Mu Chen handed Bai Yunfei a map of where the black-scaled serpent was shortly afterwards. With a bow towards the elders after he received it, Bai Yunfei and his group left the hall.

That left only the men of the Underworld School there.

After a moment of silence, Mo Yanbai spoke to one of the elders that never spoke the entire time. “First elder, what do you think about this Bai Yunfei?”

This elder appeared to be in his seventies and had long white hair and a white beard that hung low enough to hang on his chest.

“Arrogant and conceited.”

He spoke those three words first before continuing his evaluation. “But from another perspective, he is someone who is confident since he has the ability to do so.”

The pointy-chinned elder frowned. “He’s a greenhorned brat whose hair hasn’t even grown yet. He’s arrogant and reliant on having a powerful master like Zi Jin. I don’t believe he’s capable of crafting a heaven-tier soul armament at all. With all his bragging, I’m confident that the Devouring Chains will soon be offered to us.”

He sighed and shook his head. “How truly surprising to see him have the Devouring Chains from the Soul Refining School. How could he have gotten the mysterious soul armament of their school? Elder Mu, do you really believe he’s capable of killing a Soul King from that school and taking his soul armament?”

“It’s unwise to underestimate this Bai Yunfei, elder Qi. He isn’t a Soul King yet, but he has two class seven soulbeasts with him. With his added status as Zi Jin’s disciple and all his soul armaments, killing a Soul King from the Soul Refining School is within the realm of possibility for him.”

Elder Qi snorted. “Forget it. Everything said so far is just hear-say. He’s still a guest of our school in any case. Us getting a heaven-tier soul armament after all of this is still a very good accomplishment. The men of the Crafting School are quite ‘overbearing’. Even one of their youngsters don’t see a heaven-tier soul armament as something too worth keeping. Using one of those to save the life of someone they don’t even know....should we say they’re a spendthrift or a saint?”

Mo Yanbai laughed, “It’s good for a youngster to want to save someone.”

“Headmaster, are we really going to allow those youngsters to go after the black-scaled serpent? Is that not unwise?” Mu Chen asked. “If something happens to them, we’d have to apologize to both the Crafting School and house of Zheng....”

“Unlike those youngsters, we of the Underworld School are not blind to the dangers of the forest, are we?” Mo Yanbai nodded, “How could we let them enter Black Cloud Forest themselves? We’ll have the first elder follow them. We cannot allow anything to happen to them when they go hunting for the black-scaled serpent. Since we are saving the life of that girl, we may as well kill the serpent for them if they cannot.”

The first elder nodded. “Rest assured, headmaster. I will do as needed.”

Outside the hall, Zheng Kai sent Bai Yunfei a wary glance. “Yunfei, do you really plan on looking for the black-scaled serpent.

Bai Yunfei nodded. “What, you scared?”

“Watch what you’re saying,” Zheng Kai groused, “am I really that much of a coward in your mind?”

“But it’s the Black Cloud Valley and Forest we’re talking about....” His voice took on a tone of concern. “It’s one of the three danger zones on the continent. Won’t us going in rashly end badly for us? Why don’t we bring someone from the Underworld School with us? Maybe that Xu Ran fellow?”

“Let’s not bother them, we’ve already a map, don’t we? Xu Ran’s pretty strong, but how does he compare to Xiao Qi or Long Lan? What’s there to worry about with them? Even if there is danger, you can run away without a problem.

“Plus....” He turned back towards the hall they had just came from. “Do you really think the Underworld School will really let us go as we please without escort? Didn’t you see the map they gave us? It only had the path there and back and nothing else. This entire area is controlled by the Underworld School, so how can there be any hidden spots on the map? And don’t forget, we’re ‘guests’. Whether it’s protecting us from harm or seeing that we don’t go to places we shouldn’t, we’re not going to be ‘alone’ when hunting for the black-scaled serpent.”

Zheng Kai took the map into his own hands to look at it. “Damn! You really thought this out, didn’t you? I thought you were just trying to gamble against that old man.

“When do we leave then?” He asked while fiddling with the map.

“The sooner the better to save a person’s life. Let’s get going then!”

𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

He called out his Tempest Sword and immediately zipped off towards the right.

