Maiden Of The Splitting Moon

As she continuously absorbed the Blood Lotus, the thunder roc blood tempered her body, shocking it with small amounts of electricity. After an hour of agony, her body finally broke into the third level however instead of stopping, her cultivation continued to rise. Suddenly it reached the peak of the third level but even this bottleneck could not stop her sudden burst and she pushed into the fourth level.

Various cracks and pops could be heard as her body readjusted itself and slowly transformed. The bath was slowly replaced by any impurities that her body had expelled. Minutes later, she got out of the bath and wiped herself down before putting on some robes.

Ming Yue seemed a bit more mature after her breakthrough. Her skin was even more flawless and shined against the moon while her eyes were more sharper and her face became even more beautiful. Now she seemed like a child of the stars, bright and glowing. One would not think that she was only 14 years old.

This was all because of her breakthrough to the fourth level. She had been at the second level for quite some time and had gained a huge amount of experience from combat and training. Ming Yue understood that she was no genius and only hard work and persistence would help her. Not a single second was wasted. She always cultivated everyday, making her foundation very solid and practiced constantly. Coupled with the fact that her body had never experienced the efficacy of a cultivation plant, the effects of the Blood Lotus and the thunder roc blood doubled. Thus she was able to breakthrough two levels.

She cleaned up the tub and went back to her room. The first thing she had to do was to consolidate her cultivation. If she did not, it would lead to many problems later on. After several hours, she woke up from her state and examined her power. As she was now, her strength was 4 times what it was before. If she fought that snow ape from before, she would've killed it in one move. She was extremely happy with her progress but knew that she had a long way to go. After readjusting to her newfound strength, she rested for the night.

The next day, she went back to the pavilion to take on more missions as well as to test her strength. When she came in, the receptionist noticed something different about her but refrained from asking, after all people had right to their own privacy.

Ming Yue looked at the board and scanned through the missions. She was about to choose one until one of the receptionists called for their attention.

"An unknown set of ruins has appeared about several hundred miles away. The king has issued a country mission to all Jade Dragon Pavilions in the area to explore them. Of course any treasure that you find will be yours. Anyone in the Bronze Bull Rank and above can join, Jade Fox may also join but it is not recommended", she said.

An unknown set of ruins! Everyone's minds turned greedy from the thought of it. After all, it was unknown and untouched meaning that there were bound to be loads of treasure.

As for Ming Yue, she decided to join as well however it was not for treasure but to hone herself and get more accustomed to her new cultivation state. This was her main goal but of she were to find anything suitable for her, she would try to obtain it. She approached the counter to sign up and left the pavilion afterwards. The mission was set to start in 2 weeks and everyone was to leave together.

She went to Owner Su's store afterwards for the mysterious egg that she obtained from the Snow Ape's cave. She was curious about the egg and wanted to see what kind of beast came from it. When she reached the store, she noticed that the outside had been a little destroyed and entered to see several men surrounding Owner Su.

"Heh, Old man, if you weren't helping that girl, we would not be here right now. Unfortunately for you, she has angered our young master and now anyone that knows her must be punished", said one of the men.

At the end of that line, they felt a chill on their backs. It was as if a scythe had been pointed at their necks, ready to behead them. They slowly turned around, only to be greeted by a cold stare from Ming Yue. She approached them, gripping her sword and then struck the heads of the men except for one. They could not defend quick enough and were knocked out by her scabbard. The remaining one had buckled under her stare and fell to his knees, sweat covered his entire body as he tried to hold himself together.

"Who sent you?" she said icily.

The man feared for his life and quickly replied, "It...It was master Xu Tian."

She didn't remember this person and asked.

"He was... the one you kicked out of the store."

Only after hearing that did she remember, that young master was annoying her so she kicked him out. She did not think that he would be so petty as to attack this store.

Then she walked up to the sweating man and whispered in his ear, "Tell your young master that the next time he does something like this, I will personally come and slice his head off."

After saying this, she kicked all of those men out and helped Owner Su up, asking if he was okay.

"I am fine, this man may be old but he isn't that fragile", he said, "Anyways, what brings you here?"

Ming Yue told him about the snow ape mission and then pulled out the egg, asking if there was a way to identify it. Unfortunately, while there were ways, it would be a waste. This egg was most likely something normal. It did not exude any pressure or aura nor did it have any interesting characteristics. She was somewhat disappointed with the egg but kept it anyways. Owner Su then gave her some advice as to how to take care of it.

"It only needs time and a warm place to incubate. If you want to quicken the process, you could inject some inner force into it. This will also allow you to forge an early connection with the egg", he said.

After taking care of smaller matters like buying rations and such, she left and went back to the brothel. After taking a bath and refreshing herself, she took the egg out and looked at it. The shell was smooth and bright white like a pearl. It was about half the size of a ostrich's egg and quite light. She then put her hand on it and started moving some of her inner force into the egg. It began to glow as she injected more force. Thinking that this was normal she continued to feed it some more inner force before stopping for the night.

Little did she know after she went to bed, cracks started appearing in the egg.. A pair of silver eyes could be seen through them.