Blue Phoenix

Pill Distribution Day

Hui Yue was looking at Wang Ju Long who was currently seated next to Hui Yue with closed eyes and arms resting across his chest. It was obvious that the other boy was completely ignoring Hui Yue, causing the white-haired boy to sigh deeply and return his eyes towards Teacher Li Yuan.

This morning Hui Yue had gone to the classroom just like the previous day. Teacher Li Yuan had explained the different subjects that the students could choose from. At first Hui Yue didn’t find any of the subjects particularly interesting. Upon hearing about Cultivation History within the Taiyang Kingdom, he was instantly interested. He hoped it would be possible for him to find some clues to Shenyuan and the Dark Age.

The majority of the commoner students had been placed within the Qi Refinement and Theory Class since they had never been taught the fundamentals of cultivation at the martial arts schools.

A few noble students had been placed within the same class as the commoners. The majority had been ranked in a class one level higher. This class was called Understanding and Practice of Martial Arts Skills. It was a class for those who knew the basics of qi cultivation but needed to learn more about how to use this qi when it came to martial arts skills.

The class which Hui Yue had been expected to enter was called Disciple Ranked Cultivation Methods as Hui Yue was considered one of the geniuses in the class. Hui Yue had still chosen the alternative class that anyone could enter.

Cultivation History within the Taiyang Kingdom was a subject for anyone who wished to attend. It was also considered a subject in which the student would not gain any help with their cultivation. It was very rare for anyone actually to choose it. Teacher Li Yuan had been intensely surprised when he saw Hui Yue chose it.

The classes were split among morning, noon and afternoon classes. Each class would be taught by Teacher Li Yuan. The Cultivation History within the Taiyang Kingdom was set within the afternoon schedule. This schedule slightly annoyed Hui Yue, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Unfortunately right after Hui Yue moved towards the corner designated for the Cultivation History within the Taiyang Kingdom, Wang Ju Long rose from his seat and followed.

Hui Yue was slightly startled seeing the young master follow him at first. Afterwards, he was just annoyed. Neither of them had a favorable impression of the other.

At first, a few of the commoners intended to join Hui Yue for the sake of building a relationship with him. Seeing Wang Ju Long seating himself next to Hui Yue, everyone quickly dropped that idea. The tension was so thick that it caused Teacher Li Yuan to sigh.

At first, he was quite surprised to see Hui Yue move towards the Cultivation History of Taiyang Kingdom. Inside he had been cheering with happiness as it had given him hope that the two geniuses would be split into different classes. Upon seeing Wang Ju Long following the white-haired boy, the cheering quickly turned into the sound of mourning. Teacher Li Yuan could feel himself suddenly aging more than ten years from worry alone.

Lan Feng laughed upon feeling the annoyance within Hui Yue’s soul. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said with his usually cheerful voice. ‘Have you never heard the idiom of keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer?’ he asked.

‘Obviously, I know about it,’ Hui Yue sighed back. ‘But this guy does not deserve to be seen as an enemy. If anything he is just a slight bump on the road.’

Lan Feng started cackling with laughter upon hearing the words from Hui Yue. It was obvious that the white-haired boy had gained some of Lan Feng’s arrogance after so many years of interaction. Although Hui Yue claimed that Wang Ju Long was nothing but a bump on the road, it was obvious that this bump caused Hui Yue even more annoyance than Deng Wu, who had proven to be a real threat to them.

Hui Yue let out a sound of contempt before he chose to ignore Wang Ju Long entirely. He dug into one of the pockets in his clothes and picked up the non-combat skill Fire Spark. Hui Yue turned his full attention towards the martial arts skill that he had borrowed the day before. Once again he looked through all the explained patterns.

‘What is it about this skill that interests you so?’ Lan Feng asked curiously while looking over the scroll within Hui Yue’s hands. Watching the skill, Lan Feng was unable to see anything hidden within. To him, it was just an elementary non-combat martial arts skill which allowed the cultivator to ignite a small spark within two palms.

