Boots

4.33 - Eight-Sided Mirror

After divvying up the spoils of their fight, He Yu left Li Heng to cultivate and set off to pay a visit to Yan Shirong. He wanted to learn what the eight-sided mirror they’d taken from Wang Xiaobo could do. It was clearly a divinatory treasure of some sort. Mirrors were frequently used for divi...

4.32 - A Score Settled

As he helped Xin Lu to his feet, Wang Xiaobo couldn’t believe his very eyes. How could two middle Fourth Realm children stand against them? They weren’t the top-ranked inner sect disciples, sure, but being in the top one hundred was no small feat. It had been decades since Zhang Lifen had bec...

4.31 - Talent and Experience

He Yu blasted forward on the wings of the Sky Dragon’s Flight. Heaven qi surged around him as he poured his cultivation base into the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. He drew back his guandao, and the Five Crescent Winds warped the world. Forming the Sweeping Wind along with Heaven’s Descend...

4.30 - Time and Debt

Winter came and went once again. By the time spring came around in what was to be He Yu’s twenty-second year, Li Heng and Tan Xiaoling had both advanced to middle Golden Core. Just as Zhang Lifen had said, Yi Xiurong seemed intent on bringing all five of them up. He Yu, Li Heng, and Tan Xiaolin...

4.29 - The Middle Realm

Despite it being terribly rude, He Yu blasted through the inner sect on the winds of the Sky Dragon’s Flight on his way home. He couldn’t find it within himself to care. He’d been stuck at the early stage of the Fourth Realm for what seemed like an eternity. Within his storage treasure, he ...

4.28 - A True Reward

Shortly after leaving the meeting with Yi Xiurong, He Yu made his way through the upper reaches of the inner sect mountain. The second highest of the peaks that dominated the inner sect were given over to the core disciples—all six of them. He Yu wended his way through the paths and gardens sep...

4.27 - Storm's Reckoning

Distant peals of thunder sounded in Cui Bao’s ears. A guandao, sparking with golden arcs of heaven, pointed towards his heart. He Yu. That stupid, weak piece of shit loomed over him. Towering to the heavens, clouds gathered around him. Brilliant flashes of light cast him in stark relief.

...

4.26 - A Leopard in the Storm

Chen Fei had always known He Yu was strong. Stronger than he gave himself credit for. She’d seen him fight Xiaoling during the tournament. She’d seen him train with Zhang Lifen, with Xiaoling, and more recently, with Li Heng.

This was different. Each of his blows was heavy with the fury...

4.25 - Alchemy Workshop

He Yu kicked open the door of the workshop. It splintered into a hundred pieces. Dust and splintered wood showered what little free space lay within. Before him was a sight that turned his stomach. Behind him, Chen Fei gasped and Zhu Feng retched.

Bodies were piled against two of the worksh...

4.24 - Against the Court II

He Yu’s trip to the medicine hall was his shortest yet. The treatment that Yi Xiurong had arranged for him was some of the sect’s finest. It took every last bit of his control to cycle the restorative elixirs and avoid a backlash, but it did its job. After only an hour, he was in peak conditi...

4.23 - Alignment of Fortune

It didn’t take long for the elixirs to do their work and allow both He Yu and Li Heng to stand on their own. Once they’d recovered their weapons and brushed aside the remaining concerns of the others, He Yu turned to Chen Fei.

“How did you find us?” he asked. “How did you even kno...

4.22 - To Stand and Fight

Wang Xiaobo’s jian slammed into the Spring Rain Mirror, crashing through it as if He Yu’s defensive technique didn’t exist. At least He Yu had the prescience of the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, the agility of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, and the raw speed of the Sky Dragon�...

4.21 - He Yu and Li Heng Head North

He Yu landed in Li Heng’s courtyard with a heavy thump as the Sky Dragon’s Flight gave him back over to the law of earth. His friend looked up from where he sat with his ancestral jian laid across his lap, whetstone, oil, and rags close at hand. At the very least, Li Heng had the decency to l...

4.20 - The March of Winter

As he advanced through the Third Realm and continued to refine his presence, Li Heng came to like summer less and less. The retreat of the snows, of the ice, left him feeling like he lacked something. One significant upside was that was that travel became easier. More and more frequently, Li Heng...

4.19 - Hunting Trip

Midsummer came and went. As it turned out, advancing through the Fourth Realm wasn’t as simple as He Yu had first thought.

