CH 173

But the reunion wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. A monstrous eagle of gigantic size was towering over Amber, and it was eyeing the tiger as if deciding if the tiger was food!

Even with Amber’s already-massive girth, it appeared as tiny as a little cat next to the graphite-coated behemothic avian predator which could fully grasp Amber in its claws. 

That was just how colossal this eagle was. 

Lu Ye immediately recalled what Li Baxian told him: the Crimson Blood Sect outpost might be undefended by any of the Sect’s members, but the reason that it was still unconquered by any of the other forces from the outposts in the Battlefield’s outer ring was because of a ferocious beast. 

Clearly, this eagle must be it!

But since Sister Shui Yuan and Brother Baxian had not told him much about this eagle, that must mean that it would not be a threat to him—at least not a big one.

Bearing that in mind, Lu Ye quickly rushed forward to referee the situation. 

The eagle was quick to notice him. It studied him with such a gaze that almost said that Lu Ye was a walking piece of meat.

Meanwhile, Amber quickly wheeled around and stood between Lu Ye and the eagle protectively. Only then did Lu Ye realize that Amber was not alone; another Cultivator was just beside him and he was looking at a complete loss for what to do. 

“Are you one of the Turbulent Watchmen?” Lu Ye asked. By his reckoning, this Cultivator was at least a Ninth-Order who had learned at least an Earth-grade discipline or he would have lacked the skills and strength to see to Amber’s safe arrival here. 

“I am,” said the Watchmen, nodding.

“Greetings,” Lu Ye saluted, “And my deepest gratitude for your help in bringing my tiger here.”

“I was just on the way,” the Watchmen smiled. He studied Lu Ye and remarked, “Impressive. Allow me to congratulate you and express my admiration for your derring-do at the top of Goldentip.”

“You are too kind, sir,” Lu Ye muttered bashfully. 

But he was annoyed at the same time. [Gods be damned, looks like this ‘Yi Ye’ thing is going to be sticking on me for the rest of my life…]

They exchanged a few more words before the Watchman took his leave on the pretext of running some errands. But that did not stop Lu Ye from feeling grateful, repeating his thanks once more.

Lu Ye watched him until he was gone. Then he looked up to find the eagle still staring at him. The gigantic bird lowered and gave Lu Ye a couple of gentle pecks on his head that felt like a pair of taps that Lu Ye did not know the reason for, before the bird flapped its albatross-like wingspan and took into the sky, landing at the top of a mountain peak not far away. 

Amber was only too happy to see the eagle gone. He finally padded over and rubbed his big head on Lu Ye affectionately. 

“Come, let’s show you the Crimson Blood Sect stronghold!” Lu Ye patted Amber’s head, saying to him as well as to Yi Yi.

They ignored the curious and dubious stares from the independents and made a beeline straight back inside the Sanctum of Providence of the outpost where they stopped just in front of the Divine Opportunity Column.

Sister Shui Yuan had reminded him about getting a Bonding Pact, although she did not explain how. 

He paused and wondered, then he said aloud, “Acolyte of the Crimson Blood Sect Lu Ye, hereby requests for a Bonding Pact.”

The Battlefield Imprint on the back of his hand glowed and he felt a warm sensation before a rush of unknown information that he had never seen before crammed into his mind. Then he saw what a Bonding Pact was in his mind: a piece of animal hide parchment. 

That must be it. The Bonding Pact which allowed Cultivators to forge a spiritual bond between themselves and their Spirit Beasts. That way, Spirit Beasts could come and go freely with the respective Cultivators they were bonded to. Amber, for instance, had always been a Spirit Beast born in the Battlefield. Hence, he could never leave the Battlefield and into the real world of Jiu Zhou without a Bonding Pact. 

It looked awfully similar to the Sacred Pact Li Baxian used at the Battle of Goldentip

[But Sacred Pacts or Bonding Pacts, they must come from somewhere. So where exactly? Why could it only be created by Heavens? How do the Heavens operate exactly?]

