“Ha, nice, very nice.”
Su Beimu laughed loudly. He didn’t look flustered at all. On the contrary, he seemed quite intrigued.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen a mecha. Well, this is great. Now I can practice my skills with it. Don’t worry. I won’t break your mecha too soon. I’ll be very gentle. And last but not least, please remember my name. I’m Su Beimu, from the Light Cliff!”
“Swoosh!”
Su Beimu laughed out loud. Next, a long broadsword suddenly appeared in his right hand. He hacked it horizontally, and it was absolutely parallel to his body.
The broadsword light flashed, as though reflecting Su Beimu’s cold and fierce look.
“Clang!”
The broadsword light appeared to shrink into a fine line and lunged at the mecha horizontally.
“You’re courting death!”
The mecha’s right leg paced back. Its left hand pressed forward. The shield on its arm was erected, which immediately turned into a semi-circle light cover. Energy swirled wildly. With a loud bang, the energy waves generated from the battle forced the mecha to stumble a pace back.
However, Su Beimu retreated more than 10 meters.
He raised his head, his eyes flashing with surprise. “Bravo! That didn’t even break your defense.”
At this time, he and the mecha were on the edge of a small sect. The sect had also become one of the trading markets run by the Tiger Talisman Royal Family. Setting up trading markets on the trial field was also one of their ways to make money.
It was also Su Beimu’s first time being here, so he had no idea about all those rules. He was used to being straightforward and unrestrained. If somebody upset him, he would directly kill him or her. As a result… he got himself into this.
About 100 meters behind the mecha stood more than 20 members of the Tiger Talisman Royal Family. They were holding different kinds of high-tech weapons in their hands, watching the fight from a distance. Up to this moment, they showed no intention to intervene because the red mecha could totally handle the situation by itself.
After launching an attack, Su Beimu found that the opponent’s defense was kind of strong. At least, after he displayed his power, the opponent was only forced to take one step backward.
“Seems that science and technology can’t be underestimated when they reach a certain level.”
Su Beimu shook his head and muttered to himself, “Would Earth become a world with advanced science and technology one day?”
Just as he was lost in thought—
“Buzz, buzz, buzz…”
It was the sound of charging.
Su Beimu instantly became alert. He saw unusual movements on the red mecha’s outer thighs.
“Boom! Boom!”
The next second, two red beams of light shot straight at him with overwhelming force.
“Chaotic Wind!”
Su Beimu instantly made a defensive move. In a second, five layers of energy swirled around him.
“Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack!”
The two red beams of light pierced straight through his five layers of defensive energy.
“Holy crap!”
Su Beimu was startled. “This is an attack at the Elixir Realm Peak-Stage!”
He swiftly fled to the side, but the two red beams of light followed him closely.
“They can even follow their target?”
Su Beimu wielded his long broadsword and chopped backward before he turned to face the enemy.
“Kaboom!”
A violent explosion broke out. However, Su Beimu’s strike only managed to blow up one of the beams of light.
To his immense surprise—
“Frizzle, frizzle, frizzle!”
There were sounds of electric currents, which caused his scalp to go numb. Then, dozens of jets of light zoomed out from the dense smoke. Each ray of light was a shining, icicle-like bullet.
“Hack!”
Su Beimu’s face darkened. He slashed his broadsword again.
“Clank, clank, clank…”
Surprisingly, the moment the broadsword light clashed with the bullets, a clash of two metal objects was heard.
When the broadsword light faded, the bullets were nowhere to be seen, yet the other beam of red light was shooting at him.
“Hack again!”
After Su Beimu madly hacked three times in a row and destroyed the red light, he suddenly noticed a shadow over his head.
The moment he raised his head, his pupils contracted.
“D*mn it. I’m in trouble!”
To his horror, the red mecha was only 50 meters above his head, looking down at him condescendingly.
“It definitely has the strength of someone at the Elixir Realm Peak-Stage!
