Genius Demon Empress - Chapter 3

“The Canonical Text of Summmoners?” For some reason, Yue Jing Hua felt that the name was somewhat familiar, as if she’s heard something similar thing before, but couldn’t remember where at the moment.

“This one’s an incomplete one left from the ancient times. According to it, it says its owner is a Shaman Summoner expert and can make contracts to summon beasts. After that Shaman died, his canonical text was left behind on the battlefield. I came across this book by chance and bought it. This book is only an incomplete one, but Shaman Summoners have gone extinct for so many years now, and since Shaman Summoners are strong, their items can be spread around forever,” Ol’ Xia sighed with sentiments. This canonical text is his shop’s main featured treasure.

“Between Shaman Summoners and Arcanists, which is stronger?” There are no memories nor information about Shaman Summoners in this body of “Yue Jing Hua”’s, which means, Shaman Summoners have already become extinct on Azure Dragon Continent.

“I’m not quite sure about that, but according to [Events in the History of the Azure Dragon Continent], the Shaman Summoners were once one of the most respected races of Azure Dragon Continent, and about ten thousand years ago, by just relying on an arcane beast army of a few hundred, they were able to cause the whole continent to descend into chaos. They are the true Children of God, and the so-called Shaman Summoners are powerful beings who are able to summon and forge contracts with arcane beasts. A bronze grade summoner can contract up to two low grade arcane beasts. The power of one low grade arcane beast is equal to three to four mortal arcanists, which means one a bronze grade Summoners can go up against several nine-grade mortal arcanists. So what do you think, aren’t summoners a powerful existence?” Ol’ Xia said with a face of reverence. Since he’s been running this general store for so long, he’s heard many kinds of gossip and rumors.

Once Ol’ Xia began talking, he wasn’t able to close his chatterbox anymore. He dragged Yue Jing Hua around and talked about many more things relating to summoners. Such as, the different grades of summoners, and that a summoner’s canonical text is split into different ranks of diamond, gold, silver, and bronze.

“Could I take a look at that summoner’s canonical text?” After receiving Ol’ Xia’s tacit agreement, Yue Jing Hua walked over to where the summoner’s canonical text was stored.

The summoner’s canonical text was about the size of two hand’s palms. The cover has a special layer of red paint applied on to it. After opening the canonical text, there were only three pages inside.

“Page one: Shen Lan. Birth – Year 110 of Azure Dragon Continent. Death – Year 210 of Azure Dragon Continent. Attributes – Bronze grade summoner. Skill(s) – Seduce; is able to confuse a low grade arcane beast for a short period of time, making it temporarily lose its offense abilities. Page two:  Strength Rabbit; a winged second rank fire arcane beast; its explosive force is astonishing. Page three: Mole King; is able to summon other mole rat arcane beasts; loves living in colonies.”  

Since Shen Lan is already dead, and the summoner’s canonical text is incomplete, the grade of this summoner’s canonical text has already dropped to the lowest, since the cover is grey and dusty.

Yue Jing Hua closed up the summoner’s canonical text with easy grace, a shining gleam flashed across her eyes.

“Looking at your attire, you must be from Shang. It just so happens to be the season when academies are holding their entrance exams for new recruits.” Ol’ Xia looked at her sharply. He noticed that when Yue Jing Hua was looking around the general store just now, she had stopped and looked at the second rank arcane stone the longest.

During the autumn of every year, people from the few countries around would come and take the entrance exam on Hundred Beasts Mountain.

“I’m participating in an academy’s entrance exam; I need to find one second rank arcane stone or spirit gem.”  Yue Jing Hua didn’t hide anything from the kind old man in front of her. If that summoner named “Shen Lan”’s ability was seduction, then Yue Xiao Qi’s is “insight”. She is able to differentiate a person’s good and bad intentions in a flash of a moment.

“Which academy’s entrance exam is it for? A normal academy’s entrance exam only requires students to obtain a grade one arcane beat or spirit plant, and they have an instructor accompanying them as well. It’s too dangerous for one person to go alone.” Catching a grade one spirit beast or looking for a rank one spirit plant is much easier compared to obtaining a second grade arcane stone or spirit gem.

Yue Jing Hua raised her brows. It looks like “Yue Jing Hua” had fell for someone trap on this exam’s difficulty.

“I’m used to moving around alone,” she said indifferently as she placed to items she bought into her bag. Only when one is alone will there be no risk of being backstabbed at the most critical moment.

Ol’ Xia opened his mouth to say something. He found a kind of loneliness in this young child’s body, a type of loneliness which seeped out from deep within the soul.

But this loneliness was mixed with an unusual amount of confidence.

On the account of this child’s confidence, the Ol’ Xia who never liked to meddle in other people’s affairs, did something even he was surprised about afterwards, “Kid, “ Ol’ Xia changed the way he addressed her. He took out a sheet over parchment, “This is a map of the center of Arcane Beast Valley. A few types of second grade arcane beasts and the regions they live in are marked on it, so this may be of use to you. But of course, this map isn’t free.”

Yue Jing Hua was surprised. But immediately after, she noticed that Ol’ Xia’s gaze fell onto her old and worn-out deer skin armor. She began to smile; different kinds of vigor bursted out from within her eyes. “How should I repay you.”

“Sell me the arcane beast skins and fur you obtain. I just need to obtain some small profits, that’s all.” Ol’ Xia narrowed his eyes, seeing Yue Jing Hua off as she disappeared out the door.

After leaving the tree house, she relied on the map left behind by Qi Feng and the rest of his group. Yue Jing Hua immediately found a quiet place near a creek nearby.

After the curtain of night fell, when the sun completely set, the cover of night completely covered up the entire creek.

