Chapter 139

: Thunder Freer, Scorching Ancient Desert
A group of people set off the next morning.
This time, the escort team was especially huge, it included ten inner-elders and fifty outer-elders, all of them riding on eight Wind Vultures.
Three days later, the group left the Windy Nation.

Outside the Windy Nation, danger can be found everywhere, we all have to be extra careful.
The Head Elder let out a resonating voice using his Zhen Qi.

Yes!

Some elders who have been to the South Zhuo Region understood this more than the others.
Wind Vultures were amazingly strong and powerful. They were each carrying eight people as easily as carrying air, and still maintained supersonic speed all the way. However, any living creature would eventually get tired, therefore, the Head Elder would usually find a place to take a rest every two days, and then they would continue on their journey.
Dazzling lightning bolts flashed across the air while ear-piercing thunder resounded throughout the sky, but the group of Wind Vultures maintained their perfectly stable flight. They were fifth-grade demonic flying beasts, which could fly under any sort of weather.
Luo Hanshan raised his head, he took a glance at the sky and then said as he grinned,
I heard that there are three layers of sky above our world, the first one is called Amazing Sky, it contains the four natural elements, which are lightning, fire, water and the wind, the inner space is extremely violent, any martial artist under the Astral Reaching Realm would be completely crushed in there; the second layer of the sky is called Extreme Void, not even Astral Reaching Realm martial artists could survive there; the top layer is called Above Heaven, where any human being, except the Life and Death Realm martial artists, would absolutely die, even their souls would vanish.

Amazing Sky, Extreme Void, Above Heaven!
Ye Chen glanced at Xu Jing and said,
Senior sister, your Golden Three Realm Art was created based upon these three layers of sky, wasn’t it?

Xu Jing responded blandly,
How can the Golden Three Realm Art even be compared with the three layers of the sky? It’s far from being comparable to them.

Followed by a sudden and thunderous sizzling noise, a lightning bolt abruptly struck towards Ye Chen and the others standing around him. The Head Elder raised his hand and snuffed the lightning bolt and said,
As long as we’re not in the Amazing Sky layer, these lightning bolts can do us no harm, so don’t worry.


The True Spirit Continent is indeed interesting, there are too many things that I don’t know about yet.
Exclaimed Ye Chen in his mind. In the world where he came from, almost anyone could be killed by a slight strike from lightning, and the lighting in that world was far less powerful than the lightning found in the True Spirit Continent. After all, that world barely contained any natural Yuan Qi, while this world was filled with dense and pure natural Yuan Qi, these two worlds were not even on the same level. Just now, a fierce lightning bolt had been snuffed out by the Head Elder so easily, that it had seriously shocked Ye Chen.
As the thick layer of clouds was blown away, it started to rain. Fortunately, the Wind Vultures had been flying above the layers of clouds, this allowed the group of people to not have to worry about the rain.
A while later, the air in front of the group suddenly became violent.
Visibly, a huge, hazy, grey gale swooshed straight down from the top. Inside of it, there were dazzling lightning bolts and electric currents surrounding a faint silhouette of a human.

Astral Reaching Realm martial artist! Let’s take a detour!
The Head Elder’s expression instantly changed, as he said while he directed the Windy Vulture to turn in the air, it seemed that he did not dare to go straight towards that place.
The gale suddenly dissipated as all those lightning bolts also dimmed down, then a human silhouette suddenly appeared right in front of the troops. It was a middle-aged man of an average height, he had pale skin, and was wearing a large blue cloak with small lightning bolts sparkling on his hair. He was giving off a pressure that directly reached their souls, this made all of them not even dare to think about resisting.

Who are you?


Sorry for the disturbance,
said the Head Elder with a pale look, he cupped his hands and politely greeted the man,
I am the Head Elder of the Windy Nation’s Sky Cloud Martial School.


Sky Cloud Martial School!
The middle-aged man laughed out and said,
So you’re from Xian Yunzi, the old bastard’s school, ha, him and me, we’re old friends, you can just call me Thunder Freer.

