Chapter 19: I Cannot Overestimate

Zhen Jin held Zi Di as they returned to the spider’s hunting ground once more.

“My lord, you came! You really didn’t abandon me. Thank the heavens!” Huang Zao cried out with pleasant surprise and emotion in his voice.

But his mood quickly sank and he asked disappointedly: “My lord, why are there only two of you? Where are the rest?”

“It is just the two of us.” Zhen Jin replied.

“My- my lord, are you sure?” Huang Zao stammered. He was nervous about his life or death. “Perhaps we ought to get more people.”

Zi Di coldly snorted: “Gathering so many people; are we here to save you or kill you?? You can only trust in us now.”

Huang Zao was stifled for a moment before saying: “My lord, you must be careful!”

Zi Di took out a few potion bottles from her small bag and gave it to Zhen Jin.

Zhen Jin threw them in the air, these potions flew through the air and some hit tree trunks or rocks and shattered, spilling out their contents.

1

The air filled with an unpleasant smell of what seemed to be a mixture of burnt chicken feathers, dog excrement and squid.

If magic could be used, a lightness or flight spell could be used to fly up and gently rescue Huang Zao.

2

The environment right now forced Zhen Jin and Zi Di to rely on potions and medicine.

These potions were combustion agents and Zhen Jin threw them at critical spots.

After recovering from his injuries, Zhen Jin found his strength had increased greatly.

After conversing with Zi Di, she felt that it may have been the temporary effects of the potion mixture made of the monkey bear’s blood.

This kind of potion was not rare.

The most famous one was the Strength Potion.

After taking the potion, it could grant the user a permanent increase in strength..

Of course the effect sharply decreased when ingested repeatedly.

There was also a possibility that the life and death battle somehow awakened a bloodline within Zhen Jin’s body.

The nobility possessed the most outstanding bloodlines in the world.

As a result, they were filled with talents and gifts.

The Bai Zhen Clan were once a great Southern Noble Clan, naturally their bloodline was outstanding. It was rumored that the source of their bloodline was traced back to a legend level magic beast, the golden needle queen bee.

3

Possessing this kind of bloodline gave excellent speed, stability and accuracy when fighting.

This bloodline did not enhance strength but it was quite possible Zhen Jin’s body concealed other bloodlines as well.

The most commonly seen bloodlines included the bloodlines of dragons, giants, orges, and even the demons.

Nobles often married each other and were very promiscuous in private, their bloodlines often mixing with each other. As a result, bloodlines could be hidden in their body for their entire life and furthermore, due to the lack of effective testing methods, it was very difficult to determine how many types of bloodlines someone had.

1

Going through something similar to Zhen Jin’s life and death trial would cause one’s life potential to erupt and awaken hidden bloodlines. This was common among all the races.

4

The other possibility was what Zi Di speculated previously.

Zhen Jin’s cultivation was not silver but at the gold level.

The silver level was the limit of the human body’s capabilities. Gold level cultivation surpassed the limitations of the human body in speed, strength, and regeneration.

If Zhen Jin had gold level cultivation, it was very unlikely he had been at that level for a long period of time. He surely must have just broken through due to his age.

Therefore his increase in strength came from the gold level battle qi within his body.

Regardless of the reason, in short it was good that Zhen Jin’s strength rose.

When all of the combustion agents from Zi Di’s stocks were finished, Zhen Jin took out some flintstones and cracked out a blue spark.

The spark fell on the splattered potion, and with a pop, a flame violently sprung forth.

The fire rapidly spread and ignited the potions along its path, within the blink of an eye a raging wall of flames burned!

The wall of fire fiercely burned and began to climb the surrounding trees, climbing higher and higher.

The towering canopy emitted creaking sounds and the spiders became agitated and stood up.

Huang Zao felt the air below him rapidly burning. His heart was beating wildly as he didn’t expect the couple to make a huge scene so suddenly.

“It turns out this girl was a pharmacist. But how can they save me with this?”

As Huang Zao was guessing, Zhen Jin moved.

He took out a javelin and smeared the combustion agent onto it. Zhen Jin then held the javelin slightly in the fire to ignite the speartip.

The next moment, Zhen Jin raised his arm and threw the javelin.

