It’s Not Easy Being a Master, Chapter 78.1: Breaking the Knife

The ice wall was packed with dense carvings.

Shen Zhixian saw at a glance that the carvings were really grotesque.

There were all kinds of strange, indescribable shapes… The carvings could be considered creatures and were all packed onto the ice wall with almost no gaps between them. Shen Zhixian wondered if it was his imagination or if those things were actually…

Moving.

Although the movements were slow, they were really moving. It was like they’d been asleep for many years and were just waking up and stretching their bodies. As if, they were waiting for the moment Shen Zhixian and company relaxed before breaking out of the ice to bury them.

Xue Ci’s expression was bad. “I think I know where this is.”

Shen Zhixian shot a sideway gance at him.

Xue Ci said, “I read an old record once. In that record, it said that thousands of years ago… probably even long before the wasteland was sealed, there was a carving genius…”

He was born incomparably hideous. His parents thought that they’d given birth to a calamitous star and wanted to abandon him. But, in the end, they couldn’t bear it to do so and kept him.

The reason why he was called a genius was because he had skills so great that others couldn’t even compare.

When the child was about five years old, he took a small dagger and carved a horse on a stone.

This, itself, was already very strange. There was no one at home or nearby who could carve. Where could he have learned it from? What was even more shocking was that his stone horse came to life. It ran around with the child in the village before finally turning into light smoke and returning back to the stone.

“The village was full of ordinary people. When they saw this scene, they were too scared to leave their house. The next day, they gathered together, wanting to burn the child alive, thinking that he was a demon and, if kept alive, might release more demons to come and kill them.”

Xue Ci sighed. “The villagers were too ignorant.”

This scene was actually very familiar. In remote and lonely villages, who knew how many of these types of incident had happened?

When Yan Jin was a child, hadn’t he suffered such grievances?

With a sigh, Shen Zhixian continued to listen to Xue Ci.

“The villagers wanted to burn the child alive, and his parents naturally refused. The villagers were very angry. In the middle of the night, they gathered together, and while the child and his family were sleeping, the villagers set their house on fire.”

The child’s parents tried to help him escape, but they were killed by the fire. The child was in shock for a long time. Suddenly, he went mad, rushed into the kitchen that was still on fire, and grabbed the kitchen knife and the whetstone.

The villagers wanted them to die, but they didn’t guard their house so they didn’t realize that the child was still alive.

The still living child had fire in his eyes. He held a knife and a whetstone in his hands and his heart was full of hate. He carved several fierce beasts, such as tigers and wolves, on the whetstone. Then, he set his hands calmly and used the knife carve in the eyes.

The finishing touch.

The picture was finalized.

The beasts came to life.

The beasts roared and painted the whole village with blood.

Later, the child grew up and became more and more reclusive. He wondered everywhere, with his knife and stone as his only companion. By chance, he also began to cultivate.

With regards to carving, he knew nothing about it. But, the things he carved were alive and vivid. If the eyes were carved, the things could even come to life and do anything he wanted.

Because of this ability, he also suffered a lot. He eventually developed a righteous and evil temperament; he could open up a killing ring due to the unintentional words of others, but he would also exhaust his spiritual power just to save a dying old man.

The world was afraid of the knife in his hand and was even more afraid of the things he sculpted. They called him the “Ghost Hand” out of fear. The Ghost Hand carried both praise and infamy so he wandered for most of his life. Suddenly, one day, he disappeared and was nowhere to be found.

“He hid in the mountains, used his knowledge, which was contaminated with countless hatreds and gratitudes, and carved a secret realm with the whole mountain as the base.” Xue Ci took a deep breath and said, “This is that place.”

This mountain was originally a dead mountain but was carved into an independent small world by the Ghost Hand. There was the place where the Ghost Hand lived.

When he was lonely, he walked the mountains and carved as he pleased. The scenery of the four seasons–Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter–were easily formed under his knife.

These sceneries made the place more lively.

So, he began to carve demons and monsters onto the stone wall and onto the ice. Wherever he could, he left behind his knife marks.

This massive ice pit was the playground he’d cheseled for the demons and monsters. The ice walls were full of creatures that, when he was bored, he would come back to wake up and watch them fight.

With his toes, Shen Zhixian gently kicked at the snow under his feet. The snow and ice were uneven, and he realized at once that he was stepping on a creature with a big head and a small body. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of monster it was.

He silently took a few steps back. Yan Jin was behind him and didn’t retreat. He quietly and naturally reached out and held his waist to steady him.

Shen Zhixian silently placed his hands over Yan Jin’s hands. When he looked at the creatures again, he found that the creature’s eye sockets were empty. The Ghost Hand hadn’t carved his eyes.

But, under the ice, something seemed to be slowly gathering within the eye sockets.

“This–”

“This is the secret realm carved by the Ghost Hand. The Ghost Hand is dead. To destroy the secret realm, we would probably need to find his knife, which he used to carve these things. But, this is not the point.” Xue Ci was very serious. “The point is that the things in this ice pit are waking up right now.”

Shen Zhixian felt something shaking under his feet. He was shocked and dragged Yan Jin away.