‘Thunder Freer! What a potent name!’ thought Ye Chen.
The Head Elder loosened his face and then said,
Ah, Senior Thunder Freer. I have heard about you from the Grand Elder while I was still a young man, it’s said that your Great Heavenly Lightning had once shocked the entire South Zhuo Region!

Thunder Freer showed the whites of his eyes and responded,
Well, that old bastard, Xian Yunzi always exaggerates. I was nothing tens of years ago, back then, the Nine Evil Cult was ruling this world, and I could do nothing but run as far as possible. Ah, are you heading to the Scorching Ancient Desert? These few kids are not bad, you should focus on cultivating them.

Ye Chen and the other three were the best disciples of the Sky Cloud Martial School. Except for the Emerald Martial Palace, they were not weaker than the disciples from any of the other three top-ranked institutions. Thunder Freer saw through them with only a single glance, this made him continuously nod his head.

Thank you, Senior. We are indeed heading to the Scorching Ancient Desert. The Heavenly Dream Ancient Region only unlocks every ten years, so it’s a precious opportunity.
said the Head Elder. The Head Elder was an old man, while Thunder Freer only looked to be less than fifty years old, but when the two of them were standing face to face, the Head Elder acted more like a junior.

Good, I’ll continue purifying my Zhen Qi, you should just continue with your journey.

Thunder Freer said as he waved his sleeve and then transformed into a wave of lightning bolts that darted straight up into the air, tens of thousands of meters high from the ground. He even tore apart the upper layer of air currents as he went past them.
A series of ear-piercing sizzling and popping noises leaked out from the ripped part of the upper layer. If one looked into it, they would be able to see fierce lightning bolts dazzling and roaring, it would instill fear in anyone’s mind.

Let’s go.

The Head Elder took a long and deep breath, and then ordered the Wind Vulture to start moving again.
After the journey started once again, the Head Elder abruptly started talking.

You may think that Thunder Freer is less than fifty years old, but in actuality, he is over a hundred years old. As for the reason, it’s simple, once a martial artist steps into the Astral Reaching Realm, if they do not suffer any severe disasters, then he or she could easily live up to two-hundred years. Therefore, they will usually be twice as old as they seem to be.


Is it that difficult for high-level martial artists to break into the higher levels? Thunder Freer is over a hundred years old now, but he still hasn’t stepped into the next level yet.
Ye Chen asked.

Countless martial artists live in this True Spirit Continent, ninety-nine percent of them are stuck under the Clasping Yuan Realm, and among the rest of them, ninety-nine percent are stuck under the Astral Reaching Realm. This clearly shows that it is extremely difficulty to break into the higher levels. Of course, there’re always a few amazing geniuses in every generation. For them, breaking through to the higher levels is as easy as eating and drinking. For example, the Mysterious Queen, who was the only one who managed to break into the Life and Death Realm in a hundred years, she was one of the few marvellous geniuses among her generation. Within just a few decades, she has domineered over a piece of land and declared herself a queen, it was a pure legend. As for those who used to be as influential as her, although none of them managed to reach her level, most of them have reached the Sea of Souls Realm.

Zhu Mei, whose outfit was embossed with lively plum blossoms, grinned and said,
Although talent is important, fortune is also necessary. Otherwise, one could never reach the top even with amazing talent. Brother Ye, this time, the Heavenly Dream Ancient Region can barely serve us as a good chance, if we can encounter some fortune in that region, we might gain results comparable to years of industrious cultivation.

Ye Chen nodded, he agreed with Zhu Mei. She was right, fortune was essential, if he wanted to breakthrough as fast as he could. In fact, fortune can also be considered a resource, as long as you have enough resources, you could certainly improve rapidly and gain a solid foundation, but if you didn’t have the resources, you would also fall to the level of ordinary people once your talent has run out.
……
A boundless desert became visible under a bright sunshine.
The extremely high temperature seemed to twist even the air. The sand seemed as smooth as a mirror.

