Chapter 30

Chapter 30: An Unexpected Blessing

The dark night sky had no stars. There was only the bright moon hanging high in the sky, as well as hazy clouds occasionally drifting across.

Strong winds howled, but they didn’t affect the rays of moonlight, which poured down onto the world like flowing water.

Some rays fell into Xu Qing’s courtyard in the scavenger camp, illuminating two figures in front of his house.

The purple-robed Seventh Master stood there with his hands behind his back for a long time. Under the moonlight, his aged face seemed to be pondering something, although it was unknown what he was thinking.

The servant beside him waited silently, not disturbing his master.

As for the wild dogs laying around, they didn’t notice anything abnormal. It seemed like these two people couldn’t even be perceived.

The surroundings were very quiet. Only the shouts and laughter from the camp’s outer ring could be heard faintly in the distance.

And after the young man in the room muttered those two sentences, he also fell silent. The only sound in the room was that of his faint breathing.

After an incense stick’s worth of time passed, Seventh Master sighed softly. Instead of pushing the door open, he turned around and walked away.

“Give him a token.” Seventh Master walked to the courtyard gate and spoke in a low voice.

"What color?" the servant asked.

"The most common one, and you don't need to say anything extra to him." Seventh Master exited through the courtyard gate and gradually walked away.

The servant’s eyes narrowed. These instructions set off waves in his heart.

During the recent days when he was following Seventh Master around in the camp, he saw Seventh Master take note of this Kid several times.

Afterward, when Seventh Master met with Grandmaster Bai, he also mentioned this kid. All of this made the servant assume that Seventh Master wanted to grant the kid an opportunity, so he asked Seventh Master if he wanted to give him a token.

The token he spoke of was the entrance qualification of Seven Blood Pupils. Only those who had a token could participate in the assessment. If they succeeded, they could enter the sect as a disciple at the foot of the mountain.

These tokens were divided into different colors. The purple token was the rarest and those who got one would become core disciples. The yellow token was in the middle and could qualify an inner disciple. The white token was the most common and could only recommend an ordinary disciple.

According to the servant’s personal analysis, Seventh Master should have given at least a yellow token. However, he only offered a white one, and… he also reminded the servant not to say anything extra.

This abnormal event made the servant furrow his brows in thought. His heart couldn’t help beating a few times faster.

“There is only one answer. Seventh Master is attaching great importance to this child. Not only does he want him to join the sect, he also has the intention of… taking him in as a disciple? He plans to inspect him like this? The first three highnesses were all like this in the beginning as well. Could it be that in our Seventh Peak, there’s going to be a fourth direct disciple?”

The servant was deeply aware of the weight of the words ‘direct disciple’. It could be said that once someone became the direct disciple of Seventh Master, that person would instantly attract the attention of the various forces of South Phoenix Continent.

However, he felt that the probability of this matter wasn’t very high. After all, Seventh Master hadn’t taken in direct disciples for a long time.

But no matter what, he needed to keep an eye on this kid. Thinking of this, the servant took a deep breath to collect his thoughts before slowly knocking on Xu Qing’s door.

When the knocking noises entered the room, the sound of Xu Qing’s breathing abruptly disappeared.

The corner of the servant’s mouth quirked up in a smile. The next moment, his body blurred and disappeared, and when he reappeared, he was behind the house!

In a corner behind the house, there was actually a hole. This hole was well-hidden and covered by bricks, and it seemed that it had existed for a while.

Just then, Xu Qing’s figure crawled out of the hole, about to circle around to see the person who knocked on the door. But the next moment, the servant appeared, and Xu Qing suddenly froze.

Seeing this figure suddenly appear in front of him, Xu Qing’s pupils contracted, and his heart sank.

The person in front of him was a middle-aged man dressed in a gray robe. His face was very ordinary, but there was an eye-catching star in the center of his eyebrows that was currently emitting a faint light. It even seemed to affect and distort the surrounding moonlight.

This middle-aged man gave off an immense pressure, causing Xu Qing’s breathing to hasten. He gripped the iron skewer tighter in his right hand, and his left hand grabbed a handful of poison powder.

This person’s sudden appearance was too strange, and he gave off an aura that far surpassed the little girl’s brother that Xu Qing had seen a few days ago.

In particular, the other party’s gaze made all the flesh and blood in Xu Qing’s body tremble, as if shouting at him that this person was extremely dangerous!

This made Xu Qing’s gaze fill with extreme vigilance. The trembling of his flesh and blood was not only to signal danger, but also to prepare his body to immediately take any action.

Xu Qing had already mentally simulated what he would do if he ran into danger in his residence. In his simulations, the most dangerous situation was one like this, where the wild dogs didn’t even notice anything.