The moment he moved, there was a loud noise and the place where he’d stood just moments before crumbled. The unknown monster with the big head broke out. Shaking off the ice on his body, he took two steps forward, his steps both light and heavy, and let a deep and grotesque growl.

“These things are born with blood and will come to life with spiritual power. Earlier, to avoid the ice cones, we used our spiritual power. Lian Qin was injured and bled. These two things were enough to wake up these things.” Xue Ci said quickly, “Let’s leave here first and talk later.”

The sound of breaking ice was getting louder and louder. Even though two of them hadn’t fully recovered, at least seven to eight monsters had already jumped out from the ice. They needed to avoid these creatures now.

The Ghost Hand was a person who’d lived a long time ago. At that time, although immortal cultivators and devil cultivators hadn’t completely segregated, the whole world was still in chaos. He had seen far more demons and monsters than exist today.

Therefore, the demons and monsters he’d carved were also complicated and strange; many of them were ancient creatures that were now extinct.

While the demon beast ice statues hadn’t fully come to life, they summoned their mounts and decisively flew up.

Although the creatures were ice statues, there was a faint scent of demon beasts on their bodies. While an individual creature wouldn’t be too hard to handle, with so many of them present, the mounts were somewhat alarmed. Therefore, Shen Zhixian and company had to divide a ray of spiritual consciousness to appease their mounts and coax them to fly.

Some demon beasts statues were still unresponsive, and after breaking through the ice, they were still in a daze. Meanwhile, others were very sensitive and only required a short period of adaptation before becoming attracted to Shen Zhixian’s abundant spiritual power. They rushed over excitedly, wanting to swallow him into their bellies.

As Shen Zhixian controlled the pegasus, he swung his sword and swiftly cut the head of a demon beast statue in half.

The demon beast ice statues’ biggest advantage was that they felt no pain and were not afraid of death. Once they awakened, they would only re-enter deep sleep when the surrounding spiritual energy was exhausted. Or, unless the person who sculpted them was disposed of. Otherwise, they would remain active even when crushed.

Yan Jin beheaded another large-headed demon beast, but its small body continued to chase after Shen Zhixian with great perseverance.

The head didn’t give up either. It was ignorant, only aware that it needed to chase. Even after Yan Jin cut it was cut down and it kicked away, it would return moments later.

Looking at this scene, Shen Zhixian’s brain hurt.

The others didn’t fare much better.

Duan Yuan followed Lian Qin and shared his mount with him. Because the little fairy crane was now carrying two people, it was having difficulties running away. It was grabbed until feathers fell down and its tail became bald.

Duan Yuan used sound to defend himself. Even though Lian Qin was recently injured, he didn’t go light on the creatures either. At this critical moment, he didn’t bother using his killer music skills and simply used his guqin as a cudgel to smash the ice demon beasts.

Shattering the demon beast statues and assailing them with Duan Yuan’s musical attack was actually quite efficient.

Xue Ci was on his tortoise. The tortoise had retracted its head into its shell, relying on the thick skin of its four flippers and the hard shell on its back as protection. It crashed through the creatures, scattering them. Meanwhile, Xue Ci took the opportunity to shoot them down.

As more demon beasts ice statues rushed over, their numbers became overwhelming.

After Xue Ci crashed into several demon beasts, he shouted to Shen Zhixian, “…. Ghost Hand’s carving knife… your sword spirit…”

The demon beasts statues’ roars completely drowned his voice, and even though Shen Zhixian listened carefully, he could only hear a few words.

He thought about Xue Ci’s words and immediately reacted. He needed sword spirit to figure out this situation….

Shen Zhixian glanced at Yan Jin.

He acted decisively and shouted “A’jin!” before jumping from his mount. He tapped the head of the demon beast ice statue beside him and jumped toward Yan Jin.

Yan Jin was close to him. Even though he was preoccupied, the moment he heard Shen Zhixian’s call, he immediately knew his intention.

He brought the pegasus close and positioned himself in front of Shen Zhixian. As Shen Zhixian landed steadily on the horse’s back, he let out a sigh of relief. “A’jin, control the horse. I have to summon Frost Return back.”

Yan Jin murmured “mmnn” in his ear. The pegasus’s back wasn’t too large so they sat tightly pressed against one another. Yan Jin firmly held Shen Zhixian’s waist with one hand while the other controlled the pegasus to repel the statues that continued to streamed toward them.

Frost Return’s sword spirit had penetrated the center of the secret realm. Half of the sword spirit was in the secret realm while the outer half was outside. Shen Zhixian contemplated it carefully and finally summoned Frost Return to respond to him.

Frost Return’s sword spirit was not a physical entity and so Shen Zhixian dared not call back the entire sword spirit. He could only use the sword spirit awareness as much as possible to investigate the entire secret realm.

This required his complete attention, with no room for negligence. If Shen Zhixian was alone or had someone untrustworthy by his side, he would not be able to fully use spirit awareness. Fortunately, Yan Jin was by his side.

