Chapter 43: Counter Steal

Jian Chen and Tie Ta immediately dove to the side. After two days of relentlessly fighting magical beasts, even the thick skulled Tie Ta had started to pick up battle experience. This paid off; as Tie Ta dodged the incoming attack, he instinctively swung his battleaxe at the leg of the assailant in a swift counterattack.

However, the group in front of them was proving hard to deal with. Just as the battleaxe was about to hit one of them in the thigh, a sword flew out and hit the battleaxe with a colliding sound.

“Deng!”

Metal met metal, as Tie Ta’s battleaxe was obstructed. Due to Tie Ta’s terrifying strength, the battleaxe continued to slide down the blade of the sword before stopping at the hilt. Immediately, the youth holding the sword suddenly felt his entire arm go numb, as the battleaxe smashed itself against his arm, causing his whole hand to shake.

The youth was astonished and cried out to his friends, “Everyone be careful, this guy’s strength is abnormally strong. It’s best if you don’t get into arm’s reach of him!”

Hearing the warning, the other two students fighting Tie Ta immediately became more cautious, and tried to avoid his giant battleaxe.

On the side, Jian Chen was fighting intensely with the other youth holding a sword. Although Jian Chen’s weapon was only a corroded iron rod, his fighting capabilities weren’t any lower than Tie Ta’s. He wasn’t any weaker either since he could easily use his agility to move around his opponent’s moves. Seeing an opening, Jian Chen quickly stabbed his iron rod into the opponent’s thigh with a lightning fast speed. Since this was another student at the academy, he didn’t dare to aim to kill, but instead aimed to injure.

Jian Chen’s speed was so fast that the student didn’t have time to react, and could only watch in shock as the iron rod stabbed into his thigh.

“Ah!” The youth cried out in pain as his face drained of color, and sweat dripped down his forehead.

Hearing his companion cry out, the other sword wielder’s face changed. Unable to fight Jian Chen personally, he cried out to his friend, “Harry, are you okay?”

Although that youth wasn’t attacking Jian Chen anymore, Jian Chen wasn’t going to let him off that easily. As Jian Chen moved towards him, the Saint Force condensed into Jian Chen’s fist as he suddenly punched the youth in the chest.

Still moving at fast speeds, he refused to listen to the youth’s complaints, or even wait for the youth to react. Jian Chen’s palm struck out silently like a viper, and hit the other squarely on the chest.

“Peng!” The youth was sent flying through the air from Jian Chen’s fist, as blood came spurting out of his mouth.

After dispatching the two, he immediately went to go assist Tie Ta. At the moment, Tie Ta was embroiled in a tough battle, and had already taken damage from the 3 people. The wolf pelt he was wearing had already been slashed apart and ruined by the blood that was leaking from his wounds. If it weren’t for his extremely durable body and godly strength, the others would not have been afraid to fight against him and knock him to the ground.

With the appearance of Jian Chen, Tie Ta’s pressure was alleviated by quite a bit. Jian Chen’s strength in battle was extremely strong, and even normal Saints wouldn’t be able to fight him on equal footing. After a few seconds of close combat fighting against Jian Chen, the three that had surrounded Tie Ta had already started to lose. Each of them were sporting new injuries, and soon after, all 5 of them were writhing on the floor in pain, no longer having the energy to move.

Jian Chen looked at the many wounds on Tie Ta, and asked with some concern, “Tie Ta, are you okay?”

Tie Ta nodded his head and said, “I’m fine, my body’s pretty tough.” He pointed to the group of 5 people writhing on the ground, “What should we do with them?”

Thinking about it, Jian Chen suddenly grew a strange smile on his face, “Tie Ta, go gather their Space Belts and take all of their monster cores before giving the belts back.”

Hearing Jian Chen, the 5 people on the ground went rigid as their faces paled; a few of them were growing red with indignation. The cores in their Space Belts were earned over the span of 2 days of constant struggles for their lives; right now there was only half a day left until the 3rd day passed. If they were to lose all of their monster cores now, then they would definitely fail the mission.

Tie Ta laughed. Without hesitation, he immediately followed Jian Chen’s orders, and grabbed all 5 of the space belts from them. Jian Chen stared them down with the bloody iron rod in his hand, like a tiger watching his prey to prevent them from making any sudden movements.

The five students originally had planned to fight back, but when they saw Jian Chen grip the bloody iron rod, they immediately gave up all thoughts about resisting, and obediently let Tie Ta take their space belts.

After gathering all of the space belts, Tie Ta brought them back to Jian Chen and began to count the monster cores one by one. In total, they had only 12 monster cores, all of which were Class 2 Monster Cores.

Jian Chen laughed as he grabbed 6 of the monster cores and put them in their own space belts before saying, “Tie Ta, let’s split these in half, you get 6, I get 6.”

