Chapter 168 – Depth
Ye Wei and Lu Feng went on and discussed ways they could manipulate the Lu family, and how they should keep the search teams out of the heart of North Hill Bay. After briefly agreeing, they initiated their plan and began to cultivate.
Ye Wei negotiated to retain his recently established schedule; he would train by the pond during the daytime while tracking the Lu’s movements, and lastly he would kept an eye on the Ye’s squad during the nights. Lu Feng would do the opposite. When either of the partners saw signs of the Lu’s men nearing the Drakehead, they would set up diversions, even releasing wild beasts they captured, near the Lu’s camps; as a result, Lu’s men would alter their paths.
A few days time drifted past in a blink, Ye Wei had consolidated his cultivation, so that he could focus on his next breakthrough to four-star condensed prime level.
Lu Feng admired Ye Wei’s cultivation speed. He was envious of the talent he saw before him. Nonetheless, he was oblivious to the fact that the Supreme’s cultivating formula was in play. Ye Wei’s talent didn’t really affect his cultivation speed in comparison.
“Hey Lu Feng, you have been cultivating here for four years now, right? Be honest, have you ever seen the sacred mark?” Ye Wei sat next to the pond and sincerely asked Lu Feng as he was coming to the Drakehead for his turn to watch the pond..
“I tried looking for it, but I have had no luck.” Lu Feng shook his head. He then pointed at the pond, “however, try going closer to the pond.”
‘My body is absorbing primal energy the quicker I get close to it?!’ Ye Wei stared curiously at the calm surface, “could the center of the Drakehead be inside the pond?”
“I had the same exact thought. This pond looks ordinary but actually it is not.” Lu Feng spoke as he walked towards the body of water, “I have dived in many times, more than I could remember. The first hundred feet was easy to dive into, but the deeper I swam things got scary. The water below that mark was drastically colder. I felt as if my soul was freezing!” Lu Feng explained solemnly to Ye Wei.
‘Your soul was freezing? What do you mean?’ Ye Wei frowned. His face showed an air of confusion. He could see that the pond water was flowing, ‘it’s not frozen, and even if it was, a condensed prime Warrior like you could easily resist cold temperature.’
The setting sun caught Ye Wei’s attention. The Ye’s men were in North Hill Bay where frequent reports of wild beast were spotted. He began to worry about Ye Zhong’s safety.
“Lu Feng, would you mind watching over the Ye’s men just for tonight?” Ye Wei quickly glanced at the darkening sky and spoke to Lu Feng on the other side of the pond.
“Okay, just be careful though.” Lu Feng understood Ye Wei’s intention. The two could read each other much better now because they trained and saw each other everyday.
“Ye! Of course.” Ye Wei gently nodded. “We’re sitting on the Drakehead. I would like to learn more about this place. If we could find the sacred mark, we could start collecting and hiding the treasures before anyone else does.”
A sacred mark would appear in each Drakehead after a Supreme Dragon Belt’s birth. This mark, the key to unlock the Draketorsal’s treasures, was however nowhere to be found, not even by Lu Feng, a sharp young mind with a powerful body to match.
“You can relax and do your thing. I promise no beasts and no men will touch a hair on any of the Ye’s head under my watch!” Lu Feng readily assured Ye Wei. “Just remember to cut me a share if you find out where the treasures are. I don’t ask for much, just thirty percent is all.”
“Don’t worry, You can relax too! I will count you in. what am I going to do with all the treasure anyway?” Ye Wei replied calmly. “We are working together now, so we should be fair. If we keep thinking selfishly we will never be efficient in the time of our collaboration.”
‘There are no eternal enemies. As long as we can find a way to benefit each other, we should continue helping each other.’
When the night finally fell, Lu Feng left the pond. With the starlight’s guidance, he tracked down the Ye’s squad and began his duty as the silent guardian.
At the Drakehead, Ye Wei took off his robe. He grabbed a large green boulder between his arms and dove into the pond.
“Slosh!”
Ye Wei held tight onto the boulder. He rapidly sank deeper and deeper into the watery unknown, causing some turbulence in the pond.
‘I must be around hundred feet deep now.’ Ye Wei pondered. Everything was still rather normal; though, it was so dark he could not even see the boulder he was holding. However, he was still able to navigate with his extraordinary soul sensitivity.
Ye Wei continued diving down deeper into the pond. The boulder’s weight accelerated his descent. Just as he broke the hundred feet mark, a sharp, overwhelming freezing sensation attacked every inch of his skin.
“How could the water become this freezing cold just like that? This is colder than sea water during the frozen winters! How can this water even stay liquid? Ye Wei’s brows tightly locked. The three golden cracks on his dantian began vibrating and released a vast surge of Qi, filling and warming his entire body, erasing the numbness from the cold.
‘There is something strange in this pond, and I need to go deeper to investigate!’
Ye Wei dived deeper and deeper while continually holding onto the weight of the boulder.
‘Hundred and ten feet!’
‘Hundred and twenty!’
Once he reached thirteen feet deep, the boulder froze. It started to shake, and in a few seconds, it was covered with cracks,Finally, the stone boulder shattered and disintegrated.
