Wudang: Legends Of Qi Earth 87 Infernal Prison Dimension Xii : On The Move

[cultivation is a journey of Discovery, but not just to those who practice Qi, but they who believe in the power of magic and manipulate Mana. Each new day is a lesson, you learn a dozen new things about yourself and about the world you suddenly find yourself in. It's secrets exposed to you in bits and pieces until the thirst for knowledge becomes so strong; you would strive to push past and break every obstacle in your way.

And this is because in any world, cultivation or normal, the pursuit of knowledge is always a prerequisite to obtaining power, and there's no better way to gain such power, than by finding out the secrets of this world we live in, and the universe that embraces it.]

The boys decided to talk within the Sylph's cave, though they were worried it would return, there wasn't that much of a choice about what to do or where to go, so practically they were playing things by the ear and going with the phrase the devil you know is better than the angel you don't. Besides Alex felt confident in his abilities, there would be a way to cause the sylph damage, especially now that his spirit energy was replenished.

But even if they wanted to leave, there were secrets in this cavern that the boys couldn't help but pay attention to. Though it was of no importance, they discovered that the cavern itself was a remnant of an old temple, there were rare murals on it's walls, broken statues and a ridiculous amount of metal that Alex was almost sure was mythril. But as if that wasn't enough, there was a diamond like formation of stalact.i.tes on the cavern ceiling, there was also a hole through the middle of the formation which was where they had fallen from. It might be too much of a stretch, but Alex wanted to try his hand at blacksmithing, much to the annoyance of Yun Fao who felt they should be finding their way back to the surface.

But his curiosity aside, Alex realized that they really couldn't stay here, it would be better if they were on the surface. They could try to regroup with the rest of the disciples and then find a safe place to hold up whilst waiting for the sect to find a way to come save them. Which according to Louis was still going to take a while as a Planetarium was not so easy to make, and even much more harder to fix.

But even if they had to leave and find their way back to the surface, to Alex; he had to harvest a bit of those crystals, and the metal within the cavern. He had a feeling they had much to do with the fact that the Sylphs were still stuck underground all these years even though they were very much wind spirits that could fly. Plus they would help in furthering his understanding of blacksmithing, and weapon crafting as whole. While others might have come on this training for an increase in cultivation levels as was the original plan, Alex was here to refine his knowledge and increase it, along with refining all of his skills.

So even though there were in a very dangerous place, Alex was still hoping to at least achieve a bit of what he came here for. That way it wouldn't seem as if they had all come here for nothing, plus Yun Fao was in need of a new weapon, and this was Alex's chance to familiarize himself with forging techniques and replace his friend's weapon. Yun Fao had been using east cloud, but the long sword has been a bit awkward in his hands, its obviously not the same as his Autumn Dao.

The statues and faded murals on the wall were not clear enough for either one of the boys to be able to glean out any sort of understanding on what sort of civilization once lived here. None of them were archeologists or historians, so, they could only just help themselves to the mythril and the pieces of the diamonds hanging on the cavern ceiling and on much of it's walls. After that it was time to decide in which direction to walk in, but that was easy as there were only two ways in and out of the cavern, and that's the hole above them, and a tunnel on the Eastern part of cavern.

"Do you guys think it's a good idea to go in the direction that Sylph ran towards? We might run into it again." Louis asked as they slowly approached the tunnel.

"Its not like we have a choice, none of us can fly, and we can barely jump high enough to break off those crystals. So going up that hole is out of the question, we have to take the tunnel. Besides we already faced the Sylph and came out on top, you don't have to be such a child Louis." Yun Fao said to him as he walked past the blond boy and marched into the tunnel.

Louis furrowed his brows and opened his mouth as if to say something, but Alex tapped his shoulder, shook his head and Inclined his head towards the tunnel, silently telling Louis to get a move on. Louis rolled his eyes and marched after Yun Fao with Alex bringing up the rear, and that was how they left the cavern behind, hoping to find a way back to the surface.

Louis and Yun Fao had been in this tunnel previously when they had ran from the Sylph, but they never got to go too deep as they were waiting for a chance to run back in to save Alex. The tunnel was damp and a little bit cold, but more than that it's walls were wet, Alex wondered if perhaps they were under an underground river or something of the sort, but apart from that; one thing he paid attention to, was the fact that there wasn't any sort of life within the tunnel.

There were no bugs, no moss or any sort of green that you would expect to grow in a place that's cool and wet. But this was just his observation, it might not mean anything in the long run, and not forgetting the fact that at the other end of the tunnel once lived a fierce army of amalgamated Sylphs. There were thousands upon thousands of those thumb sized fairies cl.u.s.tered together, so it was quite possible to eat through everything alive within the tunnel.

The tunnel was long, and it took the boys no less than five hours of trudging through the damp and cold path before they saw something different. It was just their luck that they still had a bit of supplies left in their respective storage rings, so they were able to keep their hunger at bay, but even that was almost close to running out, so even if they were not saying it out loud, they were very much in danger of starving to death, until literally there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and with it the sound of rushing water.

The tunnel seemed to expand into a small cage, and at the mouth of the cave was a ma.s.sive amount of tiny sparkling wings that were on fire, and it was flames that Alex recognized. He believed Nezha had called it windfire, and it was formed when his Qi and spirit energy were mixed together when he utilized the summers style of the four seasons of the weeping world weapon skills. These were probably remnants from when the Sylph tried running away, but Alex was very surprised that the flames were still burning up until now.

{Harvest those wings master! They're filled with spirit energy and Qi, along with the distinct energy of the Sylph. Apart from serving as a great feeding material for Khan, they're also very good materials for forging.} Ébié called out to Alex, Alex nodded his head and gave a mental nod before turning to Yun Fao and Louis who were looking at him weirdly.

"What?" he asked, surprised by the scrutinizing looks from both his friends.

"you might not know this, but sometimes your hair and eyes changes color, it's only for a moment, but we've seen your hair change from reddish orange to blood red many times, and your eyes too. When it's blood red, just like a few moments ago, they're snake like, like the Nagas we ran from, just a whole lot scarier." Louis explained with a matter of fact tone.

Alex scratched the back of his head, the thing is he never knew that his physical features experienced any sort of changes whenever his mantle spirits wanted to talk to him. It was a little bit difficult to explain it to Yun Fao and Louis, but he was able to get through to them and explain it. Then they subsequently gathered all of the wings left behind by the sylphs before depositing them into Alex's storage ring. And then they turned their focus back to the mouth of the cave and the cascade of water pouring down in front of it.

With that sight in front of them, Alex was able to come to a few conclusions.

This more than explained why the tunnel was so damp and wet in the first place; they were probably in an underground river, or rather the river was above them, and the tunnel they were in was behind a waterfall. Now the question is, just what laid behind that curtain of water...…guess there's only one way to find out.