“Sh*t!
“How could a technological mecha be so fierce?”
Su Beimu quickly brandished his broadsword several times and shouted, “Today, we are gonna duke it out. Don’t forget my name. I’m Su Beimu from the Light Cliff!”
When the saber radiance was about to hit the mecha—
“Whiz!”
Su Beimu swiftly turned tail and fled north.
Did he get away just like that?
No.
What made Su Beimu’s blood run cold was that the red mecha was also very fast. While chasing after him, it also launched all kinds of attacks.
“F*ck! Are you kidding me? How could it be so mighty?”
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break the mecha’s defense. However, he had to make several moves to resolve the opponent’s one single attack. Just like that, Su Beimu fought while fleeing. He embarked on a hard journey.
What he did not know was that the people standing at the rear also showed surprise in their eyes.
“This man at the Elixir Realm Last-Stage can even withstand the attacks of the red mecha?”
“Looks like he is quite extraordinary.”
“Su Beimu from the Light Cliff? That name is a bit odd.”
“Is the Light Cliff a sect? I just put it in the search engine, but no result popped up. I never heard of a place called the Light Cliff. Could it be that he came from a remote place?”
“How dare he provoke the Tiger Talisman Royal Family? He is a dead man.”
The situation that Su Beimu was facing might be the worst, but not the most disgraceful.
At the same time, someone sneaked in the Cloud Shadow Sky’s stronghold where there were supposed to be only its disciples, without anybody noticing.
When the night fell—
There was a sudden riot in the kitchen.
“Our wine got stolen!”
“It’s him!”
“Catch him!”
“Freeze!”
More than 20 people were madly chasing after a man in white, who was dashing ahead of them.
“Bullsh*t. What do you mean by stealing? I did leave behind three top-grade crystals. It’s way more than the market price.”
The man in white was none other than Wu Ming. When he heard that the Cloud Shadow Sky had the famous Cloud Aroma Wine, he couldn’t help but hanker for it. Thus, he secretly entered its stronghold to take a look. Yet, to his surprise, he was stunned the moment he saw the wine because it was absolutely classic!
How could he miss this kind of fine wine? Unable to fight back his exultation, Wu Ming thought of a way to take it with him. Before leaving, based on the local price, he generously put three top-grade crystals on the table.
But once he started to take one bottle, he couldn’t stop himself. He grabbed one bottle after another. In the end, he actually emptied all the five wine cabinets. As a result… he got caught.
“You can’t pay with crystals. The wine we brought here is not for sale!”
“How dare you make trouble in the Cloud Shadow Sky’s place! You must be sick of living!”
“That’s our Young Master Li Mu’s wine. How dare you steal it! Catch him and hand him over to Young Master!”
“Get him!”
“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…”
More and more people joined the chasing team. In a short while, more than 100 people were after Wu Ming, casting various moves toward him from behind.
To Wu Ming’s surprise, there were even two people at the Elixir Realm Peak-Stage in the chasing team.
“Stop chasing after me. You can’t catch up with me anyway,” Wu Ming said leisurely, looking relaxed, as if he was strolling in a courtyard.
Since Wu Ming was an outstanding disciple of the Black White Palace and a person who had a good relationship with the Palace Master, how could Yue Wuwei not treat him well? He had taught Wu Ming a lot of skills. Therefore, Wu Ming was very confident. Although he hadn’t explored the secular world or the worldlets but only ventured on the edge of the Boundless Sea, he was still quite famous among some advanced forces in the King’s Domain and the worldlets.
He was quite strong indeed.
Knowing his ability, Wu Ming was not in a flap facing the pursuit of more than 100 people. He even unhurriedly uncorked a bottle of wine and took a few gulps while making his escape.
“Why did they slow down after chasing for a while?”
Half an hour later, Wu Ming hit the bottle again and burped. He then looked back, only to find that most of the people behind him were out of breath. Some of them were too exhausted, so they stopped running one after another.
