"Princess Shan, this will be your room. The room in the center is mine, and the one on the left is where Wuying stays," Xuefeng pointed to the room on the right as they arrived in his courtyard.
"She lives with you? What kind of teacher lives with their student?" Princess Shan teased.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Wuying snapped back irritably.
"Okay, girls. No fighting in my courtyard," Xuefeng intervened, stepping between them to stop the argument.
"Princess Shan, you can take your veil off now. It's just us here," he said, turning to her, eager to see her full face.
"Oh, if you're that curious, you can take it off for me," she said boldly, stepping closer to him.
"Well, if you insist," Xuefeng said, not shying away. He gently removed the veil, revealing her beautiful face. Though she was as beautiful as he had imagined, it didn't shock him like the sight of Wuying earlier that morning.
Her pretty face didn't stun him, but her next words did.
"I once swore to the heavens that I would marry the first man who took off my veil. I hope you will take good care of me," she said, placing her head on his chest, her full peaks pressing against him, making him unable to move.
'Can you be even more unreasonable?' he wondered to himself. He had seen many shameless people, but she was definitely in the top three.
"You cannot do that! That's unfair!" Wuying shouted, fuming.
"Everything is fair in love and war," Princess Shan retorted, sticking out her tongue at the angry Wuying.
"Okay, calm down. Princess, what was your real reason for staying in the Liu Clan?" Xuefeng asked, trying to diffuse the situation.
"I wanted to become friends with you, but who would have thought you'd take off my veil?" She separated from him and complained as if she had been wronged.
'Just let her be. It will be easier to get the Fate Fragment this way. You can deal with her later,' Ling suggested.
"Okay, whatever. We'll talk about it later. First, look at the artifacts I got," Xuefeng said, rolling his eyes at her shamelessness. He focused his will and a ring appeared on his finger.
"A Spatial Storage Ring!" they both cried out instantly.
"What? You told me to get one. Why are you so surprised?" he asked, confused.
"It's because most Storage Rings are rank 3 and above. It's hard to create space inside a ring, so if someone manages to do it, they won't make it small because it wouldn't be profitable," Wuying explained.
"So that's why. Well, this ring has a few tens of cubic meters of space inside," he relayed what Ling had told him.
"Rank 4… to think you managed to get one. It's not easy to make one acknowledge you," Princess Shan confirmed, reassured of her choice.
After he pulled out Rank 5 Spirit Armour and Rank 5 Defensive Aura, she was even more certain she had made the right choice.
"Did you also get a Rank 5 weapon?" Wuying asked, looking at him curiously.
"Yeah, check this out." He chuckled and pulled out his red sword.
In the Spirit Treasury, the black flames were small, suppressed by the space inside. The same happened in his dantian. The sword didn't want to hurt its master, so it didn't release the flames.
When it appeared in the outside world, after all these years, it could finally release its flames to the fullest.
Black flames surrounded the sword, giving Xuefeng a scare. Luckily, he didn't drop it, noticing that the flames didn't burn him.
The girls instinctively ran away. Wuying vanished and reappeared 10 meters away while Princess Shan used a strange movement technique, increasing her distance in an instant.
"What a powerful aura," Princess Shan admired, her eyes lighting up.
"Is this the Founder's Sword?!" Wuying asked in shock, recalling what she had read about the swords stored inside the Spirit Treasury.
"Isn't it cool?" Xuefeng asked, swinging it a few times. On his last slash, the sword suddenly sucked one-fourth of his total Spirit Qi and created a crescent-shaped ray of black flames.
Princess Shan, in its path, hurriedly dodged to the side. The black ray passed by her and struck a boulder near the pond.
Boom!
The boulder shattered into pieces. Even the flowers near it were not spared, with the black flames burning on the rock fragments.
"Oops," Xuefeng gulped.
"My lilies!" Wuying cried, watching her favorite flowers being destroyed.
Not even five seconds after the explosion, multiple shadows appeared out of nowhere.
Men in black hoods appeared near Xuefeng and asked hurriedly, "Young Master, are you okay?" They soon looked shocked after feeling the aura of the red sword covered in black flames.
Realizing their Young Master had created the commotion, they quickly moved their focus to the flames.
"Extinguish the flames, quick!" Wuying commanded, seeing the black flames spreading.
"Yes!"
Xuefeng put the sword away, afraid he would destroy something else.
"Are you really only at the Spirit Grandmaster stage? If I hadn't reacted in time, I could have been killed," Princess Shan complained with a frown, her dress dirty from rolling on the ground.
"That was an accident. The sword shot the ray on its own," Xuefeng said, blaming the sword.
"You shouldn't wield it until you learn the basics of handling a Spirit Artifact," she warned seriously. She wasn't joking about the power of the attack.
'Ling, why didn't you warn me?' he asked, feeling wronged. She could have at least cautioned him.
'How would I know you'd swing a Rank 5 sword with flames like an idiot?' Ling retorted without mercy.
'Sigh, these artifacts are dangerous. Princess Shan is right,' he thought, deciding to be extra careful next time.
It took almost ten minutes for the Shadow Guards to extinguish the flames. When they finished, they looked at him with a mixture of fear and respect. Some had used half of their Spirit Qi to put out the fire.
"Okay, you are dismissed. I'll take it from here," Wuying called out authoritatively.
"Roger," they replied, disappearing one by one.
'Ho ho, so she commands the Shadow Guards. Interesting,' Princess Shan deduced.
Wuying came over and lightly poked Xuefeng in the chest.
"Promise me you won't use the Black Flame Slayer until I teach you the basics. It's dangerous to play with high-ranked artifacts. What if you hurt yourself?" she asked worriedly.
"I promise I won't," he agreed, also afraid.
"How is your Spirit Qi? Don't those artifacts drain a lot of Qi when they're in your dantian? You're a Spirit Grandmaster but already have three Rank 5 artifacts. You could even create an attack like that. Aren't you drained right now?" Wuying asked suspiciously.
"Oh, I'm refining Spirit Essence as we speak, to replenish lost Spirit Qi," he said subconsciously. Ling was doing that for him, so he didn't think it was important.
Hearing this, both ladies looked at him in shock.