Chapter 95
Chapter 95 – Ancient Water Lake
Ye Chen opened his eyes and jumped down from the bed. He did a set of [King Kong Fist] without using his Zhen Qi.
The punches made howling sounds, the furniture in the room and the wooden windows all vibrated until they crackled. In the end they all broke into pieces and were scattered all over the floor.
“My goodness, all of a sudden there’s an increase of five thousand Jin to my physical strength, reaching twenty thousand Jin.” Ye Chen immediately felt the substantial increase in his physical strength, his whole body felt as if it had limitless energy, he felt that he could kill five big buffalos with a single punch each.
Physical strength was unlike Zhen Qi, it was limited by the human body and its growth was slow. It was amazing enough that he had the strength of twenty thousand Jin, even warriors of the Clasping Yuan Realm would not possess such a strong body, unless they trained with a set of body strengthening skills.
“Senior Sister Xu Jing must have used only seventy to eighty percent of her real strength that day, otherwise that final blow might have really killed me.” As he thought of the power of the [Golden Three Realms art] and the [Monster Slayer Great Fist Art], Ye Chen somehow came to understand his own capabilities and did not arrogantly assume that the opponent really used all her strength.
That night was without any incident.
The next morning, when the sun was high up in the sky.
Inspired by the shining sun, Ye Chen came to the [Floating Cloud Martial Palace].
Inside the hall was only emptiness, there were just three or four people choosing their missions, it can be said to be deserted.
Ye Chen walked to the front of the wall with the [gray rank] missions and thought for a while. His eyes were fixed on the last mission in the first row, it looked like it was newly put up.
Mission: Go to the Ancient Water Lake, help the Qu Family find the missing boat.
Details: Ancient Water Lake has a dangerous place called the [Winding Path]. There are a lot of monsters in the water, along with an underwater whirlpool, it is extremely dangerous.
Task Difficulty: Five star grey rank.
Task reward: one hundred and twenty-two thousand gold.
“Ancient Water Lake, isn’t it in the far north of the Windy Nation? Its quite far from here!”
Ye Chen had heard of the reputation of the Ancient Water Lake, it was said that this lake had a history of three thousand years. Initially, it was just a small lake. But, when it suffered from a major earthquake, a radius of a thousand miles sunk into the ground. Along with more than three thousand years of rain water accumulation, it came to be the Ancient Water Lake.
In its early days, the [Ancient Water Lake] was not dangerous, but nowadays it was abnormally dangerous. It was as if the major earthquake had released some kind of ancient monsters that dominated the whole Ancient Water Lake, even turning some of the originally not monstrous fish and shrimp to some kind of monsters.
Ancient Water Lake had a large cluster of central islands, called the [Pan Shan Island].The tribal family known as the Qu family which lived on the island were the ones that issued this mission. The Qu Family had a long history, they started living on the [Pan Shan Island] about three thousand years ago. Even though they knew that the Ancient Water Lake had many monsters, they never had the idea to leave that place and continued to live there all along.
Sometimes, a few geniuses would come from those islands, eager to leave the Ancient Water Lake and to make a name for themselves. It was said that there was an [Inner court Disciple] in the Emerald Martial Palace Valley, who was from the Pan Shan Island’s Qu Family.
He did not dwell on it too much, Ye Chen tore down the mission notice and left the [Floating Cloud Palace].
At the foot of the mountain, he started to ride towards the North.
……
Eight days later.
Ye Chen reached the vast expanse near the Ancient Water Lake.
Coincidentally, there was a small run down restaurant on the shore, with four black characters on the plaque, they were almost chipped away.
‘Ancient Water Restaurant!’
Ye Chen patted the horse on its head after he dismounted, “You worked hard these past few days, I should change you when we go back later, you would have a life filled with suffering if you follow me.”
