13

Before Hong began his journey, Nei Li left home, to the sacred marks family only to meet the decon Yun Hua, a member of the dark guild attacking his family along with a few silver rank spiritualists. Thankfully, he managed to fend them off thanks to the shadow devil spirit, he had integrated . But this caused director Yang Xin move into the sacred marks family along with a few experts from the alchemist association to ensure the safety of their young benefactor.

Nei Li being a regressor knew a lot of alchemical techniques and recipes, from which he shares a few to gain the support of the alchemy guild. This also allowed him to acquire a special treasure called nightmare demon pot, that allowed him to fuse demon spirits to create better ones. Where he ended up creating a mutated fanged panda for himself,and a snow queen for Ye Ziyun, lightning sparrow for Xiao Ning'er, abyss tiger for Du Ze, scarlet flaming leopard for Lu Piao and few other special mutated and stronger demon spirits for his friends.

And to his suprise, he came head to head with both the girls when he was going to the arena.

" good morning ," Nei Li greeted them both as did the patriach and the elder of the Heavenly marks family to which they both responded in kind.

"So what brings you two here, ?" Nei li asked striking up a conversation.

"We are going to the fighter arena, "

"Oh, we're going there too."

The two elders followed the Nei Li dumbfounded , about the connections the kid had made within the year he was at the holy orchid acadamy.

They arrived at the arena, meeting their mutual allies, the alchemy guild much to their pleasure and engaged in pleasant conversation amongst themselves, at least till Shen Ming , the elder of the Sacred family arrived with Shen Yue, Shen Fei and two other members of the sacred arrived completely souring the mood among the allies.

"Director Yang Xin ,it's a pleasure to meet you" Shen Ming began moving towards her hoping to gain a few connections with the alchemist guild, unaware that she knew their connection with the dark guild.

Shen Yue, who was following the elder suddenly scrunched his face in anger after looking at a direction, noticing this, Shen Fei too turned to look at the direction only to feel his own face morph into a glare. Above them , Nei Li and Xiao Ning'er, two people who had humiliated their family were talking with Ye Ziyun, the daughter of the city lord in a chummy manner.

Feeling the intense gazes , both Nei Li and Xiao Ning'er turned their heads to see the two young masters of the sacred family staring intently at them.

"Little Shen Yue, how have you been since I fought you last time? "

Nei Li asked in a slightly loud voice that caught the attention of the three parties gathered .

Yang Xin wasn't suprised to hear that Nei Li had fought Shen Yue, but continued to play along with him."wait , you two fought before?"

"Yeah, but it can't be called an actual fight, since he ganged up on me with few lackeys and still managed to run away while wetting his pants!"

Shen Yue grew red in anger and embarrassment while the people around chuckled . Shen Ming and Shen Fei too looked at shen Yue, who quickly turned away avoiding their gaze.

"How about we fight today?" Nei Li proposed suddenly, drawing the attention back to himself. He had a massive grudge against the sacred family that was from his past life. And he wanted to use the fighter arena to humiliate their family and incur a few losses for them.

But before Shen Yue could agree, elder Shen Ming interjected." Since you could beat Shen Yue back then , don't you think fighting him now will be bullying the weak?"

Shen Yue, appaled by this turned towards his Elder, but a death glare made him shut up for good. Then Shen Ming turned back and pointed at Shen Ning. "Why don't we have a fight Shen Ning?"

Nei Li looked at the trio of spiritualists before making a bet "How about this then, I'll fight all three of them,. One after another and every time I win elder Ming will lose an additional hundred million demon spirit coins? "

"And if you loose?"

"Then we will give elder Shen Ming six hundred million demon spirit coins, what say you, elder Ming?"

Shen Ming began thinking, if they loose. They will loose the money they had put aside to buy pills for the younger generation, but if they win , then he would recive twice of what have.

Looking at Shen Ming teetering on the edge of making a decision, Ni Li decided to give the final push.

"Come on Elder Ming, is your faith in the younger generation not worth even 150 million demons spirit coins."

