Chapter 224 – Against the High-Graded
“So, would you like to invite me inside?” Wu Shuanger blinked gently while looking at Ye Wei, and spoke in a softened, affectionate voice.
“That wouldn’t be appropriate. Out here is as good as anywhere else if you would like to talk.” Ye Wei tried to smile, but frowned instead. He felt intruded upon, like he was wasting time that he could be spending on training.
Wu Shuanger was endlessly attractive, but lacked Qing Yao’s class and Xue Er’s energetic charm, therefore Ye Wei did not really appreciate the beauty that was right before his eyes.
Wu Shuanger began biting her full and juicy lips. Being used to the company of admirers, she was slightly bothered by Ye Wei’s indifference. ‘Many in the palace covet me, including many of the top five hundred black dragon rankers. Does this newbie think I am not worthy of his attention?’
‘Or maybe he is just shy!’ Wu Shuanger gritted her teeth and smiled, emphasizing the sweetness of her voice, “Shuanger is here to congratulate you on behalf of the Zijin Chamber of Commerce. This bottle of Pale Moon primal essence is a gift from the council! Suffice it to say, they were impressed by what you managed to do.”
Ye Wei immediately realized the intention of the unexpected visit, that the Zijin Chamber of Commerce was interested in him.
As she told by the Zijin’s council to act nice, Wu Shuanger did not stop smiling. Zijin was one of the four richest organizations within the Zhou dynasty’s reign; their wealth even exceeded all of the sixteen superpowers. While excelling in trade, they lacked truly powerful cultivators on their roster and were in the course of recruiting more.
“A bottle of what!?” Ye Wei knitted his brows in confusion, uncomfortable with the generous gesture.
The chamber of commerce did not lack contacts in the palace, knowing that a cultivator’s monthly allowance were three drops of essence a month, the council had ordered Wu Shuanger to offer Ye Wei a bottle that contained no less than one hundred drops of the precious liquid.
Having read about the cultivation elixir in the Runemaster Union’s catalog, Ye Wei had memorized its name and outrageous price. He was also aware that he could advance quickly after breaking through to returned prime level with the aid of the rare liquid.
“I cannot accept a gift like that.” Knowing that just one drop of the liquid costed fifty thousand contribution tokens, Ye Wei shook his head without hesitation. Not only was he unwilling to owe anyone a favour, he had no use of the elixir before actually becoming a returned prime Warrior.
“I have to go back and continue training Miss Shuanger.” Ye Wei tried to sound polite, but his cold tone made it obvious that he did not care about the offer at all.
After a brief nod, he turned around and walked back to the villa.
“You ungrateful little…” Wu Shuanger was startled by the unusually harsh treatment, muttered with an air of anger. ‘A month from now, you will wish you had given me face. I know hundreds who are eager to humble a newbie during the ranking tournament!”
Wu Shuanger took off without even bidding farewell. She was frustrated but knew full well that the council would not have her back if she wished to act against the talent they were trying to poach.
A quarter of an hour after the surprise visit, a silvery figure appeared in front of Ye Wei’s Villa.
The glossy white silk robe Bai Qing wore was a standard issue made by the Bai family’s tailors. After hearing what Ye Wei achieved during his first week, the super martial family’s elder council also decided to make contact with the talented young man.
“Ye Wei, are you home? It is Bai Qing! I am here to ask for forgiveness!” Bai Qing’s eyes glinted, he smiled handsomely and shouted outside the building.
“Another one?” Ye Wei frowned as he was snapped out of his tranquil state.
“Why am I getting so many visitors today?” He muttered to himself as the thought of ignoring the visitor crossed his mind. After a moment of hesitation he decided to be polite instead and quickly walked out the front door to greet his guest.
“Greetings, can I help you with anything?” Ye Wei kept his eyes at the Bai family’s crest on his visitor’s robe as he spoke.
“Ye Wei, I am here to apologize. Shamefully I have to admit that I was the person responsible for arranging the initiates shaming this year, and that I was more or less forced to do it.” Bai Qing gulped and presented a delicate jade vial humbly with both his hands, “This is thirty drops of Pale Moon primal essence, I would like you to have it. It will be hard for me to sleep at night if you don’t accept my apology.”
“Bai Qing, this is too much, I am aware that the Million Star Palace had such tradition, and I wasn’t even harmed.” Ye Wei said while gently pushing away the vial.