A stream of strange questions loomed in Lu Ye’s mind. But there was no need to trouble himself with such matters at the moment. Whatever the truth was, it must be something of the utmost secrecy and he needed to become stronger before he could unravel the truths himself. 

In the meantime, requesting a Bonding Pact was not free; it cost Lu Ye a hundred Contribution Points, although Lu Ye only knew about the price from the stream of information that surged into his mind. 

He examined his Battlefield Imprint.

Name: Lu Ye

Identity: Acolyte of the Crimson Blood Sect

Cultivation: Sixty-four Spiritual Points

Position: The Spirit Creek Battlefield

Contribution Points: Nine Hundred and Forty-Three

He could barely confess to being satisfied; there had been little progress in his cultivation. He had unlocked his sixty-third Spiritual Point back when he fought and slew Dong Shu Ye. The days that ensued that fateful battle did not allow him the chance to focus on training and meditation. He had been busy running from his pursuers and killing anyone unlucky enough to have caught up. 

That would explain the huge increase in his Contribution Points tally. The last time he checked the tally after he had killed Dong Shu Ye, the amount was hardly four hundred. But now, it looked like he could reach a thousand anytime.

The “why” of it needed no guessing; he had fought a whopping forty-three consecutive rounds of solo combat at the crest of Goldentip and had killed at least thirty of his opponents. Aside from the first opponent who was a Fifth-Order, the rest of the poor souls who had died by his saber were all Sixth-Orders—each of them worth twelve points apiece. That last round itself had earned him twenty-one points.

If the Battle of Goldentip alone had garnered him about three hundred and sixty-plus points, then the rest must have come from the kills he had gotten during his flight. 

Yet despite being within a spitting distance of reaching the one-thousandth point mark, Lu Ye knew how difficult it had been for him to scrape all these points. Each and every point was a testament to how far he had come and how much blood, sweat, and tears he had put in, and a hundred points for the Bonding Pact was not a price that he would consider as cheap. 

However, he was comforted by the fact that he had not been alone; Yi Yi and Amber’s presence had been both reassuring and very crucial throughout their journey, especially during the short-lived war when he was hunted by virtually every enemy Cultivator in the Battlefield. Therefore, the Bonding Pact was something that he felt obliged to procure for Amber and Yi Yi’s sake—whether it was a hundred points or even a thousand.

With his mind, he quietly agreed to the payment. A cream-white vortex swirled just in front of the Divine Opportunity Column and Lu Ye noticed that a hundred Contribution Points had been deducted from his tally.

Curiously, he reached his hand into the vortex and felt his fingers wrapping around something stiff and wide. He pulled it out. It was an ancient-looking parchment made of animal hide. The Bonding Pact.

Knowing how to use it now from the information supplied to him just moments ago, Lu Ye bit his thumb and left a mark on the parchment before injecting some of his Spiritual Powers into it and putting it between him and an incredulous Amber who obviously did not know what was going on. 

The animal skin parchment burst into flames. The fire consumed the parchment and elongated into a ring that rose into the air and landed on the ground with Amber right at its center. Then it shrunk and the ring of flames melded into the tiger. Amber understood nothing of it, but he didn’t resist. The fire was not scalding him at all.

When the ring of fire was completely gone, Lu Ye could feel a bond between him and Amber. He could sense the tiger’s position within a small distance and Lu Ye could better guess his mind now.

[Interesting thing, this Bonding Pact,] he mused. 

Without further ado, Lu Ye brought Amber back to the Jiu Zhou Crimson Blood Sect stronghold with him.

It was only after he had left that several heads popped out of the sides of the Sanctum’s entrance to find that it was empty. [That was Lu Yi Ye! Lu Yi Ye of the Crimson Blood Sect and he has come!]

News of Lu Ye’s appearance in the outpost began to sweep across the whole bazaar, leaving many independents apprehensive… 

Shui Yuan and Li Baxian were waiting in the main stronghold Sanctum of Providence when Lu Ye came back with Amber. The first thing that Li Baxian asked when he saw Lu Ye was, “Have you met Beaky?”

