Chapter 131: The Tug-of-War

Kunlun’s heart was now a tangle of conflicting emotions.

There was excitement, anger, hatred, and endless regret.

Back when he had sent people to the forbidden land to retrieve the secret fruit, it was he who had ordered his subordinates to investigate the place.

The forbidden land stood above all else throughout the secret realm. In the past, the Kunlun Tribe had followed the Battle Ancestor, and their forebears across the generations had rendered glorious service. After the Kunlun Secret Realm was sealed, the tribe had been granted certain privileges. Besides commanding the various tribes, each successive patriarch was entitled to request one secret fruit from the forbidden land.

When Kunlun had first become patriarch, he had been full of youthful ambition, with the feeling that he could look down upon the entire world.

When he sent people into the secret realm to retrieve the fruit, he had specifically ordered them to investigate it as thoroughly as possible, in preparation for reclaiming the secret realm in the future.

Kunlun had been so audacious back then. What he wanted was for the whole world to submit to him—not to have a place beyond the reach of the law that he could not control.

Because of those ambitions, every elder of the tribe who had been sent there was lost.

The strength of the Kunlun Tribe was greatly diminished, and others had taken advantage of its weakness, uprooting the tribe in a single stroke. Kunlun himself had been banished to the depths of the Boundless Cliff for several hundred years.

...

Thinking of this, Kunlun sighed inwardly.

Everything had begun with his ambition. That ambition had been crushed by the forbidden land the moment it first emerged, and what had vanished along with it was his tribe—his home.

As Kunlun lamented, Yang Fan slowly awoke on the shore. He struggled to sit up, and awareness gradually returned to his mind.

He looked around in a daze.

“I’m still alive...” Yang Fan muttered softly.

“If you want to die, it’s easy. Stop using your aura to shield yourself and jump straight down,” Kunlun’s cold voice came from nearby.

Yang Fan looked toward Kunlun, standing on the central platform amid the magma and earthfire, his expression complicated.

He could never forget how he had just been burned alive by the flames. Yang Fan felt that sensation might have been even more unbearable than death itself.

If Kunlun’s aura had not spread across the space above him and blocked his path, he would never have ended up in such a miserable state.

At the thought of this, Yang Fan was overcome by wave after wave of helplessness.

Kunlun was not someone he could oppose at his current level.

At the ruins, Yang Fan had personally witnessed just how terrifying those tenth-grade experts were.

Even the shock waves from Zhang Daoyi’s battle with several powerful opponents had been more than he could withstand.

At the time, Li Xianyi, who was only at the fourth grade, had nearly lost his life to a single aftershock. Had luck not been on his side, he would have died on the spot.

“Since you’re awake, stop wasting time. Recover your energy quickly, then continue,” Kunlun said coldly.

Kunlun was thoroughly sick of looking at Yang Fan now. If not for this boy, he might have been rescued directly by the Heaven-Cleaving King.

Yang Fan was no longer the adorable sight he had been when he first tumbled into the Boundless Cliff.

Back then, when Yang Fan had fallen from above, Kunlun had been filled with delight. He had felt as if he could already see hope.

Yet just now, that faint hope had actually driven away his greater hope.

Still, Kunlun no longer harbored the slightest malicious thought toward Yang Fan. It was not merely because of what the Heaven-Cleaving King had said before leaving. More importantly, Yang Fan was now his final hope. If anything happened to him, Kunlun would truly have nothing left to rely on.

...

Yang Fan was looking this way and that, shaking his head in confusion.

“What are you looking at? Hurry up and recover, then continue!” Kunlun roared at him.

Yang Fan looked up, seeming a little wronged. “There’s no spiritual energy here. How am I supposed to recover?”

Kunlun covered his face with one hand, then tossed a secret fruit directly at him.

“Eat it, then begin cultivating. If you’re lucky, you won’t have to enter the magma. If you’re unlucky, you’ll still have to cultivate down there.”

After saying something that made little sense, Kunlun stopped paying attention to him.

Yang Fan caught the fruit and examined it from every angle.

It was green, with no unusual aura about it. The only thing Yang Fan could sense was an immense concentration of vital energy.

Good stuff.

That was Yang Fan’s first impression. Anything so rich in vital energy could not be ordinary.

But he did not eat it immediately. His hands moved over the fruit, turning it back and forth as he inspected it.

Finally, he wrapped the fruit in his aura and tried to probe inside, only for the attempt to be dispersed by the tremendous vital energy within.

On the platform, Kunlun’s face shifted between green and white, with a trace of amusement mixed in.

The boy was trying to determine whether Kunlun had tampered with the fruit?

Leaving aside whether he could even do such a thing to a secret fruit, Kunlun’s reputation alone made it beneath him to play tricks on a junior.

In Kunlun’s view, schemes were meant for opponents of his own level. For a weak junior like Yang Fan, he only needed to state his intentions plainly. Overwhelming strength was the best guarantee—unless the other party wanted to die.

And for someone who wanted to die, no scheme would have any meaning. Why waste the effort, or trouble himself to think about it?

...

After a long while, Yang Fan finally ate the fruit one bite at a time, his heart filled with unease.

The green fruit melted as soon as it entered his mouth, transforming into cool, refreshing liquid that flowed down his throat before dispersing throughout his body.

After finishing the entire fruit, Yang Fan did not feel any different.

“Cultivate. The secret fruit’s purpose is to replenish every part of your body. Its immense vitality nourishes the flesh, extends one’s lifespan, and greatly benefits the physical body. This is especially true for the Kunlun Immortal Art. Powerful vitality will accelerate the body’s recovery, and circulating the Kunlun Immortal Art is the best way to absorb the fruit.”

Seeing Yang Fan standing blankly on the shore, Kunlun explained.

Kunlun felt deeply humiliated. He had practically become an old nursemaid.

He had originally intended to turn Yang Fan into a pawn, but now it felt as though he had taken in a disciple instead. The thought left him profoundly depressed.

Given Yang Fan’s talent, his status as an outsider, and the favor of the Dao upon him, taking him as a disciple would not have been excessive in the slightest.

But under the present circumstances, Kunlun felt as though the Heaven-Cleaving King had forced him into it.

This was completely contrary to the way Kunlun had imagined educating someone.

Yang Fan did not think too much about it. After hearing Kunlun’s words, he sat down cross-legged and began circulating the Kunlun Immortal Art, which he had not yet mastered.

The instant the Kunlun Immortal Art began to circulate, Yang Fan sensed that something within his body had changed.

Every route along which the art moved seemed to form a vortex, continuously devouring his vital force. Yet whenever his blood and energy were about to run dry, whenever they seemed on the verge of breaking off, vast amounts of vitality began surging from every part of his body, filling the deficiency and allowing the Kunlun Immortal Art to continue circulating.

It was as though a cycle had formed.

Consumption and replenishment struggled against each other within Yang Fan’s body, locked in an endless tug-of-war.

One side was like a giant beast that had gone hungry for ages.

The other was like a mountain of meat that could never be devoured.