto his egg like his life had depended on it, "Brother Mo, your speed is unparalleled! Is this some secret technique of your family's?"
Mo took his time to answer, prioritizing his attention on recovering his breath, "Phew….no, I created it while fighting a giant spider, but it's very costing on my Qi, I have about 2-3 years worth of Qi, as I had started cultivating at 14, but just a single Gak's (15 Minutes') use of this technique would use up all my Qi Reserves."
"I don't think you understand what you've done, brother, as of course you know, the leader of the Murim Alliance is the Murim Highlord. He is of the Jaegal House and regarded as the smartest man in all of China, and one of his great accomplishments was creating 100 martial arts to donate to various scripture halls around the realm. However, only a few know how long it took him, which was, an entire year. That means it took him nearly three and a half days of work to create a single martial art, yet brother Mo you've created one in mere moments?"
Yan Mo stopped meditating, looking at his academy brother's eyes and trying to see if he was being lied to. He squinted and tilted his head, in thought, trying to focus his thoughts, "Surely not…I simply copied the movements of the spider…it came naturally, as if it was like breathing. I simply decided to experiment with forming my Qi."
Yanzhi sighed and looked at his egg, then at his brother, and tossed over four tokens to him, "I will be sure to die if Im to stay out in the woods with this treasure, so I will forfeit and enter the safety of the academy. After all, this egg of mine has to be at the very least three fold more valuable than any treasure they could offer to the winner of this simple game. And if anybody, I wish for you to have my tokens. Stay safe, brother Mo, you need to gather all the strength you can to fight me in the winter tournament."
Yanzhi left as soon as he had finished speaking, moving like a breeze in the wind, not giving Mo a chance to respond, 'This punk, why is he being so dramatic? Has he been reading too many novels? And he thinks he can really beat me? Ha!' If Mo's seen and experienced anything out from his expedition to the wilderness, it is that no one within the academy can stand to his might and genius.
No, Mo shook his head, he must have humility. Confidence is good, but pride is a sin to which many giants have fallen.
Deciding not to bother himself with lingering thoughts any longer, Mo found an extremely small cave for him to sleep in.
.
.
.
Mu Qianying stood at the entrance of the cave, grateful that her arts managed to lead her here. She had planted a tracker on Yan Mo's robes the very first time they met in the forest!
She neared, walking slowly, quietly, and of course dramatically. After all, this was his end, why not enjoy it?
She gently reached in his robes and pulled out a tiny white token with pieces of jade in it. She pocketed it, getting her tracker back, before pulling out a vial of purple liquid.
She swished and looked at it, hovering it above Yan Mo's face, this was her first step to success! Her family used to be a branch family of the Tang Clan.
The Yang Clan is one of the five noble houses and based in Sichuan, a province directly south of Gansu. Their expertise was of course toxins, poisons, and hidden weapons!
But they had very strict traditional values, only giving the best techniques to the males of the main family, and basic techniques at best to male sons of branch families. As for the women? They were seen no more as political pawns to be married off for alliances and political gains.
When the head of her family died, there became a female matriarch, who immediately withdrew from the Tang clan and escaped all the way to Gansu. Not wishing to see the Tang's clan retaliation, she changed their name to Mu and hid.
Mu Qianying was a traitor of her own though, the matriarch was favorable to her father, who rejected her. So she killed her father and mother, with Mu Qianying herself only barely able to escape and end up at the gates of the Gansu Military Academy.
She clenched her vial and gritted her teeth. No matter, she can claim this death as an accident, take his tokens and gain an immense prize. Using the prize she should be able to win the tournament and then go back to her family to bring with her vengeance!
She opened the vial and tipped it over, purple liquid falling from it down towards Yan Mo's mouth…