Needless to say elder Shen Ming got caught up in the scheme like a fish swallowing a bait. And so the matches were decided.

First Xiao Ning'er would fight against Shen Fei, followed by nearly fighting against Shen Ning and Shen Xiao. The first match was entirely the fault of Shen Fei's big mouth.

Shen Fei , noticing the lack of Hong's presence around Xiao Ning'er , began making advances towards her while the adults were talking, and tried to threaten her by using his family's Influence which resulted in a quick punch to his jaw and a challenge. Elder Shen Ming felt like crying after seeing the young masters ruining his chances in building relationships. The brat Shen Yue tried bullying Nei Li in the past, which put them out of the alchemist guild and now Shen Fei completely ruined their chances at reconciling with the winged dragon family.

The first match began and ended within minutes as Xiao Ning'er showed no mercy and used the warping touch to temporarily maim her self declared ex fiance before he could even fuse with his demon spirit.

And only after elder Shen Ming begged her to reverse the effects did she complied and straightened out the warped and twisted limbs of Shen Fei .

Warping touch is a technique to provide from the manhwa called memoir of the God of War. It uses small electric pulses that were emitted from the hands to interrupt internal electrical signals provided to the muscles, and cause them to spasm and bend in unnatural ways, resulting in bent and warped body parts. The only way to get rid of the effects of warping touch is to learn the technique himself.

Of course the ever ungrateful and back stabbing insidious Shen Fei fused with his demon spirit the moment he was straightened out and tried to attack Xiao Ning'er with the fire of the black gold ranked demon spirit. But that only resulted in Shen Fei being electrocuted for three minutes straight with her cyan lightning, which was the result of her fusing with a lightning attribute demon spirit.

And by the time she left the arena, the man known as Shen Fei was no more. In his place there was only a charred body of a barely alive man who used to be the playboy of the sacred family.

Loud cheers echoed throughout the arena as many people who bet against Shen Fei out of spite saw the abominable excuse of a man getting what he truly deserved. Even a few people who had bet against Xiao Ning'er cheered after seeing the unsportsman like behaviour displayed by Shen Fei.

Even Yang Xin and Nei Li were suprised by the brutal manner , the usually kind and refined lady of the winged dragon family, utterly destroyed Shen Fei.

Putting the thought of learning the technique used by Xiao Ning'er to the back of his mind, Nei Li entered the arena next, followed by Shen Ning.

"Hello my name.." Nei Li was cut off mid greeting as Shen Ning fused with his gold ranked demon spirit, the scarlet sacred bear. A pure fire attributed bear like demon beast , that has a robust and agile body with the ability of pyrokenisis.

A fire storm spread around covering the vision of the spectators as the silhouette of a burning bear formed temporarily above Shen Ning. Grey fur covered Shen Ning and his body and face morphed slightly into a bear like shape, bulking him up with muscles that didn't exist before.

"So damn rude" Nei Li whispered before merging with his own demon spirit.

"Is that a fanged panda? Hahahaha, there are actual people who use that demon spirit?" A mocking laughter resounded from the viewing area gaining the attention of many.

Even director Yang Xin looked at the Nei Hai with question, but they didn't know that the fanged panda demon spirit used by Nei Li was special.

Shen Ning was the first to attack. Flames ignited under his soles before launching him fast forward towords Nei Li. He cooked his arm back gathering fire attributed energy into a gauntlet of flames around it before swinging it towords Nei Li with all his might. But to the surprise of many including Shen Ning, Nei Li dodged before running around him. And so began the cat and mouse chase as Nei Li used the superior agility to run around the arena trying to dodge the fireballs and other attacks thrown by Shen Ning. Infuriated Shen Ning jumped up before throwing multitude of fireballs which converged towards the running Nei Li ,trapping before exploding upon impacting the target. Seeing this tactic work, Shen Ning jumped even higher , almost above the roof of the arena before fully cloaking himself in a fire storm. Then bringing his hands together ,he lift them overhead, increasing his speed of fall with even more fire in the classic Hulk smash pose.

