The Ashes of Fate - Chapter 12

Translator – Synthsoon

An Jing didn’t say much, he lowered his head and chomped into the meat.

Initially, he felt like he was biting into a piece of tough plastic, but with a little force, his teeth sliced through the slightly charred muscle fibers on the surface, and the smoothest and most tender meat inside exploded, overflowing with juice and grease.

This kind of crisp and elastic feeling was beyond marvelous, with each bite and swallow, he could feel the meat being digested, absorbed and transformed into his body’s nutrients, and this kind of satisfaction would quickly turn into unfulfilled greed, so that An Jing couldn’t help but want to eat another mouthful…

As if it was just a moment, An Jing had already eaten all of the meat in front of him, leaving only the clean, white bones gnawed by his teeth.

“What…kind of beast’s meat is this?”

White sitting on the chair, An Jing’s face had turned completely red, he could only feel a hot and spicy fire radiating from his chest and abdomen, straight to his torso and limbs. It felt like the heat was penetrating through every pore and permeating throughout his body!

An Jing felt an impulse, as if he wanted to stand up and roar to release this inexplicable heat – and in fact, someone else was already doing that.

For a moment, the entire cafeteria was transformed into a gathering place for the beasts, with all kinds of roars and whistles echoing like a wild mountain range.

“What kind of test is this?”

An Jing took a deep breath and suppressed this surging impulse in his body, he noticed that not everyone was dominated by this inexplicable impulse.

Zhang Ying was currently wailing, his voice was like the howl of a wolf, long and with a shivering chill.

While Gu YeQi laid on her side, clutching her stomach and refusing to make a sound.

The ones who didn’t want to make a sound and the ones who were giving off heat were divided almost in half, it seemed there were more people who were shouting, but the dfiference wasn’t that big.

(Are they going to just let them vent like that?)

An Jing took a few more deep breaths, during his last few deep breaths he was already able to easily suppress his instinctive urges. He watched curiously, splitting his attention between the instructors and the ‘servants’ of the Life Suspending Manor.

They were now waiting on the sidelines, as concerned as An Jing was.

And about half a moment later, with the exhaustion of energy, whether it was the children who got tired yelling or the children who endured through the heat, the servants served a cup of thick medicinal juice to all of them.

This medicinal juice, as Gu YeQi said earlier, was made with South Metal Core and Ice Mango Flower seeds, condensing the mind and calming the spirit.

Zhang Ying and Gu YeQi were both right.

An Jing received the potion and swallowed all of it with one gulp, the taste was completely bitter, but strangely refreshing. When the Ice Mango Flower seeds were boiled, it would expand when cooled, giving it a soft and tender texture. When he bit down into the seeds, he could feel bursts of cold exploding inside his mouth.

The heat from the beast’s meat slowly faded, An Jing closed his eyes and a few breaths later, he opened his eyes, completely calm.

But that heat, the power was no illusion – the meat was definitely special, it wasn’t just any wild beast!

And most of the other children also paused after drinking the potion, they were also just a bit dazed, as if they too were thinking about what they had actually been doing before.

“Alright. Everyone got a bit excited today, so go back and get some rest.”

At this time, Manor Lord Yao came forward and kindly said, “You don’t need to do morning exercise for tomorrow morning, so everyone can sleep a little more.”

“As long as you perform well, everyone will have meat to eat – the better you perform, the more meat you will have.”

There was no bedtime evening practice, and everyone returned to their respective dormitories and got to sleep early.

In the past, everyone would fall asleep as soon as they touched the pillow, but today that was impossible, and everyone was tossing and turning.

The entire dormitory was riled up, so everyone started to talk to each other.
“This morning, I didn’t know why, but I felt that I couldn’t suppress …….”

Zhang Ying complained, he was on the left side of An Jing, so his voice through the bamboo wall was a little hazy: “I felt like I had became a giant wolf, I couldn’t help but want to make a sound…Although the meat was very tasty, it was too strange, I’ve never eaten meat that could…that could…make me feel so strong!”

“Yes. Quite extraordinary.”

Ye Xiu was at the far right of An Jing, his family had been scholars for generations, so his words were quite sophisticated: “This kind of meat, I’ve seen it during my family’s annual festival, it should be the meat of some kind of barbaric Ferocious Beast.”

“Ferocious Beast?” Zhang Ying’s voice rose, “A Ferocious Beast that’s comparable to the peak level of the Inner Breath Realm, or even an Inner Strength Martial Artist? How could that be possible?”

His astonishment wasn’t without reason, because even the hunting teams of the Northern Territories had to spend a great deal of effort hunting a Ferocious Beast, and there could even be casualties in the process.

If there were multiple Ferocious Beasts, even an entire hunting team would be wiped out.

But the beasts’ flesh, skin, bones and tendons were all treasures, as they were used as materials for many medicines, tools and weapons, and both ordinary folk and official organizations would pay handsomely to purchase such materials. If a Ferocious Beast was hunted, the hunting team would get more than enough money to last a year.

Even Zhang Ying had never eaten Ferocious Beast meat, and Ye XiuYuan was also confused: “This is what I’m puzzled about, even back home, when my family held a sacrifice, we only used a slightly larger piece of Ferocious Beast meat and other cattle and sheep.”