The javelin flew through the air in a beautiful arc before precisely stabbing the head of one of the prey.

5

The prey appeared to be a leopard that had long suffocated in the spiderweb.

After the javelin pierced the prey, the fire soon spread across the spiderwebs.

The leopard shaped prey quickly fell to the ground.

It was not beyond Zhen Jin’s expectations that this was a scaled leopard. Because of its scaled armor, the small flames attached to the leopard were quickly extinguished.

One javelin thrown by Zhen Jin, one prey falling to the ground.

Some of the flames continued to burn while others were extinguished.

“They are here.” Zi Di’s heart shivered as she saw the heads of the spiders quickly descending from above to wrap up the prey and mend the webs.

As some of the flames touched the prey, the spiders spewed a thick green liquid from their mouths to extinguish the fire so they could repair the webs.

It was obvious they had methods to deal with fire.

Soon, no new spiders came to the ground.

In all there were 26 vicious bronze level spiders in front of the couple.

Most of the spiders were trying hard to recover their rations so only three turned towards Zhen Jin and Zi Di

Zi Di was secretly relieved.

In the end these spiders were still beasts, they were not as crafty and sinister as the evil blue wolf which regained the girl’s confidence and superiority as a human.

As the three spiders approached, Zhen Jin stood still.

Zhen Jin waited until the spiders reached an ideal distance as he calmly lit the combustion potion next to his left foot.

With a rumble a second wall of fire rose, trapping the three spiders inside it.

The spiders screeched in horror as they attempted to squirt threads at the trees in order to sling away.

But as the spider threads shot over the fire, they were burned.

As the wall of fire gradually spread, the three spiders were easily cornered by Zhen Jin.

With no alternatives, the three spiders were forced to break out of the enclosure.

2

They succeeded in rushing out of the wall of fire, their bodies covered in small flames.

Squeak, Squeak, Squeak, Squeak…

They produced a series of shrill noises in confusion and alarm.

The spiders trying to reclaim the prey were also thrown into confusion upon seeing their three companions running toward them.

“Now is the time!”

Zhen Jin’s eyes flashed.

He threw three javelins into the flames and into the spider web above Huang Zao.

There were four spider threads suspending him, like four snow white hemp ropes. When the spider threads encountered the flames, they burned and broke in an instant.

Soon, all but one spider thread holding up Huang Zao was remaining. It quickly lost its integrity as it wobbled and shook in midair before n slamming into a tree trunk.

The last spider thread remaining then burned after Zhen Jin threw his fourth javelin.

Huang Zao cried out as he finally fell to the ground.

Although he was in pain, he wasn't injured.

This was due to the spiderweb having excellent ductility. When he hit the tree trunk, the spiderweb stretched out leaving him only two meters from the ground.

Unfortunately a spider that had just hung up a prey noticed the disturbance and immediately pounced Huang Zao.

6

Upon seeing this, Huang Zao’s eyes opened with fright, and with a low shriek he unexpectedly rolled into the wall of fire of his own initiative.

The fire instantly burned the webs around him and started to burn his body.

But at that moment, Huang Zao displayed his decisiveness and determination as a sailor, without a word he continued running through the fire until he left the wall of fire.

He had succeeded in freeing himself from the spiders, however his entire body was on fire and it was very likely he would miserably burn to death on the spot.

“Good!” Zi Di praised, “Come here quickly!”

She didn’t need to shout as Huang Zao was subconsciously running over to them.

The distance between them was quickly closed, Zi Di raised her arm and threw some medicine onto him.

The blue dust sparkled like stars in the sky and scattered over Huang Zao’s body.

Huang Zao suddenly gave a blood curdling screech.

The fire on his body strangely vanished, the blue dust extinguished it all.

Huang Zao shuddered from head to toe.

In just a few moments, he had changed beyond recognition.

3

His head only had a few hair strands left and emitted thick smoke. His face and his hands were burnt and charred black.

He breathed in cold air and quickly ran past Zhen Jin and Zi Di: “Run quickly, run fast, there is still a big one!”

As soon as his voice fell, the aura of a ferocious beast descended from above.

4

Zhen Jin and Zi Di immediately paled.

It was a silver level spider leader.

