21 The Bend

Wei Gaoyuan was very poor in his childhood and couldn't fill his stomach most of the time. Therefore, he was never picky once got food. The left body of the giant snake lying on the ground did seemed horrible, but it was much better than the grass roots for food, even the dry food he carried was surely less delicious than snake meat.

He took the long sword and cut a large piece of dried meat from its body, then collected some tree branches and leaves to make a fire to grill it up. Before long, a fine smell of grilled meat came. He couldn't help but cut a small piece from the edge of grilled meat and sent it to his mouth before his face filled with a wonderful happiness. If only he could get a pot now, he thought, the soup of snake meat mustn't be less delicious than the grilled snake meat…

After a large piece of grilled meat was finished, Wei Gaoyuan stood up in a sheer satisfaction, reluctantly glanced at the remaining dried meat, not too much, of the giant snake then walked into the deep forest.

...

After searching for a few days, Wei Gaoyuan didn't find even one pine tree with pine crystal, what was worse, he got lost in this damn island which was surrounded by small trees, big trees, all trees without any other reference…

At the same time, a few of middle-aged men were tasting the wine and chatting with laugh.

"So anybody can tell how many people will pass this trial?"

"I would be very satisfied if my sect could finally select four or five qualified youngsters..."

"I agree; besides, I hope that at least two are selected into the inner section of my sect."

"It's not so easy to get into the inner sect, you know, extraordinary aptitude plus spiritual root… there are too few people in the mortal world who have spiritual roots."

"Even if without spiritual root, the future achievements would be tremendous for a common martial artist who get selected into the exterior section of the sect…what makes me more interested is… how many participants will be leaving the island alive…"

"As long as these little guys wouldn't enter into the deep region of the island, they will not put themselves in great danger..."

"What if someone just go into the deep region?"

"If? That's their choice, and they must take the results of the choice."

...

Wei Gaoyuan finally found a water source again after a long journey.

This was not a shallow stream but a large deep pool with a tremendous waterfall, more than one hundred feet high, which looked extremely spectacular from below.

Wei Gaoyuan went cautiously to the edge of the pool. Observing it carefully for a moment and finding no danger around, he leaned down to take a few gulps of water and filled his almost empty kettle. When he got up and was leaving a violent whirlpool appeared suddenly and was rolling in the water, and almost meanwhile a huge black jaws was shooting out from the whirlpool to bit his head.

Wei Gaoyuan reacted at a high speed, swiftly turning a few somersaults to the side on the ground and running away. The huge jaws missed, and didn't return but jumped out of the pool and continued to bite him.

"What the hell is the monster?!" Wei Gaoyuan looked back and was shocked by the huge bloody jaws full of sharp teeth like daggers. The opened huge mouth was one person high and the rear of it was connected with a common fish body which was not as big as half of the huge mouth.

Faced the weird jaws that continued biting him, he moved fast to dodge it and pulled out the sword to hack at the fish body at back.

Just a muffled sound came, the sword swept crossed the fish body, only leaving a slight shallow blood mark, far from being fatal.

Wei Gaoyuan was shocked by the hardness of its scale, not weaker than that of the previous spirit snake. Was this fish-like monster another Spirit Animal?

The monster's movement was still flexible and fast even off the water. However, as a warrior of eighth level of the Mystery, Wei Gaoyuan had been much powerful than before. Infusing much of his Internal Qi into the blade, he continuous dodge and slash it. After a while, there were several blood marks on the body of the monster.

Over time, the movement of the big jaws gradually became slower and slower due to the lack of oxygen for long and more and more injuries on its body. The monster was not stupid in that it was budging and retreating to the direction of the deep pool while in fight.

"Wanna escape now?" Wei Gaoyuan thought. If it chose to retreat at the beginning, he might let it go, but what he was thinking over now was how to cook it later…

In the end, the big jaws fell down on the ground less than a foot from the poll, whose body was almost separated from the huge head.

Wei Gaoyuan got close to broke the fish belly with the sword after it'd been lying motionless for a moment, and among the internal organs he found an Inner Essence with a soft white light.

"Sure enough, another Spirit Animal!" he was delighted in his heart.

After carefully putting the Inner Essence inside his pocket, he couldn't move his eyes from the body of the big spirit fish. Because of the taste of the grilled spirit snake meat, the dry food tasted no more delicious than wax.

He made the fire and cut down a few pieces of fish from its body, then strung them together with a stick and grilled it on the fire. When it was about to be charred outside and red and juicy within, he couldn't help but cut a small piece and sent it to his mouth. Soon his face filled with the joy of satisfaction — this fish was literally much more delicious than the previous snake meat.

He still didn't get satisfied after eating a few large pieces of fish, went to cut a few more pieces and grilled them over the fire. When he felt so full there left only a few fish bones in the whole fish belly.

In a thorough satisfaction, he lay on the ground looking up at the sky and soon fell asleep.

With time past little by little, Wei Gaoyuan, who was still in sleep, suddenly felt stirred up in heart with his face all red. He was turning over and over and seemed to be in much pain.

Less than half a hour, he opened his eyes, still a little unconscious. Full of pain on his face, he growled, "too hot!"

Somehow there seemed as if a fire had been burning in his abdominal cavity, and the hot energy it generated was not still but rampaging through his eight extraordinary meridians, which even produced smoke coming out of his throat.

Not far in front of him was the deep pool, he realized where he was and did not hesitate to rush to the poll and swallowed a few mouthfuls of water.

The cool water made the awfully hot feeling slightly relieved. However, that didn't last long before a nerve pain came again in the body. It seemed that a fierce flame was burning up his muscles and bones.

"Ahhh!!" Wei Gaoyuan couldn't help but make a roar and jumped right into the pool.

The cold feeling instantly replaced the heat. But it only lasted for a moment, then Wei Gaoyuan began to suffer from the odd feeling of ice and fire.

In such a pain, he even couldn't control himself but drink a few mouthfuls of water and sank slowly to the bottom of the pool. Soon realizing his sinking, Wei Gaoyuan tried hard in a panic to swim upwards. Only swimming up a few meters, he suddenly saw a big spirit fish swam very quickly towards him from a distance, which was bigger than the previous one. In an astonishment, he chose to turn around by instinct and swam down fast to the bottom of the pool, but how could he be faster than a spirit fish in the water?

Fortunately, the pool was not so deep as he assumed. Before the big spirit fish got close to him, he had touched the bottom of the pool. Resisting the great pain, he pulled out the long sword behind his back, clenched his teeth and got ready to bet his life on the desperate fight in water — to teach a fish to fight in water…

Just then a water flow rushed up from the bottom and almost overturned him. He glanced down and obtained a glimpse of the light in darkness.

There was a secret passage at the bottom of the pool!

It was approximately one meter wide, which was not much difficult for a person with a normal figure to enter in, though the spirit fish's skull was surely much bigger than it.

Without any hesitation, Wei Gaoyuan took the sword back in its sheath, got into the secret passage fast enough and swam forward with the stream.

The big fish slammed violently into the hole of the secret passage behind him again and again but could not get its head in. Wei Gaoyuan was kind of relieved but soon realized that the current situation actually didn't turn good as staying too long in water he would suffocate in spite of being an eighth level of the Mystery if this passage was too long.

Turning back now meant absolute death. He got no other option.

Wei Gaoyuan was swimming forward as fast as he could while felt his breath and hope fading away, little by little, with time passing…

Life was the roads in the mountains — what seemed like an end was very often just a bend.

Just on the verge of despair, he saw a glimmer of light ahead eventually…