“But the Life Suspending Manor gave us each a share, and the size of it was simply unimaginable ……”

“Who cares.” Zhan Feng’s voice was particularly loud, and just as he opened his mouth, he was shushed by everyone near An Jing in unison, lest he lure the instructor over to them.

Even so, even after he lowered his voice, he still didn’t care: “Anyway, it’s much better than being a wanderer, I’m tired of starving.”

He was originally a Ming Shan City beggar, but because he was so tall nobody gave him any money. He tried to go to work but nobody was willing to accept him due to his young age. The old beggar who raised him originally died during the Frost Scourge, he only survived until now by eating whatever he could find, and was lucky enough to not eat anything poisonous.

His impression of the Life Suspending Manor was very good, here he could eat a full meal, so it didn’t matter being tired from all the training, it was better to say that he didn’t mind dying from exhaustion after a full meal.

These words earned a lot of support from other people, after all, all of them were chosen from a camp full of refugees. All of them had been starving, and they hadn’t eaten meat or rice for a long, long time. But in the Life Suspending Manor, they could eat so much they couldn’t eat anymore, like today.

No matter what, in their eyes, there was nothing bad about the Life Suspending Manor, except that the people here were so nice they were afraid this wouldn’t last.

“I’m afraid this won’t last long.”

Cang LingZu smacked his lips, still remembering the taste of the meat: “Aren’t all hidden sects like this? They screen everyone with multiple tests, then throw the ones who fail out of the sect.”

“When that time comes, they won’t be seen as the disciples of the Life Suspending Manor, they could only be subordinates at best, just like those servants and helpers… Such a good life won’t last long.”

Being with each other for such a long time, everyone knew Cang LingZu was sent to the Martial Academy after his family used all the money they had for him, but after two years he was sent away, the reason was “lacking foundation”.

But how could this be be, the Life Suspending Manor deemed his foundation to be at a very high level, second only to Anjing, which made Cang LingZu extremely upset, always gritting his teeth and claiming that the Martial Arts instructors only wanted money, and would throw anyone out if they refused to pay.

His greatest dream was to finish his studies at the Life Suspending Manor and go back to his hometown – if it’s still there – to beat up the instructor who made up an excuse to kick him out which caused his family to look down on him.

Cang LingZu wasn’t very worried that he couldn’t meet the requirements; he just wanted to learn a little bit more about Heart Arts and Martial Techniques at the Life Suspending Manor.

“What he said is very true.”

Ye XiuYuan agreed with Cang LingZu, “I also don’t know how many people will stay in the end. …… Big brother An Jing is definitely one though.”
“Right, Brother Jing?” The other kids also raised their voices, “We may be eliminated, but you’ll definitely stay!”

“…… Maybe the tests already started a long time ago.”

An Jing didn’t like to get involved in this kind of discussion, but since someone brought it up to him, he decided to speak up.

He rolled over on the bed and said bluntly, “The degree of enthusiasm for training, the degree of self-discipline, physical quality, height and weight, and how much food you can eat, what time you get up on weekdays, and whether or not you regularly exercise….. all of these could be related to the “tests”.”

“Go to bed early today.” Rolling over again, An Jing closed his eyes and calmly said, “Since the Manor Lord let us rest for half a day tomorrow, there must be a reason.”

“Rest early, sleep a little more, and don’t be late for afternoon training.”

“Okay.” “Uh-huh.” “Yes, big brother!”

An Jing’s prestige was very high, and with these words, the entire dormitory quieted down. Soon, there was a succession of snores, teeth grinding and dreaming words.

And An Jing also felt a wave of fatigue and thirst gradually welling up inside his body …… He didn’t lie to Vice-Envoy Yao, when he saw the meat, his body instincts were telling him that it wasn’t enough, that he couldn’t eat enough.

But in fact, his ‘stomach’ was full. The meat was enough to fill him up, but he still wasn’t satisfied. The meat could only quench his hunger and thirst, but it couldn;t satisfy his body.

With this conflicting feeling of hunger or fullness, An Jing fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, the morning sun shone on the mountains, coloring them golden red.

An Jing rubbed his eyes and unrolled his blanket, realizing that he had slept about an hour late.

This was very unusual for him. Yesterday, he went to bed earlier than usual, but he still got up late. It was no wonder that yesterday, Vice-Envoy Yao said that there would be no morning exercises today, he was afraid that most of the children wouldn’t be able to get up this morning.

(If it was the meat of a Ferocious Beast, it may indeed have this effect.)

An Jing organized his clothes, put on his practice clothes, and said to himself: “If you eat too much, you’ll get sleepy easily, maybe this is the reason.

There were thirty people in the dormitory, An Jing scanned through them and found that everyone except himself was fast asleep. This was probably because their digestive ability was inferior to An Jing’s, or it could also be because An Jing hadn’t really eaten enough.

But it didn’t matter, there was still some time left before noon, he planned to go for some morning exercises to recover his energy.

However, when An Jing was ready to leave the dormitory, he suddenly realized something.

Zhang Ying had disappeared.