Teacher Li Yuan sighed deeply upon noticing how the two boys at the back of the room were once again completely ignoring him and instead focusing solely on their own studies. One was reading a scroll while the other was cultivating. Teaching the two would take incredible amounts of patience.

Hui Yue ignored Lan Feng. The phoenix had not asked further questions as he suddenly noticed a slight excitement grow within Hui Yue’s soul. This excitement grew tremendously within an instant, and a big smile spread across the young boy’s face.

With smooth movements, Hui Yue placed the scroll on the table in front of him. He started making a series of hand seals, activating the qi from within his lower dantian. This activation allowed it to flow through his meridians in a particular pattern.

Lan Feng was observing the entire process with curiosity. Suddenly he felt shock upon noticing a few additional hand seals had been added to the original Fire Spark. The flow within the meridians had changed slightly. This change caused amazement to appear in Lan Feng’s eyes.

The qi that moved through the meridians split into two lines. They each shot out of Hui Yue’s two palms, colliding with significant force in the space between the palms and igniting a small fire.

The fire was small; however, it grew in size as Hui Yue kept feeding it qi that rushed through the meridians in a specific pattern, drawing in a foreign power which caused the flames to sudden soar into the skies.

Lan Feng was stunned. ‘You..’ he started his sentence. ‘Don’t tell me you managed to…?’ he never got further before the flame escaped Hui Yue’s control roaring in strength, exploding out into the classroom.

Hui Yue’s eyes grew slightly with surprise. He reacted quickly to the escaped flame and closed off the flow of qi which extinguished the flame before it managed to cause any damage to either people or interior.

A smile appeared on Hui Yue’s face as he was incredibly satisfied with the result from his experiment, but he had forgotten where he was. He quickly noticed the students were gaping at him with shocked surprise on their faces. Even the teacher was stunned upon seeing the flame that had appeared from Hui Yue.

Teacher Li Yuan was shocked for a very different reason from the students. Although the students knew that Hui Yue was stronger than they had expected; they only thought it was an ordinary martial arts skill that he had used. However, Teacher Li Yuan knew better.

Hui Yue was a Student ranked cultivator. He was currently relying solely on his lower dantian which could refine essence into qi. What Teacher Li Yuan saw was real flames. The fire could not be created unless Hui Yue was able to activate his middle dantian or had another skill which imitated the spiritual arts skills.

Teacher Li Yuan was not the only one who was deeply shocked upon sensing this profound skill that Hui Yue had just used. Wang Ju Long had stopped cultivating and had opened his eyes as soon as he felt the first movement of qi fluctuations next to him. Upon looking at the scroll which was placed in front of Hui Yue, Wang Ju Long had quickly guessed that this was the skill Fire Spark. He was deeply shocked how Hui Yue had fed the flame with his qi that had been mixed with a power Wang Ju Long had not felt before. The power was definitely much more profound than any qi he would be able to refine.

Wang Ju Long gritted his teeth and glared at Hui Yue, worrying that the young boy who was sitting next to him was gaining the upper hand. He closed his eyes and rushed back into the meditative stance to refine his qi little by little.

Hui Yue noticed the behavior of Wang Ju Long. Although he did not like the other boy, he had to admit that he had severely underestimated him upon their first meeting. Although Wang Ju Long was a young master, and he moved around with great arrogance; he was clearly a boy who worked hard to achieve what he wanted. Even if Hui Yue disliked him, it was impossible not to acknowledge his hard work.

“Teacher,” Hui Yue rose from his seat with an apologetic expression on his face. “I deeply apologize for interrupting your lecture. I was experimenting with a martial arts skill that I found within the Martial Arts Skill Hall yesterday, and I got carried away as I was close to mastering it. I apologize for briefly not paying attention to your lecture.”

Teacher Li Yuan could not help but snort upon hearing this. Hui Yue had not paid attention to anything Li Yuan had said the entire class. Hearing such an apology he had no other option than to nod his head and accept the apology. He quickly continued with the lecture.

