Sword Among Us

In truth, the sight was not bloody.

There was a beast’s pelt sewn to Hoof Shadow’s underbelly. It received a special disguise, and it did not look out of place. However, with quick and neat movements, Happy cut the thread and easily took the additional pelt without dealing any damage to the Hoof Shadow.

The square white pelt curled in Happy’s hand while smelling slightly foul. However, there was a dense row words that looked like tadpoles carved on the side of the pelt which was attached to the horse’s underbelly. Little North was stunned to see it.

“What is this?”

“Phantasm Body Movement Skill.” Happy smiled, turned around, and looked at Little North. “Since you contributed in our search, I’ll let you have the priority in choosing. Do you want Hoof Shadow or this high-tier lightness skill martial art manual—” Happy saw Little North turn toward Hoof Shadow without hesitation. “Don’t be in such a hurry to choose just yet. You don’t know the value of this Phantasm Body Movement Skill. Right now, it’s even more valuable than the mount.”

Little North smiled at him. “Phantasm Body Movement Skill is the best lightness skill that can be learned by those in Blessed Realm. Not only does it use little qi, it’s also fast, and its effects when shifting and dodging are very good. I heard that it’s as valuable as two million taels of silver in the market right now, but there is no stock for it. Heh, I know about this.

“Medicinal Stone is practicing Phantasm Body Movement Skill. I heard that he stole it when he received a quest. I’ve been very envious of his lightness skill since a long time ago, but compared to that, I like Hoof Shadow more. Tsk, tsk, now, there are still not many people who can ride this horse. How cool will I look if I can ride it?!”

Happy was instantly rendered speechless. Since Little North had an understanding toward Phantasm Body Movement Skill, he would not say anything else.

‘As expected, this guy is still not mature. Oh well!’

Phantasm Body Movement Skill might be valuable, but Little North would have chances to learn other high-tier lightness skills in the future. In fact, lightness skills that could compare to certain ultimate techniques would even appear in the future, while Hoof Shadows could be seen everywhere.

Besides, Hoof Shadows respawned from time to time. Even if many players tried to hunt them, they would have plenty of chances in the future to catch one if Little North decided to learn Phantasm Body Movement Skill.

Happy shifted his attention to the Hoof Shadow to protect Little North so that the youth could help the Hoof Shadow settle into his Horse Plate.

The process was incredibly smooth!

At that moment, the Hoof Shadow was tired physically and mentally, and it no longer had any will or ability to resist. Besides, when Little North had fought earlier to kill the members of Five Venoms, he had earned a bit of the Hoof Shadow’s favor. He had managed to gain the Hoof Shadow’s approval, and the horse easily entered his Horse Plate to rest.

“Success! Haha!”

Little North was extremely excited. However, when he looked at the Horse Plate, he became gloomy.

“What the heck? I can only summon it after it rests for a week? Damn, then does that mean that I won’t be able to play with it for a week? I can’t act cool?”

Happy let out a bark of laughter and shook his head. ‘This kid, at least his luck isn’t that rotten. He might have not been able to get anything valuable from Nian, but he didn’t make the Hoof Shadow go berserk.’

Even though Happy had Dragon Capture and could guarantee the capture of the Hoof Shadow, the process would be very difficult and troublesome. It was naturally good for them save time and do something else.

“Alright, Big Brother Thunder is here.”

Once the duo chose the items they needed, they heard the sound of horse hooves drawing closer to them from the left. When the sound grew clearer and dozens of seconds passed, Thunderous Battle came charging over while drenched in sweat. He had been on the periphery of the ancient tomb before he arrived, which meant that he came from the opposite direction, and his journey was pretty long.

He jumped down from his horse, and when he saw the corpses of the Five Venoms Sect Members sprawled all over the ground, he was baffled.

“Why did you get into a fight again?” He did not even notice that he attached an “again” to his question.