‘Would you be this nice to the other initiates that got beaten up? You are really here because of the dragon howls…’
Bai Qing did not take no for an answer, he changed the topic a few times, asked about Ye Wei’s background and past cultivation in hopes it will soften the young Runemaster. But he soon found out that the conversation continued only out of politeness, that Ye Wei had no intention of taking the vial. After making sure the initiate held no grudge, Bai Qing left reluctantly but peacefully.
After Bai Qing’s departure, more than ten parties came. Each one representing an influential power, paid Ye Wei a visit. All of them bore valuable gifts like primal essence elixirs, materials for soul weapon crafting and even mid-Earth grade scrolls.
The nonstop stream of visitors were all well mannered but none of them managed to even enter the villa before they were turned down by Ye Wei.
“I need some peace…” Ye Wei frowned and mumbled, before heading into the courtyard to activate the villa’s lock. ‘I am not strong enough to get myself involved with these super families. They want to befriend me for my potential. But I will make just as many enemies as I make friends…’
“Now I won’t hear a sound from the outside!” He stretched his arms back, relieved that he could take a break from delicately refusing representatives of some of the biggest powers of the dynasty.
“I did enter the black dragon list as an initiate and got nine howls in the process, but I am still a condensed prime Warrior. Should I one day become a god’s prime Warrior I will need a tougher gate and a lot of servants to deal with all of the visitors…”
“Maybe I should just become a hermit like Master Yi!” Enjoying the moment of tranquility, he paced around the courtyard and spoke to himself. “I haven’t really lost anything by turning them down. The gifts they wanted to give me were nice but I have to work harder myself to earn them. I will learn more that way.”
“However, I will eventually have to attach myself to one of those families. I have to make friends with one of them before they all see me as a threat.” Ye Wei clenched his fist. “Or I will just get up to a returned prime level as quick as possible so I don’t have to worry about pleasing these people. But before then I think they might deliberately give me a hard time just to show me their authority.”
Ye Wei paced quicker as he became a little anxious, “They might think I am disrespecting them on purpose.”
“They won’t do anything openly but they will surely try to influence my decision somehow…”
“Considering that some of the veterans think I’ve broken their tradition and that I am a contestant to be the strongest cultivator here due to the howls, I will be challenged physically and mentally.”
“With the kind of influence they have, it will be easy for the superpowers to rough me up through hands of others!”
“If I deal with the inner demon right now I will be able to directly breakthrough when I figure it out…” Realizing it would be time consuming to to prepare his mental state for the attempt, he decided to leave rerouting his Qi flow while being pushed to his limits during combat.
‘This way I will be able to breakthrough quicker when my body is ready!’ The young Runemaster took a deep breath as he cleared his mind from distractions. He sat himself down in the middle of the training chamber.
“Bring it!”
Ye Wei shut his eyes tight, and held his breath to condense his focus. The silver energy ball in his dantian began to spin, the ten cracks on its surface shone golden as the rotating motion sped up. A surge of Qi then rushed out of the dantian and filled his meridians, caused an aggressive shock that put him into another level of his consciousness.
“High grade inner demon!” The darkness did not nullify Ye Wei’s sharp senses, just less than a second after he felt a disturbing presence he felt a sudden drop of temperature. Before he could react he was trapped in a shell of condensed energy, in front of a ghostly figure.
Neither Low nor mid-grade inner demons that Ye Wei had faced were powerful enough to take touchable form, but his senses suggested that the pressure he felt came from an actual physical being only meters away from him.
Only seconds after noticing the alarming presence, Ye Wei was confronted by an enormous shadow that seemed to have emerged from the nether he was trapped in.
Unlike the other inner demons encounters, the pressure left a cold, tingling sensation on his skin just like what he experienced while fighting the Black Scale Progenitor’s descendant.
But unlike the last high-grade inner demon encounter when he was immediately overwhelmed by fear and passed out, Ye Wei was able to remain calm and collected.
“GHROWLL”
Immediately after materializing, the demon squeezed a chilling scream out of its lungs and lunged at Ye Wei
A suffocating sense of fear grew in Ye Wei at the startling momentum of the approaching demon; Images of demon hordes and beast packs ravaging human cities filled his mind; images so vivid he could almost smell the bloodshed.
