"You?!" Lee’s shout confused Xiao Lian and Qin Yujian, but the new guest had similar reaction to his.
"You?!" Kael Ardent said, not shouting out loud, though.
"Little Kai, you know each other?" Xiao Lian asked, seeing the reaction.
"Who do you think sent the kid here?" Kael Ardent, the elder of the Primordial Fla sect, said, "Want to send him back to the Celestial Abyss? Is it really worth a favor from a spatial elental lord?"
"No. And yes, it’s worth." Xiao Lian calmly said, while Lee was trying to process the implications, "I need you to send Lee to this world."
He passed a piece of paper to Elder Ardent, who inspected it with furrowed brows.
"I don’t know the place, but I can try. No guarantees, though." He said. Then he looked at Lee, and added, "Lee, huh? I thought you were Armand or sothing. Patriarch Xiao, I hope you weren’t hoodwinked by this kid. He’s quite devious and full of shit."
"And you’re full of spatial elental particles." Lee said, "I have here two spatial bags? Interested?"
Seeing Elder Ardent’s eyebrows rise, he said, "You’ll still owe the Patriarch a favor, but for your services you can keep these two spatial bags with anything inside."
While anyone else in this world would find it difficult to sell the treasures he owed, including the two conspicuous bags, this guy had the rare ability to go anywhere he wanted. He could sell or exchange them for any other artifacts and use them freely after coming back.
"Interesting." Elder Ardent said, "I’ll still need a couple of spatial sparks to open the rift. I’m not as strong as Qu Zhenhai."
"I know, little Kai. Here." Xiao Lian said, and two wooden boxes appeared in his hands.
"Are you sure you want to waste these?" Elder Ardent asked after glancing inside of the boxes.
"It’s not a waste." Xiao Lian shook his head. Then he turned to Lee, and said, "Co back after you deal with your situation, I’ll teach you how to craft real artifacts. If you ... if you fail, co find after ... you know ..."
"Alright!" Lee said, "But regarding the last part I’ve no clue when or where I land."
"Alright!" Xiao Lian said with a clap of his hands, "We’re done. Real n don’t say goodbyes!"
Lee’s eyes widened hearing it. Those were the exact words he said in the Nethermoon sect when he parted with Xiao Lian, and for so reason they ward and pained him at the sa ti.
Neither knew if they would ever et again, but their seemingly short friendship, short at first, sohow survived more than six centuries. Was this what Alan ant when schooling Lee about the lack of friends in Sunwell?
***
Kael Ardent might’ve been the elder of the Primordial Fla sect, but he beca elental lord only recently. Thus, he didn’t have sufficient elental energy to open a rift to another world, one he had never visited.
He sat down in the middle of the dining room, holding a spatial spark in each hand, and seemingly frozen in ti. The other three people present patiently waited and observed him in silence.
The first ti Lee t Elder Ardent, he opened the rift without much effort. But Lee’s guess was that it was because the guy knew the world well, or maybe it wasn’t that hard to open a rift in the sa world in the first place.
What he didn’t know was that Elder Ardent was currently focused on finding Droskar Dominion, the place he was supposed to open the rift to. He had opened rifts to few minor worlds before and was exhausted in the process every ti.
Now Xiao Lian provided him with two spatial sparks of rather high quality to support the expenditure of elental particles, but it was clearly a waste. Spatial beasts were already too scarce and the ones who had ignited sparks were even rarer, and unbelievably hard to hunt.
As the result, spatial sparks were much more expensive in comparison to the sparks of fire or water, to not speak – earth. There were even elite hunter squads who specialized hunting spatial beasts across worlds, providing resources for artificers like Xiao Lian to craft spatial artifacts.
When the rift opened, Lee imdiately stepped towards it. He waved at Xiao Lian, but then turned to Qin Yujian, and said, "Good call getting rid of those braids. You looked ridiculous with four of them at once!"
Then, loudly laughing, he rushed through and disappeared.
"Damn it!" Qin Yujian cursed.
She arrived at the spot Lee was just at, and her sword missed his butt by a hair’s width. Obviously she didn’t intend to cut him, but smack with the flat side of her weapon.
Elder Ardent, exhausted and covered in perspiration stared at her in confusion, but Xiao Lian shook his head, inwardly laughing. He couldn’t afford to tease her like that.
"Thank you, little Kai!" He said, "I’ll order the kitchen to make you so food, you can rest for the night here."
"Patriarch Xiao, stop calling little Kai! I’m elder of the Primordial Fla sect, Keal Ardent!" Elder Ardent suddenly blew up.
"You’re na is Xiao Kai! I don’t care elder of which sect you beca, you’ll always be a mber of Xiao clan! And stop calling patriarch! Call Grandpa Lian!" Xiao Lian sternly reprimanded.
"In your dreams, old man! You’re like my grand, grand, grand who knows what level grandfather. It’s so far no one cares!" Elder Ardent said, jumping to his feet.
He angrily stared at Xiao Lian, gave a snort that sowhat resembled bye! and vanished through a rift that he suddenly opened.
"Again?" Qin Yujian asked, sending a blaming look Xiao Lian’s way, "Can’t you not torture the child every ti you et him?"
"It just makes mad he uses the stupid na." Xiao Lian sighed, grabbed a glass and emptied it. Then he grinned at his wife, and said, "But he’ll make a fine patriarch!"
***
"Bastard! He’s doing it on purpose!" Lee loudly cursed after falling into a quagmire, and sinking neck-deep in an instant. To prank soone by throwing in a cool lake was one thing, but this place actually stunk!
GRROOAAGHH!
Right next to him, the sludge exploded upwards. A teeth-filled maw burst out from the muck, loudly roaring, wide enough to bite a carriage in halves, much less a small human like him.
Without a second thought Soulcleaver appeared in Lee’s hand, and he slashed at the beast. His motion turned out to be slow and clumsy, but was enough to cut the lower jaw in halves.
The next mont he regretted it, though. From pain the beast howled and wildly trashed around, nearly crushing Lee to death beneath it’s heavy carapace. Fortunately, the creature’s struggle pushed Lee towards a low hanging branch, and he managed to grab it and pull himself out while the beast wrecked chaos below.
After throwing a quick glance around, Lee realized that Elder Ardent wasn’t as cruel as he initially thought – he only dumped him in the quagmire at the very edge of a swamp. Unfortunately, no one expected for a monster to slumber beneath the sludge.
’Too bad I already had dinner!’ Lee said to himself and jumped down, on the back of the beast.
He landed on it’s carapace, but Soulcleaver had already sunk deeply under it’s skull. He didn’t intend to be as arrogant as the previous sword’s owner. It was a moronic concept of thinking soone was or wasn’t worthy of dying from a weapon.
Weapons don’t kill – people do. Any sane person knew that weapons are only tools, and this tool was exceptional. Its only downside was that Lee couldn’t infuse it with any of his three elents, but he didn’t need to – Soulcleaver could cut through anything on its own.
The beast died within monts and Lee jumped to solid ground three yards away, while the beast’s body slowly sank back in the quagmire. His arrival to Droskar Dominion turned out flashier than he expected, but the main problem was – he had to find a place he could wash up without getting attacked by wildlife.
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