Super Gene

Han Sen smiled. He did not mind the threat. The Demon Bug King Bai Sema wouldn’t even buckle to the attacks of a King class creature. Therefore, he did not think he had to worry about the tiny little lava bugs.

“Undying Bird really resides on this island?” Ji Qing asked curiously.

Bao’er was lying down on Han Sen’s shoulder. Her eyes curiously observed the small island they had landed on.

The island was not big, and with Han Sen’s speed, it would not take long to walk across it. The island did have a spectacular amount of flora, though. It was practically a rainforest. Insects and beasts roamed all about it.

Standing on the island, you would not feel the heat of the lava that was nearby. It felt like a summertime place where you would want to sleep away the hours.

Bai Wei did not answer, and she kept marching toward the jungle. Han Sen expected to encounter danger, but he soon realized that the creatures around were just ordinary animals. They weren’t even xenogeneics, and they most certainly weren’t threatening.

In the center of the island was a white mountain. It was only a few hundred meters tall, but it looked like a big steamed bun. The peak of the mountain cradled a broken tower of sorts. It looked very old, and it had decayed over the years. It was no longer straight, and it looked ready to fall apart.

They walked before the foot of the mountain, then Bai Wei looked toward the broken tower atop the peak and shouted, “King Bai’s heir has come. Is the Undying Bird at home?” Her voice echoed across the expanse of the island, but no response came from the tower, so she shouted again.

After she shouted three times, a door in the broken tower atop the peak opened. It did so with a long, drawn-out squeak.

Han Sen and Bao’er’s eyes opened wide as they looked at the tower’s door. They were curious about what the appearance of the deified Undying Bird would be. The tower was not very large, so if the Undying Bird did indeed live there, it couldn’t be too big itself.

Everyone looked at the tower curiously, then they heard some footsteps emerge. Not long later, they saw a shadow open the door and walk out of the tower.

“She is the Undying Bird?” Han Sen’s eyes opened wide as he watched the person walk out of the door. He thought it was strange.

It was not an actual bird that was emerging; it was an old woman with a cane. Her back was crooked. Her appearance was haggard, and her skin was all wrinkled like the bark of an old tree. Due to the fact she was crooked and old, her size only put her up to Han Sen’s waist. She was wearing a pair of circular glasses and a red robe. She certainly looked rather weird.

“Who is making a racket down there?” The old woman did not look tall. She stood in front of the tower and looked down the mountain. She couldn’t see very well, so she had to raise her glasses. Her tired-looking eyes eventually settled on Bai Wei and the others.

Bai Wei never expected someone like that would be the one to emerge. She was a queen, and though she was surprised, she still said, “I am Bai Wei, and I am King Bai’s daughter. I am here at the request of my father. Are you the Undying Bird?”

The old woman pushed up her glasses. She stared at Bai Wei and said slowly, “You are King Bai’s heir? I am not the Undying Bird. I am merely an old woman that is tasked with cleaning the tower.”

“Then can you inform the Dying Bird that King Bai’s heir is here?” Bai Wei said.

“You are too late, I am afraid. The Undying Bird is deceased,” the old woman said slowly.

“Undying Bird died?” Han Sen’s eyes opened wide, and his eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.

Bai Wei was frozen, as she had not expected this to happen. If the deified Undying Bird was dead, then there was no point in her being there.

The old woman sighed and went on to say, “But Mister Undying Bird told me that if King Bai’s heir does come, that person can take whatever they please. That is, assuming they can triumph over the test.”

Bai Wei’s face looked a little bit better, and so she went on to ask, “I would like to try it. What is this test you are referring to?”

The old woman did not answer. Her old eyes, which peered through a pair of glasses, lingered on Han Sen. “Who are these people? They do not look as if they belong to the Extreme King. If they do not belong to the Extreme King, then just kill them. This is the Undying Bird’s house, and not just anyone can make themselves present.”

Han Sen felt a chill. That old woman looked very, very old, but when she looked at them, Han Sen felt a great chill. He knew she was actually a very dangerous being.

Bai Wei looked at Han Sen and answered the old woman. “They are indeed knights of the Extreme King. They have helped escort me here.”

“I see.” The old woman nodded and did not say anything. She held her cane and slowly approached the edge of the mountaintop. She looked so shaky as she went, and it made the onlookers worry about whether or not she might misplace her step, slip, and fall off the peak to her death.

Standing atop the peak and its stone steps, the old woman seemed to be recalling something. She eventually said, “Back then, the Undying Bird clashed with your father King Bai. Many people died, but there was no winner. One thousand years later, they agreed to have matters of battle put to their Marquise heirs. Their fights would determine the ultimate victor. But Undying Bird could not give birth to her heir. When she conceived a child, she died while giving birth, so the fighting was unable to continue.”

After the woman said this, she looked very sad. She pointed to the stone steps and said, “But the Undying Bird made these stairs before she died. If you can walk past the stairs and come up to the top, then you win, and then you can take the items that the Undying Bird and King Bai fought for. If you cannot accomplish this, then you can go home.”

“And there are no other conditions?” Bai Wei looked at the old woman atop the peak.

“No. No matter how you do it, cross these steps and reach the top. You’d still win even if you were to crawl up.” The old woman coughed after speaking.

“If there are no other conditions, I’m going to start.” Bai Wei said that, and then she walked up the stairs of the steam bun mountain.

Han Sen looked at the stairs. They were only a few hundred meters tall, and from the bottom to the top, it’d only be a few thousand steps. Han Sen did not find anything strange about them, but he wondered what sort of test the stairs would conduct. Han Sen was even more interested in the item that the Undying Bird and King Bai had fought for, but he also thought that the old woman was extremely dangerous and that he would do well not to provoke her, so he watched Bai Wei accept the test.