Shen Zhixian’s awareness spread omnipotently from the sword’s intent and scattered throughout the entire secret realm. He closed his eyes, his hand trembling slightly on his sword. Suddenly, he sensed something and his eyes snapped to look in a general direction. “East!”

His eyes had a ray of light, reflecting the ice and snow, and emitted a faint chill. “Go east. A fiend had already found the Ghost Hand’s knife.”

They’d underestimated the group of demons and monsters that had come out of the wasteland. They had thought that these creatures only wanted to hide in the secret realm. But, it turned out that the creatures’ idea was to completely control the secret realm!

This secret realm can be regarded as fairly ancient. If it really fell into the hands of these groups of demons and monsters, Shen Zhixian knew that he and his companion would have a difficult time leaving the secret realm with their life and body intact, much less successfully eradicating these creatures.

After passing the message to Xue Ci, Lian Qin, and Duan Yuan, Yan Jin controlled the pegasus and took Shen Zhixian east.

They rushed out of the ice pit. However, beyond the ice pit, there were countless demons and monsters lying in wait. When they came out, these creatures screamed excitedly and swarmed like bees toward them.

Like a pack of wolves before a tiger.

The demons and monsters at the front may have been given instructions. With clear goals, they came straight at Shen Zhixian and company. However, the demon beast ice statues in the back coveted the spiritual powers in Shen Zhixian and company’s bodies and refused to relent to the demons and monsters. They also attacked them, tearing them apart and drinking their devil qi until they became dried corpses.

Yan Jin simply allowed the two sides to confront each other and violently rushed out of the way. Shen Zhixian thought he might hold Yan Jin back and wanted to leave but Yan Jin stopped him. He thought about it and continued to stay with Yan Jin while concentrating on using the sword spirit to sense the Ghost Hand’s knife.

Although these demon beast ice statues and the demons and monsters didn’t get along well and would fight against each other, both sides ultimately had an end goal, and that was Shen Zhixian and company. The demon beast statues did not fear pain nor death, and the demons and monsters were rabid and vicious. Everyone had a hard time escaping injury.

After flying east for a while, the surrounding environment began to turn weird.

It was still cold Winter, leaving the landscape bathed in icy white. But, suddenly, it burst with greens. Flowers and grass shot through the ice, growing so fast that soon the landscape became awashed with green.

It was just that the spring scene didn’t last long. The flowers and green leaves rapidly withered, leaving only a few spring flowers adorned with ice silk. Under the scorching sun, snowflakes began to float down the sky and the gurgling river froze over.

The scenes of the fours seasons blended together, with the mountains a lush green on one side and decaying yellow on the other. It was full of a sense of disobedience.

There was a strong breath nearby. Shen Zhixian’s expression became austere. “Just ahead.”

And then there was no need to say anymore. Everyone saw that most critical object in the secret realm.

It was a large knife about two feet tall. It had a dark blade with a plain handle carved with simple patterns. It was adorned no ornamental accessories. Perhaps once, it used to have ornaments but these probably scattered into dusts along with its master.

The knife’s tip was pointed down, embedded into the land with the handle upright. It seemed to be pulling itself out of the soil.

–Wrong!

Xue Ci shouted, “Black qi! It’s a fiend!”

The blade was dark all over and entwined around it was black qi. It was camouflaged so neatly that it was difficult to see. The black qi wrapped around the knife’s body, slowly pulling it out of the dirt!

Lian Qin, Duan Yuan, and Xue Ci followed close behind Shen Zhixian and Yan Jin. In front of the knife, the demon beast statue seemed a little afraid and began to hesitate. The demons and monsters also seemed to be afraid of the black qi. They spread out and stared, encircling them but refusing to step closer to the knife.

Shen Zhixian and company finally had a chance to take a breather, but no one dared take advantage of it. Compared to the things behind them, the lethality of the knife in front of them was obviously much greater. After all, this was the weapon used by Ghost Hands to sculpt the entire secret realm.

Even though the Ghost Hand was no longer present, the knife alone could still destroy them.

What’s more, the knife was in the hands of the fiend who was not friendly to them.

There were tens of thousands of forms of demons and monsters and they came in all shapes and sizes. However, the most troublesome was this black qi form. This type of fiend spirits can shift into various shapes and sizes and can turn into smoke and escape, making them extremely difficult to catch.

Seeing that the blade was nearly pulled out, with only a small tip of the knife buried in the soil, Shen Zhixian resolutely said, “Grab it.”

The sword spirit was starting to loosen it’s hold on the secret realm. The entire secret realm seemed to be shaking, as if it would lift up and run anytime. Once that knife was completely pulled, things would become even more difficult.

While the demons and monsters around refused to move, the five of them rushed forward from different directions, aiming to snatch the big knife.

But, they were one step too slow. The knife was completely pulled out by the fiend, and the mountains instantly began to shake. The ground began to tremble, while a dull thunderous roar sounded incessantly. The roar seemed to come from the sky and the land, from near and far.

Many demon beast ice statues cracked and shattered, while the demons and monsters scattered and ran, trying to avoid the falling rocks.

The knife hung, dangling, for a moment and then, in the next moment, it slashed toward Shen Zhixian without any warning!