Tianshan Hunt

Chapter 1940-2054 (LN)

Mo Fan breaks into the household of the nearest family that has a grudge against him with brute force, but they try and fail in calming Mo fan down, knowing full well what this guy can do, until they are relieved that none other than Mu Cotton arrives. Mo Fan however is still angry and tells Mu Cotton he is more than happy to make a repeat of last time. Mu Cotton on the other hand tries to solve this peacefully and asks Mo Fan to take a walk with her. She explains that she has heard a few things and that she is willing to help find Mu Bai, since she owes him one for saving her life.

In the next scene, Mo Fan, Mu Cotton and Zhao Man Yan are on a cruise ship. While Mo Fan keeps his eyes on Mu Cotton, Zhao Man Yan goes after the young lady that Mu Cotton pointed at. After getting to know her better, Zhao Man Yan gets her to reveal her special cargo, a body she had found near Xiamen and is keeping with her for re-search purposes. However Zhao Man Yan calls over Mu Cotton and Mo Fan and cranks open the coffin, finding Mu Bai encased in ice for self-preservation. They take custody of the body and deliver it to the Parthenon.

At the Parthenon, both Xin Xia's assistant Tata and Heilong vehemently object against using the resurrection powers to bring Mu Bai back, stating that Mo Fan can't use the Parthenon as his private hospital and that the power of resurrection can't be used everyday and that it should be used for something more valuable, since the other 2 goddess candidates are quickly gathering more allies. Xin Xia says that she would prefer to wait a bit before bringing Mu Bai back will obey any of Mo Fan's requests. Mo Fan agrees to wait a while. Afterwards Mo Fan goes on a walk around the Parthenon. He runs into Kerry, who shows him to the rest of the blue star knights. The blue star knights are all eagerly awaiting an opportunity to duel mo fan, since he got first ranking in the world university contest. However Mo Fan is not a fan of waiting around, he says that he will fight them all at once. But the knights request duels, since they aren't allowed to duel with uneven numbers. However Mo Fan finds it all rubbish and tosses insults at them for being weak. The blue star knights however reach their breaking point and all start to remove their blue star uniforms so they can fight Mo Fan together. However Kerry removes his uniform as well but to fight on the side of Mo Fan with the numbers now reaching 40 vs 2.

Mo Fan tells Kerry just to make him watch his rear and that he will handle the rest. The match starts with Mo Fan using high tier level 4 lightning magic and defeats several knights at once. The rest of the knights retaliate with firing several dozens of rounds of mid tier magic at mo fan, but he catches it all with his mid tier chaos magic and sends it right back. Then Mo Fan sees a contingent of mages coming at him from the side, but sends his summoning wolf to deal with them while kerry deals with a few behind Mo Fan's back. After they are dealt with, Mo Fan uses void magic to stop the next round of assault and then returns fire with high tier level 4 fire magic and by then the number of blue star knights have already fallen by halve and the rest are defeated soon after without Mo Fan using any of his real powers. After the duel is over, Norman flies right over the battlefield and informs everyone present including those that came to watch the fight that all the blue star knights that took off their uniforms, including Kerry, have all been fired. Both yiddish and Xin Xia object to this but Norman isn't having any of it. Afterwards he came down and thanked Mo Fan for saving his life.

The next morning, Xin Xia has some dire news. It seems that the Dark King himself has connected himself to the soul of Mu Bai and so even if he is resurrected, the Dark King will come right back and kill Mu Bai for his soul. She reveals that there might be a way to save her but it involves making a deal with a person who wants mo fan as dead as his mother, Yiddish. Mo Fan takes a meeting with Yiddish and she offers him tea, she refuses. She states that she is capable of helping Mo Fan, but requests that the curse on Ethan, the egyptian general is released. Mo Fan agrees and calls out apas, who releases the curse on him, but mo fan warns that if he doesn't behave, there is a chance that the curse would come back on its own. Yiddish explains that there have been many people that have made contracts with the Dark King himself with the use of special shadow stones, if they were to get their hands on one of these shadow stones than it would be possible to bargain for Mu Bai's life. She also tells Mo Fan that there is a source of shadow stones in kunlun.