At that moment, Xu Qing's eyes narrowed, and he started to back away slowly.

“I have no malicious intentions.” Looking at the kid in front of him who had turned into a young wolf on the verge of attack, the servant smiled.

He glanced at the hole in the wall behind Xu Qing, thinking that this must be an escape route the kid had prepared to avoid danger in his residence.

“Decisively making use of his preparations immediately, and he doesn’t panic when faced with a sudden change in the situation, instead waiting for an opportunity to strike back… It’s no wonder Seventh Master values this child.”

The servant recalled the scenes from when Xu Qing cut Horse Four’s neck and killed Fat Mountain. With appreciation in his eyes, he pulled out a white token and threw it to Xu Qing.

Xu Qing didn’t catch it. He instantly jumped backwards in retreat and threw his poison powder. Two coldly gleaming daggers were also flung out along with the poison powder and shot toward the servant.

But the next moment, Xu Qing’s eyes widened suddenly. He saw his daggers penetrate the gray-robed man’s body and nail themselves to the wall behind, but the other party seemed to be insubstantial, as if the daggers had passed through thin air.

The same was true for the poison powder. It passed through the gray-robed man’s body and spilled all over the ground.

This scene made Xu Qing’s nerves tense up instantly, and he took a deep breath, about to run away.

The gray-robed man smiled, and his figure slowly disappeared in front of Xu Qing’s eyes.

First his legs, then his body, and when his head was about to disappear, his voice rang out.

“Kid, someone tasked me with giving you that token. It’s the entrance qualification for Seven Blood Pupils. Check the map on the back; if you go to any of the marked branch cities with the token, you can teleport to the sect's mountain foot for free a single time.”

As these words rang out, the servant’s figure completely disappeared, as if he had never been there in the first place. Xu Qing stood there silently for a long time.

He could sense the gray-robed man’s strangeness, and he also felt the helplessness of the weak.

After a while, Xu Qing walked over silently, pulling his daggers out of the wall before looking down at the token on the ground.

The white token, facing upwards, was engraved with complex patterns. Under the moonlight, it seemed to carry an ancient aura.

Xu Qing thought it over and carefully adjusted his gloves before picking it up to inspect it.

On the back of the token was a map with hundreds of densely packed dots, marking one city after another.

"Seven Blood Pupils..." Xu Qing murmured.

He had heard about Seven Blood Pupils from Captain Thunder. It was one of the mightiest forces in South Phoenix, and countless people tried to join the sect every year.

But entering Seven Blood Pupils was very difficult. Only those with entry tokens were allowed to attempt the entrance assessment, but the issuance of these tokens was extremely rare.

Xu Qing didn’t know why he received one. He didn’t know the gray-robed man, and he didn’t even know if the token was authentic.

But after thinking about it, he felt that the gray-robed man was so strong that there was no point in messing with a weakling like Xu Qing. Thus, there was a high probability that the token was real.

“Why did he give it to me?” Xu Qing couldn’t understand, but he recalled how the gray-robed man referred to him.

The word ‘Kid’ had multiple meanings. It could refer to a broad category, but it could also refer to someone specific.

And in this scavenger camp, the name Kid exclusively belonged to Xu Qing.

Being able to call out the name he used in the scavenger camp showed that the other party knew him well.

Moreover, the other party had mentioned that he was tasked with giving Xu Qing a token. This meant that gray-robe had a companion, and this companion had a much higher status.

"Could it be Grandmaster Bai?" Xu Qing lowered his head and inspected the token. After a while, he put it away hesitantly.

The sky was brightening, so Xu Qing plugged the hole in the wall back up with bricks. After ensuring that it looked as usual, he fed the wild dogs in the courtyard.

Although these guys hadn’t been helpful at all, feeding them had become a habit after taking care of them for so long.

Watching the dozens of wild dogs scrambling for the food, Xu Qing started moving to go to class. After walking a few steps, he stopped and sat down silently in the courtyard.

"This is also a habit..." Xu Qing muttered. He sat there until the sky was fully bright before standing up. Then he left the courtyard and walked out into the camp.

Xu Qing was very familiar with the camp, but today, it felt a little strange. Cross and Luan Ya also hadn’t returned for a long time. As he walked, Xu Qing suddenly missed his medicine house in the valley.

Although it was in the forbidden area where perils were everywhere, he still missed it very much.

At the same time, Xu Qing also needed to research the White Pill, so he took a deep breath and was about to head over to the forbidden area. However, before he could leave the camp, someone called out from behind him.

"Kid, Kid."