However, when they suddenly heard Wu Ming’s comment, these people became angry again.
Thus, the chase went on for another 10 minutes or so.
“I really can’t do the chase anymore.”
“Wheeze… he’s too good at running.”
“He easily fended off all the attacks we threw at him along the way. That’s a bit strange.”
This group of people finally understood that Wu Ming, who was running in front of them, seemed to be enjoying the chase as if it were a game.
“Fu*k! Did he deliberately pick on us during Young Master Li Mu’s absence?” they thought.
“Who are you?” one of the masters at the Elixir Realm Peak-Stage demanded harshly.
His voice was full of bitterness because he had noted that when he sped up, the other party also sped up. When he wanted to give up and slowed down, the other party also went slower. That was a glaring provocation!
“Me? Hahaha.” Wu Ming laughed out loud and answered, “As a hero, I will always be upfront about my identity. I’m… Wu Ming!”
As soon as he said this, the more than 100 people behind him were dismayed. Silence suddenly befell the field.
Two seconds later, that master at the Elixir Realm Peak-Stage showed a mocking smile.
“Interesting. It seems that you also know how powerful the Cloud Shadow Sky is, for you don’t even have the nerve to tell us your real name. But don’t forget that we’re all on the same continent. If a valuable relic is uncovered, I don’t believe that you won’t go and have a look.”
“Eh?”
Wu Ming was stunned. After pondering for two seconds, he replied, “It won’t hurt to tell you my name. Remember this. My name is Zhang—Han—Yang!”
“Zhang Hanyang. Fine. I got it. Looking forward to your meeting with our Young Master Li Mu.”
Wu Ming sneered and said, “Haha, let’s wait and see. I’m Zhang Hanyang, a real man who never hides his identity. If you dare, bear my name in mind. Didn’t you say that the Cloud Shadow Sky is very powerful? Next time, show me what you’ve got. Also, I’d like to meet that Li Mu. You made him sound so impressive. But I’ll know whether he is really that powerful when I meet him in person.”
“How dare you!”
His words really ticked off the group of people behind him. Some of them even trembled with rage and charged forward to fight him.
Nevertheless, he was in no mood to wrangle with them. “Hahaha, Hero Zhang is off.” With that, he turned around and left.
“Zhang Hanyang! Good, very good!”
This group of people all engraved the name “Zhang Hanyang” in their minds. The tag for him was the arrogant wine thief.
After flying dozens of miles, Wu Ming took one big gulp of wine.
“Hiccup, Zhang Hanyang, I didn’t mean to trick you. It’s just that my name is too hard to remember. Well, they surely can remember your name…”
Zhang Han had no idea about that.
Of course, he didn’t know that someone had done that under his name. By this time, the night already fell. But in the stronghold of the Elf Clan, the main residence was still brightly lit.
The entire field was lit by the Lanmi Tree’s soft glow.
The dinner had just begun. Princess Nina was sitting right next to Mengmeng.
“Mengmeng, try this. It’s Wood Fragrant Dew, a special drink of Elemental Elves. I think you’ll like it.
“And this dish is made of the Light Trees’ leaves, which is very refreshing.
“This one is steamed Western Bone Fish. This kind of fish has very few fishbones.
“…”
Princess Nina kept introducing delicious dishes to Mengmeng, but she didn’t put any food on her plate because elves didn’t have the habit of serving food to others.
“Yummy!”
Mengmeng was so busy helping herself to the dishes that she didn’t have time to talk. There were so many delicious dishes on the table. She would be pretty full if she tried each of them. But when she found those she liked, she would even have more. It was only at the intervals of taking her bites that she muttered something.
“Mummy, this dish is very delicious.
“Daddy, try this one.”
Mengmeng was not the only one who liked the food here. Everyone else enjoyed the dinner very much.
Deep Flame couldn’t help but shake his head with emotion. “It’s a very sumptuous dinner. Everything tastes really good. The food is different from ours, but we find it fragrant and palatable.”