“Beaky?!” Lu Ye was flabbergasted, although he was quick to realize that Li Baxian was referring to that monstrous eagle. Cringing at the name, his eyes twitched. “Wait, who gave it that name?”

That such a magnificent beast should be given a name as frivolous as “Beaky” was just…

“Beaky is the Spirit Pet that Brother Wujiang kept all those years ago,” Li Baxian explained, chuckling, “After he left the Battlefield, Beaky stayed around the outpost. That’s why Sister Shuiyuan told you that there’s nothing to be worried about. The outpost is nothing but a bare and empty fort and with Beaky around, the usual ragtag of outer-ring forces wouldn’t dare to invade.”

He tossed Lu Ye a jade slip. “Inside is pretty much everything you’ll need to know about the outpost. Just go through it when you’re free. As legate, there will still be benefits in focusing much of your training in the outpost, especially since you’re still a long way behind.”

Lu Ye nodded as he fingered the jade slip. Then he remembered something. He patted Amber’s head and said, “Come out and say hi to Sister Shui Yuan and Brother Baxian.”

The latter two stared quizzically at the tiger, not knowing what was going on. 

Although their curious expressions turned into that of amazement. 

Yi Yi slowly materialized. Coyly, she greeted them, “Um, hello, Sister Shui Yuan, Brother Baxian!” She did not know how she should be addressing them both, so she thought she might as well just follow Lu Ye. 

Yi Yi had not shown herself at all during the Battle of Goldentip, chiefly because she would not only be useless but also as an apparition, her appearance in public would have been inappropriate. 

But right now, with only Shui Yuan and Li Baxian present, everyone was family.

Li Baxian stared at her before he gave Lu Ye a grin that all men would understand, nudging him playfully, “Good job, Brother!”

Lu Ye hastily explained, “Yi Yi’s the Spirit that lives inside Amber. Both she and Amber have been very crucial and helpful to me.”

“Spirit?” uttered Shui Yuan with interest. She had never seen anything like Yi Yi before. She strode nearer to Yi Yi and poked at her arm gently. To her surprise, Yi Yi felt as corporeal as a living human being, although she could see how unique Yi Yi was, being a Spirit that could transition between having a corporeal and an incorporeal body. 

Being ogled by both Shui Yuan and Li Baxian made Yi Yi nervous and she cast anxious glances at Lu Ye, tacitly calling for help. 

Shui Yuan patted her head. “You’re Lu Ye’s family, so that makes you our family too. You are one of us and this is your home, all right?”

Those words had such weight and significance that Yi Yi stared at her for a few seconds, her eyes turning red and moist before she bobbed her head vigorously. 

[I have a home too! I have a home too finally!] she thought, reminiscing the time she encountered Lu Ye and how thankful she was to have chosen to come with him.

Meanwhile, Li Baxian gave Lu Ye a knowing look and signalled for them to talk outside. 

Lu Ye followed closely behind.

They walked out of the stronghold’s Sanctum and Li Baxian said, “Well, under normal circumstances, you would be assigned a tutor to supervise your learning, especially since you’re already in the Fifth-Order as it’s time for you to decide on your path. But as you can see, the Sect isn’t under normal circumstances, so to speak. Old Man might be powerful but it’s been years since he actually took anyone under his wing. Besides, just between you and me, he’s a real blockhead, so that rules him out of this job.”

A stone flew out of nowhere and smacked right into Li Baxian’s head. 

One could almost tell how fast the swell grew. But Li Baxian ignored it. He turned around to look at where it came from before spinning back to face Lu Ye, still rubbing the swell on his head, “Luckily enough, you seem to be doing well on your own. But the matter still persists: have you thought about which path to pursue?”

“Combat Cultivator!” Lu Ye gave his answer at once, his eyes still on the lump that was growing out of Li Baxian’s head.