This voice sounded familiar. Xu Qing turned around to see an old man with white hair running toward him.

This person was an elderly scavenger from the camp.

No one knew his real name. Everyone just called him Old Stone, and he was one of the several scavengers Xu Qing rescued back then when he carried Captain Thunder on his back.

Later, just like Bone Blade, Old Stone often came to Xu Qing to buy insurance.

“Hey, Kid, I found a big job!” Old Stone said excitedly.

Listening to the other party speak, Xu Qing quickly understood.

Old Stone had managed to get those arrogant young men and women from the convoy that arrived a while ago to hire him as a guide. They were going to go to the temple complex outside the depths of the forbidden area.

Thus, he came to find Xu Qing and buy insurance.

“Five White Pills, as usual. Kid, if I don’t come back after a week, please come to the temple complex and save me.” Old Stone said with a smile.

"One week?" Xu Qing was a little surprised.

“That’s right, this group of pampered young masters from Purple Earth insists on staying there for a week. The reward is very generous, so these old bones are going to risk it all. Once this is done, I plan to retire and live out my old age.”

Old Stone sighed. As a veteran scavenger, he knew very well that staying in the forbidden area for a week would be very dangerous. Not only would he have to worry about external risks, the risk of mutation from excess heterogeneity would also rise exponentially. However, the reward was too much to resist. It was enough for him to buy a residence qualification in a nearby city, so he prepared enough White Pills and was willing to risk it.

Xu Qing frowned slightly. Now that he was preparing to study the White Pill formula, he didn’t really want to continue doing this kind of thing.

Thus, he was about to refuse, but looking at Old Stone’s white hair and expectant expression, Xu Qing couldn't help but think of Captain Thunder. After being silent for a while, he nodded.

“This is the last time.”

After speaking, he accepted the White Pills and Old Stone’s thanks, walked out of the camp, and headed straight for the forbidden area.

At this moment, inside the forbidden area, the bewilderment fog appeared. It covered a large area, spreading out across the surroundings...

Outside the range of the fog, near the forbidden area’s poison dragon pond, a scavenger was hiding in a tree with a frightened face and trembling body.

Around the pond, four figures were searching with cold eyes.

“There’s fog! As long as I persist, Kid will definitely come and save me!” The person hiding in the tree was none other than the one who bought insurance from Xu Qing so many times, Bone Blade!

...

"There’s fog."

The moment Xu Qing entered the forbidden area jungle, he paused.

He felt fluctuations from his shadow. Every time this happened, it meant that the bewilderment fog was going to appear.

Even without the shadow, as long as he looked carefully, he could see traces of very thin fog in the jungle.

Xu Qing hesitated, but after thinking about it, he still chose to continue into the jungle.

On the one hand, he needed to go to the medicine house in the valley, and on the other, although the shadow couldn’t help him for too long, it was more than enough to get him to the valley.

And despite the danger of the bewilderment fog, it actually blinded the beasts as well, so to a certain extent, the jungle could even be said to be safer than normal.

But that was only as long as you didn’t get lost and didn’t have to worry about heterogeneity.

Xu Qing sped up and quickly dashed through the jungle.

Two hours later, as the fog grew thicker, Xu Qing stopped and arrived at the mud with the night lizard skin.

He stood on a big tree next to him, looking to the north.

“Over there is the poison dragon pond…” Scavengers had divided the jungle into several regions depending on the prominent landmarks, one of which was the poison dragon pond.

Xu Qing had heard the name of the poison dragon pond many times, mostly from Bone Blade. After all, the poison dragon pond was the rescue point designated by Bone Blade every time he bought insurance.

Bone Blade had bought insurance many times. Xu Qing had to think about it for a while before he recalled that Bone Blade seemed to have bought insurance two days ago.

Although the promised time hadn’t arrived, since the bewilderment fog had come and Xu Qing was nearby, he could go over to take a look.

Thus, Xu Qing jumped down from the treetop and went over to the poison dragon pond.

As he approached, Xu Qing narrowed his eyes. His expression revealed vigilance and his movements became more subtle.

He saw someone.

This person was wearing a black fur coat and had a hideous mask on his face. The sword in his hand gleamed with a cold light as he seemed to search for something.

Strong spiritual energy fluctuations rolled off his body, giving Xu Qing the feeling that he was on the same level as Blood Shadow Team’s Fire Crow from back then.

Xu Qing watched him for a while and nimbly avoided him, but not long later, he saw a second person. This person had the same attire and a similar cultivation level, making Xu Qing feel a little puzzled.

“They’re not scavengers.” Xu Qing became more cautious after thinking about it. After circling around the poison dragon pond once, he saw Bone Blade!

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