“Hey! Yunfei, hold up!” Zheng Kai howled after him.

Bai Yunfei stared unhappily at Zheng Kai, “What? Aren’t we rushed for time here? If we go now, we can probably make it back before it gets dark.”

“That’s not what I meant, I’m trying to tell you you can’t fly that way!”

“Why not?”

“That’s the wrong direction!”

————

Bai Yunfei and the others took off into the sky with speed that surprised many of the students there. Having not been fast enough to stop them, they reported swiftly to their higher-ups, only to be told not to mind them.

It didn’t take them long to reach the barrier protecting and hiding the Underworld School from sight. Concentrating a bit, Bai Yunfei flew forward to head ‘out’ to the other side. Like when he first came in, there was a feeling of being submerged in some type of liquid before he was back out. Turning around, Bai Yunfei was greeted with the sight of an ocean of trees. The Underworld School was nowhere to be seen.

The air outside the barrier was relatively cleaner than the inside, though the pressure was even greater. Aside from Long Lan, everyone else was feeling once again unwell under the pressure.

A few thousand meters into the air, the black clouds were just barely revealing a crack in them to shower a part of the valley with bright daylight. As Xu Ran said, this was around the time of afternoon.

With Zheng Kai holding onto the map and leading the group, they were soon able to fly over to the depths of the Black Cloud Forest.

“Hey, Yunfei. I’ve been thinking about it earlier but, is that flying sword of yours a heaven-tier?” Zheng Kai asked as they flew. “It’s ridiculously fast....I’m pretty jealous of you crafters. The high quality soul armaments most people can only dream about are things your school seems to have an infinite supply of.”

Glancing down at the flying sword underneath Zheng Kai’s feet, Bai Yunfei laughed. “Haha, lend me your flying sword when we get back and I’ll ‘refine’ it for you. I’m sure I can get it to heaven-tier.”

“Really?” Zheng Kai’s eyes lit up. “Don’t lie to me, you can ‘refine’ soul armaments? I heard it’s a skill that’s even harder than crafting soul armaments. Even Soul Kings have a hard time doing it, did you really learn an art like that?”

“Don’t forget who I am. I know a lot more than the average crafter.....”

“Then that’s that. You said you’ll refine it, so don’t you dare lie to me.”

Since he saw Bai Yunfei craft a heaven-tier soul armament before, Zheng Kai didn’t have as hard of a time believing in what Bai Yunfei could or couldn’t do compared to other people. If anything, he was immune to a good degree of Bai Yunfei’s capabilities and had the idea that there wasn’t much Bai Yunfei didn’t ‘have enough power’ for.

The two males chatted with one another as they flew, not at all feeling the pressure of danger in the surrounding area. Only the auras of class six soulbeasts could be felt, and those type of soulbeasts weren’t a threat for either of the two. Long Lan was exerting his aura as a class seven soulbeast, so none of the soulbeasts even dared to poke their heads out.

As far as class seven soulbeasts went, the first one they felt was when they were already ninety kilometers deep into the forest. But since it was still hard to use soulsense, Bai Yunfei could only sense that it was far away to their right side. Luckily, it never bothered them as they traveled ahead.

The group soon came to a stop a hundred kilometers within the depths of Black Cloud Valley where the Underworld School said to go. Taking out the map and looking at the area, Zheng Kai pointed at a hill three hundred meters away. “If the map’s not leading us wrong, this is where we should be.”

Looking up at the hill, Bai Yunfei noted that the black clouds felt like they were being attracted to the top of the hill. ‘Dropping’ from the skies to hang around the tip of the top, they formed a swirling whirlpool of sorts that seemed rather mystical.

Zheng Kai stored the map away. “We’ve the location, why don’t we go hunting for a black-scaled serpent now?”

Bai Yunfei pointed to a certain direction, “No need to go ‘hunting’. I’ve already found it...”

The black clouds around this certain hill were fainter than the surrounding area. And so at a closer look, one would be able to see a strange stone statue at the top.

But....

This was no statue, it was the head of a giant black serpent!

It’s body was coiled practically around the hill almost. With its ten-meter wide head, the snake opened wide to swallow the clouds drifting down from the skies!