“As you all know, tomorrow will be the Pill Distribution Day,” Teacher Li Yuan started. Instantly the entire classroom turned silent. Students were breathless as they listened to what Teacher Li Yuan had to say, “Although the name is called Pill Distribution Day, you will not receive the pill before it is night time. The pills will be distributed when the full moon rises in the sky and pushes away the last sunlight of the day. To be eligible for a pill a student needs to enter meditation and cultivate from high noon until the pills are distributed.”

Some students were shocked upon hearing this as they had never heard about special requirements before, but Hui Yue nodded his head slowly. Cultivating for half a day was not hard, and if it gave him a medicinal pill as a reward, it was definitely something Hui Yue was prepared to do.

“During your cultivation, you need to have your student emblems placed in front of you. This student emblem will record the amount of qi you manage to refine. The more qi you refine, the higher the grade the medicinal pill you receive will be.”

Hui Yue could not help but narrow his eyes upon hearing the words Teacher Li Yuan just said. Although it was good to refine high amounts of qi, it was very likely that some students would rush their cultivation and end up with inferior quality of qi, causing them to be unable to make breakthroughs later on in their cultivation.

‘That is most likely the intended result,’ Lan Feng pointed out. He felt the sudden vigilance appear within Hui Yue, ‘It is true that the Royal Family is using these academies to reel in geniuses, but if they are too outstanding this idea of fostering these geniuses could very well turn into a threat against them.’

Hui Yu understood this reasoning. He nodded, ‘Even if they have a fairly low quality of qi they should be able to rely on Qi Refining medicine to break into the middle dantian range. Although experts who are at the middle dantian range are strong, they are still nothing compared to the real experts of the higher dantian ranks.’

‘I guess that the majority of the cultivators in this class will end up as soldiers,’ Lan Feng said with a sigh. ‘And they will stay grateful towards the Royal Family for providing this sort of opportunity for them.’

Hui Yue decided not to worry anymore about the subject. In the end, it had nothing to do with him whether the Royal Family wished to create real geniuses or mediocre ones. He was excited thinking about the Fire Spark skill that he was practicing.

Teacher Li Yuan ended the lesson as soon as he had finished explaining about the Pill Distribution Day, and he waited within the classroom until every student had left. As soon as he was alone, he allowed his body to slump into a chair. He slowly picked up his teacher’s emblem once again and replayed the recording of Hui Yue playing with the Fire Spark skill.

No matter which way Teacher Li Yuan looked at this skill, it had to be some sort of spiritual arts imitation as the fire looked like real fire. Once again, it was a skill he had never seen before. Based on Hui Yue’s expression, this was a skill he had found only recently.

Teacher Li Yuan sent the recording to every other staff at the school. He hoped they could explain the martial arts skill he had seen.

After sending the recording out, Li Yuan started investigating which skills Hui Yue had picked from the Martial Arts Skill Hall. Even while looking through, all he could find were low-ranked skills which were unable to produce such a terrifying flame.

The recording spread across the school. At first, they had seen Hui Yue as a genius with an unknown background; now their interest was piqued even further. The librarian recognized the hand seals as a variety of Fire Spark. The memory stone did record the Fire Spark martial arts skill as one that Hui Yue had taken from the Martial Arts Skill Hall.

Instantly the teachers tried to gain a copy of the Fire Spark skill, but it was a very unpopular skill. The academy only had a few copies which were taken almost instantly. Upon looking at the skill scroll, none of the teachers were capable of understanding how such a weak flame could turn into the blaze they had seen on Teacher Li Yuan’s recording.

Within the academy’s office building was an old man sitting at a desk filled with books and paper scrolls. His hair and beard were white and long, showing that this man had lived for a very long time. He was the school chairman sent here on behalf of the Royal Academy. He was the one who had assigned the courtyard to Hui Yue the first day he had entered the academy.

The first time the chairman saw Hui Yue he had not paid any attention to the white-haired boy; instead, he had rushed him through. When he saw the video from Teacher Li Yuan, he was not particularly bothered by it. It was rare for students to have high-ranked martial arts skills, but not so rare that he needed to bother with it personally.

