Martial World

A dark wind howled through the boundless land. Lin Ming soon left the dizzying spatial transmission and found himself in the center of a vast wilderness, knee deep in grass. What surprised Lin Ming was that when they left it had been daytime, but here was a dark night, with a depressing gloom covering the world, hiding all light.

This pitch black environment immediately raised Lin Ming’s guard. He spread out his sense and didn’t discover any vicious beasts, only some other trial challengers that had come here with him and Xiao Moxian.

Because the Asura Road was far too long, it took an exorbitant amount of energy to open a transmission channel from the outer Asura Road to the inner Asura Road. Thus they would only start the transmission array once dozens of people had gathered.

The trial challengers that arrived here with Lin Ming rose up one after another. Without a word, many of them launched their movement techniques and flew away. Some people began discussing amongst themselves; they were clearly in groups and were discussing their next step after arriving here. The two that caught Lin Ming’s eye was a young-looking man and woman not too far away.

At this time, the man and woman had taken out a compass as if they were investigating something.

“Spiritas…”

Lin Ming’s eyebrows slightly arched up. The skin of these two shined with a faintly shimmering light; this was a sign of the soul race.

The body of the spiritas contained an extremely rich soul energy. If they didn’t deliberately conceal the light they emitted, they would glow extremely beautifully. In the dark of night, they would be like enchanting illusions.

This young spiritas pair had outstanding looks and their foundation was extremely solid. One could instantly sense they were geniuses amongst their generation.

However, their cultivation wasn’t too high. In Lin Ming’s opinion, their cultivation was just enough to enter the Great Desolate, but it seemed a bit forced for them to come to the inner Asura Road. This was true even if they could jump ranks to fight.

At this time, the compass in their hands lit up. The young man’s face brightened and he happily said with a sound transmission, “Big Sister, we’re in luck this time. It seems that we were right when we thought that the transmission array to the inner Asura Road would bring us to a random location. Fortunately for us, we didn’t land in some place with vicious beasts and our arrival area is also extremely safe and near Divine Rune City. If we hurry along we should be able to arrive in three days.”

From their words it was clear that these two spiritas youths were brother and sister. But at this moment, as the older sister heard her little brother speak, she humorlessly said, “What is so good about this place. Although we’re near Divine Rune City there is still a wild mountain range separating us. With our strength, wanting to travel through that mountain range will be too difficult, and if we must go around it that will make our journey far longer and we might also encounter other dangers…”

The young spiritas girl said, her eyebrows pressed together in a frown.

Their cultivation was indeed not high. Wanting to travel through the inner Asura Road was just barely manageable already.

As the two of them were speaking, most of the other martial artists had flown away. The only ones remaining were Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian, who had yet to leave.

The young spiritas girl looked over at Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian for a while. Then, the light in her eyes changed and she greeted them, “Hey there, how do you do.”

Lin Ming looked back at the young spiritas girl, nodding his head in response.

“Do you two not know where you want to go?” The trial challengers hadn’t stayed in this grasslands for a long time; those that knew where their destination was had already left, leaving only Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian idling about. From this, one could see that it was likely they were unfamiliar with the area and didn’t know where to go.

Lin Ming didn’t reply; this was considered his tacit agreement.

“May I ask, would you two like to accompany us to Divine Rune City? Divine Rune City is the largest city in the surrounding area, and in terms of influence even an Empyrean Holy Land is inferior to Divine Rune City! If you go to Divine Rune City, whether it is supplies or missions, it is a very good place to go.”

Divine Rune City?

Lin Ming’s thoughts stirred. Was this related to divine runic technique?

He remembered that just when he defeated Soulwhite and he was begging for his life, Soulwhite had said that he was skilled in alchemy and inscription so taking him in as a slave would be far more useful than killing him.

And in the Asura Road, a higher level inscription master wasn’t called an inscription master but a divine runic master.

In the Divine Realm that was ruled by humanity, when a martial artist reached an extremely high boundary, the inscription arts weren’t much useful to them anymore. But, this was different in the Asura Road. According to what Soulwhite had said, in the Asura Road, god runes and inscription could be combined together in a wondrous evolution, creating an entirely different form of inscription altogether. This was why divine runic masters and alchemists had an extremely high status in the Asura Road.

And, the best alchemists and divine runic masters in the Asura Road were all spiritas. This was because the spiritas all possessed a formidable soul force that made them perfectly suited to studying alchemy and divine runic technique. When this was combined with the long inheritance of the soul race, they were several times greater than all the other races in these two skills!

This Divine Rune City, with its name, was most likely related to this.

“Divine Rune City is a city of divine runic masters?” Lin Ming asked after thinking for a moment.

