Chapter 416: Fifty Years Later
Soon after, the group of four recovered their strength and returned to the stone forest.
Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue went to the smaller space beast while Yang Xu and Bing Lan dealt with the bigger one.
"Let’s deal with it like before. I will trap it under an illusion and you will attack." Jiang Yue suggested.
"Good." Yu Nianzhen agreed.
A moment later, the sound of a pipa filled the surroundings.
The ethereal music was intoxicating and the space beast soon fell under its spell.
Seeing his opportunity, Yu Nianzhen swung his sword and attacked.
This time, there was no need for testing.
He directly attacked its eyes and the beast roared in pain.
The pain dispelled the illusion but Jiang Yue didn’t give it a chance to recover.
He quickly struck a few notes and the beast’s aggression reduced.
Three moments later, its will was completely overcome and the two heaved a sigh of relief.
"Falling meteor." Yu Nianzhen shouted and a silver sword intent flew towards the space beast.
In this way, the two fought the space beast but couldn’t kill it until an hour later.
After dealing with their beast, they helped Yang Xu and Bing Lan deal with theirs before retreating out of the stone forest.
"It takes too much time and effort to kill one." Jiang Yue complained.
"We will be in trouble if we encounter more than two at once." Yu Nianzhen said with a frown on his face.
Although they defeated the space beasts, Yu Nianzhen was dissatisfied with his attacks.
He felt that his strongest falling meteor sword move was not strong enough.
If it was, he wouldn’t need so much effort to penetrate the space beast’s eye protection membrane.
"Master, are there any more space beasts around?" Yu Nianzhen asked.
In the range of his divine sense, there were no space beasts.
However, his master’s divine sense was more powerful so Yu Nianzhen wanted to confirm.
"There aren’t any." Yang Xu shook his head.
"I want to retreat for a few days." Yu Nianzhen said.
"Your ancient palace is outside; you can use ours." Bing Lan offered.
"Thank you, mistress."
"Azhen, you can use the enlightenment mat to meditate." Jiang Yue suggested.
Although his lover had not said anything, Jiang Yue knew the other wanted to improve the falling meteor sword move.
In that case, using the enlightenment would produce double the results with half the efforts."
"Okay." Yu Nianzhen smiled and rubbed his husband’s hair.
Without delay, Yu Nianzhen retreated and the others camped just beyond the border of the stone forest.
Nine days later, Yu Nianzhen came out of seclusion.
"Are you okay? Did anything happen when I was in retreat?" He asked as soon as he saw Jiang Yue.
"Master, mistress, and I are fine. We killed a few space beasts but most of our time was spent here." Jiang Yue replied while opening his arms to imply their camp outside the stone forest.
"You didn’t encounter other people?"
"Not yet." Jiang Yue said and frowned.
While Yu Nianzhen was in retreat, he messaged Xuan Ke and Li Futian.
However, he hadn’t received a reply yet and he didn’t know their current situation.
"What about you? Did you succeed?"
"A little." Yu Nianzhen said.
After breaking through to the nascent soul realm, his comprehension ability improved a lot.
Because of this, Yu Nianzhen discovered the flaws in his swordsmanship in the early days of retreat.
After that, improving the falling meteor sword move wasn’t as difficult as he had expected.
However, Yu Nianzhen didn’t dare to retreat for too long.
At the back of his mind, he always remembered that Jiang Yue was outside.
Considering this, Yu Nianzhen stopped his retreat as soon as he achieved initial success in the falling meteor sword move.
"You are just in time..." Jiang Yue said with a playful look in his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"A space beast is moving towards us."
Hearing this, Yu Nianzhen was excited.
He couldn’t wait to test his new understanding and Jiang Yue smiled when he saw his lover’s excitement.
’Azhen really likes the sword.’ He thought and suddenly kissed his husband’s cheek.
"What was that for?"
"Do I need a reason to kiss you?" Jiang Yue raised his eyebrow in question.
"You don’t. You can kiss me any time you want." Yu Nianzhen smiled and hugged Jiang Yue.
They hadn’t seen each other for only nine days but these nine days felt like a lifetime.
