Still, the answer to the puzzle remained elusive for Shui Yuan flatly dodged the question.
Whatever her reasons were, Lu Ye felt that she was holding back the answer from him. But since she refused to tell him now, Lu Ye did nothing to pry.
He kept himself submerged in the giant tub filled with Shui Yuan’s painstakingly concocted potion and his wounds healed quickly.
Lu Ye only got out of the tub completely refreshed and invigorated when the sun was about to set. Amber trotted up to him and nudged him with his big furry head.
The recent days at the main stronghold of the Sect had seen Amber growing beefier with all the comfort and good rest, not to mention the mounds of Spirit Pills to feast on and the occasional inhalation of the red substance from Lu Ye’s dragon scale. It really was paradise for him.
On the other hand, Yi Yi…
He had not seen her lately. She had been spending a lot of time with Tang Yifeng. She had been with Shui Yuan all the time, at first, before telling him that she was learning how to be a Medical Cultivator.
Her reason was simple enough. She had witnessed how frequently Lu Ye was injured during their journey. But Lu Ye would one day fight again and, at that time, he could be hurt once more.? That prompted Yi Yi to opt to be a Medical Cultivator. She might not be useful in battle, but she could at least keep him alive.
But for the past few days, she had been missing, leaving Lu Ye puzzled and confused, although he could only chalk it up to some early-stage difficulties.
Next, he heard about how Tang Yifeng had taken her under his wing. Was she thinking of becoming a Spell Cultivator now?
Lu Ye knew that his mentor Tang Yifeng was a Spell Cultivator and one of the best in the land too.
Lu Ye retrieved his dragon scale and allowed Amber another sniff. The big burly tiger took one draft and shuddered. Stiffened, he crashed to the ground with a loud thud with his blood churning like choppy waters.
Shui Yuan was rather unperturbed by this. Lu Ye had explained to her before about the dragon scale and its provenance. In fact, she had borrowed it for closer observation, and finally, at the end, she concluded that the substance in the scale really did have the ability to enrich one’s physical properties and all he needed to do was to have precise control of his ability and it would be safe.
There must be some sort of secret prowling beneath the Dragon Spring, Shui Yuan later told him. There might be treasures that Lu Ye might be able to access if he was strong and powerful enough to explore the Dragon Spring himself one day.
That was a notion that Lu Ye would gladly entertain. He had not forgotten how Han Zhe Yue of the Tai Luo Clan exposed to the entire world the secrets about his Glyphs, and what happened after that nearly killed him.
That was a debt that Lu Ye vowed to collect one day.
Ignoring Amber’s spasmodic fits as if it was having a stroke, Lu Ye headed straight for the Sanctum of Providence.
He traveled back to the outpost and jabbed a hand at his Battlefield Imprint the moment he reappeared at the Sanctum there to deliver a message.
A reply came back quickly enough. “I’m afraid that there’s few that match your requirements, Lu Ye. I’ve been asking around, but not many are keen to go on such a perilous quest. I have two though, but one of them’s a Fifth-Order and the other’s a Fourth-Order. Still, I don’t think you’ll want to enter the tournament with dead weight instead of a partner.”
Lu Ye had asked Chen Yu to be on the lookout for any possible candidates that he could partner with to join the Battle Royal of the Legates. However, it would appear that the search remained fruitless.
Most if not all Cultivators in the Spirit Creek Battlefield knew about the Battle Royal of the Legates. But with most of the independents that clustered at the Crimson Blood Sect outposts being low-tiered independents aside from Chen Yu, Lu Ye was in a situation where he could count himself lucky if he could find enough Sixth-Orders to make a quadruple. Those that he managed to find did not look convincing enough; needless to say, a bunch of cowards that Lu Ye could barely rely on.
As Sixth-Orders, they could have long ventured into the inner ring areas of the Battlefield to further challenge themselves to climb greater heights. That they chose to stay here only showed how severely they lacked in both fortitude and mettle.
To say nothing of the Battle Royal of the Legates where deaths and injuries were as common as the very dirt they stepped on.
The same went for Chen Yu. Not unlike the others, he too possessed the ability to try his luck in the inner ring areas of the Battlefield.
