Chương 181: Different Li Yue'er

Seeing the origin spirit palace, the others understood what he meant.

"You should have done it a long time ago. Moving around with hundreds of innocent lives will only endanger them." Yan jian walked over and nodded. Indeed, Long Feng wanted to return the Long clansmen within the origin spirit palace back to their original land, as it was very risky to move around with them. Back then when he wanted to use the origin spirit palace to rescue Yan jian and Li Yue'er, the palace was instead captured by the yin soldier and the Long clansmen within it were almost killed completely.

Luckily, the situation was resolved by the timely appearance of old gu.

"So? Is any of you interested in coming with me?" Hua Liuli asked Yan jian and Li Yue'er with an expectant expression.

"I'm afraid not. I'll stick around until the day of the competition" Li Yue'er slowly shook her head under Hua Liuli's intense and expectant gaze.

"Ha!" Hua Liuli sighed in disappointment as she gave Yan jian a cursory glance.

"Hmph! You can dream on. I will rather spend the rest of my life getting beaten up by Li Yue'er than to travel with you. I might not make it out alive, and even if I do, I might have to be calling you grand aunt!" Yan jian snorted as he spoke before she could ask him.

"I wouldn't even bring an idiot like you with me even if you begged. But I like the sound of grand aunt. It is pleasing to my ear…" Hua Liuli replied with a wide grin. Yan jian's courage immediately deflated as he rushed behind Long Feng. Only then did he feel some safety. Hua Liuli ignored him and sighed with a sad face.

"It looks like I'm on my own. Well, I should get going. See you in a month then" she waved her hand and turned around, activating her movement technique and rushing into the distance. They watched her back view untill she had vanished from their line of sight.

"So, where are you two going to?" Long Feng asked as he put away the origin spirit palace.

"Why ask the obvious? Since i decided to stay, then i am obviously going to follow brother Long Feng" Yan jian replied with a smile.

"I figured" Long Feng also smiled, then he glanced inquisitively at Li Yue'er.

"I'm coming with you, if you don't mind" Li Yue'er avoided his gaze as she spoke faintly. Long Feng nodded, finding her behavior to be quite different, in a good way. She seemed to be less… cold and isolated. It didn't matter much anyway, so he ignored this change. It could be due to having freed herself from the demon entity which was like a sword hanging above her neck.

"Let's go." He said. In his mind, he thought that he could also use this opportunity to test the movement technique which accompanied the Firmament Sword art; the nine Firmament steps. From the name, one would expect it to be a run down the mill movement technique like any other techniques which involved just nine simple steps. But that was very wrong. The Nine Firmament Steps was infact a profound movement technique which was created by the Firmament Sword Saint to complement the sword art.

It was a technique which was divided into nine different stages, each stage being completely different from the other. The first three stages could be cultivated by anyone with high comprehension ability, but from the fourth stage onwards, where one's speed could rival even ghosts, able to cover large areas with a single step, the Profound dao of space had to be touched upon! What was the Dao of space? In the world, there were ten thousand Daos.

Among these ten thousand Daos, three thousand are referred to as great Daos. These three thousand great Daos were the strongest among the ten thousand Daos, like the Dao of nature, the Dao of the sword, the saber dao, spear dao, the blood dao, and many others. Still, among these three thousand great Daos, one hundred daos stood at the peak. These hundred daos are referred to as the Grand Daos. These included the five elements dao; Dao of fire, earth, water, metal and wood.

The Dao of life and death, thunder, wind, demon dao, darkness dao and light dao were also included in this category. They were the very top Daos one could comprehend. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Among these hundred daos again, the top five daos were like forbidden Daos in the world, supreme laws which even gods and immortals couldn't comprehend. Only chosen existences could comprehend these Daos.

They were the Dao of Time, the Dao of space, the Dao of Yin and the Yang Dao. These four daos were known as the supreme Daos. The final one was the Chaos dao, the greatest dao in the world. According to legends, no one had been able to comprehend this legendary dao since the creation of the world. This Dao is the Ancestral Dao, the Dao of Chaos! Based on this category, the space dao was a forbidden dao which few people in the world could comprehend.

Therefore, Long Feng had little hope of comprehending this supreme Dao. Luckily, the Nine Firmament Step's fourth level and above didn't require one to comprehend the space dao, only to scratch on the surface of this Dao a little. This was still within Long Feng's limits. Of course, this was what he thought. Back inside the demon sealing coffin, Long Feng had began to cultivate the Firmament Sword art, and the nine Firmament steps was naturally included.

He could only be considered to have barely stepped into the threshold of the first level. But even then, he already felt that this first level was much faster than the mediocre Great roc agility technique which he cultivated. Therefore, he couldn't wait to test out this technique.

"Stand back a little for a moment. I'm going try out a technique I learnt" He spoke to Yan jian and Li Yue'er, just in case an anomaly would occur, which did happen. After preparing, Long Feng calmed his mind and slowly revolved his inner energy according to the first level of the nine Firmament steps. He could slowly feel a great energy coursing through his legs.