After the meeting with Wang Xiaobo and Xin Lu, He Yu had returned home and taken his elixirs. Or what was left of them. He’d been certain as he entered his cultivat...

4.18 - A Confrontation

When He Yu arrived at Yan Shirong’s home, the change was immediately apparent. After their time training with Old Guo, the shadows had always seemed to cling more closely to Yan Shirong. An impression that had only increased as he progressed through Body Refining. Now those shadows seemed like ...

4.17 - A Final Lesson

He Yu stepped through the formation gate that marked the edge of the training arena. Across the flagstone floor, Fang Yingjie stood as He Yu had always seen him, his arms crossed and face partially shrouded by his conical peasant’s hat. It was a rare bright day on the inner sect mountain, where...

4.16 - Secrets and Shadows

Yan Shirong looked over his notes for what felt like the thousandth time. Finally, he admitted to himself what he’d been avoiding for the better part of a week now. He was at an impasse. Whoever was behind He Yu’s trouble with the sect jobs, they were good at covering their tracks.

Lean...

4.15 - The Mantis Stalks the Cicada

For months Zhang Lifen had been wandering the mortal world, searching for a rogue cultivator who may as well have been a ghost. It would have been kind of Yi Xiurong to at least provide some clue as to where she ought to start her search, but she supposed that would defeat the purpose. This was a...

4.14 - Success at Last?

Summer was in full swing, and He Yu once more found himself on the outer sect mountain. He’d long since stopped being picky about the jobs he accepted, taking anything he could get his hands on. The one bright spot in all his troubles so far had been the windfall he’d gained from the assault ...

4.13 - Return to the Sect

After their stop at the wayside inn, it took He Yu and Tan Xiaoling another week to arrive back at the sect. From the time the tops of the mist-shrouded peaks came into view just over the horizon until they finally arrived at Xu Xiang. Approaching the base of the outer sect mountain, He Yu felt a...

4.12 - The Journey Back

Traveling across an untamed land teeming with spirits and beasts with a dozen mortals in tow turned out to be more of a burden than He Yu had first imagined. It wasn’t the fact alone that it took absolutely forever for them to make progress. The mortals had to walk, and the cultivators had to c...

4.11 - Responsibility and Return

With the bounty of the mine safely tucked away in their storage treasures, He Yu and Tan Xiaoling returned to the surface with the miners in tow. Tan Xiaoling said she was going to make one last sweep of the overseer’s hut and the surrounding area just to be certain there wasn’t anything she�...

4.10 - A Hero's Duty

Anger, white and hot, consumed him. He Yu slammed into the overseer. The sickle trembled under his guandao and he locked eyes with the manic creature before him. The overseer simply laughed.

“Is the price of failure too high?” he asked with a manic giggle.

“I won’t be the one ...

4.9 - The Overseer

He Yu and Tan Xiaoling both released their presences as the overseer slammed into their midst. As his initial strike cracked the earth where they’d just stood, wind rushed out from them both.

A sandstorm carrying a thousand thousand gleaming razor shards whipped up around Tan Xiaoling. A ...

4.8 - Against the Court

“I don’t like this,” Tan Xiaoling said once they’d passed beyond the far edge of the sect town at the base of the mountain.

“What’s that, exactly?” He Yu asked. Of course, he had some thoughts of his own on the subject. It wasn’t so much that he’d had to kill the agents of...

4.7 - First Disciple Yi

Chen Fei’s suggestion that they hunt cores on the way back turned out to be a good one. While most of the beasts they tracked down on the way back were Third Realm and their cores wouldn’t sell for much at the inner sect market, it at least helped take He Yu’s mind off his troubles. They ev...

4.6 - He Yu and Chen Fei

The second note from Zhang Lifen in as many weeks had been a simple one. “I’ll be away for a bit longer than I anticipated. Make the most of the opportunity provided.”

He Yu wasn’t certain what opportunity she could be referring to. Time to train on his own? As often as he found him...

4.5 - The Elder Meeting

Atop the highest of the central peaks of the Shrouded Peaks Sect sat the Elder’s Grand Hall. The only way up was a staircase numbering ten thousand steps, and despite her advancement, protocol demanded that Zhang Lifen climb them. It stung at her pride. However, she knew where she stood, and sh...

4.4 - Balance and Flexibility

“And that’s it?” Li Heng asked. “They just told you it was all for nothing?”

“That’s about it,” He Yu said, swatting away a thrust from Li Heng’s jian. “Even told me that if they got word it wasn’t actually done, they’d take contribution points.”

The two of t...