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Book 3 Chapter 7: Mantra Firm
The deep sound of an Ox horn signal was heard.
Yan asked “Is that troop asking us for help?”
Qi Xuan said “That’s right, the people here use signals from the Ox horn to send messages, like how we do it with whistles. Old brother, do we save them?” The leader of this group is actually the old man Lei Bao, Qi Xuan was only the leader in name, as most of the people from the group were from Hong Tong.
The old man Lei Bao said “Of course, we are not familiar with this place, so if we save them, they can become our guides, and we can mingle with them and learn about the situation here in Xi Rong Land.”
Qi Xuan nodded “Okay, Qi Tian Yao, bring your team and exterminate these barbarians.”
The old man Lei Bao “Feng, put Yaoyao down and go as well. You need to practice more and battling is one of the best ways to learn.”
XinFeng placed Xinyao down and said “Yaoyao, follow grandpa and don’t run around, brother has to to for a while, but I’ll return quickly.”
Xinyao said “Be careful Brother.” She would not stop XinFeng to go to battle, since in this world, battling was a very glorious thing.
Xi Tian Yao was the nephew of Qi Xuan, a Milun master, but since his level had unfortunately stopped rising, he had been appointed a leader of a team. “Arrange your weapons and ready to attack” Xi Tian Yao called out.
Hong Chen said “Yan, you go too.”
Yan smiled “Okay, it’s been quite a while since I had battled, hehe(Xixi)”. Hong Chen was a master that treasured his disciple, and normally he would not send her to battles with risk, but this one did not really have any danger. A fight between Milun masters and barbarians, as long as it wasn’t a one vs a dozen or so, then there would not be any danger.
(puttty: Xixi is a laugh of sorts, similar to a teehee)
XinFeng took out his black bow from his Lun Chang space. His current space had grown larger as his levels had increased, and while it was still incomparable to a Milun master, it had become able to hold a good amount of items. With the Lun Chang space, his threat with the black bow increased greatly, because the arrows can be taken directly from the Lun Chang space. Currently he had one hundred steel arrows stored, enough for him to use for a long time.
Those below and on the level of Milun master would use weapons to exert their Lunli, and only after becoming an True Milun master and obtaining a true one ring body, can they use their Lunli freely to attack.
Qi Tian Yao shouted “Let’s go, kill the barbarians!”
In the team with a total of a dozen men, where the weakest of them was a Thousand-Lun master and the strongest a Milun master, their fighting strength was rather good. Taking care of a hundred barbarians wasn’t anything too hard for them. XinFeng was at the back of the team, and was tasked with attacking from afar, since the power of his black bow was very hard for the barbarians to defend against.
The troop fighting the barbarians gave a cheer when they saw help coming, but the cheer quickly turned into other sounds, because they realized that the people that came only numbered a dozen. They themselves already had about five hundred people, and could barely block the attacks of the barbarians. What could these dozen of men do? Kill themselves?
The first one to initiate the attack was XinFeng.
After the barbarians noticed them, immediately about 7-8 of them speedily broke away and came over to welcome them. The barbarians had assumed that only a few barbarians can take care of these dozen people, which would normally be true, so the barbarians presumptuously assumed, as normal humans were at a great disadvantage against barbarians. Be it strength or fighting spirit, barbarians had a large advantage over normal humans.
But meeting XinFeng and his team, these barbarians were not worthy to be their opponent. Just as barbarians normally decimate weak humans, these practitioners began to decimate the barbarians.
Ping!
With the sound of metal colliding, an arrow was fired and a barbarian fell, the arrow piercing through the head of the barbarian. Even if a barbarian’s constitution was even greater, it still wouldn’t be able to block this kind of fatal attack. It was followed by continuous sounds of colliding metal, as one by one, the shadow of arrows streaked past, and one by one barbarians began to fall. Before the team could even come into contact with them, the charging barbarians were being
eliminated by XinFeng.
Qi Xuan and Hong Chen could not help but praise “What powerful archery!”
Yan could not help but say “XinFeng, you kill too fast!”
XinFeng laughed and ran ahead faster, and after reaching the sides of the dead barbarians, he speedily took back his arrows. These pure steel refined arrows were rather costly, and with only slight repairing they can be used again, so he could not bear to throw them away.
At that moment, the previously worried team made extremely loud cheering, having noticed that the people headed towards them were extremely strong.
With the attacks of the Barbarians alleviated, the team had already noticed something was strange, since there was no normal human with such terrifying archery. The people knew that even if they shot barbarians, their thick skin and meat made it hard for the arrow to pierce it, a single arrow is far from being able to do so, and their skulls are even harder. Xinfeng’s arrow was not only able to pierce through it but it also sent barbarians charging XinFeng’s way flying back, displaying the terrifying strength behind the arrows.
The remaining barbarians immediately stopped their attacks and turned to face the dozen men headed their way, their instincts informing them of the huge threat.
A hundred or so barbarians charged madly towards the dozen practitioners, while Qi Tian Yao shouted “Kill!” with his spear sweeping sideways as he leapt into the fray of battle.
Qi Tian Yao’s opponent wielded a steel club that had the thickness of a bowl’s opening, and clashed with the steel spear that was only the thickness of a duck’s egg. The barbarian revealed a smile on his face, believing that his steel club could definitely send his opponent flying.