“That’s right. Several hundred million years ago, many top divine runic masters of the Asura Road gathered together to form a divine runic association. At the time, the city they chose as their headquarters was quite ordinary, but as time passed and they took in more and more divine runic masters, growing all the while, they slowly had martial artists from all over coming to them, seeking help. After that, the city eventually developed into the current Divine Rune City. Not only are there divine runic masters but also a massive number of alchemists, refiners, and top masters from all around. Me and my little brother came to the inner Asura Road in order to go to Divine Rune City and experience the divine runic technique there and also participate in an assessment or competition of the Divine Runic Masters Association. If we’re lucky, we might be able to apprentice ourselves to someone there…”

The young spiritas girl knew she was lacking in strength so she thought to join with others. And if she were to accompany others, it was best to form trust with them, thus she had told Lin Ming her goal in going to Divine Rune City. Lin Ming also understood why these two came to the inner Asura Road even if their cultivations were lacking.

Lin Ming soon understood the whole city. This brother and sister believed that with their status as divine runic masters, they would be able to obtain sufficient protection in Divine Rune City. The only danger for them would be the road to Divine Rune City, thus they had invited Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian to travel together with them.

As for Lin Ming, when he was at the outer Asura Road he had Soulwhite as a guide. But now that he was in the inner Asura Road, he was unfamiliar with the people and places here, and he didn’t even know where he needed to go to obtain missions. If he could find a city and inquire into some information then that would naturally be the best choice for him.

And, this Divine Rune City interested Lin Ming very much, because Lin Ming was also once an inscription master.

In the past, when Lin Ming first stepped onto his road of martial arts, in his weakest moments he had relied on inscription technique to gain the training resources he needed to overcome this most difficult period.

But after that, as Lin Ming’s strength rose, his inscription technique could no longer follow the footsteps of his cultivation. Even so, Lin Ming always held a certain sentimental feeling towards inscription arts.

He looked towards Xiao Moxian and said with a sound transmission, “What do you think about taking a trip to Divine Rune City?”

Xiao Moxian said, “It’s up to you. I’ll follow where you go.”

“Then we’re going to Divine Rune City!” Lin Ming decided. Then, he agreed to the young spiritas girl’s offer.

The spiritas siblings were overjoyed. Although they could faintly feel that Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian had relatively ordinary cultivations, they were still stronger than the two of them. Moreover, there was strength in numbers. With the four of them, crossing the wild mountain range shouldn’t be a problem, and in a worst case situation, if they met some sort of powerful vicious beast that they couldn’t defeat, they would each still have a higher chance of surviving if they scattered and fled.

“My name is Yue Liuxing and this is my little brother Yue Qifeng.” The spiritas girl introduced herself and her brother.

“I am Lin Ming and this is my wife Ji Xian’er.”

Lin Ming didn’t bother to hide his name. The Asura Road was far too large and there were also too many duplicate names. Moreover, he had already killed Tian Mingzi and Naqi, and the place where they died was in the extremely isolated tomb of Bai Qi. All of this had been meticulously cleaned up by Lin Ming so that no one would know about it, thus Lin Ming didn’t fear anyone discovering his true identity.

Lin Ming had only casually introduced her, but Xiao Moxian felt a bit warmer as she heard this. Her cheeks flushed a little. In truth, she wasn’t really considered Lin Ming’s wife, and although the two of them had made love and dual cultivated, they had never held a marriage ceremony and the two of them were destined to part ways in the future. To describe their relationship as lovers was much more appropriate.

Along the way, Lin Ming continued chatting with Yue Liuxing, gaining a much higher understanding of Divine Rune City. In the city, all divine runic masters were divided into different ranks depending on their attainments in the divine runic arts. Every higher level required tests and there was also a corresponding competition.

As for the siblings, they were both geniuses in divine runic arts. Their goal in going to Divine Rune City, besides apprenticing themselves to someone, was also to compete in the many competitions. The prizes for these competitions were quite generous.

As they spoke, Yue Qifeng discovered that Lin Ming had some original opinions into divine runic arts. This surprised him. He asked, “Big Brother Lin Ming, do you understand the divine runic arts?”

Lin Ming was 10 years older than Yue Qifeng so Yue Qifeng had referred to Lin Ming as big brother.

Lin Ming smiled, “Barely. But, what I understand is inscription technique, and it’s just a little. It’s not comparable at all to your divine runic arts.”

Lin Ming’s understandings of inscription technique had come from the soul fragments in the Magic Cube. And in the past, the people that were killed by Mo Eversnow and had their souls sucked into the Magic Cube couldn’t be considered much anyway. They were all Tian Mingzi’s subordinates and their cultivations were Divine Lords or Holy Lords, without a single World King amongst them. If their inscription technique was placed in the lower realms then it would be marvelous without compare, but if placed in the Divine Realm, it wasn’t considered much at all.

Moreover, the inscription technique of the Divine Realm was cast far behind by the long legacy of the spiritas in the Asura Road. In the Divine Realm, a top character like an Empyrean wouldn’t study inscription technique because the value wasn’t too great.

But the divine runic arts of the Asura Road were different. According to what Soulwhite had said, the divine runic arts could display effects beyond belief.

Thus, Lin Ming was well aware that someone with his caliber of understanding was nothing when placed in Divine Rune City.