"Nine Firmament Step!" he roared loudly as his gathered energy reached the limit. He suddenly felt as though the gravity on him had suddenly weakened by half. Before he could figure out what just happened, the energy in his legs erupted, flinging him forward so fast that Yan jian and Li Yue'er only saw after images. By the time they reacted, Long Feng had crashed into several boulders and mounds, crashing through them with great speed.

He covered a dozen meters in the time it took to blink before crashing into the ground. He laid there with a dazed expression as he had still not registered what just happened into his mind. As he laid there, he looked very tattered.

"Brother Long Feng! Are you alright? Lift your arm if you are alive!" Yan jian rushed over to his side and spoke nervously. Long Feng weakly lifted his arm before letting it fall back. Yan jian sighed, patting his chest.

"you are alive. Phew! You really frightened me just now" he murmured, then the scene replayed in his mind and he couldn't help but chuckle. The chuckle soon turned into a wild laughter. Even Li Yue'er couldn't help but chuckle when she recalled what just happened.

"It's not funny!" Long Feng slowly stood up from the floor. He was still astonished in his mind as he recalled what happened. The nine Firmament steps actually forcefully reduced the force of gravity on him by half. He was unprepared and the speed of the technique also surpassed his expectations. He technically covered a dozen meters in the blink of an eye, and he did it without touching the ground. In other words, he was floating in air for that brief moment.

Unfortunately, the speed was too great and he was also unprepared, causing him to be unable to control himself as he literally smashed everything in his way apart, including boulders! If not for his quick reaction as he immediately protected himself with his inner energy, he wouldn't end up with just a mere few scratches and sore body… This is unbelievable. The first level of the nine Firmament steps is so powerful that it defies common sense.

It was able to reduce the effect if gravity on me by half, and backed with my pure inner energy, I might actually be able to fly in the air once I use the technique! I have never heard of a technique which can make someone below the spirit realm to fly… He sighed in his heart, thinking that the Firmament Sword Saint is indeed a genius with great comprehension abilities.

"Brother Long Feng, what was that?" Yan jian asked curiously after containing his laughter.

"Just a movement technique I received from the inheritance. I didn't expect it to be so terrifying." Long Feng replied.

"Yeah. You literally became a smashing machine for a moment, destroying so much things""It happened because I was unprepared. It definitely won't happen again." Long Feng looked at his tattered robes with a furrowed brow. This was going to be troublesome, as he didn't have any extra robes in his void ring. Anyone he had was used in the Yin ghosts forest. He looked at Yan jian who gently shook his head. Then Long Feng's gaze inadvertently fell on Li Yue'er's dazzling face.

"I-i have some clothes with me, but I doubt you'll want them" Li Yue'er spoke with a faint flush. Long Feng also chuckled. How could he possibly wear female robes? It would be better for him to move with his current ragged appearance. He sighed, accepting his fate.

"Let's go. It doesn't matter as long as the robe isn't completely ruined anyway" The three figures began a long journey back to the jianhai province. With their current cultivations, it would only take them a few days of restless journey to arrive, so they took their time, even stopping at two cities along the way, where Long Feng managed to change into new robes and several restaurants later to eat.

At a certain restaurant, when they were eating, Yan jian approached Long Feng and whispered softly; "Have you noticed something different about Li Yue'er?" Long Feng raised his brows and glanced at Li Yue'er who was too busy gobbling down her food to notice them. Then he slowly nodded.

"She's not the same Li Yue'er we remember. She's like an entirely different person from the cold one we knew. I can't believe Li Yue'er of all people will actually smile at me and even laugh! She suddenly feels like a real young sixteen year old girl, not like a thousand years old woman in a block of ice…" Yan jian added and couldn't help smiling as he remembered the scenes of Li Yue'er smiling and laughing happily, even occasionally starting a conversation. It felt… different, in a good way.

Long Feng nodded again with a complicated expression.

"She has experienced a lot of pains and suffering, even watching her whole family get slaughtered right before her at a young age, which is really tragic. Now that she is finally able to regain her lively self, I don't ever want the cold Li Yue'er to return. We will do our best to protect this little joy for her, and give her a reason to always remain lively…" They resumed their journey after finishing their meals sometime later. The journey was absolutely lively.

Five days later, they finally reached the border which separated the blue sky province form the jianhai province. As Long Feng returned to the jianhai province, he felt complicated emotions for a moment. Back then, he was forced to leave the province by a group of shameless old fogies, who used their Yang realm cultivations to bully him endlessly, though leaving turned out to be a great turning point for him.

Now that he had returned with his cultivation nearing the peak of the Yang realm, his unknown combat power, and his other Trump cards, he didn't believe that the low rank jianhai clan could cause any waves before him with their one clan ancestor at the rank one spirit level.

"Jianhai province, I'm back. I will definitely make sure to settle my grudges with the jianhai clan. There's also the mortal heaven sect to visit. I haven't seen master yi ming for a while. I'm sure he is dead worried about me." He clenched his fists with this thought.

"And there's that guy, Han Man. I left him at the arena after defeating him back then. I wonder how much he has progressed since then."