’If only I could spend every moment of my life with him.’ Yu Nianzhen thought with unconcealed nostalgia in his eyes.
"You are enough." Yang Xu shouted angrily.
Yu Nianzhen had been out of retreat for an incense stick of time.
However, in that time, he didn’t see his elders and only cared about Jiang Yue.
"Master, you are also here?" Yu Nianzhen called and Yang Xu was tempted to throw a fireball.
’What does he mean? He was retreating in my ancient palace and needed my cooperation to exit. Did I become invisible when I was no longer of use?’ He grumbled in his mind.
Seeing her husband about to start a war, Bing Lan stepped in and held his hand.
"The space beast is almost here. Let’s deal with it and then have a meal." She said.
"Hmmph." Yang Xu snorted and turned his head.
Knowing that he had done something wrong, Yu Nianzhen was a little ashamed.
However, he soon got over it and hurriedly dealt with the space beast.
"As expected, my Azhen is the best." Jiang Yue praised after Yu Nianzhen killed the space beast in three moves.
"The falling meteor sword move still has room for improvement." Yang Xu observed.
"I will retreat again when I have time." Yu Nianzhen agreed.
After that, Yu Nianzhen prepared the space beast meat and made several dishes.
However, no matter how good his craftsmanship was, the space beast couldn’t be saved.
"It’s too disgusting." Jiang Yue complained.
Originally, he was the most eager to eat space beast meat.
Unfortunately, the meat did not live up to his expectations and he could barely stomach it.
"It’s disgusting but its body contains a lot of space laws. Eating it is beneficial." Yu Nianzhen soothed and Jiang Yue gritted his teeth.
Yu Nianzhen had a small sword world and Jiang Yue had also cultivated a domain.
Eating space beast meat was an opportunity to comprehend more space laws which was beneficial to their domains.
"We have tried roasting, grilling, boiling, broiling, frying, and other methods. The taste can’t be improved at all." Yu Nianzhen shrugged helplessly.
If he could, he didn’t want Jiang Yue to endure such an assault on his taste buds.
However, there was no way!
The space beast meat was simply unredeemable.
"If only we had a palate cleansing pill." Jiang Yue lamented.
After eating space beast meat, they had to suffer the bad taste for more than a day before the taste cleared.
Thinking about it, everyone couldn’t help but be depressed and they ate in silence.
Yu Nianzhen, Jiang Yue, Yang Xu, and Bing Lan stayed in the stone forest for fifty years.
In that time, Bing Lan broke through to the nascent soul realm and Yang Xu was about ready to advance to the reincarnation realm.
Over the years, Yu Nianzhen used a lot of low-grade and mid-grade spirit stones to urge the growth of the Tree of Life in his jade box.
Because of this, he matured three leaves to an age of more than thirty thousand years.
With these leaves, Yang Xu could repair his origin to a state suitable to break through to the reincarnation realm.
As for Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue, their cultivation was still at the early stage of the nascent soul realm.
However, they had pushed it to the peak of the early stage and would break through to the mid-stage after a short retreat.
"There doesn’t seem to be any more space beasts in the stone forest." Jiang Yue said.
"We have been here for more than fifty years and have killed thousands of space beasts. It’s good that there are no more." Bing Lan said.
"The four of us have accumulated more than ten thousand merit points. I wonder if Brother Xuan and Brother Li are okay." Jiang Yue couldn’t help but worry.
"We encountered other people in the stone forest but never met Brother Xuan and Brother Li." Yu Nianzhen said and was also a little worried.
If everything went as predicted, Treasure Island would appear in a few decades.
Thinking of how difficult it was to earn merit points, Yu Nianzhen couldn’t help but worry for his sworn brothers.
"The first layer of the sealed battlefield is very large. We came to the stone forest and maybe they went somewhere else." Yang Xu said.
"It’s very likely." Bing Lan agreed.
"Let’s hope so." Jiang Yue said and then turned to Yang Xu.
"Master, mistress, Azhen and I plan to retreat to advance to the mid-stage. What are your plans?" He asked.
