On the ceiling of Tanini’s Sacred Warrior Academy, Furball had used its special ability for the first time. It spat out a silver ball of light the size of a cherry. Upon contact with Jin Myeh’s body, this grade 4 Sacred Warrior disappeared, dissolved into invisible energy particles which had scattered in the air.
With Jin Myeh’s disappearance, Xia Fei regained feeling in his body. He attempted to move his arms around as he looked at Furball in disbelief.
Furball had a sweet smile on its face as it jumped from Xia Fei’s shoulder onto the ground. It opened its mouth and began sucking in the energy particles that had once been Jin Myeh, taking them into its stomach. It was not long before Furball’s stomach was nice and round.
Once there were no more energy particles in the air, Furball contentedly licked its maw before it returned to Xia Fei’s shoulder. It rubbed its furry body against Xia Fei’s face, a flattering look on its face. Furball appeared extremely satisfied.
Xia Fei naturally could not see those energy particles in the air, but his sharp senses told him that there were abnormal pulses of energy. He reached his right hand into the air to feel it.
“It’s been all cleaned!”
“Yes, not even the tiniest bit is left.” Phantom nodded.
Xia Fei did not know how much energy an A grade 4 insectoid Sacred Warrior had, but he understood that a grade 4 Sacred Warrior was the equivalent of a human Star River rank ability user. The amount of energy the person had could not be small.
For Furball to suck in all that scattered energy in one gulp, its appetite was truly unimaginable
However, when he recalled that Furball had once absorbed all of the energy contained in three Purple Hearts of Spirit, Xia Fei calmed down. Everything he had seen told him that Furball was probably the special beast with the greatest appetite in the universe, but where had all that energy it had absorbed gone? Was it stored in its body to be used in the future, or was it all used to spur the beast’s growth?
If it was the latter, Furball’s growth speed was simply absurd. From the moment of its birth to now, it had absorbed enough energy for a carrier to traverse space for over a year, yet all that energy was only enough for Furball to grow to the size of a basketball. Xia Fei truly did not dare to imagine how many Hearts of Spirit it would waste once it was an adult.
“It seems that Furball has the ability to convert physical matter into energy. This ability is far too powerful. I’ve never even heard of one like this before.” Phantom scratched his chin and nodded.
Xia Fei stroked Furball. It was a good thing that he had signed a contract with this fellow to make it his personal beast. He would have never been willing to contend against something so formidable.
Converting physical matter into energy was not simple. How had Furball managed to do it?
“insectoids also have ability users! I should’ve already thought about that. Starting now, I’ll reexamine my battle plan,” Xia Fei said.
Phantom comforted. “You can’t be blamed for this. Humans and insectoids are old foes, so you know nothing of our enemies. The records said that insectoids shouldn’t have ability users. Perhaps they’ve only appeared within the last several thousand years.”
Xia Fei nodded. In the first war between humans and insectoids, there was no data indicating that the insectoids had ability users, so Xia Fei had never considered this possibility. Now that he was actually in the insectoid territory, he discovered that things were not as simple as he previously believed. Going up against Sacred Warriors with special abilities was actually very dangerous work.
“Why didn’t you find any information on insectoid ability users on their network?” Phantom asked.
Xia Fei replied, “Perhaps I didn’t research the insectoid network deeply enough. Once we get back, I’ll redouble my efforts to try and get to the deepest and most secretive layers of the insectoid network. Still, now’s not the time to ponder on these things. Let’s get the Blood Demon Claw first.”
After hiding the other corpse, Xia Fei descended on the spiral staircase. He did not close that door tightly so that he could use it for his retreat later.
It was nearing dawn, and there were few insectoids in the Sacred Warrior Academy. All was silent.
Running around such a large campus recklessly was a poor idea. Xia Fei found a map of the school, which had the various buildings clearly marked. It told new students the purpose of these buildings and how to get to them.
Xia Fei immediately ruled out the classrooms, the training grounds, and the dorms. A mystical plant like the Blood Demon Claw would never be kept in such obvious places. It had to be stored in an extremely secretive place, which someone would be unable to just wander into.
Xia Fei analyzed the possible locations of the Blood Demon Claw as he inspected the map. If Xia Fei did not need the Blood Demon Claw to repair his seventh brain region, he could just set the entire school ablaze, burning all these evil bugs to ash. This would be enjoyable, but it would also undoubtedly increase the difficulty of finding the Blood Demon Claw.
“Could it be in the residence of Dean Tude? After all, he was a grade 5 Sacred Warrior, equivalent to a human of the Legendary rank, and the master of this school. He may have hidden the Blood Demon Claw in his bedroom.” Phantom pondered.
