Star Gate

Chapter 563: The Windchaser Boots (III)

In that case...

Could one use the treasures of the eight families if they knew the Breathing Method of the Five Styles? That it didn’t matter if they were of the bloodlines of the eight families or not?

Li Hao hadn’t previously given much thought to his teacher using the blade of the Zhangs. But now as he thought more about it, perhaps it wasn’t that the blade could be used by any random person, but that the breathing method really was different.

The Breathing Method of the Five Styles gave the sense of a universal method, able to extract and absorb any energy...

Of course, one may not be able to utilize the core of the weapon, yet Li Hao knew of one detail, that these weapons were afraid of existences stronger than them. If one was stronger than the weapon, then there was no consideration whether the weapon possessed a master or not. After he threatened the Flaming Phoenix Spear, it turned so incredibly docile. Li Hao even suspected that if Hou Xiaochen was here now, the young man might stand a chance of wresting the origin weapon from Hou Xiaochen.

He absorbed some energy from the boot. Sword energy was mild, blade energy was tyrannical, and boot energy gave off a dark and gentle feeling. If sword energy could nurture the body, blade energy could attack, then what of the boots?

The young man thought about it for a while and chose to meld the energy into his body. The energy darted into his feet, where supernatural locks had manifested. After the locks absorbed the energy, Li Hao attempted operating his internal force. He didn’t sense any special changes.

Does it just strengthen the supernatural locks?

He abruptly picked up the boot, took off his shoe, and put it on his foot.

Light Sword sputtered for a while before saying, “The Xus just enshrine them...”

No one really wears them!

Hong Yitang, on the other hand, looked at it from another perspective. “Are you not concerned that the last guy who wore them had bad hygiene or stinky feet?”

“......” Li Hao looked wordlessly at the man. Are you for real? This was a weapon of the eight families, there was no room for stinky feet. But after the man’s words... even Li Hao was thinking twice about his actions.

He put that out of his mind and operated the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, erupting with the deer style. The young man pushed off and... vanished!

Hong Yitang’s heart shook with shock! Light Sword also looked up with wide eyes. Li Hao landed moments later, his face pale from too much consumption of internal force.

“Holy shit!” He goggled. So fast!

That’d been so fast that he almost felt like he’d teleported! “The Xus put this on a table instead of using it?? This thing consumes a lot of internal force for sure, but it’s the perfect life-saving treasure! I broke through one thousand meters just from one usage. Even Martial Uncle Hong would need some time to cover that distance, wouldn’t you?”

“How can you use it?!” Light Sword was more shocked than the young man.

“Is the bloodline of the eight families that incredible?” Hong Yitang stroked his chin. “Or is it that the bloodline of the Lis can use any weapon?”

That wasn’t the case! Li Hao knew that he hadn’t used his blood to have the boot recognize him as its master. He’d only used the breathing method. Or rather, it was the breathing method that was the key to operating the boot. He even utilized the breathing method when drawing energy from the little sword. It... still hadn’t recognized him as its master.

Indeed, Li Hao couldn’t store the little sword in his body even now. So technically speaking, he wasn’t its master. He was just borrowing it, leveraging the Breathing Method of the Five Styles to do so.

Neither had his teacher used his blood to have the blade of the Zhangs recognize him. He’d been using the breathing method all along as well.

“Can you extract the dark energy from the boot??” demanded an agitated Light Sword. “Um... if you can and dual cultivation is required after...”

“Ahem!” Li Hao jerked with shock, yanked the boot off his foot, and threw it out with fear. What’s a dirty old man talking to me about that for?

Neither had he forgotten that his teacher had dual cultivated with him once before. He’d absorbed too much blood energy that one time, so his teacher had to digest it with him. But Light Sword didn’t seem to mean dual cultivation in the same way!

That was damned scary!

Light Sword seemed to realize something and her face contorted, revealing a different face. “That was just a disguise...” she sighed.

Li Hao grimaced and didn’t say anything. Right, a disguise, but... so what? She’d turned from a crotchety old man to a coarse auntie. That’s right, coarse! He couldn’t just outright call her ugly, but her face was rather coarse; she had a small mustache and rather thick eyebrows!

You... were better looking as the old man! At least you looked kindly and benevolent. Now you look... I swear I’m not judging someone by their appearance, but you really... look... like a man!

Someone with heavier tastes wouldn’t mind, but he absolutely did!

