41 Chapter 41 – Successive Breakthrough

Zhu Xuan sat outside the whole night trying to understand the wind element.

His body was covered with injuries caused by the wind slashes. He took some healing pills and rested for few hours. After that, he walked to a waterfall nearby to practice his Flowing Moon sword technique, while observing the waterfall and the water flow in the lake. He practiced the water elements until sunset. He wanted to reach completion stage first in these two elements before proceeding to observe and understand other elements, since he made great progress with these two elements.

Three days went by following the same routine of trying to understand the wind element in the night, and water element at the day time.

On the night of the third day, he was sitting outside the cave with his eyes closed and the wind is surrounding him but there were no injuries in his body. Though the wind was still fierce, when it reached near him they acted like he was not there at all and moved around him freely.

Zhu Xuan slowly opened his eyes and stood up from his place. Suddenly he disappeared from his place and appeared hundred meters away. His lips arched upwards with a faint smile and then he kept appearing and disappearing in various places around the cave.

He stopped after a while and smiled happily. He said to himself "Finally reached the completion realm in wind element. I was wrong from the beginning about the concept of wind. First I thought it was gentle, and then I thought it was fierce, but the nature of wind is actually its adaptability. It moves through everything and accommodates to everything around it. If I can accommodate to wind around me, I can move with it as it does."

He is planning to leave this valley after he attained completion in Water element and wander around various places before returning to Qinglu city for the selections. He believed he can reach the perfection stage before selections, but he wanted to reach it faster so that he can concentrate on the techniques of other elements. So he continued practising the Swiftwind silent steps while using the time here to improve further with the help of these fierce wind at night.

Another five days went by.

Currently Zhu Xuan is standing by the side of the waterfall lake and observing the flow of the water and the fishes swimming in peace. He has been standing like this for past two days without moving.

He was observing the fishes moving, changing direction in the lake. Suddenly, he unsheathed his sword and performed the sword techniques. Bright lights formed from the sword, like the brightness of moon, and they move like the fishes in the water, giving an illusion the sword is bending in different angles.

"Water appear calm on the surface unless disturbed, but there are undercurrents and changes due to force from waterfall. Thanks to these fishes, I was able to understand the transition of flow is smooth and flexible, like gaining complete freedom regardless of all the changes in the water. So I need to use the smoothness and flexibility in my techniques to make it unpredictable." thought Zhu Xuan in a happy mood.

He performed his technique continuously and only stopped after a while. He exclaimed loudly "I finally reached completion in water element too. Let me rest for today and will leave the valley tomorrow.

But he never would have thought that he would be staying in the Dark winds valley for quite a while.

Zhu Xuan captured a demon beast and cooked it. His cooking skills have considerably increased after being in the wild in and out for the past few months. After finishing his meal, he spent some time to cultivate and went to rest in the cave.

In the middle of the night, a loud sound of battle woke him up. He immediately got up in full alert and only after a few moments he realised the battle sound was coming from far away. He decided to go and check it out since he is already awake. He moved fast further deep into the valley for a while and found an Armoured Steel Fanged Lion in the distance waving and stomping like it went mad.

Armored Steel Fanged Lion is a fire element beast, it is the size of a house and has already reached Initial level of Qi gathering stage.

As he moved closer to the demon beast, he found that its body is riddled with scratches and holes, and it is bleeding heavily. There is a red streak moving around the injured lion with a chi chi sound.

He observed closely and was shocked to find the lion was attacked by a small red bird the size of a football, which was attacking the lion with ferocity and as it moved, it produced lightning in its movements. This small red bird is already the mid level of Qi gathering stage.

He was shocked and wondered "Didn't Aunt Jia Li say there was only one Mid level Qi gathering stage beast, Long armed Blue Ape in the valley. Did this bird recently achieve breakthrough? Moreover, it looks like Gold Fire Swift Sparrow, but those sparrows are of fire element, but this one also creates lightning from its movement. Maybe it's a variant beast?"

There are various species of demon beasts in the records of demon beasts. And they are categorised based on their elements, and usually these family of species are born with the innate talent for specific elements and form their demon cores on that element when they reach Qi gathering stage. But rarely, there will be a variant which is born in these families which have an innate talent for more than one element and it looks like the sparrow is one such beast.

While Zhu Xuan was going through what he learned about demon beasts in his mind, Armoured Steel Fanged Lion was getting riddled with even more holes by the Gold Fire Swift Sparrow. It didn't take long for the sparrow to kill the Lion without breaking a sweat. It opened up the lion's chest with its small beak and talons, and took the demon core out from the lion.

Once it removed it, it started moving further deep into the valley carrying the demon beast core. Zhu Xuan followed the sparrow to find out where it was living, to find if he can take the demon core from the sparrow since it didn't consume it. Using the demon core of fire element will help him understand the fire concept faster.

Thankfully, it was night time and he can use the fierce wind to keep up with the speed of the sparrow. After following it for few hours, it went near stone wall and suddenly disappeared.

Zhu Xuan figured it must have entered its nest, but he didn't go forward to check the place. If the sparrow found him, death would be the only result for him. So he hid near the mountain wall and observed the place patiently.

The sparrow came out the next morning and went out, but he still didn't move out of his hiding place. If it came back suddenly, it will be very dangerous for him. Moreover, he figured its best to observe and find its daily routine first, since this is its nest and it might have stored its treasures inside instead of using them right away.

He observed it carefully for the next two days and found it will leave every morning to hunt for food for two hours. On the third day as soon as it left, he moved fast towards the mountain wall and found an inconspicuous entrance to a tunnel, hidden by the bushes.

He entered the dark tunnel and moved down fast since he only had couple of hours before the sparrow returns from its hunt and he wasn't sure how deep the tunnel went. He felt the heat increasing as he moved down the pathway. After moving for about thirty minutes, he reached a small area of hundred meters and found to his shock there was a lava pool in the middle.

Zhu Xuan was excited because Fire elemental stones are formed in lava pools, and there is even a chance of having a peak grade Fire elemental stones in the lava pools which are incredibly rare. He closed the distance to the lava pool and searched the pool and its surrounding using his Qi and only found low grade Fire elemental stones.

He sighed with disappointment "Looks like this is a newly formed Lava pool and only low grade stones have formed."

Suddenly something hit him and looked around. He hasn't found the nest of the sparrow yet and there maybe some treasures there for his use.

He looked around and found an another tunnel at the corner of the cave heading somewhere. He exclaimed "This should lead to the nest of the Gold Fire Swift sparrow, and maybe there is another lava pool with high grade elemental stones."

He entered the darkness of the tunnel with anticipation and excitement.