Ye Wei slightly moved from side to side. ‘It’s impossible to maneuver in this depth and temperature, even the boulder froze and cracked from the pressure!’ Ye Wei’s face was paler than ever; his lips became blue from the blistering cold. He tried to keep his body warm, but his blood flow was drastically slowing down. Somehow, even the body of a three-star condensed prime Warrior was not strong enough to combat this cold.
‘I don’t believe it! I am stronger than this!’ Ye Wei clenched his teeth even harder and drew a sequence of runes with his shaking fingers.
‘Supernova stance, first evolution!’ The golden light on Ye Wei’s bones flowed, shone through his body and lit up the pond’s frozen depths. He gained the body strength of a seven-star condensed prime Warrior.
‘I need to keep on going!’
The Qi in Ye Wei’s body was accelerating, within his meridian systems. In turn, it marginally kept up with how quickly his body was freezing.
‘One hundred and thirty feet!’
‘One hundred and forty feet!’
‘One hundred and fifty feet!’
When Ye Wei reached one hundred and fifty feet, the water temperature suddenly dropped again.His joints showed signs of freezing since the Qi flow in his meridians slowed down aswell. The energy began to solidify; at the same time, Ye Wei’s skin was glowing in an unusual purple colour.
‘My body is at the same state as a seven-star condensed prime Warrior, and I still cannot resist the temperature. What is the source of this cold?’ Ye Wei narrowed his eyes.
Now, Ye Wei’s bones became rigid from layers of frost accumulating on the surfaces of his internal organs. A dull pain throbbed over his whole body.
‘If I keep going like this, I will definitely freeze to death!’
‘Supernova stance, second evolution!’ Nevertheless, he refused to give in.
“Rumble!”
His Qi was further compressed and amplified, strengthening his body to that of a nine-star condensed prime Warrior.
‘Much better!’
Wrapped in coats of thick primal energy, Ye Wei was able to dive even deeper despite the increasing pressure.
After the second evolution, Ye Wei descended all the way to one hundred and seventy feet depth before his Qi started to solidify once again.
‘I think I am still far from the bottom!’ and I still haven’t found anything. I don’t think I can keep going on like this.’ Ye Wei shook his head and took a hard turn to the opposite direction. He swam towards the sky and the fresh air.
Once he reached about one hundred and twenty feet below the pond’s surface, Ye Wei canceled the Supernova stance and his body returned to the state of a three-star condensed prime level.
Feeling threatened by the water’s chilling temperature, Ye Wei accelerated his Qi flow to warm up his meridians and therefore his body. The quicker his Qi circulated his body the thicker and denser it eventually became.
‘The pond is bone chilling. I think I can attempt a breakthrough down here where my Qi flows quicker.’ During this time, Ye Wei was close to breaking through; how he could cultivate most efficiently was always one of his main concerns.
‘If I could breakthrough to become a four-star condensed Warrior, I would be as strong as a ten-star condensed prime Warrior under the effect of Supernova stance second evolution!’
‘Before my next breakthrough, I am not confident about being able to defeat a ten-star condensed prime Warrior. Although Lu Zhong was heavily wounded, Ye Wei’s resources were drained. If they were to fight a longer fight, Ye Wei would not have lasted long since he put all of his strength behind the Selenic Triple-Primal Sword.
‘After my break through, my Sword stance will reach a different level entirely. When that day comes, I should be able to take on even ten-star condensed prime Warriors with the Glacial Emperor’s stances.’
‘Falling Star Form!’ Ye Wei steadied his body deep inside the pond, used the formula to further accelerate the fast-flowing Qi, the energy tamped by the cold, into his dantian.
‘I think my body is absorbing Qi twenty time faster than normal speed! My Sentient is being expanded as well by this freezing surges!’ Ye Wei exclaimed. He sincerely believed the Drakehead was close to the bottom of the pond.
‘I have to breakthrough before I am good enough for any task in my path.’ Ye Wei clenched his fist in the depth of the dark, freezing pond. He used the formula once again, this time to overload his meridians.
The silver moon hung high. It’s soft light could not reach where Ye Wei was, but it certainly acted as a torch in the dark for Lu Feng.
Lu Feng had located the Ye’s and decided he should head back to the Drakehead once he took care of the beasts around the area.
While he was on the way back to Ye Wei, he discovered that the Lu’s had assigned a ten-star condensed prime Warrior to North Hill Bay.
“Why did they assign the Du’s to Lu Ren?” Lu Feng mumbled to himself high up a tree. Incognito due to the night sky, a man near Lu Feng was inconspicuous. It took a couple of seconds before Lu Feng recognized a bearded middle-aged man near him.
“Ye Wei, the Lu’s sent another ten-star condensed prime Warrior your way. I am not sure if I will be able to stop this one, please be aware!”
Lu Feng sent Ye Wei a message through his runic badge.
However, Ye Wei being too focused on breaking through, was not aware that Lu Feng tried to contact him.
It was not long before sunrise, Lu Feng became increasingly anxious as he still hadn’t received a reply from Ye Wei. ‘What are you doing, don’t tell me you got yourself killed. The Lu’s just sent two hundred Du’s towards the Drakehead’s direction! I need you right now Ye Wei!’