This time was different. The chairman had instantly recognized the skill to be the non-combat low-ranked Fire Spark skill. Knowing the rank and the skill, the chairman was also very confident about the amount of power it should have been able to release.

The skill had evolved, and it was clear that Hui Yue was the one who had made it evolve. He had added two extra hand seals which he had integrated into the series of hand seals that were expected for the Fire Spark. Those hand seals were used to release another power from within Hui Yue. A power that should not have existed within a Student ranked cultivator, much less a ten year old child.

The Academy Chairman looked at his emblem which was a higher rank than the teacher’s emblem. All these emblems were created from memory stone and had been altered by an ultimate expert from within the Royal Family. All the emblems had different functions; however, the students and teachers knew of only a few of the actions.

Upon binding an emblem with qi, that emblem was capable of recording the owner’s cultivation rank and qi quality. It was only the Royal emblems which were capable of observing the cultivation rank and qi quality. This was a function that the chairman had just used. Upon seeing the results, the chairman could not help but slowly lower the memory stone from his forehead and sitting quietly, contemplate what he was supposed to do. This child was filled with surprises.

The Academy Chairman once again lifted the Royal emblem and placed it on his forehead before he activated another function exclusively to the Royal emblem and contacted the chairman of the Inner Branch of the Royal Academy. Although he contacted him, the two of them were not capable of having a conversation through the memory stones. The chairman sent his memories and knowledge through the Royal emblem, allowing the other chairman to decide what they wished to do with this genius. For now, the only option he had was to keep observing.

Another function that both the teacher’s emblem and the Royal emblem had was the ability to record the actions of any student emblem instantly, however, this was useless if the emblem was packed down within a pocket or a bag.

Currently, multiple teachers within Riluo City’s Royal Academy were sitting with their teacher’s emblems pressed against their foreheads observing Hui Yue, hoping that he would reveal more of his skills or maybe a little about his past. Unfortunately, the memory stone was unable to deal with sounds. The only thing that they could see was the inside of his pocket. Still, these teachers were patient. They stayed in their positions, observing Hui Yue and waiting for the just the tiniest bit of information.

As Hui Yue left the classroom, he had put his student emblem into his pocket and moved towards the canteen. He ate a quick lunch before he rushed back to his courtyard. His excitement had not dimmed. He wanted nothing else than to quickly try out his Fire Spark skill once again.

Hui Yue rushed into his house and quickly changed clothes before rushing back outside, accidentally leaving his student emblem within his jacket pocket inside the bedroom.

‘How did you figure it out?’ Lan Feng asked with astonishment still clear within his voice. Hui Yue once again activated Fire Spark. He noticed how at first the flame between his palms was small but quickly grew in size as pearl-white qi, mixed with a few blue drops of liquid kept on feeding the flame.

‘It’s you,’ Hui Yue said with a big smile on his face, at the same time focusing on the flame to ensure that it did not run wild again. ‘I might not be able to use spiritual energy, but you are a Saint ranked expert with elemental affinity already!’ Hui Yue was excited.

‘Your soul and mine are combined, so even if I am unable actually to use spiritual energy, I am still able to implement some of your affinity into my qi and cause this fire to grow from a harmless spark into a murderous blaze!’ As Hui Yue’s excitement grew, his control over the Fire Spark fell, and he had to quickly cut off the qi supply as the flame roared and slithered, fighting to escape the boundaries that Hui Yue had set up.

The hand seals that Hui Yue had added to the Fire Spark were the hand seals of the Bird, which he had learned by Lan Feng right as he had entered this new world. Hui Yue had long ago realized that the contract between him and Lan Feng had changed everything about him.

His appearance had changed, and so had his soul. Although by himself he was nothing more than a Student ranked cultivator; however, a part of his soul had gained the strength of Lan Feng. Thus far Hui Yue had no idea how to implement this strength as he was still unable to execute spiritual arts.