Xia Fei shook his head. “Uti gave the Blood Demon Claw to this school in commendation for its many years of contribution to the insectoids. It’s not Tude’s private property, so he has no reason to put it in his home. The more evolved an insectoid becomes, the greater their selfishness, and the more they will begin to fight among themselves like humans. If Tude put the Blood Demon Claw in his home, he would be providing others an excuse to bring him down. No intelligent lifeform would do that. His deputies also wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Let’s charge in, then use Butterfly Serpent to tie up Tude, and employ the Beast Spirit Codex on him to force him into revealing the Blood Demon Claw’s hiding spot.” Phantom suggested.
Xia Fei nodded. “If there’s really no other option, that’s what we’ll do. Before that, I’d like to look around the school for a while. If I can’t find it, I’ll move to him.”
He once more moved his gaze to the flat map and began to compare it with the buildings in front of him.
Suddenly—
Xia Fei saw a building on this map that did not have a mark. It was a simple single-story building placed all by itself in the southwest corner, near the wall of the mountain.
While this building appeared simple, it was of rather significant size, at least several thousand square meters. How could such a large building not have a single marking?
Xia Fei could not help but be suspicious. When things were abnormal, evil was afoot. This building without a marking could be hiding some sort of secret.
*Zing~*
He flitted away like a ghost. When Xia Fei got to charging, he became like a steel warship flying across the sky. When he did not need to move that quickly, he would pair Crafty Approach with Breath Control to move like a shadow in the darkest of corners.
Phantom nodded. Speed was truly the most difficult to cultivate and most bizarre among all special abilities. As Xia Fei grew more and more familiar with Crafty Approach, he had come to far surpass Phantom. Only the sect master, Craneshadow, would be able to match him now.
Completion of cultivation and familiarity were two different things. The Sly Thrust was the earliest art Xia Fei had cultivated, and by now, his mastery over it was growing more sublime by the day. Moreover, with the training from the meteor ball, Xia Fei had a grasp over Crafty Approach that far surpassed everyone else; in fact, he had even developed his own style when using the technique.
Keeping his body close to the mountain wall, Xia Fei hid himself in the shadows as he silently moved.
This building was rectangular in shape, and its door was open as if nothing was going on. It seemed completely unguarded, but considering that the doors and windows of all the other buildings were tightly locked, the defenses of this place were too sloppy.
All these differences appeared very suspicious in Xia Fei’s eyes. Rather than sneaking in, he constantly changed positions to inspect the building from every angle.
Suddenly, there was a surprising development.
The grass slope behind the building began to rise, revealing an underground passage. A one-man hoverdisk leisurely flew out of the passage and headed for the center of the campus.
Just like how the Heaven Execution Training Camp had hoverdisks, the large Sacred Warrior Academy used this sort of simple hoverdisks as means of transportation. After all, crossing this campus from one end to another by foot would take an entire day. To those people without a speed ability, it was an excruciating task.
The simple hoverdisk flew past the mountain wall where Xia Fei was hiding. Its silence indicated that it possessed an excellent engine noise dampening system, but it was built rather crudely. It looked like a stool with four hover systems around it. There was nothing strange about this. The products created by the insectoids had always been rather ugly and crude.
*Whoosh~*
While the iron gate to the passage had yet to close, Xia Fei used this chance to rush in.
Inside was a very long passage that had a forty-five degree incline and was ten-some kilometers long.
Both sides of the passage had surveillance systems, but Xia Fei used their blind spots to avoid being seen as he proceeded to the passage’s end. As long as they were not sensitive air-detection systems, surveillance systems would have a hard time detecting Xia Fei. Even heat-detecting infrared systems were ineffective, as general combat suits came with functions that blocked heat, and this was not even considering Xia Fei’s Breath Control technique.
Air sensors were the only surveillance devices capable of detecting advanced rank speed ability users. After all, when people moved around, they could not avoid stirring air flows. Besides this, no other surveillance device worked on Xia Fei.
Squatting in a corner and looking around, he discovered that this place was the academy’s weapon depot.
There were four tightly shut and sturdy doors made of alloy metal. The signs on the walls indicated what was stored within. Both thermal and cold weapons were stored here, as were transportation devices. This was a Sacred Warrior academy, and the students would often use all sorts of weapons. Thus, it was only natural to have this sort of large depot around.
It was the last door that drew Xia Fei’s attention. The sign said that that was where food was stored, but who would store food with weapons? Were the faculty of the school addle-brained? Since it was food, it should be stored near the cafeteria.
What was even more bizarre was that an important place like the armory did not have a single guard or even a surveillance system. The defenses could not even compare to the passage he had just come through.
Clenching his teeth, Xia Fei approached the food storehouse, preparing to open the door and see what was inside, but at this moment—
A chilling wind buffeted the back of Xia Fei’s head!