Its body was bigger, its blue hair was thicker, and its eight legs were longer.

It cut the air with a piercing hiss as it moved to kill Zhen Jin, Zi Di, and Huang Zao with astonishing speed.

“You guys leave first!” At this crucial moment, Zhen Jin reacted first as he glared furiously at Huang Zao and stepped forward bravely with a heavy face.

Swish, swish, swish.

He threw his javelins rapidly.

However the spider was as fast as the wind and easily avoided them all.

Zhen Jin quickly used up all of his javelins, he gritted his teeth and faced the spider with his spear raised high.

“My lord!” Zi Di cried out in fear from behind him.

“Leave quickly, don’t become a burden to him.” Huang Zao shouted.

However, because of his hesitation, he missed his chance.

The spider leader suddenly sprayed three spider threads, precisely hitting each of them.

Zhen Jin’s spear and hands were bound by the threads and he could only wrestle against the spider leader’s strength.

As Zi Di’s cloak was glued, she displayed the strength, nimbleness, and flexibility of her young body. She quickly took off her cloak and drew the dagger from her waist.

“My lord catch!” However just as Zi Di was about to throw the dagger to Zhen Jin, a ball of spiderwebs hit her.

The spiderweb rapidly expanded in the sky into an exquisite net. The spider web hit Zi Di and covered her chest and waist, knocking her down and firmly sticking her to the ground.

Zi Di’s throw was interrupted by the impact and the dagger was flung near Huang Zao rather than at Zhen Jin.

Huang Zao’s right foot was tangled in a spider thread and although he was frantically struggling on the ground, he was not as strong as the spider leader was being dragged away.

Huang Zao subconsciously reached for the dagger.

He pulled out the dagger and swung it twice with all of his strength, which accurately slashed at the thread twice and severed it.

Huang Zao had escaped by a fluke and quickly retreated.

“Quickly throw the dagger to lord!” Zi Di shrieked.

“No, no, I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!!” Huang Zao didn’t seem to hear the calls as he screamed loudly like a madman and ran away.

The spider leader didn’t bother with him anymore which allowed him to disappear into the forest.

“Damm it!” cried Zi Di with fear and anger. At this critical moment, Huang Zao had fled with the only sharp weapon!

Zhen Jin and Zi Di had tried to rescue him, but in the end he abandoned them and fled for his own life.

“Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”

- Firefly

Notes

So yea the bloodlines of this book. The biggest questions are how on earth do they even get bloodlines into their bodies? Do they kill and inject magic beast blood into themselves to increase their power? How on earth did humans kill such powerful beasts if their original limit is the silver level? The author states that drinking potions based around magic beast blood does increase strength but using them multiple times decreases its effects. If this is true, then how are bloodlines so strong that they continue to exist in descendents as their origins fade into myth? What makes certain bloodlines more special and powerful than others? Also can people die from incompatible bloodlines either by injection or birth? So many questions but be prepared to probably have none of them answered in book 1.

Oh yea our MC couple is surrounded by fire and spiders, eh I’m sure Zhen Jin can use his MC luck to roll a few natural 20, maybe.

Monk’s Corner

I’m getting flashbacks to the ‘unimportant’ scene of the author debating who to give the dagger to and me almost falling asleep... I’m glad the author is punishing me and I hope he continues to punish me by making his writing important. Or he could’ve just given the MC the blade and abandoned Simp Di over here…

Translation Notes

(行之有效: to be effective (idiom))

(迫不得已: to have no alternative (idiom)

(面目全非: nothing remains the same (idiom); change beyond recognition)

(从天而降: to drop from the sky (idiom)

/

fig. to appear unexpectedly)

Editor Notes

(its likely to be multiple potions rather than one, in which case, this makes more sense)

(magic = spells. And lightness technique which I learnt from wuxia manga)

(金针蜂后 - Golden Needle Queen Bee)

[So basically we’re talking super saiyans? You’re telling me Zhen Jin is Goku? Hmm, the comparisons are… unlimited.]

[These adverbs are killings me...]

[Hung versus hanged actually has some interesting denotation. ‘Hanged’ refers to the capital punishment and is the past tense for a secondary meaning of ‘hang,’ while ‘hung’ refers to the more colloquial meaning of suspending something.]