That being said, Fire Spark was not a spiritual arts skill, it was a skill which required qi to create a flame. Using the phoenix’s affinity with fire, and merging it into the qi allowed Hui Yue to increase the flame and control it to a certain point.

Hui Yue spent the rest of the day practicing Fire Spark. He quickly learned his limits. As a Student rank, he was unable to make the flame truly dangerous, but both Lan Feng and Hui Yue knew that this would become rather deadly upon reaching the Disciple rank.

The teachers had given up on observing Hui Yue the previous day. They knew he had forgotten his student emblem within his house. This morning, however, all the teachers once again observed Hui Yue.

It was the day known as Pill Distribution Day. Today Hui Yue would be forced to cultivate in front of the student emblem if he wished to be granted a medicinal pill. All the teachers were excited upon the chance to see how he cultivated, and they started observing Hui Yue from early morning.

Unfortunately, Hui Yue was in no hurry. He slept fairly long for once as he felt very relaxed after succeeding with the Fire Spark skill. When he finally did wake up, he spent the next half hour in the bath, relaxing.

Hui Yue’s leisurely lifestyle was causing all the teachers to grow impatient. Some of them even wished that they could yell out to the student that he had to start studying.

Hui Yue, on the other hand, chose to slowly move towards the canteen where the Rong twins were waiting for him. The three of them ate their breakfast together. Hui Yue was smiling and feeling incredibly good this day. After breakfast he ended up walking around the campus with his friends, talking about the plans for the following day when they would be going back to Riluo City.

Hui Yue knew that he owed the Rong twins a great deal. He was certain that he would repay the two of them one day.

Hui Yue waved goodbye to the twins as the three of them split up and moved towards their own courtyards as they needed to prepare for the Pill Distribution Day. The entire campus was filled with students that were rushing back to their home where all of them would sit down in a meditational stance with their student emblem in front of them.

Hui Yue sat down like all the others, and the many teachers felt a great sense of satisfaction as they could observe the unknown genius cultivate. Unfortunately, they quickly were disappointed as they noticed that Hui Yue was cultivating the exact same way as everyone else. At least that was how it looked for those who witnessed him cultivate.

Hui Yue sank deep into his consciousness and was focused solely on absorbing essence and refining qi. He did not notice how the high sun slowly sunk down in the sky, and finally was pushed away by the majestic moon.

What he did notice was that the strands of pearl-white qi increased tremendously while he was within this mountaintop courtyard. A shiver went through his body as he finally broke through into the sixth star Student rank.

The Academy Chairman was the only one who was capable of noticing how much qi each student had gathered, and he split those students into three groups. The ones who gathered the least would all receive an Essence Gathering pill which would allow the student to quickly absorb essence and refine it at a slightly increased pace.

The second pill was a Qi Grasping pill which contained refined qi. This qi would merge with the qi within the cultivator’s dantian and automatically refine itself until it reached the same level of refinement as the qi present within the dantian. Both Hui Yue and Wang Ju Long had gotten into the middle category as neither of them had rushed with their cultivation.

The last pill and the most desired one was the Qi Refinement pill which provided a slight refinement of the qi within the cultivator’s dantian. Every student wanted to gain this pill as they relied on those to break through from one rank to another.

Hui Yue opened his eyes happily upon noticing that he had reached the sixth star. His eyes shone with excitement as he looked into the sky. There were still a few strands of light from the sun which was sinking down below the mountains. Hui Yue decided to watch as the final glints of sunlight died out in the sky.

The moon was round, and suddenly it lit up with a silvery shine. This shine turned into thousands of beams of light that shot from the moon and towards each of the courtyards within the mountains.

One of these light beams was aimed straight at Hui Yue, and it landed in his hands, revealing a small jade bottle.

Hui Yue was excited as he slowly opened the bottle. A faint smell of medicinal plants erupted from within, causing Hui Yue to remember his parent’s shack where his father would gather the medicinal plants before going to the city to sell them off.

Hui Yue felt a smile spreading on his face. It was time to start his plan.