But Lu Ye saw this coming a long way ahead. As disappointed as he might be, he knew all along to not place any faith in any independents saying yes.
[I guess that leaves me no choice then…] Lu Ye mused quietly.
He stepped out of the Sanctum and dug inside his Storage Bag until he yanked out a fish the length of a yardstick by the tail. Red from head to tail, the fish glistened with such luminescence like a slab of crimson jade.
It was a Blood Sturgeon. Li Baxian had caught a lot of this fish and most of them had been eaten. Those that managed to be spared from the dinner table—for now—were given to Lu Ye.
The silhouette of something large shadowed him from overhead before it landed just before Lu Ye, eliciting a huge burst of wind slamming into Lu Ye’s face with such force that it felt like a slap to him. It was Beaky the giant eagle.
The giant eagle lowered its head and gave Lu Ye a playful nip before scooping up the Blood Sturgeon, throwing his head up to swallow the fish down in just one gulp.
Since Li Baxian told him about how Beaky loved Blood Sturgeon, Lu Ye had been bringing him some every now and then. But with his size and girth, a Blood Sturgeon or two wasn’t anywhere near enough. The one-meter-long fish looked just like a tiny worm for Beaky.
Still, that quelled Beaky’s love for that unique species of fish not one bit at all. In fact, feeding him the fish has helped to make Lu Ye closer to the gigantic avian predator.
For decades it had guarded the outpost alone. Neither snow, rain, heat, or gloom of night had kept Beaky from maintaining a steadfast watch over the Crimson Blood Sect’s only, albeit abandoned, presence here in the Battlefield until Lu Ye’s appearance, which added colors back to its humdrum monotony.
With one fish down into its belly, Beaky peered at Lu Ye, tilting its head with anticipation gleaming in its round bulbous eyes.
Lu Ye pulled out another Blood Sturgeon. This time, he tossed it up into the air and Beaky caught it with his beak deftly.
He looked at Beaky and said, “Beaky. Can you give me a ride?”
The giant predator gave him a judging look before he craned down and caught Lu Ye by the collar of his shirt with his hooked beak and flung Lu Ye up on its wide and feathery back.
That was not amusing at all for Lu Ye, who scowled, “Just nod next time. I can climb up myself, you know. I’m not a five-year-old that needs help climbing up your back!”
Ignoring the jibe, Beaky unfurled its wings. The winds howled and tossed. Then came the sensation of weightlessness that assailed him without notice. Before Lu Ye even knew it, they were already flying.
Lu Ye laid down prone on the eagle’s back, channeling his power to keep himself enveloped in a shroud of energy that kept him protected from the winds.
From the front, Beaky let loose a shrill screech as if it was asking for directions.
Lu Ye quickly extracted his map and found his destination, then he gave Beaky a bearing. The behemothic bird quickly maneuvered and veered to where Lu Ye pointed him.
In the meantime, Lu Ye delivered a message to Shui Yuan using his Battlefield Imprint.
A reply came swiftly enough: [Safe travels! Come back early!]
Riding on Beaky’s back, Lu Ye learned the full definition of “breakneck speed”.
Even Tang Wu’s magical flying conveyance couldn’t hope to match Beaky’s speed. As a flying Spirit Beast of such age and power, it was not that much of a surprise to Lu Ye. Still, that made him wonder if Beaky had power and strength comparable to a Ninth-Order Cultivator trained in a Heaven-grade cultivation discipline.
Perhaps it was because of the magical laws that governed the Battlefield that Beaky could grow no further.
On the other hand, Lu Ye was envious of how suave and smart Li Baxian was when he rode on his magical conveyance. If only he could grow faster. He had not yet reached the stage of cultivation where he could operate his own magical conveyance yet.
Most Seventh-Order Cultivators learned how to manipulate objects using Telekinesis. But only those who rose up to the Eighth or Ninth-Grade could have enough Spirit Power to operate a magical conveyance and sustain it long enough for travel.
Reaching the Ninth-Order would mean that one could learn Heaven-grade cultivation disciplines. By switching to Heaven-grade disciplines, one would finally be qualified enough to try breaking out of the spheres of the Spirit Creek Realm to enter the Cloud River Realm.