Chapter 172 - Wicked BOSS, Invisible Killer!
Chapter 172: Wicked BOSS, Invisible Killer!
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Things weren’t looking too good for Yang Dingtian. He just got used to being under three times the normal gravity before, and now he was going to handicap himself for another threefold.
Well, let’s see just how powerful the boss was inside the second room of the golden palace.
Having taken a deep, nervous breath, Yang Dingtian made his entrance into the room ahead of him.
“Hugh…”
The youngling sword inside Yang Dingtian’s hand became about 1.5 tons. The pressure on his body was so overwhelming that even breathing was painful.
Instead of the stone man before, it was a silver robot that fell out of the wall this time. The weapon it was holding was a giant sword, not a hammer. Most importantly, its speed was just as fast as the stone man, even when the gravity was nine times heavier than usual.
“Death to trespassers!” The silver robot cried as it leaped towards Yang Dingtian.
“Unyielding and indestructible…” Yang Dingtian chanted and raised his youngling sword to block the robot’s attack.
Clang.
“Oh, crap…” Yang Dingtian cursed as he was sent flying from the second room all the way back to the main hall. His arms. His chests. Even his meridian. All the nerves and muscles inside his body felt like they were tearing up into tiny shreds.
On a good note, however, since he was knocked out so far away this time, there wasn’t a need to form an escape plan.
One hit! That’s all it took for Yang Dingtian to be defeated by the second boss of the golden palace. He had expected a powerful enemy waiting ahead of him, but he didn’t think that he was going to be played around like an ant.
As the dying Yang Dingtian lay at the center of the main hall, the stone giant opened its eye and grabbed him with its hand.
“The trainee is injured for a second time! I will now commence checking if he’s alive or not.”
“The trainee is still alive. There is still a point to save him.”
Once again, the three-headed giant opened up its chest, picked up the dying Yang Dingtian, and drowned him in the magical green pool inside its body.
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Oddly enough, it took about five hours for Yang Dingtian to heal up this time completely.
Perhaps that just showed how scary Dugu Fengwu really was. The wound she inflicted on Yang Dingtian might seem rather small, but a clean shot to the chest could be much more devastating than having all your muscles split up.
“Thank you so much…” Yang Dingtian said to the three-headed giant as he was placed back to the ground, but the giant didn’t respond back. Instead, it simply closed its eye and returned to being a statue.
Seeing that no more should be said, Yang Dingtian grabbed his youngling sword and came to the hall center for another breathing session.
One hour.
Two hours.
Three hours.
After five hours, Yang Dingtian could feel his qi vessel shaking and stretching out again. He was leveling up to become a seven star intermediate Mystic Martial Artist.
Without waiting any further, after leveling himself up, Yang Dingtian decided to go straight back inside the second room of the golden palace. It’s not like he had forgotten the feeling of being taken down in one hit. Apparently, that was clearly not the case here.
As the famous line goes, “Why would you visit a mountain that was full of tigers? Well, to see the tigers, of course!”
With the same spirit in mind, Yang Dingtian made no hesitation in returning to the golden palace with his youngling sword in hand. That being said, though, he did hesitate for a bit before actually stepping inside the second room.
“I’m ready now,” Yang Dingtian said to himself before he made his way in.
Just as predicted, the moment Yang Dingtian came inside, the silver robot started charging towards him with the ferocity of a bear. No, a mountain actually, and it was dropping right on top of Yang Dingtian’s skull again.
“Not this time!” Yang Dingtian screamed as he blocked the incoming strike with his sword.
Clang.
“Oof…”
Just like before, Yang Dingtian was sent flying back to the center of the Five Elements Hall. His injuries were still pretty bad this time, but least he didn’t lose consciousness.
The three-headed giant opened its eye again, “The trainee is injured for the third time. He is still breathing. There is still value in rescuing him!”
And time for another bath.
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This time, it only took about two hours for Yang Dingtian to stay inside the magical green pool.
Yang Dingtian came to the center of the hall again. There was still quite a bit of mystic qi left inside of him, but he had hoped to make a breakthrough with another breathing session.
Disappointingly, no progress was made after an hour of Yang Dingtian’s breathing session. He tried filling in all the qi he could inside his vessel, but absolutely nothing happened.
If Yang Dingtian kept going back to the silver robot like this, it would be the same end all over again. After all, he couldn’t even get close to blocking that monster’s sword.
With that in mind, Yang Dingtian wasn’t going back to the golden palace again. It wasn’t because he was afraid of failure, and nor was it because he had lost his motivation. If anything, really, he just wasn’t the kind to waste his time.
He was fine with having his flesh torn up, but what would be the trade-off of that? It’s not like his qi would just boost up if he kept trying to kill himself. Something had to change here. Whatever Yang Dingtian was going to do next, he must try not to waste any more time.
“My God, I’m stupid,” Yang Dingtian cursed as he slapped himself on the side of his face. With all these rooms around him, why was he only going inside the golden palace?
Come to think of it, Yang Dingtian didn’t spend any time to try out the fire palace. He didn’t try out ice, either, or thunder or wind.