“Alright!” Tie Ta said as he placed his share into his own space belt.

But when the 5 heard Tie Ta’s name, all 5 of them went still, as their faces became unsightly to look at. When it came to his name, everyone in Kargath Academy had heard of him since he was the headmaster’s apprentice. Although he wasn’t a Saint, when it came to the entire school, no one dared to mess with him.

By this point, the 5 students started to regret their actions so much that their intestines became green. If they had known earlier that one of them was Tie Ta, then they wouldn’t have tried to steal from the headmaster’s apprentice no matter what. But now, not only were they robbed of what they were trying to steal, but they couldn’t even get revenge now that they knew who he was; their sufferings couldn’t be summed up in words.

TL Note: Intestines go green after the body dies. Basically they regret their actions so much they want to die.

After storing all of the Class 2 Monster Cores, Tie Ta was smiling even brighter. “Changyang Xiang Tian, it’s because you’re so amazing and beat all 5 of them so quickly. I, Tie Ta, just can’t compare to you at all.”

Jian Chen laughed and said, “Alright, let’s get back on the road now and hope we can kill a few more magical beasts for the sake of our cultivation,”

Soon after, Jian Chen and Tie Ta didn’t see the paralyzed looks of the 5 students on the floor as they walked away.

When the two disappeared into the forest, one of the youths started to curse out loud, “F*cking hell, what bad luck we have! To think we came across the apprentice of the headmaster and then failed the assignment. Not only that, but we had our monster cores stolen away from us without us being able to get revenge. Such wretched luck!”

The youth who had carried the sledge hammer earlier said in a hoarse voice, “That’s not all of it, don’t forget that it wasn’t just Tie Ta who attacked us; there was another.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up, “You’re talking about Changyang Xiang Tian.”

The sledgehammer student nodded his head, “That’s right, Tie Ta has the support of the headmaster, so we can’t get revenge on him. But Changyang Xiang Tian doesn’t have that same support.”

“But Changyang Xiang Tian’s strength is so strong though. The 5 of us couldn’t beat him while he was alone, how would we ever beat him?” Another person asked.

“That’s right, and the most important fact was that Changyang Xiang Tian was far too fast, we couldn’t even dodge any of his attacks.” One of the sword wielders said; it was the very same person who had his thigh pierced by Jian Chen.

Then, the person with the axe opened his mouth suddenly, “You guys forget that Changyang Xiang Tian already offended a lot of people at the academy like Lord Cheng and Master Luo, whose strength is higher than ours. If we can find an opportunity to join them, sooner or later we’ll find a chance to strike at him.”

……..

In the blink of an eye, the colors of the sky began to dim. The magical beasts in the 3rd region were far less abundant than the ones in the 2nd region.Half a day had passed, but Jian Chen and Tie Ta had only found a few magical beasts. Everytime they encountered one, they experienced an arduous battle to kill it. Within that afternoon, the two of them had only gained another 7 Class 2 Monster Cores. Compared to their bounty in the 2nd region, this number was clearly insignificant. But when they thought about how the 5 students who attacked them earlier had only gained 12 Class 2 Monster Cores in 2 days despite being Saints, their hearts felt a bit more relieved.

It was a lot more restless in the 3rd region than the 2nd, since the monsters were a lot harder to kill. Also, since the number of monsters were less, more people were willing to rob others for their cores. After Jian Chen and Tie Ta had fought against the 5 students from before, they had another 3 encounters with robbers. At the very least each group had 4 people in it and at the most a group had 7 of them. But in the end, they had overcome each challenge victorious, and took all of the monster cores from the other groups. But what had made Jian Chen depressed was that the group of 4 that attacked them earlier didn’t have a single monster core, but the other 2 groups had a total of 33 Class 2 Monster Cores in the end.

When night came, Jian Chen and Tie Ta sat down next to the fire as they roasted the meat of a magical beast. The two looked exhausted; compared to the 2nd region, the 3rd region was far more tiring.

At this point, Tie Ta’s academy uniform was essentially gone. On his chest, his gains were showing. Only the most important part of his body was covered up by one of the extra wolf pelts, making him look like a savage. He was already covered with scars all over, and although they looked painful, they were only superficial wounds that didn’t affect Tie Ta at all. This was a strong body that even Jian Chen looked at with jealousy.

Jian Chen, on the other hand, was not faring much better. Although he still stuck with wearing his academy uniform, it had already been dyed red from blood, staining the clothes black after oxidizing.

Suddenly, Jian Chen could hear the sounds of a distant battle. With his acute ears, he could heard the faintest of sounds.

Jian Chen stood up from where he was sitting, and looked off to where he heard the sounds, “Tie Ta, there’s a fight going on over there.”