After the meeting, Mo Fan meets Xin Xia and explains what Yiddish has told him. She tells him that he is in luck as there is a sage that is leaving for kunlun along with an escort the next day and that they can hitch a ride and that a large path into the kunlun mountains has been discovered. However, she requests that Yan Ji remains here with her, as there is likely something in her physiology, along with Mo Fan's summoning contract that prevents her from evolving further and thus would like to keep her here and Mo Fan agrees. Mo Fan calls over Ling Ling to find out everything possible about the shadow stones and to meet him once he arrives in kunlun. After Mo Fan and Zhao Man Yan arrive in kunlun, they are greeted by Ling Ling and Jiang Shaoxu, with the latter saying that there might be a totem in the neighborhood and that she and ling ling will make all the preperations. After looking around town, Mo Fan and Zhao Man Yan run into a group of chinese students with them both being nearly recognized. Mo Fan jokes it off and decides to take one of the girls for a walk, but finds Mu Ning xue waiting around the corner. He subsequently spent the night in the doghouse, outside in the cold rain.

The next morning, he finds Mu Ning Xue more forgiving and they decide to go for a walk together. After walking around the local prayer palace, the pair finds a monk covered in bandages, but then Mo Fan's new shadow powers inside his body activated, warning him of the monk in front of him. The monk then notices mo fan and quickly moves in another direction. About a minute later, a large amounts of alarms go off in the prayer palace and a large amount of trial members fly out in all different directions. One of them lands in front of Mo Fan and asks him what the hell is has done. While Mo Fan asks what he has done, the monk states that he bears a mark from the holy city, but on closer inspection its only an observance mark and then blames Mo Fan for wasting his time and then flies off. Mu Ning Xue explains that the Holy City, Rome, put the mark on Mo Fan due to his devil element is the highest authority on magic in the world, higher than the 5 international magic associations and that they have the final say in all things magic related and prides itself on fairness and equality. They are so fair, that even the Black Vatican is afforded formal representation in its meetings.

The next day, the group (Mo Fan, Zhao Man Yan, Mu Ning Xue, Jiang Shaoxu and Ling Ling) sets out for the mountains and everyone pulls out their national team medals, since they are special objects that allows them to track each others position. But as they pull them out, the medals all have a strange reaction and the group decides to follow it. They end up running into a rather unlikely quartet, Ai Jiang Tu, Nan Xun, Jiang yu and Guan yu. After taking a seat in a local restaurant, Guan Yu asks everyone if there was a reunion that no one told him about and the rest replies that they are all here for their own personal business. Ai Jiang tu explains that he has been hired by a mercenary group to join an expedition in finding a legendary clover that of which only 1 exists at a time in the world and that it will grow 1 additional leaf every century, whose are said to increase ones lifespan by 5-10 years. He invites everyone to join his team and they all accept. When reaching the new entry point into the kunlun mountains, they see several other mercenary groups including one from the Mu Family and one from the Zhao family.

As each group makes their way up into the mountains, Ling Ling explains that the shadow stone they are looking for grows in dark caves at low temperatures, likely emplying that they will need to reach the very top of the mountains to reach the stone. After reaching a ravine, the entire mercenary group walks into the channel and halfway through are attacked by a large group of spiders with camouflage abilties. The group quickly deals with them, but afterwards they decide to walk backwards a bit, since they are walking in camouflage creature infested territory, until one of the hunters accidentally steps on a buried spider and is killed instantly along with 2 of his friends. While the group stands still on deciding what to do, Nan Xun has worse news. She can hear a tidal wave of freshly melted snow bearing down on them and that several hundred spiders have blocked off the only viable exit. Mo Fan and Ai Jiang Tu take this as their cue and begin killing the spiders in mass. The group manages to leave the ravine with only a few of their mages caught up in the massive flood, but they all survive.

