Chapter 288: Sand Compass And Bad Reputation
Chapter 288: Sand Compass And Bad Reputation
Translator: TYZ Editor: TYZ/KLKL
It was a palm-sized sand plate that was covered with densely-packed vein patterns and characters, resembling a compass.
Its name was called sand compass.
Sand compass was one of the greatest inventions by earth elementalists. It was created by the great earth elemental master Luo De seven hundred years ago.
Before Master Luo De, people treated the flow of the elemental energies in the Nature like ‘water’ and ‘air’. Master Luo De was the first one to propose that when the concentration of an elemental energy had reached a certain point, the nature of its flow started to change fundamentally.
At that time, Master Luo De’s theory was unconvincing and a lot people thought that he was indulging in his own fantasy.
However, eventually, Master Luo De was able to use his ingenuity and creativity to prove his theory.
Sand compass was the what he used to prove his theory.
Lou De realized that entire Avalon of Five Elements sat on a huge continent. Even Jadeite Forest, which consisted of numerous islands, shared the same continent as the other four elemental factions. This implied that the earth elemental energy at any places in the Avalon of Five Elements were interconnected, forming a massive base of earth elemental energy beneath the Avalon.
Deep under the ground, the concentration of such immense amount of earth elemental energy was extremely high. This knowledge formed the basis of the proof to his theory.
As such, he created the sand compass.
Beneath the ground, he opened up a stable earth elemental space. Every earth elemental space would have a particular sand compass that it corresponded to.
On the Mid-autumn festival seven hundred years ago, under the invitation of Master Luo De, the Jadeite City was packed with elders, division leaders and elementalists. Everyone in the Jadeite City turned up as they wanted to witness the miraculous night.
Under the watchful eyes of the people, Master Luo De and the Great Elder jointly placed a mooncake that contained the latter’s token onto the sand compass. Following which, the mooncake was slowly devoured by the quicksand on the sand compass.
The sand compass was immediately placed in an unique metal box that was being sealed up afterwards. Then, the metal box was being taken by the fastest flying elementalist at that time, Zhou Mingkui, who was also known as the "Hurricane of the North Sea", to the biggest city in Silver Mist Sea, Silver City. He traveled day and night and flew towards his destination in his fastest speed
And at this point of time, the Silver City was already fully packed with people. They were stretching their necks, waiting anxiously for the arrival of Zhou Mingkui.
Two days later, when Zhou Mingkui descended from the layer of clouds in the sky, draped in the first glimmer of dawn and mist, the people in Silver City exploded into cries of joy.
The bone-tired Zhou Mingkui took off the metal box on his back and passed it to the mayor of Silver City.
Under everyone’s attentive gaze, the mayor opened the metal box and took out the sand compass and placed it on the ground. Holding their breath, everyone looked on as the sand compass transformed into a very small sand whirlpool. Following which, a piece of mooncake emerged from the sand whirlpool. At this moment, everyone cried out in surprise.
To the mayor’s surprise, when he broke apart the mooncake, he saw the Great Elder’s token.
The mayor held the Great Elder’s token up high in the air. However, at this point of time, his surroundings had already broken into an uproar. Surging waves of deafening cheer almost overturned this time-honored city. Everyone understood that this day would definitely go down in history. They also knew that this day signified the coming of a new era. The creation of sand compass enable people to have a treasure box that could open anywhere and anytime, not restricted by the dimensions of space and time.
Master Luo De became everyone’s hero, receiving supreme prestige and a terrifying amount of wealth.
Those earth elementalists that followed Master Luo De kept on improving the sand compass. They made it more safe by adding a lock to it, increased its space, reduced its construction cost and etc.
However, until now, sand compass was not something that ordinary individuals could use.
Even Ai hui had only heard of it and not seen it before. However, it was appropriate for him to feel so excited. After all, a fugitive like Shi Youguang would hide his most valuable things in it.
Unlocking the sand compass might be a problem to many but not Lou Lan. To him, unlocking the sand compass was a piece of cake.
