Chapter 220 A Terrible First Battle
Since the student group camped in the wilderness, night watches were naturally needed.
Jin Mujie was using a duty system. The first night wasn’t Sun Mo’s turn yet. Hence, he gave massages to all six of his personal students and went back to sleep right away.
On the second morning, when the sun had just appeared, the students were awoken. 15 minutes were given to them to wash up and eat their breakfast. After that, they began to move out toward the depths of the Spiritwind Canyon.
The terrain here was very special. The deeper one headed into the canyon, the more unpredictable the spirit qi fluctuations would be. The spirit pressure would often shift between high and low as well.
After so many years of training, the various schools had a unified standard to judge the aptitude of students. The standard was simple, the further one could travel into the depths of the canyon, the better their aptitudes.
Such students were all heavily nurtured by their respective schools with no exception.
Jin Mujie didn’t request the group to be in tidy rows of a formation. It was good enough as long as the students didn’t fall behind. “This place feels so strange!”
Ying Baiwu felt that the atmosphere here was very tense.
Their current position was at the boundary outside the canyon. Hence, the terrain couldn’t be considered flat. There were also huge rocks all around them.
These rocks were all extremely long and they resembled pillars. Due to the erosion caused by the spirit qi tides that manifested throughout the year, the sharp edges of the rocks were all worn down, their surfaces were now very smooth.
Sun Mo was a pure-minded person. But when he saw these pillar-shaped things, his mind couldn’t help but be polluted.
These things were definitely the best friends of women. Maybe, they weren’t as good as cucumbers, but they were definitely better than long eggplants.
Due to the distribution of spirit qi not being even, it led to a change in the landform.
Now, the timing was close to the start of autumn. The weather wasn’t cold yet, but if one stared into the distance, they would be able to see that there was frost on a few patches of wild grass.
Also, there were locations where not even a blade of grass could be seen. The land there was like the sand hell. Such random ‘decorations’ made it look as though this terrain was an unfortunate man with scabies on his head. It looked extremely ugly.
“Zhiruo, what’s wrong with you?”
Li Ziqi saw the papaya girl constantly looking left and right with a nervous expression on her face.
“I...I keep feeling that something is staring at us.”
Lu Zhiruo’s countenance was stiff.
“Where?”
Li Ziqi immediately grew nervous. She had a lot of trust in Lu Zhiruo’s sensitivity. But after peering in all four directions, there wasn’t even a single thing,
Jiang Leng pricked up his ears and listened carefully. He even ran to the downwind slope and sniffed the air. He shook his head after that.
“There’s no one around.”
Out of the six students, Jiang Leng’s detection ability was the strongest. If he said there was no one, there basically wouldn’t be an unexpected occurrence.
“I only felt that there’s someone.”
Lu Zhiruo lowered her head.
“Everyone, it’s better to be more careful!”
Sun Mo reminded.
It would never be a mistake to be more cautious because there was a type of elemental lifeform in this Spiritwind Canyon.
The rocks in Spiritwind Canyon were different from other places. Their structure contained some mineral crystals. These crystals would accumulate spirit qi throughout the years and would naturally grow under the nourishment. There would come a day when they were completely saturated. At that point, they would rise from the ground and become a type of lifeform, beginning to roam everywhere, hunting other lifeforms with an abundance of spirit qi in them to devour and absorb their spirit qi for further growth. Because these elemental lifeforms lived in the Spiritwind Canyon, there were known as ‘spirit-winds’.
Spirit-winds had no self-awareness. They moved according to their instincts of wanting to devour spirit qi. However, they could detect danger. Hence, they wouldn’t appear outside the canyon. Their numbers would grow the further one proceeded into the canyon.
During the second day after they entered the canyon, roughly about 9 a.m., a wave of spirit-winds suddenly rushed out from a region of rocks.
“Prepare for battle!”
Jin Mujie was observing the situation while issuing missions. “Teacher Pei, separate these spirit-winds according to our number of groups. Each student group will take on one spirit-wind.”