Afterwards, the rest of the group reaches a section with large open hills with meadows on top. Once they reach the foot of the hills, they find a group of dead hunters. Ling Ling does an autopsy but concludes that they all died of altitude sickness, rather strange considering they are mages. However as they are climbing the meadow hills, several members of the group start getting altitude sickness as well. Mo Fan and Ai Jiang Tu try feeding them extra air by compressing oxygen but it doesn't work. A few days later, many members of the group are sick including Nan Xun, Guan Yu, Mu Ning Xue and even Ling Ling are sick as well. Rather than leaving everyone behind, the leader of the mercenary group opens up a scroll that she had bought, which states that there is a special lotus that grows in the meadows that is the cure to the sickness that they are feeling. After finding it, several lotuses are added to boiling water to make tea and those who are sick instantly start feeling better due to the smell alone. Everyone, including those who are not sick start lining up for a drink. While Mo Fan tries to feed the tea to a sick Mu Ning Xue, he is interrupted by apas, who senses that something is wrong and asks Mo Fan to wait for a bit and he decides to trust Apas's judgement. The next morning, everyone except the national team group has drunken the tea and are feeling much better and hyper active. One of the mages decides to break into Mu Ning Xue's tent while Mo Fan is away on patrol, she starts firing icicles at the guy and he starts screaming assault. When Mo Fan gets back, he challenges the guy to a duel to settle the matter. The guy opens with special fire magic and Mo Fan makes it look like he just stands there taking the hit without a scratch with the use of his shadow cloak. Then he summons 2 shadow elders and they start eating the guy alive, leaving only bones behind. Some of his friends instantly get angry at mo fan, before they all start collapsing one by one after green goo starts coming out of every orifice. Mo Fan explains that this is the work of the Lotus, where everyone that is sick is forced to eat the lotus and then the lotus begins growing inside the thing that ate it, using them as food. Mo Fan then rips out the core of the lotus out of one of the guys that had been killed and added it to boiling water. Then he fed that tea to the remaining sick and they all get better without side effects.

Afterwards, they reach the mountain rock layer, where they see the rest of the teams are camping out. The team leader approaches a well known hunter king, who explains that everyone is stuck here because the only path forward just so happen to coincide with the seasonal migration route for all the species that spend the summer up at this altitude, which also happens to be a popular hunting ground for a bird species, from which every adult is at least the level of commander. The hunter king calls together all the leaders from all the teams present and they decide to put their man-power together to advance forward.

The group moves out in a caravan formation onto the frozen lake as the walking monsters are distracting the birds. But suddenly the monsters refuse to move forward. This in turn sets the birds on the mages. The birds attack fiercely but most of whom are shot down and the mages loose a few of there own. Afterwards, the Hunter King calls out that a monarch level bird has appeared and calls all super tier mages to the front, both Mo Fan and Ai Jiang Tu answer the call. While Mo Fan is fighting the Monarch, a strange lady in black that was part of the Zhao team releases a strange aura and all the birds suddenly turn towards the National team that remained in the rear. Zhao Man Yan and Mu Ning xue manage to fight them off but Jiang Yu is heavily injured. After the monarch was defeated but more birds are coming and a giant sea creature was spotted under the ice, the hunter king calls the retreat.

After hearing what happened, Mo Fan calls out Apas and takes her along with Zhao Man Yan to spy on the Zhao team. They overhear a conversation between the leader of the Zhao team and one of his subordinates. They reveal that the Zhao team was hired to kill the mercenary group and to obtain the special clover for the grandson of a dying monarch in europe, so he can overthrow the current king and in exchange would offer many business contracts to their boss Zhao Yucian and that the lady in black is just one of their methods of getting that. While Zhao Man Yan and Mo Fan argue on how they can deal with the birds, Apas states that it just might be easier to deal with her and subsequently put a curse on her. As they walk away, Mo Fan complains to Zhao Man Yan on how messed up his family is, he shuts him up by reminding him who his mother is.