Happy smiled wryly and told Thunderous Battle everything that had transpired. Thunderous Battle instantly scowled, looked at the corpses on the ground, and asked gravely, “Happy, if they really upload that battle replay to the official website, you might suffer a great blow to your reputation.”

Happy could understand why Thunderous Battle said this, because Thunderous Battle was a rather upright and serious person. It was already very difficult for him to think of the problem from Happy’s angle at that moment.

“If it were any other sect, I would definitely think of the consequences of doing this. But since it’s Five Venoms, it’s fine. If they want to create trouble, then let them,” Happy said with a smile. “Since we’re in the land of wanderers, we have to think of problems in a way wandering martial artists would.

“At the end of the day, they are just a bunch of people who walk down the crooked path by gathering and commanding venomous insects to fight for them. Even if they upload the battle replay to the official website, someone will take the initiative to defend us. Their battle replay can’t say anything. If they upload it, they will only be bringing trouble to themselves.”

Happy was very sure of it.

Five Venoms had never been a kind sect. They had often done things that could not be brought to light, and the number of players they offended was definitely much higher than the number of players Happy had offended. Unless Five Venoms decided to do good works in the world of martial artists in the future, everyone would soon forget what happened on that day. In fact, it would even turn into positive news.

“Let’s hope that’s the case.”

Thunderous Battle was still worried, but when he saw how confident and calm Happy was, he could not say anything about the matter.

They shifted the topic to Hoof Shadow then.

After all, it was a group operation. Even though Thunderous Battle did not participate in the battle just then, he had still wasted time to search for the horse. Little North and Happy each brought out four hundred thousand taels of silver as “hush money”. Thunderous Battle only took it when both of them insisted on it.

Even though they went through some setbacks in their plan to hunt down a Hoof Shadow, they finished their hunt smoothly and ahead of their plan. Happy did not show any intention to continue staying around and brought Thunderous Battle and Little North to White Tiger Forest near the ancient tomb.

“Hoof Shadows will respawn once every three days. I want to get it twice more. Over this period of time, I’ll work to increase the realm of my Golden Bell Cocoon and Big Dipper Sword Technique in White Tiger Forest so that I can reach Mystical Realm as soon as possible. What about you?”

“I don’t want to miss Hoof Shadow either. Let’s do this together.”

Thunderous Battle quickly made his position clear, and there was not even any need to wonder what Little North would choose. He still wanted to learn more skills from his boss that would make him stronger. Even if Happy ran away, Little North would chase after him.

“Let’s log off at White Tiger Forest and rest a while. We can arrange a time to log in at the same time,” Happy suggested.

Due to Lu Mingyue and Nian’s appearance, they had ran from the peach blossom forest all the way to the ancient tomb in Wuhu. A long time had passed since they had logged in, and if they did not log off anytime soon, they would find themselves returning to the real world when it was dark, and the only meal they would get into their stomachs would be supper.

“Okay.”

*****

When Happy got out of the game, the dorm was silent.

He took off his helmet and stretched his arms while his eyes were muddled with sleep. It was only then that he realized that the moonlight was shining on the balcony of his dorm. With the help of the bright light of the moon, he saw the three wolves lying on their beds, which was a rare sight to be seen. They had the thin VR Helmets over their heads.

The three of them had always had great love for the game, but ever since they created South China Martial Arts Ranking Board, their fanaticism had reached another level. However, they only had time to play the game at night.

Happy climbed down from the top bunk quietly and poured himself a cup of cold water. Then, he opened the door gently and walked outside.

The lights in the boys’ dorm would only be switched off very late into the night. This was especially the case during the summer, and there would often be quite a number of people who would walk around half-naked. However, ever since World of Martial Arts was launched, this sort of situation was rarely seen.

This made Happy, who had logged out to eat, remember foreign news he had read at some point in time. The translation of the headline had been: Beware of eastern culture invading our country!

The general gist of the news had been about the youngsters in western countries getting addicted to a game that had the world of eastern martial heroes as its setting. That caused many of eastern wuxia novels to quickly take over the sales and ranks in the publishing world.