Chapter 19
Currently, Qian Yu and the other 10 were on their way towards the capital city of the country, Xia City, after the mission. As the largest city in the country, it had around 20 million inhabitants which had 5 million more people than the second largest city, Northern Star City.
After “finishing” the mission, they headed to where the annual winter hunt would be hosted. Earlier on, he had learned that the winter hunt was an event held by the royal family every year near the capital. There was a large area with a radius of 100 miles that the royal family had sectioned off calling it the “Royal Ice Woodlands”.
From Zhao Xieren, he had learned many things about the place. It was a large and dangerous forest with many spiritual beasts roaming inside it. Within the area, there were canyons, ravines, large mountains, and many more unknown details and mysteries there.
As for the winter hunt itself, it consisted of 10 teams from each of the 3 major sects in the country. Outside of their Ice Arts Sect, this included the Mountain Crushing Sect and the Fire Sword Sect.
There was a special rule this time, which was different from the normal annual hunts however. Since this year was a new year with a fresh batch of disciples, the teams could only be picked from the freshmen and would not include the older disciples.
For the rules regarding the competition, it was pretty simple. Each member in a team would be given a special bracelet that would earn their team points when a spiritual beast was killed by them. Of course, differing levels of spiritual beast would earn them differing amounts of points.
Over the two weeks, whoever collected the most points would naturally win. As it was a very competitive environment, there would naturally be deaths and conflict between teams. As such, each team was given a talisman that would signal a flare and cause them to forfeit with the amount of points they had left. However, it was not really easy to find other groups. With only 10 teams from each sect, there were only 30 teams in a space that occupied an area of a few thousand miles! The only reason that teams most often came into conflict with each other would be when they advanced towards the center of the forest as stronger beasts were there.
The Xia Capital soon entered their vision. The walls, like the other two cities, were tall. Qian Yu couldn’t tell which was taller but one thing he noticed was that the city walls were much longer. In terms of area, the city was a lot bigger than Northern Star City without a doubt.
Walking into the Xia City, they soon entered the outer district of the city. It wasn’t what he was expecting as he looked around. Strange smells had assaulted his nose, forcing him to cover them. Glancing towards the buildings, he saw they were not clean and old. The wood had started rotting and there were plenty of small holes in the buildings. As for the atmosphere, it was sort of gloomy with barely a few other people within his vision. Their clothes weren’t ragged and torn but one could easily tell it was just a step away from reaching that quality.
Clearly, the area was pretty poor and the district had a much lower quality of life than what he saw in Yellow River City and Northern Star City. Of course, it was still better than the village life he had and he guessed that this area had the most laborious and low skilled workers.
After an hour, Zhao Xieren then led them to the inner district. This was much more like what Qian Yu had imagined it to be and it was basically the same as the two cities he had previously visited. Shops were everywhere, ranging from small to large. Simple street stalls were selling food while there were also larger restaurants. In the distance, he saw a tall pagoda with the familiar tiger design on its signboard.
Continuing onwards, there were other shops. Clothing shops, furniture, calligraphy, plants, weapons, and more. Everything was here and the atmosphere was vibrant with people coming out of the shops. Smiles were everywhere.
Other than the outer and inner district, the last district in the city was the noble district where the noble families resided.
Manueving their way through the inner district, they soon met up with the people from the sect. Besides the disciples, Qian Yu saw many elders, all who were unknown to him. Thinking about it, he realized that he had never seen their sect master or the upper elders of the sect and he assumed that these elders must be inner court elders at least.
“Greetings Grand Elder,” Zhao Xieren said as she slightly bowed towards a man as the group walked up. Seeing her actions, the 10 people mimicked her actions.
“Good, you guys are the last ones. Of course you’re not late. Feel free to explore today but take a good rest for tomorrow,” the Grand Elder seemed to be an amicable man. He didn’t speak too fast and his eyes exuded a feeling of peace and serenity. Dismissing them, he returned to talk with the other elders.
Everyone nodded and started going off on their own. Qian Yu was planning to go ask Zhao Xieren what she was going to do but he realized that this was her home town. What did she need to explore? Additionally, he remembered that she and her cousin, Zhao Xun had decided to go visit their family in their noble district.
As he was thinking, someone tapped him on his shoulder.
Turning around, he saw a slim-waist figure with brown hair and eyes looking at him. “Sister Bai!” he unconsciously said out loud. Fortunately, no one was nearby or paying attention to them.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her in a lower voice.
“Mmm, I came here a few days earlier than you guys. I had some other things to do and I also paid a visit to Master Zhao. Now I’m gonna stay here for the winter hunt now,” She replied with a smile seeing the shocked Qian Yu.
“Do you have any other plans for today? Do you want to look around?” he asked her.
“Ooh, daring, asking me for a date are you now?” she teased him.
“Ha, what I meant was that you should cook some food for me, I haven’t eaten your food in a while,” he grew embarrassed hearing that.
“Fine fine, I agree, let’s go. Do you have any plans?” Bai Jia said.
“None, I don’t know the city well so you can decide,” he said nonchalantly. As the winter hunt didn’t allow disciples to bring in anything besides their weapons, there was nothing he could do for preparation.
Walking around, the two received various glares from the people they walked past. Today, Bai Jia wasn’t wearing her elder robes and had on a clean light blue dress that revealed her body proportions much better. As for Qian Yu, he was wearing normal clothes since they weren’t travelling in their sect robes earlier. While Qian Yu wasn’t extremely handsome, he was still above average in terms of looks and earned the jealousy of all the men. As for the females, they could only wish to be as beautiful as Bai Jia.
After arriving in the deepest ends of the inner district, however, it was a different story. As the two were eating, they unfortunately attracted the attention of a young master.
“Beauty, may I know your name? This humble one is known as Li Yi,” A man in robes smiled as he approached their table. He wore a red robe with some other designs on it and the quality was as good as their own sect robes. On his waist there was a sword attached and Qian Yu quickly realized he was from the Fire Sword Sect.
On the other hand, Bai Jia simply didn’t care saying, “Scram!”. Back home, she was courted many times and this wasn’t really new for her.
However, Li Yi was enraged instead. He was a core disciple from the Fire Sword Sect and part of the Li Family, which was one of the 4 major families inside the kingdom! He had always been cocky and his recent acceptance into the Fire Sword Sect had only inflated his ego even more.
Instinctively wanting to harass them, he waved his hand, turning his qi into fire as he attempted to shave Qian Yu’s head who was currently drinking some type of spiritual beast soup.
“What!” All of a sudden, Qian Yu noticed a small ball of flame whistling towards him.
“Hmph!” However, before he could do anything, Bai Jia snorted and the flame was dispersed. Following that, Li Yi suddenly flew back as he was drenched in water.
As for Li Yi, he was confused at what happened first before being bewildered. Currently, he was 17 and had already entered the soul foundation realm. He didn’t know how old this woman was but he was absolutely suppressed.
He knew how strong his mastery over his qi was but it was easily repelled against his opponent. Standing up, he immediately bowed, “My apologies, this humble one shall take his leave.” Unlike before, he was truly being humble as he left the restaurant.