The next day the mages decide to try again and appear to be making progress. Then the lady in black steps out again and activates her aura, but the birds attack her instead of the national team and the Zhao team just leaves her behind. As she is being eaten, a giant tentacle creature busts out of the ice and gives the mages a window of oppertunity to escape and they manage to leave the frozen lake behind and push forward. The next day goes on without a hitch until at night when they do roll call, 3 people seem to be missing. The same thing happens for the next 2 days. Nan Xun theorizes that they have walked into the territory of a preditor that sees humans as an easy meal and that it is likely to be fast, silent and quick to dissapear. She takes Mu Ning xue to take a look around the rear and spots to be a white wolf hiding on a cliff. The wolf throws a rock at her but she barely misses it. Mu Ning xue goes to chase it but even she can't keep up with her wind magic and the wolf gets away. Another 3 people dissapear the next day but none the day after, likely due to them moving out of its hunting territory.

At night, Mu Ning Xue begins to tell the story of Yin Quer, the lady that she trained with during the time she wasn't part of the national team. When she was 10 years old, she suddenly gained massive ice powers including being able to induce a blizzard in a city sized area if she ever were to loose control. Her powers were identified as a natural soul in ice and she was locked up in kunlun for everyone's safety including hers. She finally self awakened an ice stardust at 14 and rapidly became able to control her powers. At the age of 17 she left the mountains being able to control her powers and has her ice magic at High tier. She then joined the national team for the next World University Competition and became rather friendly with the captain of that team, Zhang Kong. However while they were training oversees, there was an accident and the Holy City ruled that Yin Quer is to be sealed in ice permanently, until someone or something broke her out and she is still searching for that thing in kunlun till this day.

The next day, the mages hit the layer where the birds are nesting, which oddly enough happen to hollowed out mountains floating in the sky. These mountains also happen to have ice elements crystals growing on the side and Jiang Yu has his summoning creature take a few for everyone. However Nan Xun then warns everyone that a patrol of birds are inbound and they all decide to hide in the nearest cave, which happens to be filled with mages and animals frozen in ice. Ling Ling theorizes that this is the bird's communal freezer, where they store their food for the winter. But while everyone looks around, Nan Xun hears more birds approaching. Ling Ling gets the idea that Mu Ning Xue is to freeze everyone in ice so it would look like that they are all captured food and they won't be looked at twice. While Mu Ning Xue quickly begins freezing her teamates, other ice mages from different teams do the same, not trusting Mu Ning Xue with their lives. Just after everyone was frozen, 2 birds enter the freezer looking for a snack. One begins breaking the ice around Zhao Man Yan and another at one of the members of the Mu team. Howerver, after getting close to Zhao Man Yan, the bird suddenly hits the layer of Mu Ning Xue's ice and finds it unbreakable and goes towards a long dead creature somewhere else but the ice around the Mu team member breaks and is eaten.

After the 2 birds leave, Mu Ning Xue frees everyone and they are all happy to be still alive. While Nan Xun informs them that staying here is the best thing for now, Mo Fan goes to investigate a noise further in the cave, likely to be a baby bird accidentally left here by his mother. But on the way down, he finds something else too, a baby snow tiger with a black stone that it uses as a pacifier. Mo Fan tries to get the pacifier but the snow tiger won't let him and they play not far from a trapped bird. But then its mom starts calling into the cave and Mo Fan quickly releases the bird and leaves the cave, with the snow tiger following mo fan out. After getting out of the cave system, the mages begin advancing forward towards a higher altitude and make camp. At camp, the snow tiger decides to play tag with Jiang Yu's summoning creature and proves to fast for it to catch. After it was done playing, the snow tiger quickly jumped into the arms of Mu Ning Xue but before she can let go of him, he had already fallen asleep. However, Ling Ling notes that its pacifier might be the shadow stone that they are looking for.