Pei Yuanli brandished his blade and lunged toward the spirit-winds.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Blade qi whistled and seven spirit-winds were split from their original group. Some of the students felt somewhat nervous. But a lot of them were brimming with desire. Their first battle was about to begin! “Pick your own opponents!”
After Jin Mujie spoke, Xuanyuan Po didn’t wait for Sun Mo’s order and immediately lunged toward the spirit-wind with the largest body. “Get lost, this is mine!”
Zhang Yaozong’s speed was very fast. He didn’t shirk his responsibilities either.
Xuanyuan Po cast a glance at Zhang Yaozong. He waved his hand and threw his silver spear toward the spirit-wind.
“Silver Paste, kill!”
Swish!
The six-feet silver spear was like a shooting star arcing across the sky. It ruthlessly slammed into the head of the spirit-wind. After the spear bounced away, before it fell to the ground, Xuanyuan Po leaped into the air and did a somersault as he grabbed his silver spear, unleashing another powerful strike.
Bang!
Stone powder erupted from the spirit-wind due to it receiving an injury. “Go!”
Li Ziqi’s athletic abilities were the weakest, but as the senior martial sister, she had to lead by example. Hence, she pulled out a sword and rushed into the fray, but her running speed was too slow.
“Kill!”
“We only want this!”
“Careful!”
The students argued noisily.
“Damn!”
Zhang Yaozong felt a little depressed because due to the unwritten rules, when a group was exploring unknown grounds, whoever hit the monster first would gain priority over it. Hence, he could only select another spirit-wind.
Sun Mo followed but didn’t act. He was surveying this spirit-wind instead.
In the memories of his original-self, this monster existed. However, Sun Mo was a modern person and this was the first time he saw this. He couldn’t help but feel that he was watching a western fantasy movie.
The shortest spirit-wind was 1.8 meters tall, and the tallest among them was over 3 meters. Their torso contained a hollow crystal shining with a faint blue light. The interior was filled with a thick mass of spirit qi. Their eyes were in the shape of gems.
“Interesting!”
Sun Mo’s lips twitched.
Currently, it was known that there were five levels in the Darkness Continent. Each level contained various strange and unfathomable lifeforms. The people of the nine provinces called them the Darkness Continent’s mysterious species or mysterious species of darkness.
The Saint Gate even summed up a list with the various types of mysterious species on it. It was just like that spirit qi roaming dragon that had appeared in the Coldwave Pool. It was ranked #36. As for these spirit-winds, because they were too weak and common, they weren’t listed on the list.
Bluntly speaking, these were newbie monsters that were suitable for these newbie students to gain experience from.
“Everyone, be careful! Jiang Leng, you are responsible for the first line of defense. Xuanyuan Po, get the hell back now. Don’t rush too far forward!”
Li Ziqi gave the command, wanting to control the battle. However, Xuanyuan Po basically wouldn’t listen to her. “Why would we need a battle formation? Just blast them into dust!”
Xuanyuan Po’s attacks grew stronger and stronger.
With regard to a mysterious species of darkness like the spirit-winds, the way to gauge their strength was to look at their sizes. Basically, the larger their size was, the stronger they were.
Naturally, there were some exceptions but not many.
“Eldest martial sister, is the blue crystal valuable?”
Ying Baiwu licked her lips.
“After defeating them, they will drop an elemental core. If it is complete, which means that the spirit qi essence within doesn’t dissipate, they can be sold for one spirit
stone.”
Li Ziqi explained. She had long since memorized all this basic knowledge.
“A spirit stone?”
Ying Baiwu’s eyes brightened. After that, she brandished her named sword, White Bird, and rushed over. She didn’t wait to be closer and immediately waved her sword to attack.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Three white birds formed from spirit qi shot out, slamming into the spirit-wind’s body.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Stone powder exploded out from the impact.
“Spirit weapon?”
Upon seeing this, quite a few people turned their gazes toward the longsword in Ying Baiwu’s hands in astonishment. Being able to make her spirit qi take form, this sword seemed to be a spirit weapon!
