Dragon Hermit

After the first day of military training ended, Xia Yan returned to the dorm and took a shower first. He then turned on his smartphone and heard a notification. He checked the message and saw that it was from Liu Xue’er.

“Xia Yan, were you behind Wen Yipin getting admitted to the hospital?”

Xia Yan smiled and wrote back a reply, “What happened? I have no clue about it, but I’m glad he got admitted to the hospital.”

On the other side, after Liu Xue’er received the message, she raised her head and said, “It was really him!”

Elder Liu and Liu Shan glanced at each other and forced a smile. Liu Shan shook his head while sighing, “Hotheaded youth!”

“There’s nothing wrong with the young acting whimsically!” Elder Liu had a different evaluation, “Young men have to express their gratitude quickly and settle the debt of hatred equally fast. If they act overcautious, they will lose all their youthful spirit, and what good is that?!”

“But this is Wen Yuanzheng’s son. You also know how protective his parents are. I fear trouble may fall upon Xia Yan!” Liu Shan stated worriedly.

“For that to happen, Wen Yipin needs to recover his sanity first. Xia Yan isn’t simple. Since he dared to make a move, he surely doesn’t fear the others would reveal what happened. Wen Yipin and those crooks might not even have the chance to reveal his identity,” Elder Liu’s attitude towards Xia Yan had taken a complete turn. He had close to blind faith in Xia Yan now.

“Xia Yan is someone with skills. Although Wen Yuanzheng and Luo Qiufeng are influential people, it wouldn’t be possible for them to deal with him. Heroes use strength to withstand authority. Xia Yan doesn’t just possess the strength; his ability might even act as the perfect deterrent towards the Wen family’s power. Haha!” Elder Liu chuckled.

“That might be true, but Xia Yan is still too young. Although he has skills, he lacks social experience. I’m afraid he might be at a disadvantage, so how about we help him?” Liu Shan stated after pondering for a while.

“We will help him for sure!” Elder Liu stated without the slightest hesitation, “Although the Wen family’s influence spreads wide, this old man is still alive! With someone scheming against the Liu family, we can’t always rely on the Wen family for help, right? If we sow good karma with him now, it will undoubtedly pay off later. We can ask for his help then!”

“Mhm. I understand!” Liu Shan nodded, but revealed a worried expression yet again, “Just who targeted us though? The person who sent you the ebony toad also got manipulated. The dealer who sold him the article has gone missing too…”

“No matter who it was, they will make a move again for sure. We can only maintain constant vigilance,” Elder Liu said.

“I hope Xia Yan can help us when the time comes!” Liu Shan sighed.

“All youths value loyalty. If we help Xia Yan, he will find it embarrassing not to help us in return,” Elder Liu commented.

“Oh, right! How is Wen Yipin now?” Liu Shan asked, turning towards Liu Xue’er.

“The Wen family has invited Zhang Fakui from Fengshui street. I heard this Master Zhang was planning to use a magic artifact to exorcise Wen Yipin. I don’t know what came of that,” Liu Xue’er stated. Her phone began ringing just when she finished saying that. She answered it and then chuckled, “Zhang Fakui got beat up by Wen Yipin. The magic artifact also got smashed after getting thrown to the floor. It seems like Wen Yiping isn’t slamming into walls now, but he’s turned violent instead. He is beating up anyone before his eyes!”

“Xia Yan is really something. If Zhang Fakui could break his magic, he wouldn’t be offering his services at Fengshui street!” Elder Liu and Liu Shan also burst into laughter.

☠☠☠

Xia Yan didn’t care about Wen Yipin. Although Lingering Spirits was a novice-grade undead magic spell, it was handy. This magic was a killer move, especially so towards targets with low resistance towards magic.

Naturally, all ordinary humans of Earth didn’t have high resistance towards magic.

However, Xia Yan had no plans to kill them. He had never done it before and even more so didn’t wish to do it.

Lingering Spirits couldn’t kill a human. The spell would gradually wear off and disappear entirely in ten days. Wen Yipin and the other six would recover their sanity then, but some residual effects would remain. This magic affected the brain, so they would lose some of their memories. At worst, that would be a year’s worth of memories, and at best, a month.

This is where Xia Yan’s confidence towards the Wen family’s revenge came from. [If you can’t remember who I am, how will you find me?]

☠☠☠

After the first day’s training ended, Zhao Qiang and Qin Jian were dead tired like dogs, but they still couldn’t rest as the instructor had arrived at the dorm to teach how to fold tofu. After working their tails off, the duo took baths and went to bed. A few moments later, they began snoring like pigs.

Hou Xiaotian had applied for a leave from the military training and accompanied his father in the hospital each day. Sometimes, he wouldn’t return to the dorm at night, and today was such a day.

After Zhao Qiang and Qin Jian had fallen asleep, Xia Yan sat up as now was the time for him to make a breakthrough. An apprentice mage still wasn’t as a true mage. In the Heavenspan continent, they didn’t even have the qualifications to wear magic robes.