Light Sword sighed at the reaction. Those who were ugly lacked basic human rights. Just look at the Silver Moon martial masters. Ying Hongyue liked pretty girls, Yuan Shuo did as well. He showed Jadelight Sword mercy because she was pretty.

They weren’t the only ones, many Silver Moon martial masters were in a similar vein. They liked the good looking ones. Or rather... all men were like this!

She was very resigned at Li Hao’s expression and also sorrowful. So this meant there was no hope? The young man was her greatest hope now since he could use the Windchaser Boot, but his reaction truly made one sad!

As Li Hao gaped, Hong Yitang coughed gently. “Now what kind of attitude is that, Li Hao? She is your senior when all is said and done, what’s with your overreaction? Light Sword was very pretty when she was young. It was only because of her cultivation method that... Ahem!”

Light Sword had been passable when she first entered the martial world, but to say that she was pretty... Hong Yitang coughed again when he took a walk down memory lane. That was all there was to her. There were many that matched her to be found on the streets.

However, there weren’t that many female martial masters around. If she’d retained her looks, she might’ve been considered a flower of the martial world later on. It was an undeniable fact that there were more men than women in Silver Moon.

Li Hao flushed and laughed dryly, “I didn’t mean it that way, it’s just...”

Forget dual cultivation, alright? You just need the energy within, there’s lots of ways to accomplish that! The breathing method did it just fine, so why do you guys think about dual cultivation all the time?

Your minds are in the gutter!

“Changing my appearance isn’t the issue,” Light Sword sighed again. “It’s that my light energy has reached the limit of what I can train it to. I’m worried it’ll explode if I continue cultivating! The Windchaser Boots thus became my last hope...”

“So stop training for now...” said Hong Yitang.

“I would rather die.” Light Sword shook her head. She would’ve stopped training a long time ago if she didn’t want to end up like this, why become so strong?

For martial masters to stop training due to fear of danger when there was a pathway to growing stronger right in front of them... then they might as well die.

“You just want the dark energy within, right?” Li Hao suddenly said after some thought.

“Right!” The woman nodded hastily.

“You might not need this particular energy then,” the young man said slowly. “I can try a kind of exceedingly pure dark energy to nourish your body. If that solves your problem, you need to give me the boot!”

Light Sword hesitated, not for the treasure, but from past experience. “Regular dark energy explodes as soon as it enters my body or is instantly smothered. I’ve tried, not even Nova level energy works! I once killed a late Nova Celestial for no use.

“Of course, you can take the boot if you can resolve my problem. I wanted it precisely for my issue. Just be careful of the Xus, they won’t give up on the Windchaser Boot. The deaths of Xu Zhen and his son are less important than the treasure...”

If regular dark energy wouldn’t do, what about energy purified by the little sword? It could extract wisps elemental energy from mysterious power, what would happen if it extracted from mysterious power stones? Perhaps it would measure up to the energy with the boots. 

Li Hao swiftly looked through his storage rings and found a few pieces of dark colored mysterious power stones. He would know after he gave it a try!

After crushing the mysterious power stones, he used sword energy to extract dark elemental energy out of them instead of converting it to sword energy. This was a very wasteful usage of the stones, but Li Hao didn’t mind at the moment.

After extracting the energy, he directed it to Light Sword with a point of his finger. A strong recoil rose from her body, but the energy was swiftly absorbed. The woman had been very apprehensive, but her eyes brightened the next moment.

“It doesn’t... seem to have been smothered!” She realized with shock. There was another feasible way! She’d tried many over the years and even seized a few dark origin weapons, but all of them proved useless. Li Hao had easily and quickly resolved the problem!

Hong Yitang’s eyes darted around—Li Hao’s sword was truly incredible. It looked to be able to extract pure elemental energy. The sword was a divine sword alright! Even he wanted to take it from the lad!

The man quickly suppressed his desire, repeating to himself that everything was nothing. Humans were stronger than weapons, weapons were external objects. Plus, Li Hao using it didn’t mean that he could use it.

Light Sword didn’t think so much, she was just agitated, “It works... it really works! Li Hao, you can have the Windchaser Boot. Let me know what else you need, I require large sums of this kind of energy...”

She might be able to take another step forward if she possessed dark energy, and that was secondary to her purpose. Most importantly was that she might be able to resolve the drawbacks of her light energy growing stronger and stronger.