“Baiwu!”
Li Ziqi felt a little down. Who knew what dangers they would face later on. Ying Baiwu shouldn’t have exposed her trump card.
Ying Baiwu naturally wouldn’t consider these. She only wanted to hurry up and defeat the spirit-wind to take the elemental core. After all, that was worth one spirit stone.
“I’ll be cheering you guys on!”
Tantai Yutang stood beside Sun Mo, acting like a cheerleader. He didn’t seem inclined to move from his spot.
Lu Zhiruo wanted to help but she was in a fluster.
Swish!
A silver spear swept past, generating a gust of wind that caused Ying Baiwu’s hair to flutter. The spear almost smacked into her head.
“What are you doing?
Ying Baiwu frowned.
“You are in the way, please get out of my path.”
Xuanyuan Po was very unhappy. With these people present, he was afraid of injuring his own members. This was why he had no way to explode forth with his full power.
“Hmph!”
Ying Baiwu naturally didn’t want to leave. The battle spoils would definitely be split according to their efforts. If she stood and watched, she wouldn’t even be able to get anything.
Sun Mo kneaded his forehead. Even the term ‘a pile of loose sand’ wasn’t sufficient to describe the six of them. However, Jiang Leng still made him feel satisfied.
The young man had a cold exterior but a warm heart. Although he didn’t attack and was moving constantly while keeping a range of three meters away from the spirit-wind, he was ensuring that if Xuanyuan Po and the others faced danger, he could immediately provide support to aid them.
Jin Mujie was observing the battle. When she saw how chaotic Sun Mo’s group was, she involuntarily shook her head. She had been filled with anticipation, but the performances of Sun Mo’s students were too terrible. On the contrary, the performance of Gu Xiuxun’s students was extremely eye-catching.
They fought together with Zhang Yaozong as the core and suppressed their spirit-wind head-on. Clearly, they had practiced group battles before.
The performances of Zhang Lan and Gao Ben’s students were average, but she knew that they were new teachers. Hence, Jin Mujie gave them a good evaluation.
“Why are you so stupid?”
Zhang Qianlin started to curse. He grabbed the clothes of a student and pulled him back. If he had been slightly slower, that student’s head would have been crushed by the spirit-wind.
“You guys better don’t think that because these spirit-winds are commonly found, their strengths would be weak. When they get fierce, they are more than strong enough to crush you all into meat paste.”
Pei Yuanli warned.
The teachers wouldn’t act unless the moment of absolute danger arrived. Their missions were to observe the students and provide on-the-spot guidance to each of them respectively.
Combat was ultimately the fastest shortcut to raise one strength.
BOOM!
After Zhang Yaozong used a big move, the spirit-wind they were attacking was directly killed. It shattered and became a rock on the ground.
“Oh yeah!”
The students cheered.
“Not bad!”
Gu Xiuxun praised. She cast a complacent glance at Sun Mo. (Do you see this? Although I don’t have God Hands. My ability to guide students is also not bad.)
The students of Zhang Lan and Gao Ben also completed their kills. But as for Sun Mo’s side, his students were still battling. In addition, Xuanyuan Po and Ying Baiwu were even arguing. “Quiet, both of you shut up!”
Li Ziqi was so angry that her hands were trembling. (Do you guys treat me, your senior martial sister, as non-existent? We clearly want to display our skill and gain face for our teacher, yet you guys are performing like this?)
Ignoring the fact that Tantai Yutang was going through the motions, Lu Zhiruo was useless and Jiang Leng wasn’t doing anything. Ying Baiwu and Xuanyuan Po were both working very hard, but they were fighting as independent entities. “Senior sister, butt out of this!”
Ying Baiwu was very unhappy. She had wanted to cooperate with Xuanyuan Po, but that fellow had such a big ego and wanted to solo the spirit-wind. He had almost injured her a few times now. How could she continue to endure?
The iron-headed girl’s personality was precisely like this. (If others treat me well, I will treat them well. But if others antagonize me, I will definitely bite that person to death.)