15 Gotcha Stupid Human!

"You will need to come out after a couple of days or you'll starve to death… there is nothing to eat in there other than a couple of beetles and a rabbit" reminded Yun Sutao to the black haired woman in front of him for the umpteenth time.

"You will feel a small strap when you enter, nothing too much painful" continued the same individual.

Two cold and dark eyes stared coldly at the bare chest youth. Winter Leaf didn't answer or even acknowledge the man before her at all, simply waiting motionlessly there.

"Y.. You… have some respect, White Hag!" called out Pinochio pointing a trembling finger at her.

The woman turned for a moment to look at the long-nosed slender youth behind Yun Sutao. There was a look of scorn and piety in her eyes, and she didn't even take the time to find a rebuke to the insult.

She sighed, shaking her head lightly and then pointing her hand towards the iron circle that Sutao kept in his palm. The moment she touched it, she felt a force pulling her towards the ring.

Winter Leaf didn't resist, even because the strength of the pull wasn't something she could oppose herself. Immediately, she vanished from the small opening under the shocked eyes of Ironboar and Pinochio.

They did expect that to happen, Yun Sutao had already explained to them how touching the ring would trigger the portal towards the immortal abode inside it. Yet, the scene they just assisted to was so out of the norm that they couldn't help themselves to feel quite astonished.

"She's inside" announced the young man with the ring in his palm. He closed his hand and then put the magic item inside his leather pouch again.

"I hope that was the correct choice to make" thought the man, still a bit concerned about giving someone else access to his precious energy pool.

"There wasn't any other possibility… I need their help to get inside again." He sadly shook his head, moving his eyes around the little clearing.

"You should both practice the Heavenly Battleground Technique, even if the speed will be very slow without the pool, you can still make some progress…" the continued, addressing the other two young men.

Heavenly Battleground Technique. This was the name of the inheritance he found in the cave the first time he went in. It was a method that absorbed any type of battleground-related energy and used it to create and strengthen a cultivation base.

Blood, death, ghosts, massacre, rage… there were countless descriptions of the what the cultivation method called " battleground energies".

The pool inside the ring was full of one of these battleground energies: ghost energy. Although the best place to cultivate the method was in an actual battle or shortly after one (as the cultivation manual said that fresh battleground energy was the best choice to cultivate the Heavenly Battleground Technique), the pool also worked extremely well.

Naturally one had to ignore that the ghosts inside the pool were mostly from innocent people, largely farmers from inland but also from some tribes of the extreme wilderness region.

When the others were told that they had to consume souls of murdered people to use the technique, they were completely disgusted by the idea, but in the end, they still decided to do it.

That simply showed how much was high their desire of becoming cultivators.

He then passed the technique to Ironboar, Pinochio and Winter Leaf and after they decided the order in which they were going to enter the Cave.

Winter Leaf insisted to go first, and no one really tried to change her mind: the first one to go in was the one that would shoulder the most danger.

"I hope she will make it" thought Yun Sutao. He hadn't chosen these people casually: they were the best of his generation. Well, Winter Leaf and Ironboar at least… Pinochio… well, he was a good friend. Maybe the only one he truly had left.

In the same time that the bare-chested young man was lost in his hopes, Winter Leaf appeared inside the Blue Cave.

She immediately felt on her knees and started vomiting, while panting heavily: each fiber of her body was pulsing with pain. The moment she touched that ring her whole body was compressed and then immediately after stretched by the dimensional portal.

"Fuck you Sutao… does this look like not much pain to you?" she angrily cursed the man that told her that the pain would be minimal.

However, she grew up in a wilderness tribe. She could put up with pain. Gritting her teeth, Winter Snow suffered in silence.

Her eyes scanned the place around her, wary. She was in what seemed to be a cave dug into some kind of blue rock. The whole place was full of shelves and books. In fact, the only other piece of furniture other than shelves was a large table.

In the exact opposite position from her, on the other end of the cave, there was a large white pool.

"That's the thing…" she immediately realized that it was the place full of energy that Suntao had described: water like milk, emanating a weird ghoulish intent in the air.

She started to get up on her feet, still looking around the cave with suspicion and curiosity.

"Didn't he say that there was a rabbit somewhere here?" thought the huntress looking around the seemingly void blue structure.

Suddenly, she felt a presence behind her. At first, she just imagined that it was the rabbit, but then her eyes narrowed as she sensed the same wicked killing intent that many predator beasts emanated while hunting.

Her training kicked in, and she immediately ignored the pain that she was in to jump back and take distance from whatever danger was aiming at her from behind. At the same time, she managed to turn in mid-air, facing the direction from which she sensed the nefarious gaze.

"What?"

While she was still hovering in the air, she noted that there was indeed something looking at her from behind. It was a snake. A very weird looking snake at that.

He was coiled around itself, hidden in the shadows under the portal. It was looking at her with a scornful gaze. Yes, scornful. She could feel the disdain coming from those violet eyes and that made a long frozen shiver run down her spine.

"Wait, I saw that somewhere before… isn't that the snake that Sun Leaf wanted us to capture for him?"

She remembered that the reptile attacked Third, one of the young tribe chief goons, and took his eye before running away.

"Evil creature, what are you doing here?" Said Winter Leaf taking out her spear and moving towards the snake.

The serpent seemed almost to smile at the gesture of the woman, making her having a very bad premonition. Her instincts told her that before her there was a mortal danger, but her rationale saw only a small black collar snake with strange violet eyes cowardly hidden in the shadows.

Suddenly, before the woman could decide what to do, the snake tapped gently on the ground with the tip of his tail.

Almost as only waiting for that signal, boundless silver light exploded from the floor of the cave, enveloping the now terrified woman.

"Arghh!"

The woman screamed her lungs out, trying to run away with all her strength. However, the silver light continued to emerge from the ground, revolving around her and binding her to the ground.

At first, she could still move, and she kept trying to force her way out from those wrappings of light that were sealing her. However, after a while, the sheer quantity of silver energy that was around her made it impossible for the woman to move even a muscle.

When Winter Leaf couldn't move anymore, the silver light started to penetrated her pelts and clothing, reaching her bronze skin and starting to form a faint image of a complex oval symbol under her left breast.

It was similar to those motifs that surrounded the portal, only way more simple. In the center of the oval, there was the small figure of a black snake.

The silver energy flowed continuously towards the marks, making them more and more concretes. At the same time, the pearly energy began to form a smaller patter even on the body of the little snake.

However, the energy that didn't come from the ground, like in the case of the silver light that was attacking Winter Leaf.

No, the energy that was drawing a symbol on the dark scales of the snake came directly from the huntress, forming a rope of some sorts between her and the reptile.

These procedures lasted for a while. Only after a couple of hours the light suddenly disappeared back into the floor, leaving behind an enfeebled Winter Leaf that could barely keep herself on her feet.

"Gotcha stupid human" grinned Darkscale, smiling deviously from his hiding place.