Zhang Mu said, “That’s right. After having so many Han’s ingredients, I’ve kind of become a picky eater. I thought I would never enjoy anywhere else’s food. But today, I’m really surprised that there are actually such excellent ingredients here.”
“We Elemental Elves are favored by nature. That’s what the others say. There are many unique ingredients in our territory. People from other places often come here to buy ingredients from us at a high price. We sometimes exchange things for cultivation resources. But there are some things we never sell to others. For example, the Wood Fragrant Dew, whose yield is very low. Still, Her Highness has offered it to you, which shows that she likes you very much,” a female elf standing across from Zhang Mu said with a smile.
“Hey, you!”
Nina glanced at her and corrected, “I don’t like them. I just like Mengmeng. We’re friends. To entertain a friend, I’ll certainly present the best I can offer.”
“Hahaha, Sister Nina, you’re so nice. I’ll take you to eat a lot of delicious food as well,” Mengmeng said with a chuckle.
In the whole afternoon, Nina and Mengmeng never stopped chatting. They bonded so quickly that they felt like they were sisters now.
When two people didn’t like each other, they would hate to even exchange a word. Yet, some people would hit it off the moment they met. Judging by Nina’s and Mengmeng’s expressions, ways of speech, tones, and other features, they were the latter. Although Nina had lived for 119 years, she was only about 15 years old by human standard. Like Mengmeng, she was quite young. Girls at this age liked to play.
However, because of her status as the Seventh Princess, most of the time, Nina had to remain steady and elegant.
Seeing that Mengmeng was so carefree and could do whatever she wanted, Nina envied her to the core.
After a sumptuous dinner—
Nina took the initiative to ask, “Mengmeng, when do you usually go to bed?”
“At 12 o’clock. Just midnight,” replied Mengmeng.
“Oh, so there’s still some time left. Since you turn in quite late, what do you do before you go to bed? Playing with your friends?” Nina asked.
“Yeah. Most of the time, I play a game with my friends. It’s an online game.”
“Is it similar to the games about secondary worlds in Game Capsules?” Nina’s eyes lit up at once. “I like to play games, too. But Game Capsules are very expensive. It costs 3,000 crystals each. The high-end ones cost more than 10,000 crystals each. Also, each Game Capsule only has the games developed by the same force. If you want to play other interesting games, you have to buy another Game Capsule. I have one at my place.”
“What is a Game Capsule?” Mengmeng was bewildered.
“It’s a game machine. The games it contains are about different worlds. It’s just like the relics. In the game, we feel almost the same as we’re in the real world. I heard that the game interface is designed similar to the one controlling simple mechas. The games are also online. You can play the games in 90% territory of the Sea Dragon Star Area. Every part of the star area has signal towers.”
“It sounds a lot of fun!” Mengmeng suddenly became very interested.
“Yeah, it’s not bad,” Zhang Han said with a smile. “I’ll buy you a few later. But we can’t play those games on our planet because there is no signal. Game Capsules are made by the Nino Clan. They are proficient in electronic technology. They work for various forces. Some games developed by their teams can let that force rake in a huge sum of money. However, games are just games. They can’t become mainstream in this environment. Some people only occasionally play games for a different experience. But most of the people who play too often are those who have poor performances in cultivation or can’t cultivate at all. Ordinary cultivators don’t have much time for recreation.”
“How did you know that, Daddy? Have you played the games?” Mengmeng asked with curiosity.
“I… heard about it.”
“Uncle Zhang is right,” Nina said with a smile. “Usually, I don’t have much time to play because I have to cultivate. Only when I feel too tired to continue, I go play some games. Thus, the Game Capsule I bought is a model they developed more than a decade ago.”
“Oh, but I don’t need to cultivate. I play as long as I have time,” Mengmeng said. But then, she suddenly found that her Mummy’s expression was a bit strange. Thus, she pouted and added, “In truth, I am also very busy. I have a lot of homework to do. I can only play after I finish my homework.”