No matter which element he chose, Yang Dingtian knew that they were all equally difficult. Logically speaking, though, every palace’s first room should be easier than the second room he just went in.
If Yang Dingtian could finish the first room in every palace, it could be possible that he could go back to fight that ridiculously strong robot in the golden palace.
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So now, which element should Yang Dingtian pick first? Let’s do it with a process of elimination.
Thunder would definitely be a no-no here. Not only was it the strangest and the scariest among the five elements, but it was also too rare to have any worth in practicing with it. Most humans, or beasts, even, wouldn’t have thunder as their element type.
Without exceptions, all the meridians in this world had to belong to either Yin or Yang. Once the grouping was made, the meridians were then divided into five elements. In other words: fire, wind, gold, ice, and thunder. The element fire would only be found in those who possessed Yang meridians, and the same applied to ice and Yin meridian.
Wind and gold, however, were much more complicated. Basically, it was possible to develop gold with a Yang meridian, and it’s also possible to develop wind with a Yin meridian. While this was the typical case for most individuals, there were definitely exceptions that didn’t follow the general principles.
Not to mention thunder! As rare as it was to find in the natural world, no one could explain the rules behind this element. For the same reason, this was also why thunder was considered to be in the same category as darkness and psychic.
Thunder. Darkness. Psychic. Since the chance of bearing them was about as rare as finding a needle in the ocean, they were all considered to be in the ‘rare’ category of the elements. These elements also had another similarity, and that was that the powers they represent were all extremely unformidable.
Take Ximen Ningning, for example. As a psychic type, she able to constrain four enemies at once with her mystic technique. Yang Dingtian didn’t know how ridiculous it actually was when he first saw it, but he certainly understood now.
After thinking to himself many times over, Yang Dingtian came to a simple conclusion: whoever Ximen Ningning really was, she was more than just Ximen Wuya’s adopted daughter. The secrets hidden behind her, including her real identity, were definitely something that was enough to shock the whole world.
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So, back to the story. Yang Dingtian had to pick from four elements to continue on his training.
With his Nine Yang Mystic Meridian, Yang Dingtian definitely had the most advantage if he chose ice. The more the advantage, however, the less the reward. Choosing an element he was strong against was not likely to help him improve.
Fire, on the other hand, would be a direct counter against Yang Dingtian.
What about thunder, then? Actually, it’s too bizarre to have any use in real fights.
Thus, having taken other options out of the equation, Yang Dingtian decided to continue with the wind, which was represented by the colorless door.
As he made his way inside the first secret room of the wind palace, Yang Dingtian widened his eyes and scanned very cautiously around him. Strangely enough, there wasn’t any sign of danger that he could see. There wasn’t any stone man that was trying to kill him, either.
“Um, what is this?” Yang Dingtian said to himself without letting down his guard. He still couldn’t see anything after waiting for thirty seconds, and it was completely silent the whole time.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh.
Suddenly, a very sharp blade came piercing through Yang Dingtian’s skin. He was aware of it coming at him before it had made contact, but the speed was simply too fast to guard against it.
In less than a second, there were about tens of different cuts across Yang Dingtian’s body. If he weren’t wearing his Deep Sea Mystic Clothes right now, his whole upper body would’ve been sliced into small chunks on the spot.
As bad as it already seemed, Yang Dingtian still couldn’t locate his enemy. He couldn’t even see what kind of weapon it was using.
The difference in speed was just too much. Yang Dingtian had to take all the hits that were thrown at him, but his rate of missing was at a full 100 percent. The only thing he was able to make contact with was either himself or the air around him.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh…
Another few strikes that all went right at Yang Dingtian’s back. He wasn’t even fast enough to look behind him. The most he could to do was to use his youngling sword to poke at where he thought the enemy was.
“Ha ha ha ha…” A crisp voice echoed across the room. Yang Dingtian missed again.
It went on like this for a while. Even after being hit for about a hundred times, Yang Dingtian still couldn’t touch his enemy once with his youngling sword. Thankfully, the damage he was taking was nowhere as serious as that the from the silver robot, otherwise he would’ve dropped dead within a blink of an eye.
Yet, Yang Dingtian was still in pretty bad shape here. He tried standing still for about an hour, and he couldn’t get close to doing anything to the invisible thing that was toying with him. Just how sadistic was the person who designed this challenge?
Five hours had passed.
Apart from the part that was covered by his Deep Sea Mystic Clothes, there was not a piece of Yang Dingtian’s flesh that remained untouched.
What about his enemy, then? Let’s just say that all ten thousand swings had failed to make a scrape. Yang Dingtian was using the Formless Sword, by the way, and it was a direct counter against wind element.
Needless to say, Yang Dingtian was both infuriated and exhausted. Since there was not much mystic qi left inside of him, he had to leave the wind palace without having done anything.
Since his injuries were all quite minor, it only took about two hours for Yang Dingtian to heal up inside the stone giant’s chest. After he was done, he went back to the center of the main hall for another breathing session.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be long until his next breakthrough.