The technology of sand compass might be improving, but so did the technology of unlocking it as well. Ai Hui knew of elementalists that knew how to unlock a sand compass. If he used the identity of Chu Zhaoyang, he could definitely find people to unlock it for him. However, by doing so, it would be very difficult for him to maintain secrecy.
Ai Hui looked forward to seeing what kind of treasure would be kept inside the sand compass. If the items that Shi Youguang brought along with him were already so valuable, the item that he stored in the sand compass would definitely be an even more valuable treasure.
Wiping off the saliva stain on his mouth, Ai Hui carefully kept the sand compass.
It was already nighttime but Ai Hui did not want waste any time. He had already wasted a lot of time.
He needed to find out where the nearest town was to determine his current location.
Luckily, it was already nighttime and the layer of clouds in the sky had cleared. This enabled him to quickly locate a dimly-lit place in the distance after flying up to the sky.
The pair of azure wings on his back spread and he flew in the direction of the dimly-lit place in a burst of light.
He could feel something different with his body. The elemental energy in his body was surging violently, increasing his flying speed sharply. At this moment, he realized why everyone only cared about base level. He felt so powerful just by achieving elemental externalization. Even though he was flying with reservations, his current flying speed had already surpassed the highest speed he achieved in the past.
Ai Hui became excited and increased his speed to its maximum. He felt like an extremely sharp sword that was slicing madly through the air.
It was too fast!
His current speed was at least twice his top speed in the past. The Starry Gem Swordwings was able to withstand the test. Even when Ai Hui was flying at such a high speed, the Starry Gem Swordwings did not tremble the slightest bit. Not only that, Ai Hui could also feel the pair of azure wings still had potentials that had yet to be unveiled.
The thing that amazed Ai Hui the most was the metal elemental energy in the wind kept on gathering around him, forming a metal elemental force field around him.
The wind around him was not metal wind and only contained a small amount of wind elemental energy. After a while, the metal elemental energy surrounding Ai Hui increased and was extremely spectacular.
With the metal elemental energy surrounding him, Ai Hui felt unusually comfortable. Not only did the metal elemental energy negate the violent wind that was blasting against him, it also greatly reduced the amount of elemental energy his azure wings exhausted.
Ai Hui knew that achieving elemental externalization would allow one to use the elemental energies from the Nature but this was the first time he experienced it.
It was also at this moment that he felt fear when he thought about the fight with Shi Youguang. He now then realized how lucky he was to be able to kill Shi Youguang. If not for the fact that Shi Youguang was severely injured beforehand, his sand puppet was destroyed and he underestimated his enemy, Ai Hui would not stand a chance against him.
Luckily, he eventually defeated Shi Youguang and attained elemental externalization. The thrill from his extreme flying speed made him felt on top of the world.
It felt truly blissful to have a life like this.
After flying for approximately half an hour, a brightly-lit city appeared in his sight.
At this time, the air traffic had become much more busy. Ai Hui saw a lot of elementalists with a flustered look on their faces. He did not activate the silvery light on his azure wings as it would be very eye-striking at night. He used a black-colored glow that was surrounded by swirling traces of metal elemental energy, preventing people from getting a clear view of him.
He turned his body and lowered his flying speed and flew towards the city.
After a few minutes, he landed in the city.
He finally knew where he was after enquiring with a pedestrian.
Rain City.
Ai Hui knew about this city. There were two given explanations for the origin of its name.
The first one was that this city was located in an area where there was an abundance of water elemental energy. This caused a buildup of thick clouds and frequent occurrence of heavy rain, and hence, the name "Rain City" was given to this city. The second one was related to the ancient [Rain Spell]. The [Rain Spell] was a spell that existed in the Cultivation Era. This spell was commonly used for growing crops. Reportedly, the weather of Rain City used to be bright and sunny whole year long. The first mayor that the Elders Guild sent here to establish tillage in the city was obsessed with [Rain Spell]. He wanted to develop an inheritance that was of similar nature to [Rain Spell]. One day, he accidentally succeeded in doing so and caused an immense amount of rain clouds to form continuously over the city. Eventually, the climate of the city became cloudy and rainy and it lasted until today.