“What’s homework?” Nina was confused.
“It’s the work left by teachers.”
“Oh, so it’s like missions.” Nina suddenly cottoned on.
Although the two sometimes couldn’t quite understand some things or words the other said, they would quickly keep up after the other person gave brief explanations.
“Anyway, let’s talk about this later. Even if I don’t ask for it, Daddy will buy it for me,” Mengmeng whispered.
That remark seemed to be especially made for Zi Yan. “Mummy, Daddy will buy the games for me without me saying a word. So this has nothing to do with me…”
At this, Zhang Han didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Mengmeng, do you want to go to the top of a tree to see… the moon?”
Knowing the meaning of the moon, Nina used the word that Mengmeng would understand.
“Moon? Is there a moon here?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go! Mummy, Daddy, come to see the moon with us.”
With Nina leading the way, the family of three went up the spiral staircase from the side. When they were about 50 meters off the ground, they came to a circular platform at the top of the tree, which was a very good viewing spot.
“It’s right in that direction. I mentioned it during the day. If we’re lucky, we’ll see it in a moment.”
Nina pointed to the position of the passage through which the elves had entered the Lost Continent.
“Do we still have to wait?” Mengmeng looked at the position and said, “The moon at our place can be seen anytime during the night hours. On the 15th day of every month, I mean according to the lunar calendar, the moon will be particularly round. If there is a chance, I will take you to see the moon at our place.”
“Sure.” Nina immediately showed a bright smile.
When she spoke to Zhang Han and Zi Yan, she was always polite and graceful. But when she was with Mengmeng, she smiled and laughed as Mengmeng did so.
The two girls chatted while waiting for the moon to rise.
More than 10 minutes later.
“We can’t wait here forever,” Zhang Han muttered and cast Zi Yan a look.
“Oh.”
Zi Yan instantly took Zhang Han’s hint. She looked sideways and raised her right hand.
The Sea Moon Fan instantly emerged.
Yet, the moment it was about to take shape, it dissipated.
Nina was slightly startled. She then shot a skeptical look at Zhang Han.
“I just sensed a wave of strong energy, but it vanished in an instant. What is going on?” she wondered.
She might not understand it, but Yue Wuwei did.
“This is really… Alas.”
In the dark universe, Yue Wuwei, who was on a small boat, sighed softly and lifted his right hand.
“Whoosh!”
The color of the storm that shrouded the Lost Continent suddenly began to change. The blue color gradually faded. Eventually, it became almost transparent.
“Eh?”
Nina was stunned. “How come we can see it now? Mengmeng, look, that’s the Dal Star! The ships we took to get here are all stationed there.”
“Wow! It’s so big, isn’t it?”
Mengmeng looked a little dumbstruck. The Dal Star that Nina had mentioned was also very bright, very similar to the moon, only that it looked more than 10 times bigger. Mengmeng could even faintly see the mountains and rivers on the Dal Star.
The Dal Star was not the only star that could be seen. In the vast night sky, countless stars of all sizes were twinkling. Even some nebulas could be viewed clearly. The sky was simply dazzling.
“There are so many stars.”
Mengmeng had really had an eye-opener this time.
Even Zi Yan’s beautiful eyes were shining with brilliance. It was also her first time seeing such a pretty scene.
She found it quite special, particularly the large moon.
The silver moonlight illuminated the entire continent.
They were not the only ones admiring it. On the entire Lost Continent, as long as there was nothing blocking the view, people on both the east side and the west side of the river had all raised their heads and stared up into the sky.
“That layer of energy is gone?”
“What kind of strange phenomenon is this? Is some alien change going to happen to the Lost Continent? Tell the others to amplify the range of the exploration device by 50 miles and be on high alert.”
Many people were speculating. Zhang Han and Zi Yan were the only ones that knew what was really going on.