This Scorching Ancient Desert existed since the ancient times, the air in this area is filled with pure and violent natural Fire Yuan Qi, and hurricanes of fire Yuan Qi appear quite frequently. We can’t stay for too long above the clouds, let’s go down!
Once the group arrived at the desert, the Head Elder ordered the vultures to descend.
Hot streams of wind blew across them. Even after being protected by Zhen Qi, everyone in the group still felt some heat. However, this was only the edge of the desert, in the central area, the temperature could be ten times higher than this place.
It should be mentioned that sometimes bad luck could truly turn easy things into something extremely troublesome.
The Wind Vultures flew for less than five miles under the layer of clouds and streams of roaring flames roiled down from the air and shrouded the group.

A fire Yuan Qi hurricane! Let’s break it together!

As he growled out, the Head Elder straightened his body, kept his feet apart as wide as his shoulders, he took a deep breath and then thrust his finger up towards the sky and swung it downwards.
Followed by a loud noise that sounded like a piece of thick cloth being torn apart, a stream of fiery gale was cut into two by a purple light beam, and dissipated.
At that moment, the Fourth Elder did not dare to even slightly move. He cultivated Fire Zhen Qi, it meant his Zhen Qi could possibly aid this fire Yuan Qi hurricane. While facing enemies, he could use this as a great advantage, but now, he might grill all the others with a single move.

The other elders each launched their own moves and sent waves of power steams into the air that stopped the hurricane from expanding and gradually devoured it. Ye Chen also let out a stream of power, but what then struck him was that his power stream was evaporated by the extreme heat before it even approached the hurricane.

Breaking out from the hurricane, every single one in the group was soaked in sweat and was gasping for air. The Wind Vultures also didn’t have an easy time inside that hurricane, even some of their feathers were burnt. Fortunately, none of them had been hurt.
This desert was seventy to eighty hundred miles in radius, it was much broader than the Windy Nation. But according to the legends, this desert had been way larger than it was now, it was over five-hundred-thousand miles in radius, and in this desert, there used to be one country, called the Scorching Ancient Kingdom. But that kingdom collapsed, and the desert had been shrinking year by year, leading to what it looked like now.
From a large distance away, they saw a cyan rainbow standing straight on the ground and pierced directly towards the heaven, it seemed like a pillar in the sky.

The cyan rainbow has appeared, that means the ancient region will unlock in three days from now. Let’s first find a place to stay and wait.

With his amazing eyesight, the Head Elder saw that quite a lot of people have arrived near the rainbow.
Soon, the Wind Vulture landed.
Ye Chen raised his head, and looked at the cyan rainbow. That rainbow was as gigantic as a mountain, but he couldn’t tell how it had formed. The place where the rainbow was rooted in the ground, a faint, closed door of light was present, it was thirty-three zhang high and fifty-five zhang wide.
Surrounding the rainbow, thousands of people have built their tents. These people were dressed in different styles, some in neat yellow robes, some in black outfits, some in blue and some in white or purple. Those different patterns on their sleeves showed that these people came from different institutions.
By now, the Emerald Martial Palace’s people had already arrived. Among all the institutions of Windy Nation, they were the closest to this desert. Of course, they were only relatively closer. They have also had to travel at least hundreds of miles, after all, just the distance between the edge and central area of this desert was seventy to eighty miles. Eight of their disciples have come, and Ye Chen knew three of them, they were ‘Young Master Emerald’ Zhuang Fei, Liu Wuxiang and Ji Xueyan.
As he turned his eyes away from Emerald Martial Palace’s people, Ye Chen’s pupils suddenly shrunk.
So many elite young martial artists.
Almost all of the hundreds of young martial artists from all the institutions were in the Late Condensing Reality Realm, over eighty percent of them were at or above the pre-Childe-level, fifty percent were at Childe-level, and tens of them looked as powerful as Lin Qi, they were clearly at the same level as Young Master North Snow.
This wasn’t the only thing that made Ye Chen so surprised, he also found quite a lot of Clasping Yuan Realm young martial artists among these people. He had seen seven or eight of them at the first glance, and he assumed that more of them would arrive later.
–
Translated by: Law
Edited by: Jaggerjakk, Jatz
From XianXiaWorld