Yue Jing Hua set up a bon fire, and scattered some beast expelling powder nearby. After taking of the deep skin armor, she took out the items she got from the general store, and put each one before her.

Most of the needles she bought from Hundred Beasts Mountain, are bone needles used for sewing the skins and furs of arcane beasts, so they were a bit thicker than the needles you normally use for embroidery.

Her fingers quickly swept across the ten plus embroidery neeldes, and chose seven or eight needles of different sizes.

She concentrated all of her attention then breathed out a breath of air, and slowly walked into the water.

A glacial radiance reflected at the very tip of the steel needle. Arcane-qi rushed into the tool and even though these were only a couple of steel needles, but if other arcanist saw it, they would definitely jump out in fear. This was only something an advanced jade-arcanist could achieve.

Right now, even though they were just steel needles, they could still easily pierce through a steel plate that was several inches thick.

The map of hundred acupoint of humans clearly appeared in her mind. Yue Jing Hua took up the needle and accurately pressed down on the acupoints, “Heart Transport, –, Mute’s Gate, Sun, Camphorwood Gate…” Every time she said aloud a name, a steel needle which had already been disinfected with fire had pressed into that very acupoint.

And at the same time, the arcane-qi which had been hiding in the steel needle began to become more active, flowing along with the flow of the blood and the tendons and muscles towards the dantian.

After Yue Xiao Qi had brushed up “Yue Jing Hua”’s body, she immediately found out that the arcane-qi inside “Yue Jing Hua”’s body was very similar to the traditional concept of inner-qi found in Cathay traditions and conventions.

According to the Cathay’s oriental studies of martial arts, a human’s inner-qi is not something that is easily dissolvable. In pace with time’s flow, the building up of inner-qi would only continue to deepen and grow more.

The arcane-qi which “Yue Jing Hua” had cultivated for over ten years was also like this. She had begun cultivating arcane-qi at the age of three, and at the age of seven, she had already become first-rank mortal arcanist at the age of seven. At the age of thirteen, she had already become a ninth-rank mortal arcanist, which was only a line away from a jade arcanist. Such talent, can be called first-class.

It only took three years for a genius to suddenly become a good-for-nothing. And whether or not a good-for-nothing can become a genius again, will have to depend on tonight.

Before beginning acupuncture, Yue Jing Hua had concentrated her all her attention and scanned the situation the body was in.

There was a cloud of black smoke like texture of something which had layer by layer, just as if it were a spider web, separating her flesh, blood, tendons and muscles, and organs, making it so that the arcane-qi in the dan-tian unable to gather up and condense together in “Yue Jing Hua”’s body. This is what created the illusion that “Yue Jing Hua” was unable to condense up arcane-qi.

In the 23^rd century, research of the composition of the human body had already reached a pinnacle. As a requirement for her job, Yue Xiao Qi once had an old traditional Chinese doctor who had a Shaolin monastery background as her teacher. That old traditional Chinese doctor taught Yue Xiao Qi how to use acupuncture to facilitate the inner forces and blood and vital breath of her body.

But there’s a saying that says that doctors never self- treats themselves. Only someone like Yue Xiao Qi whose a fierce character willing to play around with her life, would be able to treat her body so cruelly.

After all, the acupoints she chose although are the quickest shortcuts to flushing out all of her major veins and arteries by activating the inner force in her body, but at the same time, they are also the utter most dangerous positions. All of those major acupoints are all the human body’s lethal points. Just the slightest bit of carelessness will result in either serious injuries if light or immediate death on the spot if serious.

Along with the insertion of the steel needles, her body began to shudder nonstop. The feelings of comfort and stimulation created by the pain and arcane-qi flowing around became bundles of high pressure electric currents, making people tremble.

This caused her to slip into a state of chaos; losing all sight and the ability to hear, forgetting everything around her.

The black smoke in her organs had been successively forced back, and a mud like texture substance appeared and stuck onto Yue Jing Hua’s skin. Along with the flow of her sweat, drip by drip, it flowed down. The cloud of black smoke in her body was also slowly and eventually dissipating.

Arcane-qi slowly approached the dantian nearby. The entire dantian was like a clay pellet, the place where the black smoke was most concentrated.

She watched as the arcane-qi had no way of breaking through the black gas’ which confined the dantian.

Yue Jing Hua suddenly bit together her jaws, and then pricked towards the second last needle on the Spirit Court acupoint on the top of her head. The steel needle broke from the middle of the needle, sounds of it snapping sounded out.

The broken half of the needle took on the dark red color of blood, and the other half pricked into her acupoint. The figure of person in the water unconsciously shook around, like a dried leaf on the tip of a branch in the winter, and was about to fall down.

Back to the Yue Jing Hua in the water, the ugly lines on the right side of her face seemed as if it had become even clearer. At this time, the right side of her face was burning red like it had been branded with steel. The demonic light rays brightly lit up, and for a moment, the black air in her body began to backthrust, just like a greedy fierce beast, and crazily plunged towards Yue Jing Hua.

The light on the water shined continuously, reflecting the crescent moon and a beautifully charming figure, along her a face which was both extremely beautiful and ugly.

The light upon the water shimmered, and on the water was another tall and slim shadow of a human.

The water ripped again. That person’s face couldn’t be seen very clearly. That person let out a sound of surprise, as if they were very surprised: “Arcane-qi is currenly transforming…forth rank mortal arcanist…third rank mortal arcanist…”

On the creek, the degree chaotic of arcane-qi was transforming nonstop.

The stranger had only ever seen the advancement of arcane-qi, never the rapid drop of arcane-qi.

Such a strange sight made the person who talked couldn’t help but step forward with curiosity.

When the moonlight shined on the person’s face, everything around them immediately lost all color and beauty.