It was a shame, but the Dark Brown horse was only reliable at the initial stages, as time went on, it couldn’t fulfill his needs. It could only travel two thousand miles in a day, and three thousand if it was really forced to travel during the night too. Ye Chen planned to get a [Lion eyed half demon horse], it could cover a distance of three thousand three hundred miles in a day. If they travelled throughout the night, even five thousand miles was not a problem. The most important point was that the [Lion eyed half demon horse] was physically tough. It can continuously run for three days and three nights, it only needed to rest for a night to recover, and it would be lively again. It did not need the owner to take care of it at all. “Young Swordsman, it seems like you are headed to the Ancient Water Lake right! Why don’t you come in and take a rest.” The waiter saw that a customer came and greeted warmly.
Ye Chen nodded, “Take care of my horse.”
“Sure, this way, please!”
The restaurant was more dilapidated than he expected, the walls were mottled, the table surface was rough and uneven, and even the chairs were pieced together and looked very shabby.
Ye Chen chose a chair that was pleasing to the eye and sat down, he ordered a few small dishes.
While eating, unexpectedly, there were hoof beats coming from the outside of the restaurant.
“Today seems like a lucky day, there are more guests coming.”
The waiter’s spirits were immediately lifted up.
Soon, a young man dressed in green walked in.
The young man in green frowned when he saw Ye Chen, “You are an inner-court disciple of the Sky Cloud Martial School, are you going to the Pan Shan Island of the Ancient Water Lake?”
“Yes.” Ye Chen could see that he was an inner court disciple of the [Emerald Martial Palace].
“Then you do not need to go, Qu Family matters should be handled by the members of the Qu Family.”
Ye Chen lifted his eyebrows, “So, you are a member of the Qu Family.”
“The member of the one hundred and sixty sixth generation of the Qu Family, Qu Ming.” The young man in green sat down next to a table opposite Ye Chen.
“Sorry, since I accepted the mission, I will try to finish it.”
Ye Chen did not intend to give up on the mission.
Qu Ming sneered, “I will remind you that this Ancient Water Lake cannot be crossed by just any boat, there is a distance of four hundred and fifty miles from here to the Pan Shan Island. At the slightest mistake, you will be dragged under water by the monsters, and would die without a complete corpse. The [winding path] is an even more dangerous place.”
“There’s danger in everything we do, how can we achieve great things if we fear everything.”
They never had any conflicts before. After all, not every [Emerald Martial Palace] disciple was annoyingly proud.
……
At the shore of the Ancient Water Lake, the lake water was surging. Lights were sparkling on it, at first glance, the skyline and the water surface seemed to have merged in the distance.
Qu Ming took a glance at Ye Chen and took out a piece of wooden log from his storage ring. It was as thick as his waist and had a length of about ten feet.
The wooden log was shot out more than a dozen feet away, it whistled through the air as it moved above the lake waters. Its movement was fast, but Qu Ming was faster. Even before one could see him do something, the moment the wooden log touched the water, he was already stepping on it, as if he was as light as a feather. He went farther and farther as he rode on the wooden log. Soon, there was only a small dot visible.
“Using a wooden log as a boat.”
Ye Chen nodded, his eyes swept around, and soon found the small forest a few hundred meters away. It consisted of huge trees with thirty to forty feet length.
With a few flashes of light from the sword, a huge tree fell down.
Ye Chen feared that he might encounter monster attacks on his way and the wooden log could not make it, so he cut a dozen more, each equally thick and weighing several hundred pounds.
Ye Chen came to the shore and he did the same. He threw the wooden log out and stood on it.
The scenery on the both sides went by extremely fast. Ye Chen felt that his heart had never been this happy ever. For a brief moment, he felt that the sky was high and the earth was vast and he was free like a bird.
The wooden log’s momentum ran out, Ye Chen ushered his [Zhen Qi] and erupted it at the rear of the wooden log, successfully turning it into a source of power.
Brawl! brawl!
Although he did not catch up to Qu Ming, he was not exactly slow. In addition, he felt that it was nice to view the scenic lake while standing on the wooden log.
After he travelled for over a dozen miles.
Under the water behind the wooden log, a huge shadow continued to follow him quietly.