The next morning, the mages are attacked by a large pack of snow tigers. Mo Fan moves to the flanks but is intercepted by 4 commander level tigers. He infects each of their shadows with his magic and upon his command, releases 4 shadow warriors, who strangle the tigers to death with garrote wires. Afterwards, the leader of the pack slowly approaches the group, the snow tiger identifies it has his mother. Mo Fan slowly approaches the leader while carrying the snow tiger and tells him that he must return home to his mother, but before he does he must release the pacifier. However the snow tiger declines and makes it known that he will only surrender the pacifier after they lead him out of the kunlun mountains. Seeing no better alternative, Mo Fan releases Apas while everyone else makes a run for it. Apas takes on her medusa form and quickly retreats far way from the rest of the group. Then she looks at the mother tiger and activates her signature curse and the mother tiger along with her surroundings are instantly turned to stone. However, due to the mother tiger's strength and the fact that her own has been inhibited by the summoning contract, only the mother tiger's skin has turned to stone. But while the mother tiger sheds it, the mages manage to get away and apas retreats to the contract space.

Afterwards, the group advanced towards the top of the kunlun mountains, and see a group of mages surrounding and fighting a young lady. Mu Ning Xue identifies her as Yin Quer, with Mo Fan noting that she looks almost identical to Mu Ning Xue. However, the mages identify themselves as following the directives of the holy court and one of them calls out the hunter king, asking for their assistance. Although the hunter king isn't sure, the mage offers the whole group the location of a 7 leafed clover which he has spotted on the way here. The hunter king calls for a meeting with the rest of the leaders of the hunting parties while the mages keep on fighting. While yin queer manages to escape by creating a blizzard, the hunters agree to the offer and will help capture Ying Quer. Mu Ning Xue has different ideas and asks Mo Fan for help, who in turn asks Nun Xun for help. Nan Xun states that she is only willing to help find her and lead the rest in another direction but that is all.

Nan Xun finds Yin Quer hiding in an ice crevice and being stuck inside a plant tentacle while being bombarded by wind. However before Nan Xun can divert everyone else, one super tier mage goes on top of the ice cravice without noticing Yin Quer and goes to stand guard at that location. While Mu Ning Xue sneaks into the crevice, Mo Fan engages the mage. While the mage unleashes some lighting magic, mo fan uses his shadow clone to dodge and move to the top of one of the mountains. He then uses his earth magic to trigger an avalanche and buries the guy alive. Afterwards, he uses void magic to levitate both Mu Ning Xue and Yin Quer out of the cave. Afterwards, Mu Ning Xue offers her safe passage out of kunlun, but she refuses. Stating that she must continue to look for the one that let her out of the ice. After she leaves, the snow tiger comes running out of nowhere with the 7 leafed clover in his mouth. Mo Fan thanks the snow tiger for the treasure and tells everyone to go back down. But before they do, Zhao Man Yan points out that if the snow tiger is carrying the 7 leafed clover, where the hell did the pacifier go? Mo Fan realizes and quickly runs around the mountain tops. He eventually finds the mage that made the offer about the 7 leafed clover with the shadow stone. Mo Fan tries to act cool as if looking for the 7 leafed clover and waits for the mage to discard it and then quickly returns to his team and they head back down the mountains.

After getting back to the hotel at the bottom of kunlun, Ling Ling calls everyone to a meeting and stated that after analyzing the mark on the forehead of the snow tiger, she concludes that the little cub in front of them is the genuine totem beast of kunlun. Mo Fan goes to call Shao Zheng, who supposedly met with the totem of kunlun to confirm, since the one before them is but a baby. Shao Zheng states that he never met a tiger, only a little girl who gave him some solid ice crystals, which he used to get into power. Ling Ling quickly figures out that he met Yin Quer on the mountain and ends the conversation with Shao Zheng. After everyone leaves the meeting, Shao Zheng calls Mo Fan on a private line, saying that after a second attempt, the holy city has managed to capture Ying Quer and that he might want to inform the big guy.