Chapter 238 - The Second “Liu Ming”
Chapter 238 - The Second “Liu Ming”
The years ran on and time flew by. Three years had passed in a blink of an eye.
At present, Xuanjing was not much different than three years ago. If there were any changes, it would only be that there were now many more cultivators from the Hai Yue Country. A large portion of them consisted of loose practitioners but there was still a minority of them that were former disciples of the sects of the Hai Yue Country.
Most of the sea sects had already been destroyed in a swift attack when the Sea Race invaded.
Many of the sect disciples that had fled to the Da Xuan Country had joined the Heavenly Moon sect or one of the five large sects. A couple of them that were not willing to be shackled had decided to become Loose Practitioners.
The emergence of these cultivators from the various countries had made up for the large number of loose practitioners that fled Xuanjing. After a great struggle, a couple of great forces re-emerged, each vaguely greater than the forces three years ago.
However, all this did not bother Liu Ming.
In these three years, the five sects had placed a large number of sect disciples at the border of Da Xuan Country and Hai Yue Country. Not long after, they were engaged in a battle with the Sea Race.
According to the news, Liu Ming received from the sect and the information that he gathered, both parties had sent out a large number of crystal level experts at first. However, aside from an earth shattering battle at the start, there weren’t any more battles at that level.
However, the Spirit Masters and Spirit Apostles’ battles started to become much more violent. They also became much more frequent to the point where both parties had already lost over thirty Spirit Masters.
As for the lower ranking Spirit Apostle, the deaths were hard to count.
What left Liu Ming unexpected was that after both parties had started the battle, they both built a huge city wall, as though they expected the battle to last for a long time.
As for the Barbarian Ghost Sect, in the three years, they lost seven to eight Spirit Master and various inner sect disciples, some of whom Liu Ming knew.
Luckily the Nine Infant Mountain was weak in power, hence the ones who did not survive were just a handful. The three Spirit Masters were all safe as they stayed at the sect to defend and had never crossed over to the borders.
Being a core disciple, Liu Ming had initially thought that he would be called back to engage in the war. However, because of the invasion of the Sea Race at Xuanjing, there was a need for a competent disciple to monitor the situation here. Therefore, he was never called to return back to the sect.
Certainly, in these three years, there were things that left Liu Ming a little depressed.
It was that Gao Chong was finally successful in advancing to the level of a Spirit Master, and had made his mark during the battle with the Sea Race at the borders.
Rumors were that he had, in fact, killed a Beginning rank Spirit Master of the Sea Race on his own and killed dozens of Sea Race Spirit Apostles.
From this, it seemed that ever since Gao Chong had successfully become a Spirit Master, his strength was definitely not like ordinary Beginning level Spirit Masters Otherwise, he would definitely not be able to do such a thing.
This, however, was not good news to Liu Ming.
In these three years, Liu Ming was constantly refining his Fa Li and refining his Sword Spirit Embryo. He even went to Fan Bai Zi to practice alchemy.
The progress of those two was just normal, it only led his Fa Li to be a little purer than before and the Sword Spirit Embryo to be stronger by one tenth. Yet, his improvement in alchemy let Fan Bai Zi shocked.
Perhaps he did have a natural gift in alchemy or there were others reasons but in a short span of three years, he improved his alchemy skills so much so that he could independently produce a few types of pills that were of the Spirit Apostle level and the success rate of them were not too low.
However, although his natural gift in alchemy let Fan Bai Zi surprised, once the three years was up, Fan Bai Zi told him to leave without hesitating.
At this moment, Liu Ming already had an introduction to alchemy. If he wanted to take it to a higher level, he could only practice consistently.
After all, Fan Bai Zi could not possibly impart his experience in refining middle to high tier pills to an outsider.
On this day, Liu Ming walked out of the coffin shop along the alley in Xuanjing felt gloomy.
Although the news from the sect was nothing out of the ordinary and were only a few little trivial routine reports, Liu Ming was able to feel that the sects hadn’t been successful in their fight against the Sea Race. They were probably at a disadvantage.
This was the result after the Sea Race dividing their strength where they were battling against a couple of countries at the same time.
From this, it could be seen that the Sea Race was very strong.
Of course, part of this was due to the Sea Race that were sent to infiltrate the various countries dozens of years ago. They laid out traps to cripple the power of the countries before the start of the invasions.
To Liu Ming, all these were quite distant.
Back at the secret room, he sat down and all of a sudden he felt that the Fa Li within his body started to boil before being sucked into his Dantian in a frantic manner.
“It has started!”