Nei Li , upon seeing the falling meteor of flames, ran around while muttering "gonna die, gonna die.. " continuously under his breath. But unknown to all. it was just a hoax. Just as Shen Ning was about to fall on to him, Nei Li turned around activating the gravity field, an ability unique to fanged panda demon spirit possessed by Nei Li, which created a field of higher gravity around him. Caught by the strong gravitational field, Shen Ning could do nothing as he fell with great momentum towards the ground of the arena.

A cloud of dust rose upon impact completely shielding them both from the view of vision of the spectators. And as the dust settled the Shen Ning was seen lying in the classic yamcha pose after he was exploded by a saibamen in a large indent on the ground, while Nei Li stood nearby, wearing tattered robes sporting a victorious smile.

The Next fight started shortly ,the fight between Nei Li and gold ranked spiritualist Shen Xiao. This time Nei Li didn't hold back or play around like before and used full power from the start. They engaged in close quarter combat and used the special abilities of their demon spirits continuously through out the fight dealing massive damages to the arena floor.

The fight ended soon after both of them used their finishing moves. Nei Li used the yin-yang blast, while Shen Xiao used a fire breath in mid air. The result as expected ended up with Nei Li as the winner.

After his fights ended Nei Li went to meet Xiao Ning'er.

"how did you do that to Shen Fei before? Is it a special martial art or technique Hong taught you? Do you think you can teach that to me ?"

Nei Li questioned Xiao Ning'er. He had seen the effectiveness of the technique first hand and he wanted to know the principle upon which it worked. Faced with the barrage of questions, Xiao Ning'er replied" yes it is a martial art taught to me by Hong along with eight other techniques, and I wasn't given the permission to teach it to others, because my mastery of the techniques are still low."

"wait!" Surprised to hear that name, director Yang Xin questioned " wait! you know little Hong? black hair and eyes,carry a sword around and talks about martial arts?"

" Yes" they both replied along with Ye Ziyun. And after explaining their relationship with Hong, Yang Xin let out a small sigh.

Her first meeting with Hong had occurred years ago, when she was just beginning work at the alchemist guild as an apprentice. At that time a small boy of about five or six years old had come to visit her with the purpose of acquiring herbs and elixirs. That was a time when she was feeling insecure due to all the rumours flying around questioning her abilities but thanks to engaging in conversations and every time they met ,she was able to take her mind off such menial problems. After some years, he came up with his ideas about martial arts but she had shown her disdain, at that time she had grown a little arrogant with her continious sucess and her cultivation speed, and it was only after some years did she come to understand what she had done , but by then it was already too late. Since that day Hong never came back to the Alchemist guild,not even to buy elixirs or herbs.

"How do martial arts work "Nei Li asked curious how simple movements could contain power surpassing the realms. "well according to his theory, he uses the flow of energy inside the body and special movements to influence energy residing within and outside the body to perform phenomenons. It technically uses outside physical laws to enhance the destructive capabilities of the fighting techniques movement of energy by following laws of nature."

Nei li was suprised with this revelation. There were techniques that borrowed power of the nature without demon spirits, but those arts were rare and cumbersome to use, not to mention the effort needed to create such techniques were phenominal. But a five year old boy had understood this concept and created body techniques that make the externally existing energy follow him. He had basically created skills unique to the human race that can be used without the use of demon spirits.

"Anyway, do you know where he is now ?"Yang Xin asked hoping to meet up with him, but was disappointed when she received the answered from Xiao Ning'er "he left a few days ago to the outside looking for some herbs , he was talking about looking for a special herb for days till he left"

"That's too bad, did he give you any instructions before he left"

" yes ,he told me to cultivate in the heavenly sacred border. Apparently it's a place where the only the top geniuses of the academy go to increase their soul realm ."

"oh I was thinking of going there too" said Nei Li ,which was echoed by Ye Ziyun. Then the three young spiritualists went off to the academy leaving behind leaving behind confused elders, patriarchs and directors.