Chapter 157 – Goal Achieved
1st Elder stood where he was and he didn’t say anything.
Zhao Feng was caught off guard by Hai Yun Master. If Elder Xue took him as a disciple that was fine, but now it was troublesome with Hai Yun Master wanting to take him as a disciple as well.
The latter had a deep smile on his face and Zhao Feng immediately understood what he meant.
Hai Yun Master was giving Zhao Feng ‘a chance’ to join his side like with Bei Moi. Like this, he would crush Lord Guanjun beneath his feet once again. If the latter knew about it, he would definitely spit out blood due to rage.
At the same time, he was forcing Zhao Feng to make a decision.
If Zhao Feng chose Elder Xue, it meant that there was no return. They would be enemies and Hai Yun Master would suppress or dispose of him.
“Hahaha, Brother Hai Yun, you’re interested in Zhao Feng as well? If he’s willing, he can be your disciple.” Elder Xue paused then started laughing.
Zhao Feng thought s***.
The situation wasn’t good!
At this time, he had seen through everything.
1st Elder didn’t want to take a disciple due to a certain reason.
Elder Xue wasn’t sincere.
Hai Yun Master had some tricks up his sleeve.
The most important point was number 2.
Elder Xue suggested taking Zhao Feng as a disciple to calm the atmosphere down and when Hai Yun Master suggested that he would take Zhao Feng as a disciple, he had answered without hesitation.
So Elder Xue couldn’t be trusted. From the point of him taking Sun Yuanhao as a disciple, it meant that he looked at talent heavily.
“If I become a disciple of Elder Xue and becomes enemies with Hai Yun Master, the former might not protect me. On the contrary, he might even dispose of me to have a good relationship with Hai Yun Master.” Zhao Feng soon concluded.
Elder Xue wasn’t trustworthy and he only suggested this to please 1st Elder. If he took Hai Yun Master as his mentor, he would be like a sheep entering the mouth of a tiger.
Zhao Feng soon decided:
Change a wish instead of taking either one as his master.
1st Elder was someone who didn’t take disciples simply and he didn’t promise easily. People like that would do all they could when one was recognised by them.
Unfortunately...
Zhao Feng sighed in his heart and he made his choice.
He chose to swap it with another wish, instead of taking Elder Xue or Hai Yun master as his mentor.
This decision caused the other disciples to be stunned. How great an honour was it to have an Elder as your Master?
Xu Ren, Xiao Sun and Lin Fan were all regretful. But they were not Zhao Feng and they couldn’t choose for him.
1st Elders’ eyes glinted and finally spoke: “You forgoing this wish is forcing me to go back on my word. But I’ve vowed to never take a disciple anymore.”
Hearing this, Zhao Feng finally understood. No wonder 1st Elder was silent when he heard Zhao Feng’s wish and both Elder Xue and Hai Yun Master tried to please him.
But no matter how people or the Heavens calculated, Zhao Feng had rejected both and he would rather have another wish.
This meant that no matter whether 1st Elder agreed or not, he was going back on his word.
“You must agree to something if you become my disciple.” 1st Elder continued.
“What is it?”
Zhao Feng didn’t know that the situation would suddenly change.
“Give-up-Lightning-Wind-Palm!” 1st Elder said one word at a time.
Zhao Feng was stunned - why would he want Zhao Feng to give Lightning Wind up?
Why did he choose to not take in any more disciples?
Suddenly, everything clicked.
Zhao Feng remembered what Sister Yuan had said: “Yang Gan had a friend who had trained the Lightning Wind Palm, but later... ”
Back at the gathering, Yang Gan had warned Zhao Feng: Life is more precious than Lightning Wind Palm.
Could it be that Yang Gan was 1st Elder’s disciples? And that his friend was also one, but he had trained the Lightning Wind Palm and died?
“1st Elder, are you Yang Gan’s mentor?” Zhao Feng asked carefully.
Yang Gan was ranked 2nd out of the 10 Core disciples and the second Zhao Feng spoke out, everyone nearby nodded their heads.
1st Elder was silent and his eyes became dim. Zhao Feng caught a tinge of hate and pain from his eyes. It could be imagined that the person who had trained the Lightning Wind Palm was definitely a prodigy, but he had passed away due to this skill.
“Zhao Feng, what’s giving up a skill to become 1st Elders’ disciple?”
At this time, old man Zhang of the Clan Mission Division couldn’t resist coming over and warning him. He was, after all Zhao Feng’s teacher.
“Give up Lightning Wind Palm?”
Zhao Feng’s eyes were full of decisiveness.
How could his will be swayed by others?
Zhao Feng never regretted choosing this skill. During cultivation, he would always use his left eye to scan for flaws and push the danger to a minimum.