Kuang! Dang!
Qi Tian Tao had Jin Tu attributed LunLi, and with the Jin attribute supporting the steel spear, it made him very strong, as he pushed back the barbarian, who stared in disbelief. The most terrifying thing he found was that the club with the thickness of a bowl was bending, and before he could react, Qi Tian Yao thrust with his spear, and being unable to defend with his club, let out a shout as he blocked it with his arm.
(Puttty: Jin= Gold, Tu= Earth.)
With a Ka-Cha sound, the barbarian’s arm was broken and as Qi Tian Yao already reached his side, he slapped the barbarian’s back with the back of his hand. Peng! The barbarian fell to the floor, his spine shattered by the slap, while a Thousand-Lun master that followed Qi Tian Yao closely stomped his foot, causing the barbarian’s brain to splatter.
XinFeng continued to shoot his arrows, his bowstring resounding after every shot like the sound of striking iron, immediately followed by barbarians continuously falling to the ground.
Upon contact, a dozen barbarians had died, and the remainder started to panic. This type of massacre was something even barbarians were unable of stand up against, and since their numbers were originally small, among barbarian tribes, those that leave the tribes to raid are all the warriors, and if their loss is great, then their tribe may be swallowed by other barbarians tribes. Fearing this, a barbarian shouted and the originally charging barbarians immediately turned and ran.
Xi Tian Yao’s team followed, trying to kill, but the speed of the desert barbarians was too fast, these forest practitioners were very unaccustomed to it so other than XinFeng who kept on shooting arrows after arrows, no one was able to catch up. Quickly Qi Tian Yao ordered “All of you, come back!”
XinFeng also immediately stopped shooting, of those that were targeted by his bow, not one of them had been capable of escaping, all of them died with an single arrow. He had specially aimed for the heads, and along with his precise archery, XinFeng had killed the most barbarians.
Yan was still unsatisfied, since she had only gotten to kill a single barbarian, while her other target escaped.
By himself, XinFeng had killed ten barbarians, while everyone else’s kill had only accumulated to twenty one, and a dozen or so injured
barbarians successfully escaped.
The old man Lei Bao and Qi Xuan approached, as well as Hong Chen leading two big horned bulls, and the three of them slowly headed down the dune, walking towards the surrounding troop.
From that troop walked out a group of people, and the two side quickly approached each other.
This was a merchant group from Mantra firm.
The Mantra firm had one of the largest influence in Xi Rong Land, and while this merchant group was considered a small scaled one, if it was a large scale one, then the barbarians would never dare to surround them. Normally large scale Merchant group would have a good amount of practitioners with them, and this sort of small scale merchant group would only have a little amount of a practitioners, low leveled practitioners, the strongest of them only a Thousand-Lun master.
This merchant group only had ten practitioners, the strongest of them a Hundred-Lun master, a very old hundred Lun master, with the rest of them being small Lun masters that had only just stepped into the practitioner’s world. Their qualifications very bad, since after a few decades of training they had not even reached the level of a Hundred-Lun master, though of course they are stronger than the average human, like the recruited warriors of the small merchant groups.
The old man Lei Bao, Qi Xuan and Hong Chen never intended on negotiating, as with their status and identity, they wouldn’t discus with merchants, so this task was left to Qi Tian Yao and XinFeng. The reason why XinFeng was included being the old man’s thinking that it’ll be good practice for XinFeng, as only by experiencing many things will one learn to handle different affairs.
The old man Lei Bao had suffered because of his aloofness in the beginning. When he had just started his journey, he was already a great expert, but he did not know now to communicate and mingle with others, and coupled with his terrible temper, a word of disagreement would cause him to start a fight. He hoped for XinFeng to practice interacting with people, as he was behind him supporting, so that even if XinFeng was unable to negotiate well, or got into trouble, Lei Bao could help to settle it.
The leader of the Mantra firm was a young man, probably in his twenties, and was not a practitioner. He had chatted with the guard leader and knew that the people before him were Lun Masters, but as for their level he was unsure, though he knew that these people were very strong, people he couldn’t afford to offend.
Qi Tian Yao walked forward and said “I am Qi Tian Yao, Milun master, and the leader here.”
XinFeng said “Lei Xin Feng, Ten Thousand-Lun master.”
The leader said “I have seen you sirs, I am Tuo Luo Niao, the leader of the merchant group.”
Qi Tian Yao asked “You are from Mantra Clan?”
While XinFeng was still suspicious, wondering “Tuo Luo Bird”? Was there such a bird?
(Puttty: the last word for the guy’s name is 鸟 which means bird, thus the confusion.)
Tuo Luo Niao nodded “Yes, I am from the Mantra clan, I thank you all for your assistance.”
Qi Tian Yao said “No need for thanks, this kind of thing, as long as they see it, nobody would simply stand to the side and watch. I wonder, are you all headed to Xi Rong nation?”
Tuo Luo Niao said “That’s right, we are headed there”. Learning that Qi Tian Yao and his people were headed to Xi Rong nation, he instantly warmly invited them, hoping they would join him for the journey.
Xi Tian Yao did not reject, since the originally wanted to go with merchants in order to learn of some news, and the network of merchant groups was the best, as they travel extensively and know much about what is happening throughout the land.