The reason why Ai Hui knew about [Rain Spell] was that many swordplay manuals he read had mentioned about it before. Reportedly, the first man who mastered this spell in the Cultivation Era was called Zuo Mo. However, there were also a lot of swordplay manuals that stated historical records of Zuo Mo practising the [Rain Spell] were unofficial and inaccurate.
Usually, when a spell was much more distinguishable when it was associated with a legendary figure. However, when that particular legendary figure lived in the ancient past, debates over the accuracy of the historical records would arise.
After buying a map in a shop, Ai Hui was able to understand the specific location of Rain City. There were five cities in between Rain City and his destination, the Magic Cloud City.
However, Ai Hui did not intend to travel with caravans. Right now, he was running tight on time. If he was to encounter any trouble again, he would really be late.
He decided to fly straight to Magic Cloud City from Rain City by himself.
Since Ai Hui had just attained elemental externalization, he was extremely confident with his capabilities. Now, he had the confidence to do things that he felt were impossible in the past.
As Ai Hui walked out of the shop, he suddenly sensed something. After achieving elemental externalization, all his senses had become sharper significantly.
Not far away, there was a man staring furtively at him.
Ai Hui feigned ignorance and casually walked into a secluded alley.
The man’s eyes lit up. After a while, he followed Ai Hui and walked into the alley as well. However, when he saw the alley was empty, he was stunned. When he noticed there was a side road deep within the alley, he hurriedly ran over.
Just as he turned the corner, a powerful force blasted upon him. His body flew across the air and slammed forcefully onto a wall.
His eyes dimmed and he became dizzy. When he returned to his senses, he realized a sword was placed upon his neck. The ice-cold blade of the sword sent a cold shiver down his spine. In an instant, his face turned deathly pale.
After a period, Ai Hui left the alley. He took off his mask and revealed his true self. The color of his eye-striking azure wings had turned muddy yellow, completely indistinguishable.
He had killed the elementalist who followed him just now. Ai Hui was extremely vexed by what he had found out from that elementalist via torture.
Right now, there were rumors everywhere saying that Chu Zhaoyang infiltrated the Great Wei Enterprise’s caravan, Auspicious, to steal an ancient treasure and blew up the caravan to make his escape afterwards. The Great Wei Enterprise had ordered the arrest of Chu Zhaoyang and put a bounty on him everywhere. The amount of the bounty was extremely generous, prompting countless people into searching for Chu Zhaoyang.
An individual who merely attained elemental internalization could actually escape from the numerous experts in Great Wei’s caravan. Because of this, everyone now knew of the name "Chu Zhaoyang".
The information that Chu Zhaoyang was heading to Magic Cloud City had spread everywhere as well. Even though a lot of people felt that was a diversion tactic by Bandit Chu, there were still many people guarding the road to Magic Cloud City. Not only that, there were many people in the vicinity of the incident searching for Chu Zhaoyang.
In the Rain City, there were also many elementalists looking for Chu Zhaoyang.
That killed elementalist unexpectedly saw Ai Hui’s face and found him looked somewhat similar to the picture on the bounty. As such, he decided to follow Ai Hui.
Ai Hui’s face turned ashen as anger blazed within him.
In the end, he still fell into the Great Wei Enterprise’s plot!
He spent three painstaking years to build the identity of Chu Zhaoyang. It took him great pains to build a great reputation that would not attract much attention for Chu Zhaoyang.
Right now, the reputation of Chu Zhaoyang was tainted and his three years of painstaking effort had completely gone down the drain. One could imagine how infuriated Ai Hui was.
The thing that troubled him the most was this turn of events would have great impact on his subsequent operations.
Until now, he did not know the impact was a positive one or a negative one. He could only bitterly smile to himself.