[Oh yeah. Maybe I should prepare a magic robe?] Xia Yan felt tempted as this thought took root into his mind. This made him recall what happened yesterday. [If I hadn’t erased their memories, I would have invited a lot of trouble upon me. Maybe I should turn invisible the next time I use magic?]

[Should I wear the disguise of a skin-tight suit and a mask just like a superhero? That seems possible!]

After letting his imagination run wild for a moment, Xia Yan calmed down and entered a meditative state. He planned to construct the second floor of the magic tower in its entirety tonight. He could then store a lot more magic power and enter the ranks of a novice mage.

In his meditative state, the second floor of the magic tower in his mind gradually began taking form, the details turning more definitive. Finally, at daybreak, Xia Yan had succeeded!

Once he had finished, it seemed as if a passage had opened up between the first and the second floor. The saturated, blue magic power from the first floor rushed into the empty second floor through this passage.

And around the same time, unseen to the naked eye, extensive amounts of undead elements converged towards Sihe University from its surroundings. They entered Xia Yan’s head and transformed into magic power before getting stored in the magic tower!

“Damn it! Why did the connection break?” Inside another dorm room on the same floor, a boy was playing games all night without sleeping. The character he was playing in the intensive battle game on the laptop stopped running suddenly, and a string of red characters saying, ‘Connection Lost,’ appeared! He roared in a gloomy rage and immediately got beaten up by his roommates, who had woken up because of his scream.

“Baby, I miss you so much. I’ll book a room and wait for you tonight, remember to wear the… Oioioi, bloody hell! What happened to the signal?!”

☠☠☠

Xia Yan absorbed the undead elements crazily. With him as the center, all undead elements in and around Sihe University over a range of 500 m got pulled over and poured into his head, turning into his magic reserves.

The intense energy fluctuations had disturbed the EM waves, Wi-Fi, and Internet signals… They had even changed the magnetic field slightly. This caused all the compass inside this range to go haywire, and the mechanical watches had stopped turning too. Fortunately, most people were fast asleep, or else this matter would have given rise to a commotion.

Only the night owls who played games all night got affected, and even they didn’t think much of it.

In the girls’ dorm, a pair of long eyelashes trembled, followed by a set of alluring eyes opening wide. The owner of those eyes got down from the bed and stood at the balcony to look above. Amazement colored her beautiful face as she whispered to herself. “Someone is drawing a force of the world! This force is so strange… It seems like an unknown power. Just who is behind it?”

At the west of the city, in Qingyang Palace, an old Daoist wearing a tank top and shorts, paired with slippers and a mouth full of foam from toothpaste, gazed towards Sihe University and seemed to mumble an esoteric Daoist scripture. But if you were closer to him, you could hear him grumbling, “Since when does Chengdu have such a person? They can actually draw the force of the world, and even I have never seen this power before. Could it be that a Grandmaster has appeared in this age and created a new path of cultivation?”

He stroked his goatee while talking to himself, “That place is in the same direction as Jiuyan Bridge, which is near Sihe University. Perhaps the person behind this event isn’t a student? Did someone from the bars there become an expert? This won’t do. I have to go visit each bar tonight to find out the cause. The hands of those lassies from last time were so soft. If I run into them again this time, I’ll do fortune-telling and also perform a blessing for them…”

The old Daoist’s eyes turned brighter, and his thoughts wandered off.

At Manjushri street, inside a small Fengshui articles store, a seventeen-year-old youth caressed the wooden medal on his chest while pensively gazing towards Sihe University.

☠☠☠

At this moment, a lot of eyes from all corners of Chengdu were gazing towards Sihe University. These people who engaged in different trades while hiding among ordinary people were now all alarmed by the abnormal fluctuations of a world’s force.

Xia Yan had no clue about all this. Although Sihe University had many ghost stories, there wasn’t much undead element here. In just two minutes, the free undead element in this place had all turned into his magic reserves. The magic power on the second floor was a tenth filled now.

Filling a tenth in one session didn’t mean meditating ten times would fill the entire second floor. This was only because he had made a breakthrough. With each successive session, he would absorb higher amounts of the undead element. Also, Xia Yan’s spirit power wasn’t strong enough. He had just constructed the second floor of the magic tower, so it had a finite endurance for now. He would have to continue meditating unceasingly to strengthen it and make it more stable. Only then would his magic reserves increase, and this was a lengthy process. It wasn’t something someone could accomplish in a single night.

Therefore, Xia Yan felt as tired as an overworked dog, and the only difference was that he hadn’t stuck his tongue out.

“Fu•k! The concept of an unstable realm in the cultivation s really makes sense now. I better refrain from converting undead elements into magic power before I reinforce the magic tower. Or else, if the magic tower wasn’t able to endure it and collapses, I will find myself in dire straits!”

Xia Yan rested on the bed, unable to even move a finger. Soon after, he went into a deep sleep, and if it weren’t for the military training today, he would have perhaps slept through the entire day.