He once analysed that the Lightning Wind Palm was roughly created, like the creator hadn’t perfected it yet. Therefore, Zhao Feng was not only training this skill, he was perfecting and improving it.
“You must not be willing! You’re too similar to Chen’er back then, he had the same expression as you back then and he said the same thing... if I didn’t take him as my disciple, I would regret it!” 1st Elder looked complexly at Zhao Feng, like he was someone else.
“Elder! I will promise what he said before too. What he couldn’t finish, I will.”
A surge of confidence appeared from Zhao Feng.
“Arrogant!”
“Lies!”
The second the words left his mouth, the nearby people started shouting. Even the eyebrows of the two Elders rose.
Some were worried that Zhao Feng would be washed away in 1st Elder’s anger but he wasn’t worried at all.
Because at this moment, he had become the perfect substitute for the most cared disciple of 1st Elder.
“You do have some points that are different to his.” 1st Elder inspected Zhao Feng and laughed.
Zhao Feng’s heart skipped a beat. Could 1st Elder see through that he had been using the latter’s emotions?
“You’re the same as him, confident to such a degree that you could be said to be arrogant. There’s one difference, you’re calm.”
1st Elder stared at Zhao Feng for a long time before speaking.
Calm.
This was Zhao Feng’s main change ever since the mysterious left eye had merged with him. No matter how much he achieved, he would never lose himself in power. The arrogance he showed before was to reach his goal.
Zhao Feng stared at 1st Elder and the latter had extremely complex emotions as he struggled to choose.
After a long time, he let out a breath: “Since you don’t want to give up the Lightning Wind Palm, I can only take you as a Outer disciple of mine. Of course, if you’re unwilling, you can take other Elders as your mentor too or you can change your wish. I’ve done the most I could.”
Most I could.
Zhao Feng understood how 1st Elder felt. His favourite disciple had died due to learning the Lightning Wind Palm and he had vowed to never take another disciple.
However, he had promised Zhao Feng a wish and the latter’s wish wasn’t unacceptable.
Therefore, 1st Elder stepped back and told Zhao Feng that if he gave up the Lightning Wind Palm, he would take Zhao Feng as a disciple. How would he be willing to see the same situation happen again?
But the problem was Zhao Feng was too similar to his previous disciple. After struggling for a long time, 1st Elder could only promise to take Zhao Feng as an Outer disciple.
The difference between outer and core disciples were huge. The former was master-disciple in name and even if the disciple sinned heavily, it wouldn’t affect the master.
.....
“Disciple greets Master.”
Without hesitation, Zhao Feng bowed down but he was stopped by 1st Elder: “Only core disciples need to be so respectful.”
1st Elder didn’t want to put too many emotions on Zhao Feng, because the latter had trained the Lightning Wind Palm that was like a bomb.
Zhao Feng smiled faintly and he only had one reason to wanting 1st Elder as his master - he had a strong background!
From his point of view, an outer disciple of 1st Elder was better than a core disciple of Elder Xue.
Firstly, 1st Elder had a high authority and he didn’t take many disciples. Furthermore, many didn’t dare to even touch his outer disciples. Secondly, 1st Elder was trustworthy. Even if Zhao Feng was an outer disciple, he would still protect the latter.
After becoming the Elders disciple, Zhao Feng could feel the envious gazes of the other disciples nearby.
Even though he was only an outer disciple of 1st Elder, this still made others jealous. The Elder didn’t take many disciples and Zhao Feng was the only disciple apart from Yang Gan.
Furthermore, 1st Elder’s authority was much higher than other Elders and the Clan Master even respected him.
“I can’t believe that this brat succeeded... ”
Hai Yun Master paused slightly as his eyebrows scrunched up and he felt like this just got much more troublesome. 1st Elder’s position was unique in the Clan and even though Zhao Feng was only an outer disciple, his treatment wouldn’t be any worse than that of core disciples of other Elders.
At this moment, Zhao Feng’s heart relaxed. He had achieved the 2nd goal set by Lord Guanjun.
Become an inner disciple.
Find a strong background.
His ‘background’ wasn’t just strong, this could be seen from Yuan Zhi and Quan Chen’s wary eyes.
....
For the next few days, the Broken Moon Clan searched thousands of miles around the Xing family to find the Blood Corpse Protector, but it was to no avail. The latter was severely injured and it shouldn’t be able to run more than a couple hundred miles. But no one even saw its shadow, even though Elders were even sent out.
The Broken Moon Clan didn’t know that Zhao Feng had a 50-60% chance of finding traces of the corpse.
But unfortunately, Zhao Feng’s goals were all achieved... He had been high key for too long and it was time to go low key, to absorb everything he had and cultivate...