Liu Ming was stunned at first before he became excited.
Patting his two leather pouches at his waist, two black gusts of smoke were emitted. They turned into a White Bone Scorpion and Flying Head respectively.
“Peng, peng!”
Liu Ming grabbed the tail of the White Bone Scorpion roughly with one hand and a strand of long hair from the Flying Head with the other hand. With the black smoked emitting around him, he started to try his hardest to control the Fa Li that was being sucked up within his body.
As time passed by, the black smoke around his body became thinner and thinner.
When Liu Ming felt only a tenth of the Fa Li in his body was left, his dantian suddenly stopped sucking up all of the Fa Li.
At the same moment, he felt his both ears ringing. After darkness engulfed in front of him, he was then in a dusky surrounding.
After what seemed like a long time, he finally entered the mysterious space again. The White Bone Scorpion and Flying Head were also by his side.
However, when Liu Ming could clearly see what was before him, the look on his face changed.
What should have been an empty space had another person sitting on the ground. In addition, regardless of clothing or facial features, this person looked exactly like Liu Ming.
Liu Ming was dumbfounded.
Right at this moment, the Flying Head by his side flew out, heading straight towards the ground before the opposite “Liu Ming”. It’s face faced the ground as it laid on the ground without moving at all.
Seeing this, Liu Ming’s heart sounded with a “ge deng” sound and was bewildered by the scene. He then immediately made hand gestures and communicated with the Flying Head.
The information from the Flying Head was that it was apparently this was also a “master, another stronger Master”.
Hearing this, Liu Ming was even more confused. However, he had the vague notion that the Flying Head being so easily conquered was probably due to this new “himself”.
With this thought, he naturally did not dare to underestimate the new him. However, after carefully observing the “Liu Ming” on the other side, his expression changed slightly.
The other “him” seemed to have never moved while no aura came from his body. Was he dead?
Liu Ming became suspicious and did not bother about the Flying Head. Instead, he surrounded the other “Liu Ming” and went around him a few rounds. After that, pointed a finger on his own forehead, gathering all his mental strength before then directing it towards the body opposite him.
In the end, as soon as the mental strength came in contact with the opposite “Liu Ming”, a puff of invisible strength bounced back, and no matter how the mental strength moved, it could not get near the other party’s body.
Liu Ming’s heart dropped.
After hesitating, he cupped both his first. He bowed towards the other “Liu Ming”, saying “I am unaware of senior’s name or the reason for using my appearance.”
The “Liu Ming” opposite him still had his eyes closed, not moving at all.
Seeing this, Liu Ming frowned. He stood upright before sizing up the other party again.
There was the inch long scar on his forehead was from when he was young at Savage island where someone used a sharp stone to cut him. The corner of his mouth slightly twitched up; this was a habit of his when he was resting. There was a faint wound on his thumb from when he was practicing a new use for his wind blade and accidentally scratched himself yesterday.
As Liu Ming continued looking, and the more he looked, the more he saw that the other party was basically a second “him”. This made him feel a chill in his heart.
“Since you refuse to speak, then please excuse me.” Liu Ming's face changed and before he said with gritted teeth.
Following the movement of his sleeve, a silver chain flashed and headed straight towards the other party.
After a ring, the silver chain successfully wrapped around “Liu Ming” tightly without any resistance.
Upon seeing this, Liu Ming relaxed a little. Turning his hand, a stack of Glyphs floated before him and using both arms, all of it shot out, sticking on the other “Liu Ming’s” body.
It seems that after Liu Ming saw “himself” trapped in the Demon Subduing Chain with many Glyph restrictions, he could then be at ease.
Circling around “himself” twice, he then raised his arms and touched the other party’s shoulder.
During this process, Liu Ming stared hard at “himself” without even blinking.
In the end, this new “Liu Ming” still sat on the ground and not moving. Once his hand was placed on the other party’s shoulder, he trembled. An odd, cold strength then shot out from the shoulder, passing into his arm.
Liu Ming was shocked. Moving his body, he appeared dozens of meters away and continued staring intently at the other party’s face.
However, the opposite “Liu Ming” did not move at all. It was as though the odd strength he felt was not real.
However, as Liu Ming’s gaze turned to his own arm that had touched the shoulder just now, he was shocked.
He could not feel anything on his arm and a layer of black ice had wrapped around it. Liu Ming then moved his arm again and black smoke emitted from his body, heading directly to his numb arm.
In the blink of an eye, the black block of ice on his arm had melted and his regained back his feeling.
However, at this point, Liu Ming felt that the new “himself” before him was even more mysterious.